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| Edited By: Malavika Sangghvi |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 12, 2017, 10:40 AM IST
If you think Delhi has been in the throes of one of its most frantic wedding seasons, you are not wrong. One overstretched matron appeared to be all ‘wedding-ed’ out by the end of it. “The royal nuptial between two important north Indian clans was unprecedented costume regalia,” she said, adding: “Ritu and Sanjiv Dalmia’s daughter Devina married a Bombay boy in elegant style at the Imperial Hotel. Then, Suresh Kumar of ITC Fortune Hotels and wife Rini had a fabulous baraat and wedding for a Punjabi-Sindhi alliance — all balle balle and good cheer”.
“And of course Vasudha and Mukul Rohatgi’s son Samir married Meher, his childhood sweetheart, and it was a grand wedding with multiple pre-wedding parties, including a fantastic night with Adnan Sami who did a pretty good cover of Sting’s Roxanne!” And now? A well-earned four days at a holistic spa in the hills for the matron, until it all revs up again during the second phase of Delhi’s annual wedding celebrations.
Rohit is an artistic photographer. He does photo art,” says Capital gal Neera Nath about Rohit Chawla, whose exhibition of photographs, entitled ‘The Inspired Frame’, is said to have blossomed like a rare orchid in Delhi’s politically charged hothouse this week. Chawla’s series of portraits, which pay tribute to Raja Ravi Varma, Gustav Klimt and Frida Kahlo, are said to have seduced not only Congressman Shashi Tharoor (who made a dash to Bikaner House just before he made it to his own 60th birthday celebrations), but even the BJP’s redoubtable Smriti Irani.
This high concept portraiture saw some of the Capital’s most luscious women cast as iconic works of art through Chawla’s lens. “I think he let us be ourselves, and yet fit it beautifully into the theme,” said Nath. “As for his work, I love it because I adore Kahlo, Verma and Klimt,” she added about the mingling of Indian modernism, Austrian eroticism and the unfettered self-expression of Kahlo.
There was a time when a sizeable serving of Delhi’s beautiful people would make a beeline to Jodhpur to spend Holi ‘with bapji’, as the dapper Eton-educated Gaj Singh, the erstwhile maharaja, was referred to, at the magnificent Umaid Bhavan Palace.
But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Today, the Holi action has shifted quite decidedly to neighbouring Jaipur. But, like in times past, a dashing Maharaja is once again said to be at its focal point. Meet Padmanabh Singh, the polo-playing grandson of Brigadier Bhawani Singh, the erstwhile Maharajah of Jaipur, who ascended the titular throne of the ‘Pink City’ at a magnificent coronation ceremony six years ago; and is said to have upped the ante considerably in the Palace Games with his swashbuckling style.
The result being that this Holi weekend is set to witness an almost unprecedented number of stylish soirees, black tie dinners, costume balls, polo matches and all-round revelry hosted by Singh and the Kasliwal clan, Jaipur’s internationally renowned first family of jewellery, which celebrated the birthday of one of its sons. “Blushing princesses in pastel chiffons wearing indescribably beautiful jewels, and their strapping handsome husbands in Raghavendra Rathore-crafted jodhpurs, created an indescribably glamorous effect,” gushed one of Lutyens’ grande dames at full tilt.
So as we were saying, the beautiful people still flock to Rajasthan during the long Holi weekend — except this time it’s to another palace in another corner of the state’s royal legacy.
Is there any such thing as a ‘type’ of Delhi diva? One erstwhile advertising bright spark, who long gave up selling soap to retire to a life of unabashed tedium, now spends his time crafting his best lines about some of the women he encounters in the Capital’s social circuit. “The famous danseuse,” he growls, while sipping on his fourth rum and Coke, “a flash-eyed harridan, who has ruled the cultural roost for decades, receiving a tsunami of grants from dancer-loving bureaucrats and politicians. He adds: “She spears the poor Secretary of Culture with a glare straight out of a scary abhanaya.” As for the society It Girl? “Well, she’s not a girl anymore,” he avers, adding: “Draped in designer wear, she flits from cocktail party to cocktail party, that famous song playing in her head like an annoying mosquito”. “But where do you go to my lovely?” he says. But his most lyrical comment is reserved for ‘The Activist’. “Her Chanderi is crumpled and crushed, her Chablis ice cold and crisp as she tears into the pompous old man from the former Planning Commission (she calls it the Planning Omission)”
When asked who these women were, the grandee looks his interlocutors straight in the eye and says, “Mais, I have no idea”.
Ever so often, the powers that be manage to do something so utterly right and progressive that all is forgiven, and we are utterly charmed. As was the case when the President Pranab Mukerjee threw open the doors of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, on his birthday a few years ago, to initiate its first artist-in-residence programme.
The initiative, an attempt to encourage young and upcoming writers and artists by allowing them to stay close to nature, has already seen the likes of author Amitav Ghosh and artists Paresh Maity and Jayasri Barman among others, spend a month each at the country’s most tony address. This week saw the culmination of the residency of India’s most celebrated artist couple, Bharti Kher and Subodh Gupta.
“It’s really such a great and special initiative,” said Gupta on Friday, on the eve of his departure. “It forced me to take a break and find new sources of inspiration, especially in the gardens in Rashtrapati Bhavan. The beautiful flowers have re-energised me.”
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