Dear leader, have mercy

Though we were away for the long weekend and missed most of the political drama taking place regarding the government formations in Goa and Manipur we caught up with an old Congress loyalist someone considered a political veteran How can we compete with the money power the BJP has he moaned This is perhaps the worst phase the party has seen People tell me off record that they want to support us they want a strong opposition and they believe in our ideology but we just cant get our act together or provide a viable alternative for them If I was an independent MLA or a smaller regional player and had to choose between the government and this version of the Congress perhaps I too would look out for my own interestsAnd what is dear leader Rahul Gandhi up to we enquired Is he introspecting about the party lossesThe Congress loyalist sighed so loudly that it sounded like the kind of noise you hear when a tire deflates The only kind of introspection that Rahul Gandhi needs to do at this stage is not about the party but about himself Do you know that for the first time seniors in the party are actually questioning his ability to leadIs that a good thing we enquiredNot until they have the courage to stand up and declare that the emperor has no clothes he said adding And for that there seem to be no takersThen all of you deserve to be in the mess youre in we said to the loyalistYes he said adding Whats worse is that we know thatKhullam Khulla book releaseHis no holds barred gasp a minute autobiography Khullam Khulla may have had a big fat launch in Delhi with fellow Punjabi bon vivant Suhel Seth doing the honours but word comes in that Mumbai fans of thespian Rishi Kapoor are in for a bigger treat this week when the book is launched in the city of his birth and successConceived by Fountainhead the event is said to be a whole new approach to book releases featuring not only the usual QampA between author and moderator but a whole production based on the books most memorable disclosures Film clips skits song and dance numbers and other surprises can all be expected says a sourceAnd undoubtedly much kebab and sharab in this case Johnny Walker Black Label afterwardsKoel comes to townShes always been something of a free spirit and an agent provocateur and whats best is that marriage motherhood and a move with her husband and child to Tokyo hasnt dimmed Koel Puries joie de vivre The weekend saw Purie celebrate Holi with great gusto in the Capital before she came to Mumbai for her familys uber talkathon While sitting in Tokyo I strong armed chuddybuddies into having a party on a Delhi farm because I love Holi and wanted to go crazy surrounded by easy unquestioned love DJ friends from Jalebi medieval pundits and Jayant played off each other and made us dance from sunshine to moonrise It was intimate and nuts she says And though she might manage to wash out some of the colours from her recent Holi celebrations theres every chance that the erstwhile Mumbai resident shed lived here to take a jab at Bollywood will be painting the town red all over againNiceStratospheric conspicuous consumption If there was any doubt that this highflying business family possessed extremely high levels of insensitivity then this is it With unserved debts to institutional lenders running into several thousand crores you would think that they would er tighten their Gucci alligator belts just a tad No chance Not only are they reported to have purchased a new private jet recently which by some estimates comes for a price tag of around Rs 600 crore but word is that they are selling off two of their personal yachts currently parked in the Mediterranean or some such discreet locale to buy a single even larger one for their personal pleasureWhen I heard that they were selling off two of their yachts I thought to myself glory be at least some measure of rectitude has visited them said our friend the Oolong tea serving SoBo hostess to us when we spoke to her recently on the phone But no It is only to facilitate a bigger shinier more impressive oneAs for factoring in their disregard for the huge debts that they owe by repeated acts of stratospheric conspicuous consumption she says At least they have the decency to keep their new BBJ Boeing Business Jet parked discreetly in the Middle East currently They may have bought it but give them credit that they have not flaunted it ndash yetAnd then we heard her tinkle her little bell and say Boy zara hot water jaldi lana pleaseSunil AlaghAn apple a dayOn the sidelines of every election are the TV studio talking heads and their brand of political punditry Over the weekend we watched one of the programmes on the post election results where a panel discussion moderated by Marya Shakil between guests Zafar Islam of the BJP Priyanka Charturvedi of the Congress Sunil Alagh founder SKA advisors and Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay journalist soon turned into a three vs one debate with the Congress spokesperson trying her best to produce arguments in support of the sinking ship No surprises then that Sunil Alagh who has always been a Modi supporter made a strong case for his leader After all the former corporate honcho who once headed Britannia is as articulate as they come What was surprising though is that post the discussion Alagh went one step further and tweeted this showing of support to the Prime Minister directly narendramodi Sir on CNNIBN I said u hav 4Cs of a great LeaderClarity Communicative Charisma n above all Credibility amongst us Jai HoA bit like the class monitor bringing a shiny apple to be in the teachers good books we think