Catching up with Kamal

Kamalacircu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Sidhu and Deepika PadukoneldquoItrsquos the first time that I am actually engaging with Bollywoodrdquo says the statuesque Kamal Sidhu about her latest outing a series of 10 shows shersquos anchoring for an international glossy fashion mag currently airing on a general interest channel Sidhu who had been something of a phenomenon during the first flush of Indiarsquos cable TV boom as an anchor for Channel V and then TV Asia was referring to her recent interview with Deepika Padukone for her new showDid she get the actress to speak about her depression and her sharing of it publicly we inquired After all in our opinion it had been one of the bravest acts in show business by a woman ldquoI did but of course what is eventually retained depends on the producerrdquo she repliedIncidentally both Padukone and Sidhu share a strong sports connection prior to her showbiz career Sidhu had been an athlete training to represent Canada in the 1996 Olympics Games when an injury had ended her Olympian ambition Padukone the daughter of an international badminton champion had also played the game at the national level before opting for modellingCorporate conundrumsMake no mistake about it itrsquos both the buzzword and the talking point in corporate circles today ever since it was known that Diageo had signed a settlement with Vijay Mallya agreeing to pay him a vast sum of money to ensure his noncompetitive clause and that Delhibased blue chip bizman Analjit Singh had received a whopping Rs 850crore from HDFC as noncompete fee for not entering the life insurance business for the next four years there has been a lot of outrage over the issueVijay Mallya Analjit Singh and Rajiv Bansal PicAFPBut what made headlines and started a new round of Chinese whispers was when yesterday it was learnt that tech giant Infosys was considering paying almost Rs 17 crore or 24 months of salary as lsquoenhanced noncompetersquo to its former CFO Rajiv Bansal who had left last year to join OlaldquoWhen it is common knowledge that these measures are highly unlikely to be effective as it is impossible to control employee behaviour after quitting these massive payouts are seen as an unhealthy practicerdquo harrumphed a business oldtimer ldquoWhatrsquos more they go straight into the personal accounts of the individuals and are a burden on the shareholdersrdquo he fumed IndeedThe birth of Page ThreeAn interesting piece of information emerged from Monday nightrsquos extravaganza hosted by city socialite Nisha JamVwal in honour of the visiting dignitaries of a small European principalityRaghav Sachar Nisha JamVwal and Madhur BhandarkarAt the dinner which saw the hostess scramble to accommodate gatecrashers ldquoI invited 80 friends and almost a 100 turned uprdquo she said blithely the next day it was revealed that director Madhur Bhandarkarrsquos awardwinning lsquoPage Threersquo was conceived of at one of JamVwalrsquos earlier bashesldquoSome nine years ago at a party by me at this same venue Madhur Bhandarkar says he had got vignettes for his film Page Three right here at my partyrdquo she exulted Having seen the film we would have imagined that this would be cause for a raging feud at the very leastThe health conscious KapurVinod Khannarsquos nephew he has a host of them and theyrsquore all quite dishy the yesteryear supermodelturnedhealth evangelist and entrepreneur Gautam lsquoGomzeersquo Kapur has entered the health food business with the launch of lsquoBe Consciousrsquo ldquoAs the name suggests it is all about eating lsquoconsciouslyrsquordquo says the affable young man who had previously started an active clothing line The venture retails foods such as rice grains honey sugar and so onGautam KapurldquoOur body is who we are and where we live The food we eat is what makes us functionrdquo he says adding ldquoBy eating right we are going to function right and after all all we really want is to function right I am very passionate about it and I have handpicked the line of foods we sellrdquo Isnrsquot there a similar product with more or less the same name already in the market is what we want to knowCollateral damageFollowing the arrest of this bigticket real estate developer whose brand name has been emblazoned on some of SoBorsquos most highprofile luxury properties the talk of biz circles in the city is about two highprofile individuals who are bearing the brunt of the arrest The first is a leading national politician seen as one of the brightest in the new regime who had purchased an apartment from the builder in good faith but is now hard put to take possession as he canrsquot afford to have his name sullied by the association ldquoWhatrsquos more though other lesser mortals have moved into the building despite not getting the OC this pillar of society certainly cannotrdquo says an insiderThe other heavyweight who has been affected by the builderrsquos recent problems with the law is one of the cityrsquos most prominent blue chip businessmen ldquoFor long it was known that he used to park his surplus cash with the builder and had funded most of his astonishing growthrdquo says our source ldquoNow that he is on EOWrsquos radar this bizman with close connections with the powers that be in Delhi is spending anxious nights wondering how he got into this messrdquo Police custody of the builder has been extended for another month