Amrish & Shalini Arora, Shobhaa De and daughter Anindita
Last week Bacchus Beverage Academy (basically the brainchild of Amrish Arora of Flamboyanté , flashbartender Eric Lobo and sommelier (I finally know what that means) George Varghese.) launched at Flamboyanté, the restaurant in the courtyard of the World Trade Centre, Mumbai.
The New Cocktail Menu at Flamboyanté is a heady mix of tropical fruits and exotic ingredients: Pomegranate Sangria, Sgroppino, Frozen Hawaii, Spider bite, William Tell and Out Of School besides Mojitos, Margeritas and Fruit Smoothies with unusual twist. (I’ll have one of each please!) The drinks menu for the night included organic kokum wine, aam panna, musk melon coolers, coconut water mojitos, jalapeno vodka amongst other exotic coolers. A lavish dinner spread included food stations for Sushi, Dimsums, Thai Rolls, Pizzas, Kebabs, Vodka Panipuri, Cold Salads and Dips, Biryani and Pan Asian Specialities too.
Spotted: Shobhaa De with daughter Aninidta, Mamta Raja, Kamlesh Hemdev, and the ever-so-flamboyant Kishen Mulchandani (how fitting!)
flam·boy·ant Adjective
1. Highly elaborate; ornate.
2. Given to ostentatious or audacious display. See Synonyms at showy.
3. behaving in a very noticeable, extravagant way
4. very bright and showy
5. marked by ostentation but often tasteless;
Ki-shen Mul-chan-dani Eccentric
1. Highly elaborate; ornate.
2. Given to ostentatious or audacious display. See Synonyms at showy.
3. behaving in a very noticeable, extravagant way
4. very bright and showy
5. marked by ostentation but often tasteless;
Hold everything folks, I think we may have found a match!
I confess I overslept and missed the car rally. In my defense it was because I’ve recently discovered a fantastic party mixer game (delightfully) called Partini and just had to take it for a test run last night. Think of it as a combination of beer pong, charades, karaoke (humming style) and truth or dare which I was playing till almost 5am at a friend’s house (amidst some interesting insights from the boys on their theories on whether “to call or not to call” after a drunken encounter with the opposite sex, simply to provide closure/be a gentleman. Highly classified but oh-so-juicy.) Meanwhile the glitterati (which never rests) was at Good Earth in Parel, Mumbai courtesy Tanya Deol (Bobby Deol’s better half) for a pre-celebration party for the Akerkar’s. So I will get all the speed demon snapshots up here tomorrow, but for now all I can report is what I heard from Gautam Singhania, that it was off the hook!
(As cheesy as that commercial was its actually a LOT of fun.)
Dilip Joshi, Ash Chandler & Gautam Singhania
TC,Pooja Advani & Nathalie
Eventually I made it to Indigo brunch which turned out (as expected) to be another epic afternoon. Narendra Kumar Ahmed rightly pointed out that it is in fact the “best brunch in the city.” Everybody (and I mean everybody) was there. Off the top of my mind I remember; Nina Manuel, TC & Nathalie, Shamita Singha, Dilip Joshi, Rohan Sippy (who while we were on the topic of financial meltdown mentioned some interesting theories on Global Warming more on that soon…) Ashutosh Pathak, Akanksha & Amitabh Nanda, Nico Ghoghavala & wife Kamal Sidhu (did I hear right, she’s having a baby? I noticed that people kept saying “Don’t smoke near the pregnant lady” but she had her back to me most of the time so need to confirm this!) A.D & Sabina Singh, Divya Mohta, Anish & Vineeta Trivedi (who’s off to Canada with the kids for a break), Kishen Mulchandani(who’s heading to Malaysia tonight right after he pops into the Miss India 2009 after-party)… I’ll post the full attendance roster along with the “official” party pictures as soon as the PR machinery wakes up tomorrow and flurries into action.
Ash Chandler
Despite the heat and body count brunch lasted well into the afternoon and consisted of banana shooters, a sublime buffet and lots of singing, dancing and mingling. Ash Chandler did an impromptu performance (and boy the man can sing.) Full form after his 40 days of lent a few glasses of bubbly and he was rocking the microphone to Sweet Home Alabama to which Henry Tham pointed out jokingly the new lyrics should be…
From Khar to Colaba
Where the skies are so blue
from Khar to Colaba
Lord, I’m coming home to you!
Who's your daddy?!
Jamal Mecklai and his daughter dance up a storm!
Ashwin Deo
Aarti Surnedranathan and her son
Myra & Bandana Tewari
The ever smiling (and usually color coordinated couple did full justice to the dance floor (grown up kids in tow) as did Ashwin Deo. Proud and happy Aarti & KailashSurendranathan introduced their somewhat shy son around as did Bandana Tewari with her adorably precocious daughter Myra (clearly ready to follow in mommy’s fashionable footsteps) while Rahul & Malini Akerkar played hosts to perfection. This is probably the first time I’ve seen the glitterati break out their own clickers for some memories. (I got a few action shots myself as you can see, note to self though: balancing a glass of champagne, a camera and a clutch in high heels is much more complicated than it looks after two banana shooters in a test tube.)
