Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Hair Today…

In it Padukone, known for her lustrous locks, which she has trusted to Saldanha’s care for many years, sported a ‘bob cut’, akin to that sported by Romi Dev, whose role she essays in the movie

“I cut this style on a wig in June 2019,” said celebrity hairstylist Clarabelle Saldanha about the photograph of Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone from the sets of the much awaited bio-pic ‘83’ on iconic cricketer Kapil Dev and India’s victory at the 1983 World Cup, which was released yesterday and had garnered much interest and comment. In it Padukone, known for her lustrous locks, which she has trusted to Saldanha’s care for many years, sported a ‘bob cut’, akin to that sported by Romi Dev, whose role she essays in the movie. “I had to give her the ’80’s look and the style that was on Romi that time,” said Saldanha, from her salon between cuts, yesterday. “It was created only for this movie and today is the first day people are seeing it.”

In it Padukone, known for her lustrous locks, which she has trusted to Saldanha’s care for many years, sported a ‘bob cut’, akin to that sported by Romi Dev, whose role she essays in the movie

Saldanha had also styled the actress for her role in Chhapaak. In the film, based on the life of acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, the actress’ mane had acquired a more girl-next-door look.

Which of Padukone’s looks did her personal hairstylist like the best, we enquired. “The current one, which we did last December,” was her reply.

We had to agree.

WTSWTM

WTS:

“The coronavirus outbreak will have limited impact on India.”’

- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das.

WTM:

“We’re expecting low growth numbers here too.”

TRUELIES

Big Boys and their Toys

Our Oolong tea-serving hostess friend, whose frequent hops across the world’s luxury capitals are fuelled by the generosity of her wealthy friends and their private jets, resulting in the happy prospect of her rarely having to see the inside of a commercial flight – first class be damned – had an interesting observation to make this weekend. “Recently, when I landed at Mumbai’s private airport and saw many familiar PJs belonging to my friends parked in the hangar, it got me thinking,” she trilled.

Since this was an unusual activity, we sat up. “The thing is it’s easy to tell the men from the boys thanks to the size of their toys…” she said. “But it struck me that the biggest tycoons of India Inc, who own enormous aircrafts and their relatively far smaller fellow tycoons, whose planes look like tiny grasshoppers in comparison, (ouch!) all seem to have one thing in common…” she said, adding “They all advertise their own names or their company’s names on their PJs in the largest letters possible across their aircrafts, which can be seen for miles away…”

So? we asked. “So, why would they do that? Elsewhere in the world whichever private airports I’ve been in, I’ve noticed the owners of PJs actually go to great lengths to conceal their own identities –either for security reasons, or, because they don’t want to be accused of conspicuous consumption. If at all, they are to have their names on their plane’s nose, it’s inscribed discreetly…” she said. “But here, it appears to be the opposite. In fact the smaller PJs advertise the loudest!”

What’s strangest according to the OTSFH, quite an authority on PJ flying by now, is that the most discreet PJ belonging to an Indian is the one she had spotted a few years ago, docked at a Far East beach resort. “It had only the initials written discreetly on the plane’s frontage,” she said visibly impressed. “But may be that’s because it belonged to a politician…” she said.

And then, she tinkled her little bell, to call for more hot water…

Doing it his way

By any stretch of the imagination, NCP spokesperson Clyde (Rocky) Crasto is not your run-of-the-mill politician. For one, the 48- year old, who studied and practices interior designing as his day job, says he speaks five languages fluently, is an avid debater in all, plays the guitar, sketches and does political cartoons and writes thoughtful articles in a variety of media outlets; besides, he is unerringly polite and well mannered, qualities not generally associated with members of his ilk.

NCP spokesperson Clyde (Rocky) Crasto

“I have been in NCP for 13 years, before that I was in the Congress and have worked since I was a teenager with my father who was a Congress corporator,” says the alumnus of St Xavier’s School and College, who is also a state-level gold medallist in powerlifting.

We had spoken with Crasto yesterday about his caricature of US President Donald Trump, seated atop a wall, Humpty Dumpty-style, on which Crasto had emblazoned the words ‘Potus Lotus, sat on a wall…’ “My political caricatures are a message to society about current political situations,” he said by way of explanation, adding, ‘I joined politics to serve people and my party NCP has helped me do so.” As we were saying, NCP spokesperson Clyde (Rocky) Crasto is not your run-of-the-mill politician.