Roving Eye 8212; Nelson8217;s gift

Across the road, the Damania8217;s do was less crowded but had more familiar faces and was held to celebrate the first birthday of his daughter. Parvez8217; beauty queen, Aviva, looked adorable in a Parsi gara outfit. The food was catered by Allwyn Fernandes and was enjoyed by all, especially the Prawn Thermidor. Dilip and Shobha De, Simi Garewal with her sister, Amrita and Sabira Merchant were there. Most of the guests left at midnight for the third party of the night Vijay Mallya8217;s party.

The beer baron was celebrating his birthday at his Napean Sea Road residence. The invites were all sent out well in advance. Some of the invitees opted not to go though, as Vijay had even invited some prominent Mumbai jet-setters that he did not know! Obviously, the king of Bangalore is not the king of Mumbai.

Queen8217;s dinner

Her fans may not have had the chance to see her but many of Mumbai8217;s top execs did. Corporate czars were lucky enough to have Diana Hayden8217;s company for dinner on Sunday night. Arun Nanda managing director, Mahindra amp; Mahindra and wife Neeru Nanda editor of Verve held a soiree for the new Miss World. The dinner was attended by Mumbai8217;s top business execs such as Mukand8217;s Rajesh Shah, Dilip Piramal and Uday Kotak. So, this lucky event manager-turned-Miss World with BMG-Crescendo, got the chance to make some really good contacts in the corporate world. May be she can tap them later to invest in the flagging music business.

Mallya8217;s moves

Coming back to Vijay Mallya, the buzz is that he intends to spend New Year8217;s Eve in Goa. His yacht Kalizma8217; has set sail from Dubai and will be in Goa by December 27. Mallya will join his crew and spend five days on board his yacht. Incidentally, the Kalizma8217; used to belong to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. It is on board this beautiful teak and brass seafarer that Burton presented Taylor with The Diamond. The Kalizma8217; is just one of Mallya8217;s yachts but by far his favourite, as most of his important guests are invited here for private dinners. It isn8217;t his only mode of transport 8212; VJM as he is called also has several cars and a helicopter that he uses to go from his offices on Vithal Mallya Road to his stud farm at Kunigal.

To Powai

The highlight of the year for many of Mumbai8217;s young and beautiful people is Gautam Singhania8217;s annual do at his sea-facing Powai house. Now Raymond may not be doing too well this year, but you couldn8217;t tell as Gautam threw a bash to beat all 8212; with over 1,000 people present. Basically, if you were not invited then you know that you are not a part of Mumbai8217;s happening crowd. And as usual the night ended at six am with a champagne breakfast. Looks like, for Gautam and 1,000 close friends, money is no object.

Home choice

Earlier this month we had the launch of Vacheron Constantin, the ultra-expensive Swiss watch company. But now India8217;s very own Titan has proved that we can compete with this Swiss at one-tenth of the price 8212; Ratan Tata and Simi Garewal opened the Tanishq boutique at Churchgate, this Saturday. It was a well attended do and though most admired the watches, one could not help noticing that most of the guests wore Swiss watches and not Indian timepieces. One exception to the rule was Simone Tata who proudly displayed a Titan watch on her wrist.

In and out

Mona Lamba and Pali Sachdev, the Calcutta-based sisters whose designer salwar kameezs were in vogue and available at Glitterati only a couple of years ago, have re-launched their stuff through Shopper8217;s Stop.

At a trunk show at Shopper8217;s Stop on Friday, they showed some of their stuff, in cotton knits, mostly hand-painted, and very chic. Also economical, priced between Rs 1,700 and Rs 2,500. As to why they pulled out of Glitterati, the sisters chose to refrain from comment. But then a lot of designers have had problems with that store, including Shahab Durazi and Wendell Rodericks. Let8217;s see, if, after boutiques in Delhi and Calcutta, they can hit it off with Mumbai all over again.

While some out-of-station designers are looking to Mumbai for business, our Mumbai designers are looking at other places. Tarun Tahiliani first headed to Delhi and a couple of weeks ago, decided to take his designs to Hong Kong. It seems that Tarun has joined forces with an NRI lady from Hong Kong who will promote his designs. It is surprising that he decided to go abroad as his last foreign venture in New York, was a disaster.

Gucci8217;s guests

Last Saturday, it was back to Shopper8217;s Stop as Gucci was launching its perfume, Envy. People like Smita Thackeray, Noyonika Chatterjee, Matti Saran, Parvez Damania and Achla Sachdev were spotted. Strangely enough, they were all badly dressed. That is, according to the dress code written on the invite. It said quot;strictly silver and whitequot;. But the Guests of Honour8217; showed up in black! On the whole, the party was a flop. Why? Well the party got out of hand with more than 500 people on the guest list obviously, they were not expecting more than a handful and there was the usual jumble of shoppers buying their Christmas presents.

And finally8230;

Yes, Dil To Pagal Hai is a hit and it seems that Aditya Chopra has decided to make the most of that success. He and a few close pals, including the movie8217;s costume designer Manish Malhotra, flew to Goa for the weekend to party in style. Aditya seems to be quite the party man of Bollywood, as just two months ago he held grand card parties at his home during the Diwali season. His heart obviously rules his head.