Nina Manuel
Rahul Akerkar
Nikhil Chib asked me an interesting question at brunch. He wanted to know if I’ve found that people with the same name tend to have similar personalities. I guess you could say so; the ones I know in Bombay would be Malini Akerkar and Malini Ramani (also I remember a Malini Rao I had the pleasure of meeting when I used to work at those auto expos at Pragati Maidan in Delhi a decade ago. You know the drill; pretty girls in snug dresses standing next to cars they know nothing about. good times.) He pointed out that all the Nikhil’s he knows tend to be pretty skinny.
A.D. Singh & Ash Chandler had a hilarious conversation about fashion (and fashion week) where apparently some “dude” was being a little too touchy feely with the other “dudes.” Its true that at that point any woman could scream blue murder but what’s a guy to do if he’s not looking to pick a fight? (With any luck there will be a comedy bit in Ash’s next show called “vogg” aka victims of gay grabbing!)
All in all the social event of the season. Next stop Hard Rock Cafe on Thursday night where Luke Kenny and I are emcees at the Rolling Stone magazine first anniversary followed by Zenzi mills (i.e. the new one in town) where Matan Schabracq is throwing the official opening party.
GQ Bar Nights kicked off its maiden voyage with panache last night at Olive. The place was abuzz with mostly beautiful people, plenty of trendy cocktails and loads of food on the house (now I’ve been pretty dissappointed with the food at Olive in the past but last night’s spread was quite impressive.) AD and Sabina Singh played host to the rich and restless in attendance including Bandana Tewari (in her animal print dress), Sophie Choudhary, Natasha Poonawalla, Divya Thakur and Haseena Jethmalani (all flying solo), Roohi & Chetan Jaikishen, Yash & Avanti Birla (in surprisingly sedate garb), Zeba & Rajesh Kohli, Pratima & Gaurav Bhatia, Samir & Palak Sheth, Ashwin Deo, Alex Kuruvilla and Gautam Singhania. DJ Aaron James from New York turned up the tempo accompanied by a live percussionist and kept the likes of Fahad Samar, Nisha Jamval, Kishen Mulchandani,Rosa Catalona and Sangita Kathiwada entertained till the wee hours of the morning.
Last night was a blast. Although it started out just being plain funny. Fosters threw a swanky soiree at the Four Seasons featuring a bunch of Australian designers. Now at this point we were all blissfully unacquainted with the manic emcee (who’s name I recently discovered is Mansi Bhohal and who’s high pitched voice I will never forget) and were giggling over the collections titled “Hussy” and “Subfusco” (what is “fusco” and what then would make something sub-fusco sort of thing.) Anyway, from the fairly amateur models that stomped and stuttered down the runway it was pretty obvious all the seasoned sashay-ers were still in Delhi for Fashion Week and we were witnessing the B lot. (Although the one odd model was pretty enough, there was something definitely askew about most of them.)
Then of course we had our Zoolander moment when one spunky male model did an entire bump & grind down the ramp never dropping his “blue steel” expression even for a second. (I have to say it takes either very brave or very brazen men to wear some of the short shorts on display in Kooey’s “Hello Summer” collection.)
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan and friends
Meenakshi waves
I spotted the clever young Indian novelist Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan (trust me and read her book, “You Are Here”) having a giggle in the front row with pals. She also shared my utter horror at the emcee who decided to impromptu interview Subfusco (who’s clothes apparently were lost in luggage land somewhere over the seven seas.) She rattled on about his absent collection (which I’m thinking she’s probably never seen) threw in a “wow friends” here and there and then decided to ask him the million dollar question; (which elicited a gasp of horror from the audience.) “So are you going to be inspired by India do you think? Like maybe the Taj Mahal orbeggars?”
(Ah Slumdog, the stories you’ll tell.)
Mansi Bhohal
Neetu Chandra and Archana Kochhar
Meanwhile Archana Kochhar commented that everything was going well expect for the disastrous lady with a microphone. Turns out the original emcee sprained her foot so couldn’t wear heels. (I think I ran into her at Cafe Goa on Tuesday, it was a apparently a stiletto related incident.)
Jessica Nicholas
Can’t say much for the pseudo Australian desi fashion but I quite liked the short choreographed instrumental interludes by Jessica Nicholas though.
Around 10:15pm we decided to hit the GQ Bar Night at Olive Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. Quite the glamorous turn out and I’m mystified at how they managed to keep the rif-raf out considering it was open bar and open house. (Now don’t judge me, I meant the droolers and shakers that love to cop a feel or down a freebie while scoping cleavage) FYI The gooseberry and strawberry capriocia’s were delish and the party seemed to be a roaring success (pictures to follow.)
Eventually though the rhythm is gonna get you and a fair amount of the GQ crew ended up at Zenzi in town (henceforth known as Zenzi Mills), Mumbai. It was of course salsa night and the waiters bopped along to the beat!
Spotted: Newlyweds Ashwin Mushran and Rebecca Maria Vaz
