Catching up with Kamal

Kamalâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Sidhu and Deepika Padukone

"It's the first time that I am actually engaging with Bollywood," says the statuesque Kamal Sidhu about her latest outing, a series of 10 shows she's 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 India's 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 show.

Did 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. "I did, but of course what is eventually retained depends on the producer," she replied.

Incidentally, 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 modelling.

Corporate conundrums
Make no mistake about it, it's 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 non-competitive clause, and that Delhi-based blue chip bizman, Analjit Singh, had received a whopping Rs 850-crore from HDFC as non-compete fee for not entering the life insurance business for the next four years, there has been a lot of outrage over the issue.

Vijay Mallya, Analjit Singh and Rajiv Bansal. Pic/AFP

But 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 ‘enhanced non-compete,' to its former CFO Rajiv Bansal who had left last year to join Ola.

"When 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 practice," harrumphed a business old-timer. "What's more, they go straight into the personal accounts of the individuals and are a burden on the shareholders," he fumed. Indeed!

The birth of Page Three
An interesting piece of information emerged from Monday night's extravaganza hosted by city socialite Nisha JamVwal, in honour of the visiting dignitaries of a small European principality.

Raghav Sachar, Nisha JamVwal and Madhur Bhandarkar

At the dinner, which saw the hostess scramble to accommodate gatecrashers ("I invited 80 friends and almost a 100 turned up," she said blithely the next day), it was revealed that director Madhur Bhandarkar's award-winning ‘Page Three' was conceived of at one of JamVwal's earlier bashes.

"Some 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 party," she exulted. Having seen the film, we would have imagined that this would be cause for a raging feud at the very least.

The health conscious Kapur
Vinod Khanna's nephew (he has a host of them and they're all quite dishy), the yesteryear supermodel-turned-health evangelist and entrepreneur, Gautam ‘Gomzee' Kapur has entered the health food business with the launch of ‘Be Conscious.' "As the name suggests, it is all about eating ‘consciously'," 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 on.

Gautam Kapur

"Our body is who we are and where we live. The food we eat is what makes us function," he says, adding, "By 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 sell." Isn't there a similar product with more or less the same name already in the market is what we want to know.

Collateral damage
Following the arrest of this big-ticket real estate developer, whose brand name has been emblazoned on some of SoBo's most high-profile luxury properties, the talk of biz circles in the city is about two high-profile 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 can't afford to have his name sullied by the association. "What's more, though other, lesser mortals have moved into the building despite not getting the OC, this pillar of society certainly cannot," says an insider.

The other heavyweight who has been affected by the builder's recent problems with the law is one of the city's most prominent blue chip businessmen. "For long, it was known that he used to park his surplus cash with the builder and had funded most of his astonishing growth," says our source. "Now that he is on EOW's radar, this bizman with close connections with the powers that be in Delhi is spending anxious nights wondering how he got into this mess." Police custody of the builder has been extended for another month.