Royal Brunch with the Peacocks (and a Tigress!)

Amrit Maghera and Anupama Verma

Nethra Raghunathan

Narayani Shastri, Rahul Aggarwal and Riyaaz Amlani

Raman Lamba

Bunty Grewal and Zulfi Sayed

Rashmi Nigam

Shravan Chhabria and Jimmy Felix

Minisha Lamba and Mr. Dilawar Nensey

So Sunday was brunch day. Apart from Del Italia’s first anniversary (pictures coming soon) the launch of the Imperial Palace, the new 5-star property which promises a 17th century experience of royalty happened over brunch hosted by Mr. Amir Nensey, Chairman, Royal Palms India Pvt Ltd along with Muhamed Nensey, Managing Director and Dilawar Nensey, Jt. Managing Director.

The hotel was inaugurated by guest of honor, Shri Ashok Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra along Shri Gurudas Kamat, Minister of Communication & IT.

Spotted: Minisha Lamba, Raman Lamba, Kelly Dorjee, Chetan Bhagat & wife, Pradeep Hirani, Shane & Falguni Peacock, Matan Schabracq,  Sharad Kapoor, Hanif Hilal, Ashmit Patel, Riyaaz Amlani (how’d he manage to be at both?!), Vanadana Sajnani & Rajesh Kakkad, Mouni Roy, Zulfi Sayed, Nethra Raghunathan, Natasha Suri, Ashok Salian, Suved Lohia, Tulip Joshi, Rashmi Nigam, Narayani Shastri, Rahul Aggarwal, Ritik Bhasin, Shweta Salve, Shabir Ahluwalia, Kanchi Kaul, Nihar Pandya, Kashmira Irani, Megha Kawale, Niketan Madhok, Sunny Sara, Amreet Maghera, Anupama Verma, Bunty Grewal, Harrison, Sucheta Sharma, Muzzamil Ibrahim, Shravan Chhabria and Jimmy Felix.

Shane & Falguni Peacock

On a side note I have always wondered how Shane @ Falguni Peacock got their slightly OTT last name. (Come on it must have crossed your mind too right?) HHC ladies would you know? I mean how many “Peacocks” do you know personally? They even have a swanky website dedicated to high luxury prêt called Peacock Couture. Meanwhile a bird of a different feather is evidently out and about again. Anupama Verma broke out the animal print for the occassion, remiscent of Indian royalty engaged in their favorite pastime of Tiger hunting. I wonder if she’s trying to snag herself a prince! I’m still pretty impressed by her flawless performance on Big Boss, and apparently so was the unsuspecting Aryan Vaid!

Tough on Tobacco gets Everyone High!

Tough on Tabacco

Ankur Tewari

Minisha Lamba (right)

Naved Jafri

Yudi with Sameer Malhotra

Anita Hassanandani and Ekta Kapoor

Adam Bedi and Nisha Harale Bedi

Riyaaz Amlani, Shamita Singha and Swaati Langeh

Once again Il Terrazzo saw a host of celebrity faces (big and small) turn up for their weekly live music gig on Wednesday night. Tough on Tobacco played for an audience that included Adam Bedi and his wife Nisha Harale Bedi, Minisha Lamba, Shamita Singha (on a sorta kinda date maybe?) with Craig Wedge (the wine guy, who incidentally will be blogging about wine on missmalini very soon),Yudishthir Urs, Naved Jafri, Ekta Kapoor (don’t let the picture fool you she has a crazy temper), Anita Hassanandani and fellow musicians and music aficionados Ankur Tewari, Shibani Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra, Nikhil D’Souza and obviously Riyaaz Amlani, Sameer ‘Daddy’ Malhotra…

Sapna Bhavnani

…and Sapna Bhavnani with her main squeeze Arijit Datta who let me take fun pictures of them for my blog

*Also remind me to tell you about this amazing Ladakh Confluence my friend Swaati Langeh is organizing in August. It’s going to be Epic!

Sidd Coutto and his band Tough on Tobacco (which consists of Sidd Coutto -Voice/Guitar, Niranjan ‘Pozy’ Dhar- Guitar, Johan Pais – Bass, Gaurav Gupta – Guitar/Voice, Neil Gomes – Violin, Sax, Flute/Voice and Jai Row Kavi – Drums/Voice) did a fabulous job of keeping the vibe going and Sidd belted out song after song with his easy charm and brilliant voice. Love him.  Watching him makes me happy.

P.S. Dontchya just love the violin?

I’m also super impressed with his new recruit Neil Gomes who I’m told used to be a choir boy on his way to the priesthood when he was picked up by Sidd to add incredible flavor to the bad with a saxaphone, violin and even the flute. Sorry mom! (I should totally introduce him to Shanks na?)

