It was certainly a fashion forward moment when Deepika Padukone and the designer of her celebrated wedding trousseau Sabyasachi, along with Business of Fashion’s CEO Imran Ahmed engaged in a conversation on Sunday at Soho House in Juhu. What is being commended is the candidness of the dialogue. From nuggets about what went into the planning of Padukone’s fairy tale wedding to Ranveer Singh last year at Lake Como, to gems about how they managed to pull off the secrecy (all those working on the garments were told that they were for a 5ft 11inch bride who just happened to be super model Naomi Campbell who was marrying an Indian prince!) (It’s a wonder that such an imaginative fib didn’t get picked up by the press and passed off as the truth!) Other revelations that had the audience riveted are said to be how hands on the bride had been planning every detail of her big day, how each of her outfits had created a copycat industry, 10 times larger than the designer’s, and how Sabyasachi, one of India’s most successful designers, had, like Padukone, suffered from depression as a child for almost seven years. As is known, Padukone, a few years ago with great risk to her career, had spoken about her battle for mental health and her courage had gone a long way in de-stigmatising the subject. Dressed in sunshine yellow and flashing her famous dimpled smile, sources inform that the actress departed straight after the event, while the other panellists stayed back and mingled with the well-heeled audience.

True Lies
Cat fight in Bollywood alert: This one is so mind-numbingly vacuous that its only use is for a giggle.
So these two actresses, one in her mid-20s and the other in her late 30s, had a somewhat bitchy exchange recently while shooting for a show as promotion for the younger actress’ upcoming release, with her dishy male lead also present. Miffed at the attention the dishy actor was paying to his co-star (duh: It’s part of a film promotion!), the elder actress, who was conducting the interview, is supposed to have dissed the young actress during the lunch break in front of many, pointing out a flaw in her attire, with a rather crude reference to her inner garments. According to sources, this piece of spite resulted in the younger actress, now with a bright and shiny career turning decidedly frosty, distancing herself from her interlocutor the moment shooting wrapped. “When asked if she’d like to join the crew for a post-shoot drink, she’d begged off saying she was tired or unwell, or something,” said a source, adding, “And what’s worse is that to everyone’s embarrassment, they ran into her at some club later that night!” Apparently, the source of the problem is that both gals are trying for pole position in a prominent Bollywood designer’s inner circle. “Each one wants to be his only BFF (read chief chamcha,)” said the source.
Ahso.

Tweet Talk
Hema Malini won
Sunny Deol won
Dharmendra has more MPs at home than AAP or JDS or RJD in Parliament
- Popular meme going around yesterday.

Freda’s Son

(From left) Gerson da Cunha, Kabir Bedi, Dolly Thakore, Parveen Dusanj and Quasar Thakore-Padamsee.

Sunday evening saw actor Kabir Bedi and author Andrew Whitehead speak about the latter’s book ‘The Lives of Freda’, about an idealistic and high-minded English rose (who later came to be known as Freda Bedi) who had married, against pretty severe opposition, a fellow student at Oxford, an Indian called BPL Bedi. Returning to British-ruled India, she had embraced Indian clothes and life with gusto, adjusting to her new Punjabi joint family and immersing herself in the freedom struggle, while also playing a significant role in the intellectual life of North India. If that is not enough, after a rich intellectually and politically engaged life, she had, in her later years, gone on to discover a deep spiritual vein, becoming a highly-renowned Buddhist nun, one of the first Western women ordained to be a renowned Buddhist nun who played a pioneering role in its dissemination abroad. Responding to a question on what it was like growing up with a mother like his and with two intellectually-vibrant parents, Bedi had recounted, how in his teens, his had been a middle class household and often, when he returned home from college, there would be a house full of people: writers, artists, intellectuals, political stalwarts and Tibetan, Buddhist lamas. “It was an open house. Everyone would get tea…” narrated Bedi fondly, “…but not much else.” Interestingly, Bedi also narrated, quite candidly, how deeply shocked and hurt he’d been when he’d first seen his mother with her shaved head and maroon nun’s garb. “I guess now I can see she’d not shared it with me because she knew I’d try and dissuade her,” said the actor, who’d often stayed at monasteries with his mother. “But at that time it really hurt.” The highlight of the evening was when Whitehead read out a letter that he’d chanced upon, after the book had been written, from the 21-year-old Freda to her would-be brother-in-law, who disapproved of her, arguing her own case for making a suitable Indian bride. Her passionate idealistic words left a warm glow amongst the audience.

First Published: May 28, 2019 00:58 IST