Photos: Sussanne Khan's mom Zarine celebrates birthday with lovely ladies

Foodie, star wife, and super mom Zarine Khan's birthday lunch yesterday at Sanjay House in Juhu, was a gathering of the much loved lady's closest family and friends.

From eldest daughter jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali (her sisters Simone Arora and Sussanne Khan were travelling), to Delhi-based sister-in-law Dilshad Sheikh, to daughter-in-law Malaika Khan and niece Laila Furniturewala, to her long standing rummy gang of Honey Irani and Bubbles Behl, to inner circle gal pals like Mona Narang, Rajalaxmi Rao, Zeba Kohli, Kiran Juneja, Bina Aziz, Poonam Dhillon and Aarti Surendranath, to friends of her daughters, like Kanika Singh, Rouble Nagi and Ramona Narang, they were all there to sing vociferously to the birthday girl; sip from flutes of bubbly, click uncountable selfies, and partake of the house specialty of delicious haleem and biryani.

Zarine Khan with family and friends at her birthday lunch

Zarine, who had been a successful model in her college going days and then had gone on to be wife to the reigning star of the sixties, Sanjay Khan, and then mother to a brood of four, also held down a serious career in interior designing (in many ways she'd pioneered the star wife designer syndrome in Bollywood), is now a grandmother and a sought after author of a cookery book with a show of her own. Above all, she is a lady of great warmth and known to possess an exemplary quota of emotional intelligence.

This was amply demonstrated when not only was her birthday lunch attended by daughter Simone's graceful mother-in-law Neena Arora, but also by Pinky Roshan, mother of Hrithik, and her youngest daughter Sussanne's former mother-in-law. If that is not proof of an exemplary quota of emotional intelligence - then we don't know what is!