Ayesha calling

Ayesha Dharker. Pic/Gettyimages

Ayesha calling
"This has been a busy time... I have a continuing relationship with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I am also filming a series for BBC 1 called Holby City where I play a consultant general surgeon," says the erstwhile Mumbaichi mulgi, Ayesha Dharker, now one of England's most renowned thespians.

Dharker as Titania with the weaver Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream

The actress and young mom, had jetted down from London to Mumbai to spend time with a much-loved aunt who'd suddenly taken ill, but has mercifully made a miraculous recovery. Being besides her at the hospital bed, Dharker had found life imitating art.

With Oberon, as Titania in the same play

"I have spent some time recently shadowing real surgeons and trying to understand how hospitals are run. I am not squeamish at all, and have completely fallen in love with performing simulated surgery!" she said. As for her lovely mother, the poet and artist Imtiaz Dharker, she says she's well and currently writing in Venice. "She's long overdue for a Mumbai visit," said Dharker.

Nice!

Murzban Shroff and Harsha Bhogle at the launch

Like? Actually
"Notice how Bollywood bimbos start almost every sentence with "actually"? While it may just be their attempt to play cute, it actually foreshadows a Bhagat-like decadence of the English language, a collective dumbing down," says Murzban Shroff, author of Breathless in Bombay, and Waiting for Jonathan Koshy, in a season of Chetan Bhagat bashing. Ever since it was announced that the banker-turned-best-selling author's books were being considered as college texts, there has been a howl of outrage.

Chetan Bhagat

"I have always held that Bhagat's novels work marvelously as "screenplays in novel form." But to bring them onto a syllabus - any syllabus - is to confuse popular entertainment for literature. By doing so, we are denying students the rewards of well-crafted, precise prose and the timeless, edifying appeal of insightful literature," he says.

But about the 'Bollywood bimbos,' Shroff was coy. "I do not want to make it personal," he said gallantly.

Nope, we don't know whom he referred to. In fact, we thought the bimbette brigade started every sentence with 'Like'..., actually.

Coya in London

Coya comes to Mumbai?
Restaurant creator Arjun Waney is something of the gold standard in the universe of international fine-dining, with majority stakes in London's hippest and hardest to get into eateries like Zuma, Roka, La Petite Maison, Coya, and the members-only The Arts Club. His creations dominate Mayfair, said to be the most aspirational neighbourhood for restaurateurs across the world. And now, word comes in that Waney, who also owns successful properties in New York, Miami, Dubai, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and Bangkok, is all set to bring one of his most popular offerings, Coya, serving Peruvian food, to Mumbai.

Named after a river in Chile, the celebrated London eatery has been declared one of the 2,100 coolest restaurants in Britain by the Times, and by Zagat as one of the 10 hottest restaurants in the world. Incidentally, this is not the first talk of uber foodie Waney's India roll out. Sources say that he'd been approached by no less than Shapoorji Pallonji to come to India, but he'd declined as he did not think it was feasible.

"I would rather make my money elsewhere and support charitable causes in India," he'd once said in an interview. Well, given the current climate in the country with all its hare-brained food and drink diktats and parochialism, bringing good eateries for its demoralised denizens is an act of supporting charitable causes, perhaps.

Martand (Mapu) Singh

The last nail
If the mood in liberal Delhi has been particularly bleak since the start of the week, there's reason. Two in fact. The demolition of the iconic Hall of Nations at Delhi's Pragati Maidan, a structure emblematic of some of our country's highest ideals, even while the case was being considered in the Delhi High Court, and the hearings were scheduled later this week, is being described as a throwback to the dark days of the Emergency.

Arun Singh

"The government is hell-bent on erasing collective memories, destroying the collective civic space, and carving real estate for the parallel powers that control it. Even at the expense of subverting law, legal recourse, and development processes," spewed one member of the capital's intelligentsia. What's more, there are many who believe this brazen and ill-advised act will not be the last of it. And that we are witnessing the last nail in the coffin of liberal values.

Hanut Singh

That this was followed by the untimely death of one of the capital's most loved cultural icons only added to the gloom. Textile guru, culture czar, and a card holding member of its beautiful people, Martand (Mapu) Singh, the scion of the Kapurthala clan, passed away on Tuesday morning at a hospital in Delhi after an illness. He had been one of country's towering authorities on a range of matters from textile and craft to conservation and heritage. Brother of former Defence Minister Arun Singh, and uncle to jewellery designer Hanut, the poignant announcement by his family succinctly captured the beatific aesthete, who we had often written about on these
pages. 'Beloved brother, uncle, friend, companion and guide. Inspiration to many. A remarkable life,' it read.

From wanna bees to bee comes
The Oolong Tea-Serving Hostess friend was besides herself. The searing heat had made her retreat to the inner recesses of her boudoir; having lost her paramour, the owner of a large underwear brand ("Hosiery" she constantly corrected) a while ago, to the wiles of a nubile East European masseuse, the OTSFH lived alone in solitary splendour. "It's all happening in nano seconds," she proclaimed.

Huh?

"A few years ago, remember how the city had been flooded with 'wanna bees'? Everyone was a wanna bee this or a wanna bee that," she said. "The Page Three crowd, the party animals, and the wanna bees? They were buzzing everywhere right?"

Right, we said so.

So now these days, everyone's a 'bee come,' she said. "No one's got the time to be a wanna bee, anymore," said the OTSFH. "They're all 'bee comes' in such a tearing rush. Instant art and lifestyle experts and critics, instant poets and authors, instant designers and directors. Before they've even spent a year in a field, they've hired a PRO, floated a website and have set themselves up as authorities and experts," she said, adding wistfully, "As my dear always said, 'Opportunists are the mother @#$%^&' of all inventions.'"

Ah, your dashing owner of large underwear factories, we said.

"Hosiery," hissed the OTFS between clenched teeth. And then we heard her tinkle her little bell for some more hot water.