Bollywood fans will know by now that the best way to get up close and personal with their favourite B-town hunks is to catch them every Sunday during the team practice sessions of the All Stars Football Club in Bandra. As the name suggests, the football club, coached by producer Bunty Walia, features a mix of young and senior actors that swear by the beautiful game and show up faithfully every weekend for rigorous training sessions and some fraternity bonding. And word comes in that this weekend saw the team captained by Abhishek Bachchan play an exhibition match at the Jamnabai Narsee International School ground in Juhu and though senior players like Arjun Kapoor and Sidharth Malhotra were missing in action, younger actors like Ahan Shetty and Aparshakti Khurana filled in for the match, we are told. The team’s star player Ranbir Kapoor (known on field as Rambo) is said to have put in an impressive performance and scored a goal that contributed to the All Stars team winning by 4-1. Interestingly, we are informed, a popular omission from the All Stars Club is that of Tiger Shroff, who, industry sources say, is known to be the best football player in Bollywood heads and tails above the rest, but chooses to stay away from the boisterous group in fear of injuring himself and messing up his movie continuity.
The Belle Of The Ball
This weekend saw family and friends of designer Haseena Jethmalani bring in her 50th birthday. The petite and pretty wife of leading lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani is known to be one of Mumbai’s most stylist fashionistas and hostesses. The celebrations were themed as ‘Hassy’s Hotties’ and Hassy’s Heroes’, and saw friends play dress up in special party-themed attire with the men dressed in black tees and the women in glamorous colours. “All the guests lined up in a procession to enter the venue holding balloons, flowers and cakes. It was quite a sight!” informs our source, adding, “A giant birthday cake with over 500 chocolates had been organised and Mozez Singh started the singing. It was a lot of fun.” And guests are said to have included all the birthday girl’s favourite people including Karisma Kapoor, Amrita Arora, Tanya Dubash, Surily Goel, Aditya Kilachand and Ashish Goel amongst others.
True Lies
A SoBo grande dame had the most unnerving experience when she visited a mid-city five-star for a lunch appointment recently. Like all sensible people, she naturally submitted herself to all the security checks and balances, as in the normal course of affairs, such as her bag being put through the scanner and a physical check by a lady security agent. All was going well until, way in to her lunch appointment, she put her hand in to her bag to retrieve her phone, which she always carried inside it, only to discover it was missing! Using a friend’s phone, she called her driver to check if she’d left in in her car, but was informed that it was not there. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to return to the security depot and enquire if it could have slipped out while she was checking in. The response she received struck her as odd. Not one or two, but multiple members of the staff on duty appeared to know about her missing phone, what’s appeared to be sheepish when confronted. This prompted her to search the area herself for it and sure enough she found it lying under other random material. So relieved was she on locating her phone and being somewhat of a retiring nature, she did not create a fuss or speak to the senior management of the hotel about what appeared to be a well-planned effort by a gang. What is worrying is how blithely we submit our valuables to the staff of such places without a second thought. Or the fact that even having got her phone back, she does not know if any personal data has been stolen from it. Moral of the story: SoBo grande dames must take adequate precautions when venturing in to mid-city…
True Lies
A SoBo grande dame had the most unnerving experience when she visited a mid-city five-star for a lunch appointment recently. Like all sensible people, she naturally submitted herself to all the security checks and balances, as in the normal course of affairs, such as her bag being put through the scanner and a physical check by a lady security agent. All was going well until, way in to her lunch appointment, she put her hand in to her bag to retrieve her phone, which she always carried inside it, only to discover it was missing! Using a friend’s phone, she called her driver to check if she’d left in in her car, but was informed that it was not there. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to return to the security depot and enquire if it could have slipped out while she was checking in. The response she received struck her as odd. Not one or two, but multiple members of the staff on duty appeared to know about her missing phone, what’s appeared to be sheepish when confronted. This prompted her to search the area herself for it and sure enough she found it lying under other random material. So relieved was she on locating her phone and being somewhat of a retiring nature, she did not create a fuss or speak to the senior management of the hotel about what appeared to be a well-planned effort by a gang. What is worrying is how blithely we submit our valuables to the staff of such places without a second thought. Or the fact that even having got her phone back, she does not know if any personal data has been stolen from it. Moral of the story: SoBo grande dames must take adequate precautions when venturing in to mid-city…
Enter, The Queen
Former Jaipur princess and BJP MP from Rajsamand Diya Kumari’s recent claims that her family descended from Lord Ram’s son appears to be just one more instance of the ambitious erstwhile royal’s attempts to shimmy up the success ladder. A few months ago, members of an elite owners-only business club were agog that Kumari had crashed in to what it regarded as its most prestigious and coveted women’s forum, one which boasted powerful individuals like Nita Ambani, Swati Piramal, Ananya Goenka and Nawaz Modi Singhania amongst others. “This group had long been regarded as one of the club’s most vied for cliques as it afforded access and proximity to the cream of India Inc women, whose simple nod could open any door. Many in the past had tried to crash it and many had failed as entry to it could only be granted after very careful vetting and when all of its high-powered members agreed to a new entrant. “The fact that Kumari had been afforded its membership was seen as evidence that she had won the approval of the forum’s most powerful member,” said an insider. Interestingly, this breaking in to India Inc’s most exclusive club along with being a ruling party MP are not Kumari’s only claim to fame. As mother of the 21-year-old polo-playing Padmanabh Singh, the dashing royal who has captured the world’s imagination with his massive weekend bashes at his palace in Jaipur and his appearances on European runaways, Kumari has already seen her cache rise. Interestingly, we noticed that Arvind Singh Mewar, the erstwhile Maharana of Udaipur, had posted the following on his social media: “It is historically proven that my family is direct descendants of Shree Ram. We do not wish to stake any claim on Ram Janma Bhumi but believe that Shree Ram Temple must be built at Ram Janma Bhumi in Ayodhya.”
This takes palace intrigue to a stratospheric level.
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