It's always wonderful to meet renowned economist and British Peer, Lord Meghnad Desai (reader alert: he's married to our cousin)
Lord Meghnad Desai with his wife Keshwar
It's always wonderful to meet renowned economist and British Peer, Lord Meghnad Desai (reader alert: he's married to our cousin). In spite of being an erudite and highly sought-after author and political commentator, Desai has not allowed his success to prevent him from a childlike enthusiasm and curiosity about people and the world.
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His interests range from films to art, and from cricket to food. Far from being cynical and jaded, he is a storehouse of new ideas and fresh views. When we met him on Monday evening in Goa where he has a home, Desai was brimming with the excitement of just having completed not one but two new books.
The first to be launched later this month in Mumbai is Politicshock: Trump, Modi, Brexit and the Prospect for Liberal Democracy. Here, the economist examines the collapse of the liberal order through epochal phenomena like Modi whose leadership of the BJP he had predicted on a TV talk show way back in 2007.
And will they both, Modi and Trump, get re-elected is what we asked the renowned political commentator about the future. "Most likely," he replied. Incidentally, Desai has written both his books of 50,000 words each on his iPad.
Anand, the weatherman?
He wears many hats: of executive chairman of the Mahindra group, champion of green vehicles; promoter of Indian Accent, one of the country's finest fusion restaurants; the inceptor of the Mahindra Blues Fest and owner of electronic and print platforms, but who would have imagined that Anand Mahindra would play the role of weatherman yesterday?
Anand Mahindra
Before any one had even realised the calamity at hand, it was Mahindra's tweet a few minutes before 11 am that had set off alarm bells. 'Typhoon-like weather. Cancelling my flight to Delhi for an Indo-Australian meeting' he had posted on the micro blogging site. Of course, the consummate social media animal could not help but sign off with a catchy wisecrack: Telling my Aussie friends I'm 'Down Under' water in Mumbai.
Power couple celebrations
Power couple Vikas and Gayatri Oberoi celebrated their wedding anniversary over the weekend with an intimate evening at their home, joined by close friends including former couple Hrithik and Suzanne Roshan and Sonali Bendre.
At the wedding anniversary celebrations of Vikas and Gayatri Oberoi
The next day, Bendre took to social media and posted, "Anniversaries should be like this: fun, intimate and warm." And we hear that it wasn't the regular glitzy champagne and caviar kind of evening. The couple had chosen to go off the beaten path with some drool-worthy coastal cuisine and had engaged the newly opened Curry Tales in Khar, said to be the city's first 'modern-coastal' eatery, to cater the evening's fare.
Nice.
Party hearty in Goa
TV maven and Delhi's girl about town Ravina Raj Kohli hosted a high-spirited dinner for her friend, the Delhi-based Ashutosh Batta's 60th birthday in Goa on Monday night. Hosted at Pooja Bedi's exquisitely decorated hacienda in Vagator, the party was attended by author and founder of the Partition Museum in Amritsar, Lady Kishwar Desai; Goa-based French installation artist Yahel Chirinian; and Goa-based designer Wendell Rodricks amongst others, who partook of the hospitality, warmth exuberance and excellent home style Italian fare by the Italian Maria, Goa's latest great European discovery.
At the dinner party in Goa
The highlight of the evening was the loud and enthusiastic sing song session, by the assembled guests, which began with Can't Take My Eyes Off You and ended with an emotional Those Were the Days.
What's more, the party isn't over, Raj Kohli informs us. Next stop is Delhi where there is to be an all night disco affair for the birthday boy. "The age group is from 15 to 80," she laughed.
When Michael came to Mumbai
Yesterday, on the occasion of Michael Jackson's birth anniversary (he would have been 59), all manner of remembrances marked the occasion. But for us, the day also brought back memories of that evening in October 1996 when the pop phenomena dazzled a packed-to-the-rafters Andheri Sports Complex, with his peerless performance. It had been part of Jackson's HIStory world tour and was a precursor for many things: the successful staging of the concert had seen the emergence of entertainment giant Wizcraft; it had marked the advent of Raj Thackeray (said to be the moving force behind Jackson's Mumbai darshan) onto the city's political stage, as an entity on his own.
And, of course, it had underlined the omnipresence of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, when Jackson had dropped in to take tea (chai pe charcha?) with the pipe-smoking demagogue. The picture, which shows the pop sensation with Sena cub Aditya Thakeray on his lap, was taken on that occasion. For us, as an editor of one of the city's leading supplements at that time, Jackson's visit had been a bag full of delights and surprises. From an invitation to ride on his bus to the concert with his personal crew; to the next morning when, he sent a coded message to us that he'd left a memento for the city's children, Whacko Jacko had kept us on our feet.
We had got his entire suite at the Oberoi searched with a tooth comb thanks to the intervention of the hotel's then GM Sanjeev Malhotra, and had finally discovered the memento, an artfully scribbled message on a pillow case hidden under his mattress, which had been auctioned off to raise money for them; unsurprisingly the story it had made for some amazing reportage. 'Happy Birthday Michael Jackson' Thackeray had tweeted alongside this picture, 'There will never be another like you on stage!' We agree.
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