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Thanks for the music

Updated on: 05 November,2014 06:01 AM IST  | 
Malavika Sangghvi |

"Pentagram is on indefinite hiatus, due to differences-in-opinion. There is great love and mutual respect amongst the guys, but certain 'administrative issues' are a problem"

Thanks for the music

Vishal Dadlani, Sanjay Dutt and Chetan Bhagat

Malavika Sangghvi“Pentagram is on indefinite hiatus, due to differences-in-opinion. There is great love and mutual respect amongst the guys, but certain ‘administrative issues’ are a problem. As of now, all shows for this season stand cancelled. We will keep you informed about the future course of the band. Much love, and many thanks for the good times!’ posted rocker, activist and Bolly musician, Vishal Dadlani, more or less announcing the demise of one of India’s iconic rock/elec-tronica bands. Launched in 1993 as one more star in that constellation of wonders that was a result of India’s IIT-Mood Indigo phenomena (in no particular order they being Nandan Nilekani, Chetan Bhagat, Sharon Prabhakar, Sanjay Dutt and funny-smelling cigarettes), Pentagram went on to become the troubadours of a post-reform liberal India.


Vishal Dadlani, Sanjay Dutt and Chetan Bhagat
Vishal Dadlani, Sanjay Dutt and Chetan Bhagat


“I don’t want to add anything more to what I said,” said Dadlani, when we called to ask him if it was the end of the road for the Pentagrammer. “It will only exacerbate things if one member speaks,” he said of band mates Shiraz Bhattacharya, Randolph Correia and Papal Mane.


Oh and about the Sanjay Dutt reference? You had to be there!!

Say, who’s that guy?
It looks like it’s going to be one of the great unsolved mysteries of our era along with who killed JFK and the Loch Ness monster. We are referring to the conundrum of the drop-dead Shashi Tharoor look-alike who has intrigued fans of the ubiquitous Congressman with his performance as a junior artist in the Salman-Aamir cult hit Andaz Apna Apna.

Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor

Bearing a spitting resemblance to the august former diplomat, dressed in a spotless white kurta and sporting the former minister’s legendary silken flop hairstyle, the man’s self conscious attempt at acting appears to be the result of some pretty profound practice at the St Stephen’s College’s Shakespeare Society.

Scene from the movie Andaz Apna Apna, with the ‘look-alike’
Scene from the movie Andaz Apna Apna, with the 'look-alike'

Be that as it may, Tharoor has gone hoarse denying that it’s him, and even resorting to his famous humour to debunk the theory. He should take a leaf out of fellow Delhi sophisticate, Karan Thapar (Devil’s Advocate) who, having featured in Dev Anand’s Des Pardes when he was a 21-year-old undergrad at Cambridge, was only too pleased to own up.

Karan Thapar. PIC/GETTY IMAGES
Karan Thapar. PIC/GETTY IMAGES

“Dev had come to Cambridge with a specific purpose in mind. He was on a recee for Des Pardes and was looking for an Indian boy and an English girl who he would film canoodling by the banks of the Cam as a sort of leitmotif for the film,” wrote Thapar, in a tribute to Anand.

“Kat and I were made to sit by the river and asked to kiss. It wasn’t the two of us that attracted the crowd. The crew did that.”

“Alas, when the film appeared our clinch was reduced to a fleeting shot tucked under the titles. When I first saw Des Pardes, I missed it. The next time, I needed a friend to point it out,” said Thapar, otherwise known to be the scariest interlocutor in the business.

A Yen for Sula
“Sula was instantly a hit with Japanese wine drinkers when we launched seven years ago, perhaps helped by our sun motif which the Japanese connect with strongly,” says epicure bon vivant Rajeev Samant, the man who will not rest until there’s a bottle of his Nashik grown wine on every table across the world. “We are on some super-prestigious wine lists like L’Atelier by Joel Robuchon and the rooftop Ekki at the Four Seasons, both by the glass,” he says of his recent trip to the Land of the Rising Sun where he’s undertaken yet another bacchanal with his characteristic joie de vivre. “Our wines are also sold by Matsuya in Ginza, one of the most luxe department stores. Our Chenin Blanc was one of the finalists at the Japan Sommelier Competition last year, another feather in our cap. Japan is drinking more and more imported wine and Sula is firmly on the map!”

(From left) Sakae Mizumura, Takahiro Misaka and Rajeev Samant at Four Seasons, Tokyo
(From left) Sakae Mizumura, Takahiro Misaka and Rajeev Samant at Four Seasons, Tokyo

As for Global Brand Ambassador, Head - International Business, Cecilia Oldne, she’s no slouch in the movable feasts dept either. “Today off to HK to take part in the HKTDC Wine and Spirits Fair. All very exciting!”

Cheers!

Shubha Mudgal in glory
It’s going to be a big ticket event this Friday, when the cream of the Tata group, and top doctors of the city join a swathe of leading personalities to attend the first edition of the Women’s Cancer Initiative and Tata Memorial Hospital’s Concert, “Soul Stirrings 2014: Conquering Women’s Cancer” at the Nehru Centre Auditorium.

Shubha Mudgal
Shubha Mudgal

Featuring the renowned classical singer Shubha Mudgal who will perform live fusion music with her key musicians, the concert is an attempt by WCI-TMH to extend a platform for corporates and individuals to partner with them in supporting underprivileged women with breast and cervical cancer.

“Approximately 25,000 new cancer patients are registered in TMH every year, the majority belonging to the underprivileged sections of the society,” says a spokesperson of WCI, “and WCI-TMH enables them to complete their prescribed treatment with chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, radiation therapy, surgery and rehabilitation therapy.”

As for Mudgal’s involvement, “She has been a great supporter of the cause of empowering women to heal themselves and each other.”

Women in Black
“They are all my friends and their kids, celebrating Masaba’s 26th birthday at Yautcha,” says actress Neena Gupta, about this striking picture featuring some scrumptious women in various versions of LBDs taken last week. “Somehow we all turned up wearing black!”

Women in black at Masaba Gupta’s 26th birthday
Women in black at Masaba Gupta's 26th birthday

Having just experienced what she describes as the ‘best working experience I ever had’, a ten-day shoot for a film in Himachal featuring ‘just two characters and a unit of 10 people’, Mama Gupta is back in Mumbai, presumably for some bonding with her designer daughter.

Nice!

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