Who'll be Congress boss?

Following our story on the delegation of MLAs out to oust CM Prithviraj Chavan therersquos news of another such group But this time itrsquos to campaign for someone to be instated as the president of the Mumbai Regional Congress u00a0Ever since Kripashankar Singh was shown the door for alleged corruption charges there has been a spate of names doing the rounds of who will fill his shoesu00a0 Top of the pick according to our political sources is Chandrakant Handore the Dalit MLA who served as Minister of Social Justice and who has popular support amongst party cadre and the backing of ExMinister of State for Information Technology and Communications Gurudas Kamatu00a0 Another close contender is Eknath Gaikwad MP who represents the Mumbai South Central Constituency However our sources tell us that Gaikwadrsquos daughter Varsha the Congress MLA from Dharavi might just emerge as the consensus choice ldquoNot only is she a Dalit but also a womanrdquo wersquore told ldquobut she might just be exactly what the doctor ordered to improve things for the ailing partyrdquou00a0 Solid Blue genes Even though hersquos been in the news for all the wrong reasons the breakup of his marriage to the lovely Yamini Namjoshi and his linkups we have no doubt that Purab Kohli is going to emerge on the basis of his talent alone After all hersquos born with exceptional genes his granduncles were the legendary Anand brothers Chetan Dev and Goldie and his cousins include Shekhar Kapur Natasha Nischol and Suneil Anand and he counts amongst relatives half of Bollywoodrsquos luminaries Now for that all mdash important hitu00a0 Boat People In the pecking order on Mumbai seas therersquos a caste system that prevails At the top of the pick are the sailors craggy men like Captain Mongia lawyers David DaSilva and Aspi Chinoy adman Randhir Behl and entrepreneur Bharat Kewalramani who like nothing more than steering their vessels through choppy seas while they ruminate on life and the ocean Next come the owners of cruise liners the Mallyas the Mahindras the Ambanis and Singhanias whose sumptuous beauties docked around the Gateway have become something of a tourist item Under them are the owners of speedboats essentially owners of homes in Alibag who use their nifty vehicles to jet up and down on weekends And bottom of the heap People like you and I my friend who rub shoulders with the fisherfolk and weekend picnickers on the catamarans and public ferries Mumbairsquos very own maritime castesystemu00a0 Hugging heavyweights Now that IPL Chief and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla is going to be occupying our mind space and airwaves over the next few days we thought it would be nice to carry a picture of him in the days when he was an ordinary hack and one of the most amiable and wellconnected ones at that This picture taken in the early 90s shows him exercising his legendary charm on and bonhomie with erstwhile Samajwadi boss Amar Singh when both men hadnrsquot emerged as the political heavyweights they were later to become Insiders who know a bit about the machinations of Delhi politics will know what a rare picture this is the two men went on to rival parties competing power bases and often antagonistic politics But once upon a time all seemed hunkydoryu00a0 Delhi soiree It was a sit down dinner that featured all of Delhirsquos movers and shakers When Analjit Singh founder and chairman of Max Health Care and Max Bupa hosted a dinner for 80 guests on his lawns in honour of George Osborne the British Chancellor of the Exchequer you could be sure that every one of note would be there partaking of the excellent ITC Maurya catered North Indian cuisine and the French wineu00a0I guess champagne would have not been too politically correct given that India and the UK have still to sort out the Vodafone messu00a0 A guest who attended said ldquoWhen I looked around the table it was filled with captains of industry politicians and top media people like Anand Sharma Aroon Purie William Dalrymple Nikhil Khanna Chiki Sarkar Karan Thapar and Vinod Mehta But most riveting of allrdquo she says ldquoWas the centerpiece a gigantic bowl of beautiful orchidsrdquo Aroon Purie who just became a grandfather was looking particularly chuffed though our source says the dapper publisher hardly resembled oneu00a0 Mumbai artist making international waves An Indian artist creating a tsunami in international art circles happens to be our very own lsquoMumbai chi mulgirsquo the edgy conceptual artist Shilpa Gupta known for her avant garde works which include projects that involve selling bottles of simulated Pakistani and Indian blood to commuters and displaying canvasses that have been lsquoblessedrsquo by contemporary gurus like Sri Sri Ravishankar Gallerist Shireen Gandhy who happens to know Shilpa for over two decades says ldquoNot only is she one of Indiarsquos first real conceptual artist but her work makes a strong political commentrdquo When Shireen first saw Guptarsquos work she says it was so ldquoout of the box and astonishingrdquo that she didnrsquot really know what to do with itrdquo a refreshing admission from someone who has mentored some of Indiarsquos leading artists Since then not only has Gupta exhibited at the Tate Modern the Serpentine and every other international gallery of note mdash but her exhibition at Gandhirsquos Chemould in January this year held right after the Delhi Art Summit redressed her position in her home county as one of the foremost artists of the dayu00a0