The gang that can’t shoot straight

The gang that can’t shoot straight

Even as the heaving, creaking wreckage of this once invincible political party tries to get its act together and line up behind its dear young leader, observers can’t help shake their heads in despair about the sorry state of its affairs. “Its right hand doesn’t know what its left is doing,” said one wag in horror at its latest fiasco: a prominent member, someone who is being projected as the next CM of his state, has allowed a TV channel to use his Lutyen’s bungalow as location for recordings.

What’s wrong with that, you might charitably enquire. After all, it is quite common in Delhi for occupants of government accommodation to allow people to use their sprawling premises, especially those sumptuous one-acre lawns, for weddings and parties. But TV recordings is a whole new ball game, say observers, especially when you consider that one such programme shot in this very locale, was stridently critical of dear young leader and took the view that he had failed miserably to inspire his party. 

“They don’t need an opposition,” the wag remarked. “They keep defeating themselves”.

A silver lining

A song with lyrics like ‘I miss you in the morning/I miss you through the day/I miss you when it’s sunny/And when sunlight turns away’ might not be the sword that cuts through the Gordian knot of homophobia, but in these times of gathering regressive clouds, it could be viewed as a silver lining.

Which is why when our friend, the former public relations maven Sharif Rangnekar, texted with news that the Censor Board’s decision to give his music video on gay love — ‘Miss You’ — an A certificate, and a 10-second cut had been overturned by the appellate tribunal and instead been handed a UA certificate with no cuts, we understood his elation. “Given the context of the LGBTQI movement in India, this is a shift, even if small, where a tribunal believes that a music video such as this should be on TV for all to watch, albeit with parental guidance,” says the award-winning communications consultant who says he wrote the song over a heartbreak and then got his band ‘Friends of Linger’ to record it at his home. “Some of my friends who are actively challenging the constitutionality of section 377 said they will consider this breakthrough when they meet next week to discuss their future actions,” he said, adding, “what was particularly inspiring was that some well-known Right-wingers on the panel turned out to be genuinely sympathetic.”

Out, out, wine snobbery!

Word comes in that a series of intimate wine dinners will be held across the country to coincide with the visit of Bruce Cakebread, President and COO of Cakebread Cellars, one of Napa Valley’s biggest successes. The first, an al fresco one with a specially curated eight course contemporary Indian menu with wine pairing, is being held mid-February in the stylish Lodhi Hotel on the eve of Valentine’s Day. Hosted by Madhulika Bhattacharya, a vivacious Bengali married to the one of the country’s biggest wine and spirits importers, whose moniker — Madame La Cave — lends a delicious frisson to the premium wine and spirits store La Cave that she runs, it will have Cakebread mingle with guests “I call them my ‘unwined’ dinners, which aim at taking the pretentiousness and snobbery out of wine!” says Bhattacharya.
We like!

Artsy-partsy

Nothing gets into quite as stylish a tizzy as Delhi at full social tilt: Art-crazed heiresses in pashmina saris; ferociously cultured Urdu-couplet-lilting grandees; roiled-in-the-earth sculptors with enough street cred and bon mots to illuminate the corners of vast drawing rooms; and even the odd industrialist/politico/diplomat who can pronounce ‘Ai We Wei’ without spluttering in to his Bordeaux. Ah! the wonders of Delhi in the final countdown to the India Art Fair.

“There are at least fifteen highly sought-after art events coming up,” said one feverishly excited art tart. “The reception thrown by the French Ambassador for Jitish Kallat’s show at the National Gallery was well attended. The next most-awaited event is the gala benefit dinner held on the eve of the opening of the Fair hosted by Asia Society for its first Asia Arts Awards in India. Over 150 global artists, curators, collectors, arts professionals are expected to attend,” she said. “The other much-awaited events are well-known art patron Kiran Nadar’s soiree, where prized works from her staggering collection will be exhibited, and another hosted by uber collector Nitin Bhayana. You cannot imagine the lengths to which people are going to to score invites for these parties. ‘We will bring along the Count and the Maharani,’ they say to the hosts in the hope of cadging an invitation.”
And do the hosts oblige? We enquired.

“Of course not!” said the art tart, tartly. “By now, Delhi hosts have seen enough of all those spurious Count De Monies and Maharanis of Cooch Bhi Nahin to be unimpressed”.

Sixties child

One of the highlights of the upcoming India Art Fair is leading contemporary artists Thukral and Tagra’s Play Pray opening next week at the trendy Bikaner House. “Their work and installations are at the cusp of where design and art embrace one another,” says Mala Singh BH’s inceptor and guiding spirit, “much like the creative genius of the 60s when young people gave vent to their emotional constrictions by stepping out of the box.”

By coincidence, Singh was in London recently where she visited V&A’s ongoing exhibition ‘You say you want a revolution? Records and Rebels 1966–1970’.

“The Sixties generated great funky music, profound poetry, Allen Ginsberg, fashion, Twiggy, Abbey Road, Woodstock, the Beatles and more,” says the daughter of two of the country’s leading Left-leaning intellectuals, who had been quite a Sixties child herself. “It was a peaceful revolution that rejected authoritarian impositions in life and living,” she says, asking in a somewhat Blowing in the Wind kinda’ way: “Is the world coming full circle again?”

Yeah! And all we are saying is give peace a chance.