Nikhil D'Souza

Alternate Reality

Sapna Bhavnani and I egged Nikhil D’Souza to come up and play a few songs too (what a voice!) plus we got a sneak peak at next week’s act, Alternate Reality (now this guy seemed like a bit of a rookie but sweet enough and hey I guess everyone’s gotta start somewhere na? Besides he was pretty cute!)

Ishq Bector

The comic highlight of the evening however goes hands down to Ishq Bector’s impromptu birthday rap. What was that? Now I know for a fact that Shibani can sing, but their whole jam up sounded totally amateurish at best. I also think it might be time for Ishq to take down his Eminem poster, step away from the speakers and let the whole “hip-hopper” persona go.

You’ve gotsta be kidding me. (Um by the way, P. Diddy called, he want’s his loofah back.)

The thing is, he’s actually not a bad guy at all, but the popped collar and desi-gansta vibe does him zero favors. I’m just saying, perhaps he could take a leaf out of Coutto’s lyrics and “Play it some other way?”

The Birla Bodyguards

Avanti and Yash Birla (file photo)

Just recently Mridula wrote to ask asked me to clarify if Yash Birla was ever married to the actress Heera Rajgopal and how Avanti fits into this picture so I dug up this info: Avanti and Yash met in college and married a year after the tragic death of his family in a plane crash on February 14, 1990. I don’t think he had time to be married before (although I’m usually too distracted by what he’s wearing to focus on what he’s up to!) As far as Heera Rajgopal goes apparently she was known for serious skin exposure in her films across Tollywood and for an alleged romance with Ajith Kumar which ended when he married Shalini. She married Nikhil Nagarajan in 2000 and now lives in the US after her divorce.

Randomly enough, last night my friends spotted Yash & Avanti Birla at Riyaaz Amlani’s Salt Water Cafe in Bandra, Mumbai (they serve an amazing breakfast by the way.) Expectedly they were wearing their usual bizarrely coordinated and undoubtedly expensive outfits (like two Hells Angels barbies.) How scary is it that someone gave Yash an award for being the most stylish Industrialist by the way? They also had several buff bodyguards surrounding them at all times. It’s possible these were just their personal trainers as well, no one really knows for sure. But I’m curious why the young Birla scion would need so much security on a night where he and the Mrs. were “grunging it” (relatively speaking) with the rest of us mere mortals?

It would be pretty ironic if they were doing it to just draw attention to themselves (then again, surely they must know their collective wardrobes take care of that already.) My guess is they’re not taking any chances incase they run in to the fashion police!

Daddy Cool

Yaana Gupta

Clearly Mumbai is developing a musical ear (for something other than mindless masala mixes) and I have to confess, initially I was pretty skeptical about Yaana (the-Czech-model-actress-formerly-married-to-the-painter-Satyakam-Gupta-but-she’s-keeping-the-name-thank-you-very-much)  Gupta pulling it off as a soulful songstress but you know what? She kinda did.

(No mean feat especially when you’ve been pegged the original Bollywood “item girl” by all and sundry.) Her yet unreleased album is called “I Believe in Love.”

The man behind the plan and what intends to be known as Daddy’s WindSong Wednesday’s Sameer (model-actor-formerly-married-to-Sapna-Bhavnani) Malhotra aka “Daddy” really may have hit upon something quite fantastic. Breeze, booze and beautiful music is quite a heady combination especially where you least expect to find a smokey blues bar vibe – on a terrace in Juhu!

Yaana was the first performer but before long we got a sneak preview of the weeks to come with excellent renditions in different styles by Yana’s boyfriend Ankur Tewari (his song Musafir is brilliant) and Anushka Manchanda (what a voice on that girl) who conjured up a cheeky refrain about a boy.

Riyaaz Amlani, Sameer Malhotra & Rizwan Amlani

Nethra Raghuraman

Cyrus Sahukar & Yudistir

Candice Pinto, Anchal Kumar & Shonali Nagrani

Riyaaz Amlani, Rizwan Amlani & Sameer Malhotra played host to a motley crew of pretty people at Il Terrazzo on Wednesday Night including  Candice Pinto, Nethra Raghuraman, Aanchal Kumar, Shamita Singha, Mashoom Singha, Svetlana, HardKaur, Sunny Sara (the entire VJ brigade) Juhi, Anushka Manchanda, Yudishtir Urs, Gaurav Kapur, Cyrus Sahukar and Nikhil Chinapa.

Anushka Manchanda

So the next time you’re craving a little unplugged action head over to the terrace, I wouldn’t miss next week – Anushka’s  up and damn she’s good!