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A bear hug

Updated on: 11 February,2026 08:31 AM IST  |  Mumbai
Sonali Velinker Kamat | mailbox@mid-day.com

Her career has already taken flight, but the next few months may well see her in wings!

A bear hug

Pic/Satej Shinde

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It wasn’t just a cuddle but a full-blown cinematic moment, as Siddhant Chaturvedi and Mrunal Thakur promoted their latest film on Tuesday

Almost an angel




When Triptii Dimri flew to New York for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in October last year, her eager audience prayed to see her as an angel. Close to the ramp but certainly not on it, the actress went only as far as the front row. For all the hearts that were broken back then, here’s some balm. We hear Dimri’s association with the lingerie brand is only just beginning. Her career has already taken flight, but the next few months may well see her in wings!

Silent stage

Despite khabris entrenched in conference rooms and at cocktail parties, there are days when one finds the fieriest nuggets in the most obvious place — the newspapers. On February 5, Naseeruddin Shah wrote an opinion piece for The Indian Express about being unceremoniously disinvited from an event organised by the Urdu department of Mumbai University, ostensibly because the veteran actor “openly makes statements against the country.” If you do not sing praises of the leading dispensation, are you no longer a patriot? Already offended on his behalf for being defamed (and dropped at the nth hour), we were further appalled to read that the audience was told Shah himself had refused to attend. These days, it seems speaking your mind results in taking a virtual body blow. A handful of Sultans have already found their leading roles reduced to mere cameos in textbooks, and now a Shah has lost his stage. When will this end?

Sporting style

Sandeep Patil (right) his India cap bracelet.Pics/Clayton Murzello
Sandeep Patil (right) his India cap bracelet.Pics/Clayton Murzello

If ever there was a man who wears his heart on his sleeve (both literally and figuratively), it would have to be Sandeep Patil. Back in the Eighties, the chipper cricketer was often spotted on magazine covers. Decades have slipped away, but Sandy stays as suave as ever. On Saturday evening, at a Cricket, Cocktails, and Controversy fireside chat with journalist Ayaz Memon at The Indus Club in BKC, the 1983 World Cup champ sported a bracelet bearing an India cap charm. From the evening of his Beyond Boundaries autobiography launch in November 2024, I recall his silk shirt fastened by jewel-encrusted red seam ball buttons. No doubt, his collection includes several other terrific trinkets. Equally certain is that Patil, long retired, still carries the game with him — on his sleeve, on his wrist, and unmistakably in his heart.

Father of the bride

Atul Khatri with daughter Diya
Atul Khatri with daughter Diya

When comedy and commerce collide IRL, one finds Atul Khatri promoting an online matchmaking site. View his set on Instagram for a giggle, as he talks about wading through the wild world of online matrimony on a hunt for a dulha for his daughter. With both his girls, Mishti and Diya, now married (Diya just last week on February 3), the standup star and his wife Shaguna are officially empty nesters. Given this background, it lends itself to laughs that Atul and Shaguna have a ‘ship name,’ much like Brangelina or Bennifer — they’re called ShagAtul. Ideal for empty nesters, wouldn’t you say?

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naseeruddin shah sandeep patil Triptii Dimri Siddhant Chaturvedi Mrunal Thakur mumbai news mumbai

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