The art of the master blaster

Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar fans have one more thing to look forward to: the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) is planning a show in tribute to the master blaster in which ten leading artists have collaborated with him to create art works commending his legacy.

To be held at the gallery at the end of the year, and curated by the lovely SoBo-based independent curator and art writer V Solanki, word has it that Tendulkar has met and ideated with all the artists and has contributed many of his own ideas to the project, "He's been totally involved in it," said a source.

Sachin Tendulkar

Nice!

Many notches on many belts
‘India & Pakistan brought together by the former First Lady of France! With ex-FM Shah Mehmood Qureshi & Carla Bruni' tweeted the ever ebullient Shashi Tharoor about a picture, featuring two rakishly handsome men and the beautiful international supermodel and former First Lady of France.

(from left) Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Carla Bruni and Shashi Tharoor

The company may be heady, we understand, but Tharoor might want to keep in mind Adam Gopnik's brilliant profile in the New Yorker on l'affaire Bruni-Sarkozy, which had appeared at the height of that ‘made for tabloid-headlines' coupling: ‘What is particularly pathetic is his delusion that Bruni is a notch on his (Sarkozy's) belt, when he is so obviously a notch on hers,' wrote Gopnik, alluding to the model-actress-singer's fulsome roster of rock and movie star former lovers.

As for the picture, one has to admit that it wins the contest for the three best-looking people in contemporary politics, hands down!

Mumbai's half Maharanis
Our friend who favours little known and very expensive teas was beside herself. She had only just returned from what was either a FUN trip (‘lotsa' white wine and shopping') or an international peace mission to save a country? village? school? (a few meetings with the local sarpanch and Maharajahs) organised by an enterprising friend.

Our friend hadn't made up her mind which of these necessary and very invigorating excursions it had been - but it had been life enhancing, and here she was, back in Mumbai, sipping her favourite tea and, quite beside herself.

"There he sat, all evening, puffing on a cheroot, his sad eyes peering across the palace grounds to where his subjects were sleeping," she was saying, as she lay elegantly propped up on her bed by a few cushions, pouring hot water into a teapot. "‘And how are South Mumbai's three famous Maharanis doing?' he boomed! We nearly fell off our chairs laughing.

As it is, we'd drunk too much Prosecco all day! But we all knew who he was talking about," said our friend mischievously. "He called them ‘half-Maharanis', you know, like in Bhagat's new book," she cackled. "He was having a good laugh at their expense - how ten-uous their links with royalty are and how they play them up to the hilt! ‘Not even a four-gun salute state,' he said about one in particular, ‘and yet so much nakhra,' he grum-bled as he sat with a few of us ladies over coffee and liqueurs after the formal dinner. ‘Maharaj bhaiya'," she yelled.

Ah, so you call him Maharaj bhaiya, like all his close friends do, we commented, hoping to impress our friend by sounding familiar with the ways of her friend, the grandee Maharajah.

"Huh?" said our friend reaching for the bell. "No, of course not! I call him Your Highness, as every one bloody well should! ‘Maharaj bhaiya' is what I call my cook! Where the hell is he? I need more hot water!"
And so it goes and so it goes...

Young and Restless
So this Friday night SoBo and NoBo officially flagged off the party season, as the young and restless headed to Li Bai at the Palladium for the JBL (Just Be Loud) party, which featured (family alert: our nephew) Karan Bhojwani and Vishal Shetty on the decks and where the petite and ubiquitous Gabriella Demetriades had organised a fashion show.

Shraddha Kapoor

The highlight of the evening, undoubtedly, was the presence of French national football champ and former Arsenal player Robert Pires and his FC Goa team-mates who entered late and stayed till the very end. The next evening, the action moved to the other side of the Sea Link to the exclusive champagne launch of ‘ARK', the new nightclub at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.

Ashish Kanakia

Envisioned by the young Ashish Kanakia, scion of the business family (ARK are his initials), it featured a large party zone adjoining the hotel's lobby where the likes of Haider's attractive actress Shraddha Kapoor, her brother Siddhant, HNY's Vivaan Shah and Sunny Deol's soon to be launched puttar Karan Deol danced the night away to top Bolly hits, making the place live up to predictions that it will become the de facto hangout for Stars and their Cubs!

THINK again?
He's been through a media and societal trial by fire, and those who've met him say that Tarun Tejpal has been pretty singed by it. He is out on bail, finally, and mercifully, he was allowed to grieve the tragic demise of his mother in relative freedom.

Tarun Tejpal

And whereas we are not condoning what he is alleged to have done, and we are keen that the law takes its own course, after the heat and dust of that heady cause célèbre have settled somewhat, it does appear that Tejpal was punished for a lot more than what he did or did not do in that Goa lift.

Be that as it may, sources say that Tejpal's rehabilitation in his old Delhi circles is more or less complete, through the efforts of a few of his feisty and loyal, mostly female, friends. "He's also said to be working on the next THINK festival," we were informed, by one such, "I think it will be announced soon. Yes, it could be in Goa. Why not?" Indeed.