What happens when a couple of Marathi mulgis (read Shobhaa De and Madhu Sapre) meet up in Milano? Well, here’s a first hand account...
What happens when a couple of Marathi mulgis (read Shobhaa De and Madhu Sapre) meet up in Milano? Well, here’s a first hand account...
What does one Marathi mulgi say to another when they meet in Milano? “Kasa kai,” of course. I had invited one of my all-time favourite glam gals, Madhu Sapre, to attend my book launch party in Italy. We’d met for an extended ‘catch up’ session at home the last time she was in Mumbai a couple of months ago.
I’ve always liked Madhu for her transparent candour and upfrontness. With her, what you see is what you get. And that makes her a really attractive person. She’d told me about her life in Rimini, a small seaside town in Italy, and I had tried to imagine the former Miss India slaving away as a marketing executive in her father-in-law’s gelato company.
I found it difficult to reconcile the image of her that we are all familiar with— a super model, beauty pageant title holder (she lost by a whisker because she wasn’t shrewd enough to parade Mother Teresa), with that of a traditional Italian wife boiling pasta for her husband and tending tomatoes in a kitchen garden. Wasn’t happening.
Madhu had accepted my email invite promptly and taken a train to Milano, where we met up near Via Spiga for a quick iced tea and gup shup before the party. I was carrying one of my sarees for her. “I have put on weight…” Madhu confessed, pinching her waist. She was wearing silk trousers and a demure white shirt… simple and businesslike.
Yet, not surprisingly, she attracted so many stares in a city crammed with gorgeous women. Is Madhu used to being gawked at? She blushed, “Strangers send me flowers and notes with phone numbers…” Well, I couldn’t wait to find out how the Italian publishing world and the local media would react to Mumbai’s loss and Rimini’s gain.
As it turned out, Madhu with her utterly disarming manner and innate charm, floored them all — first, by jabbering fluently in Italian (albeit, with her own distinct Maharashtrian accent) ,and then by her spontaneous friendliness that has marked Madhu’s popularity through the croc-infested waters of the modeling world she has left behind.
Following the huge success of my India-themed book launch in London, the canny Italian publishers followed suit by hosting the event in Milano’s choicest desi restaurant ‘Tara’, run by a Lucknowi kurta-clad Ash, an old Sanawar school buddy of our very own Sanjay Dutt.
Incongruous as it sounds, an Italian bharatnatyam dancer was roped in to provide a jhalak of Bharatdesh. She daringly chose Aishwarya Rai’s “Silsila hai chhaat ka…” to dance to. The stupefied guests watched intently and I didn’t have the heart to disillusion them. The lovely mehendiwalli was a big hit drawing henna tattoos for guests and selling cd’s of her songs. Turned out Archana Sharma has a Master’s degree combined with a B.Ed, and is making a fairly good living in the fashion mecca of the world, embellishing trendinistas at glittering soirees.
Whilst Madhu and I conversed hungrily in Marathi, local journos, intrigued by her life in a tiny town close by, grilled her gently.A well-connected merchandiser of luxury goods took down her contact details as Madhu happily posed for pictures.
I, of course, grabbed the opportunity to brag a little…no, not about my books, but the dazzling India story. “Do all the women in your country look like Madhu?” a love-struck reporter asked. If only! But I kept my mouth shut and smiled mysteriously.
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