Roving Eye 8212; Pune

A click in timeWhen Shobha De decided to dip into the recesses of her selective memories,'' it was obvious that the lady was going to pen ...

A click in time
When Shobha De decided to dip into the recesses of her 8220;selective memories,8221; it was obvious that the lady was going to pen down only the most significant and memorable happenings in her life. So it came as a pleasant surprise to flip through her memoirs and discover that one of the instances that apparently remained imprinted in her mind was when a staff writer from The Indian Express, along with photographer Pushkar Naik, on an assignment from this paper, cornered her at the Pune Railway Station sometime back.

Being caught off guard read without makeup, on just stepping out of a train, was obviously a novel experience for the lady who8217;s supposed to have been there and seen it all. It thus finds a detailed mention in her memoirs. It8217;s all there in this glamorous columnist8217;s own words 8211; her fleeting tryst with the lensman in Pune, and how it reiterated her belief that some people meaning her own self are just born lucky. Well, after this mention, the De-lighted photographer has started harbouring similar thoughts about himself!

The Excerpt: It happened again, more recently when my husband and I got off at Pune station and had a photographer jump out at us from the shadows. There I was, bleary-eyed and practically sleep-walking down the long platform, my hair mussed-up, a bottle of mineral water in one hand, a baseball cap in the other. The suddenness of the act woke me up all right.

But as luck would have it, the same photographer was assigned by his paper to shoot me during my stay in Pune. This time I made sure that I had my face on. At least my eyes were open and my hair neatly brushed. After he had finished the session, I asked him about the other pictures. He looked crestfallen. 8220;Something went wrong with the roll. The rest of the photographs on it came out fine 8211; only yours were blank. It has never happened before.8221; I knew whose side God was on that morning. I resolved never again to travel looking like something that the cat had dragged in. My husband chuckles at the memory and each time we are setting out for the airport or the station at some ghastly hour, he points to my make-up. 8220;Put some on8230; comb your hair8230; remember Pune?8221;

Play it once, Sami!
Vrindavan Gardens came alive on Saturday night with the jalwa of DJ Akbar Sami and the music scores he put together for the evening. Though the evening started late and had to be wrapped up at midnight, the crowd still had a whale of a time in those few hours. Taking the theme seriously, some enthusiasts had maintained the appropriate dress code too! Making their way through the low tunnel-like entrance, the mostly-in-its-teens lot boogeyed away to Sami8217;s music, frequently interspersed with the theme song Yeh Hai Jalwa. And 10 amongst the folks on the floor also took home the opportunity to be groomed into modelling by Suraj Pardeshi who runs a training school, free of cost! Looks like their jalwa, too, paid off!

Seven Up
It was a week-long celebration at Totem Pole, Holiday Inn, last week, to celebrate the disco8217;s first anniversary. Naturally, it was non-stop dancing till the wee hours of the morning, night after night, from November 14 to 20. With the theme being Big Chief Dancing Foot, the set, designed by Anurag Agarwal, resembled a native American village. It was time to let one8217;s hair down and thanks to the lively brother-duo of Vijay and Jai Samtani 8211; the DJs 8211; the music made the night all the more memorable. Apart from the tribal dance by the A-Jazz group, a CD, The Big Chief Dancing Foot, was also launched. It comprises 16 popular dance numbers compiled by the two DJs, brought out by Holiday Inn and produced by Buzzz Productions. So, here8217;s more reason to dance 8211; with the right numbers, all in a compact form.