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Journalism of Courage
Orient Express
To ring in Independence Day, Star Plus had organised a special screening of Train to Pakistan. The uncut version, a select few were treated to the sight of Rajat Kapur8217;s bare bottom at the Nehru Centre. The film was preceded by a talk by Khushwant Singh who could not understand why people took offense to the language in the film. quot;We Punjabis are like that only,quot; is what he essentially said. Paying Pamela Rooks the highest compliment, he told the audience that the film was better than his book. He also let the cat out of the bag that Rooks was Juneja a sardarni too before she married Conrad Rooks of Siddhartha fame. A Dilliwalli, Rooks was a regular in Aamir Raza Hussain8217;s No Sex Please, We8217;re British type of productions before she moved on to loftier things. Wearing a badly-draped blue sari, Rooks came on to stage and dedicated the film to M S Sathyu and his film Garam Hawa. Also at the do was Kiran Juneja any relation? in a cream long kurta and lehnga and Divya Dutta she is the child prostitute in the film wearing a similar creation in buttercup yellow. Neither outfit did much for either actress 8212; you need to be reed thin and six feet tall to carry off these things.Nirmal Pandey sporting a pony tail and a red kurta was there with his wife and keeping him company was Rajat Kapur wearing a red shirt, black pyjamas and a black waistcoat. Since the night was dedicated to patriotism, fashion faux pas were overlooked, if not forgiven, and an elegant Siddharth Kak, Rahul Singh and long-standing girl friend Niloufer Billimoria were present. Also creating waves was Khalid Sayyid, head of Star8217;s promo division. The man behind the promos for Train to Pakistan, the 32-year-old is back from Star-Hong Kong and is busy with changing the look of Star TV.
Party animal
The city never sleeps and the party never stops. This week8217;s celebrations included Kishan Mulchandani8217;s party. Held at Wave,not Palkhi, the theme was Bring out the animal in you8217;. And there were over 600 animals who registered their presence. All of model town was there Namrata Shirodkar, Meghna Reddy, Noyonika Chatterjee, Milind Soman, Mink, Sabah Khaleeli, Viren Saha, Anupama Verma, Bikram Saluja, Arjun Khanna and Marc Robinson. Among the social animals, there were Pradeep Guha, the consul general of Panama, Kailash Surendranath sans Aarti, Kelly Dorji and Sanjana Behl, Parmeshwar Godrej8217;s niece, who has been in the limelight lately, along with Avik Duke, the dude who loves to throw parties at Copa Cabana.
Past history
BUT Independence Day means different things to different people. On August 15, two ex-sex goddesses of the silver screen bumped into each other and neither emerged the better for it. At Bandra, in the afternoon, Parveen Babi was spotted going into the Naturelle ice cream parlour. Wearing a loose shirt, pyjamas and a mirror-work skull cap, Babi has no traces of her former beauty. Her face is lined and her perfect figure is chunky, but she isn8217;t the only one to have gone to seed. Walking right past her with no flicker of recognition in to the next shop was Zeenat Aman. On the arm of a small-time stud, Zeenie Baby could steal no hearts in her grey shirt, tights and hair messily tied up. She was laughing and giggling loudly and making pointed gestures to the store next door. Their beauty has faded but the rivalry lives on and on.Fashion victimELLE8217;S, much-talked about Fashion Week, which was supposed to be held in the beginning of September, has been postponed to somewhere around December because, quot;Most designers haven8217;t been able to understand the concept and need more time,quot; says the bimonthly fashion mag. What we heard was that the biggies like Rohit Bal and Sumeet Verma aren8217;t really too keen to have a common showing along with the rest and said a flat no to Elle. The magazine maintains that the show will go on it has been postponed to give the couturiers more time to design clothes for the event and to come up with the cash for quot;an international show like thisquot;.And finally8230;AT the Sunday night premier of Begum Sumroo, the city8217;s glitterati was out in full force. Soni Razdan, Sharon Prabhakar and of course the Czarina of Couture Parmeshwer Godrej. Dressed in a black and white polka dotted crepe, her palla covered her cleavage all evening. A welcome change from the emerald green sari Parmesh wore at the Cinthol Look of the Year contest. That swept the floor more than it stayed on her shoulders.
