Mumbai Diary: Thursday Dossier

Pic/Suresh Karkera

A different kind of obstacle course
Actress Adah Sharma (left) seems pretty chirpy despite having to waddle through a badly dug up lane in Fort on her way to an event yesterday.

Dr Tejas Shah and Sinha's biographer Bharathi Pradhan with the actor-MP

Shotgun Sinha keeps his word
If actor-MP Shatrughan Sinha was not spotted at the National Executive Meeting of the BJP in Bhubaneswar last weekend, it transpires it had nothing to do with his eroding equations with the party. Au contraire, he tried his best to make it but couldn't wriggle out of a commitment he had made to Dr Tejas Shah of the United Diabetes Forum (UDF) to be present for a conference whose brochures had already been printed. To make good his promise, he flew in from Delhi on the dot for the event, despite a hamstring injury, and the doctors got a full blast of the Anything But Khamosh celebrity. From stating that unlike his brothers who were all Dr Sinhas, he wasn't fit to be "a compounder" but still rose to become the Health Minister of India to delivering his famous "Jali ko aag kehte hain" dialogue from the film Vishwanath, he held the large gathering spellbound.

Siddhanth Kapoor; (right) Bunty Arora

Jam buddies
Before Siddhanth Kapoor took a turn for Bollywood and Bunty Arora became a restaurateur, the two buddies were a DJ duo back in college. They are now coming together after 17 years with a special gig, where they'll be playing House music and retro songs. "I am so excited for this as Bunty and I go back a long way... We have similar music tastes as well and would blast tunes in our cars. On a trip to London, we were reminiscing about those days and decided to do this on a whim," Kapoor told this diarist.

Symphonic sounds from the tabla
When we speak of improvisation and musical amalgams, trust Ustad Zakir Hussain to come up with something only he can. In a recent collaboration with the National Symphony Orchestra in the US, the maestro has based an entire symphonic composition on a raga. "I had to allow the orchestra to have the ability to bring in Western counterpoints, harmonies and syncopations in the composition," said Hussain, ahead of the performance at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Friday. The collaboration has already got musicians back home excited. 'A symphonic wonder' is what sitar-Zitar player Niladri Kumar called it.

Pic/AFP

Still living it right!
John Mayer's seventh studio album, The Search For Everything, which released recently is a celebration of the American singer-songwriter's love for clean vocals with Blues-influenced guitar playing style. The album opens with Still Feel Like Your Man; the sound of the track will remind one of Continuum (third album, released in 2006). There is a groovy, live jam vibe in Roll It On Home while he returns to romance with Emoji Of A Wave. Overall, the tracks are high on melody and score on the arrangement. Though Mayer slips into his old gown at times, but the fluctuations are balanced. The lyrics of Changing, "I am not done changing, out on the run changing, I may be old and I may be young" sums it up. The 39-year-old musician shot to fame in 2003 with his song, Your Body Is A Wonderland.

Barkha Dutt gets KJo on record
For a man who expects nothing but candour from the guests on his chat show, Karan Johar didn't disappoint journalist Barkha Dutt when the two met for a conversation in Delhi. "Adoption is not legal for single fathers, so surrogacy was my only choice," said the filmmaker and new father, adding that while his twins do a lot of sleeping, he does a lot of staring. When it came to his turbulent friendship with Kajol, this is what Johar had to say, "Relationships end and friendships come to close."