Oh boy. So where do I begin? This weekend has been pretty phenomenal overall with much more celebrity spotting than I had any idea was on the cards but as they say yeh hain Mumbai meri jaan (this is Mumbai my love) and anything is possible here!
*This is a nod to my favorite author Tom Robbins and his book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (this is in fact true of ALL girls.) But as you can tell I am not at all blue at this particular moment (neither am I a cowgirl, I just had time to kill, a camera and a hat.)
My night kicked off at Hard Rock Cafe where I was hosting the Ambassadors of Rock contest for Hard Rock Calling to send one lucky “rockstar” on an all-expense trip for two to London (Hyde Park) to watch Bruce Springsteen And E Street Band, Dave Mathews Band, The Killers, The Kooks, Neil Young, Fleet Foxes, The Pretenders and Seasick Steeve LIVE in concert. I love that this dude won.
Vinay Venkatesh actually IS a rockstar (can’t you tell?) He’s part of an Indian rock band called Bhayanak Maut aka Deadly Death (!) and hopes to give out copies of his new album on this trip. He was possibly the most shy rockstar I have ever met though and while my first impression was “woah scary” I eventually thought of him as “big & cuddly” (like a bear.)
And so began the celebrity spotting…
Now before you take me for some kind of megalomaniac please allow me to explain why I’m doing the cheesy poses along-side most of the “celebrities” in this weekend’s “spotting.” Believe it or not they all insisted I pose with them. Now I’ve tried to figure out why that is and have come to the following conclusions;
a) Said celebrities have (so far) not read my blog so don’t quite know what I’m up to (although this may potentially be a good thing.)
b) The fact that I’m requesting to take their picture with an LPC (or sometimes LPP) leads them to believe that I am how sweet a fan and by allowing me to share some pixel-space with them they’re being the celebrity with the big heart who is all about the fans.
Or (and this is based purely on Arbaaz Khan’s reaction at Shiro, Mumbai.)
c) They are wary of paparazzi catching them in compromising situations and feel safer with you in the picture since for one, paparazzi can’t print their own pictures (but lol@youmistercelebrity they sure can blog them!) and two they’re less likely (or so they think) to end up photo-shopped into a compromising situation.
Your guess is as good as mine. But as long as I GET the picture I’m solid. So whatever it takes baby, whatever it takes (plus I’m told I’m easy on the eye so hopefully you won’t mind too much!)
So anyway, remember Alina Wadiwala from Big Boss? She came up to ask (quite sweetly) about the next contest of its kind and was super friendly. My friends and I later headed over to Shiro ( good job if you noticed I changed!) where the music was jumping and found the waiters hovering around one particular table. Turns out they were expecting Malaika Arora & Arbaaz Khan at a private birthday celebration for a friend. Malaika was sweet enough to pose for a picture but Arbaaz pretty much flipped out when I took his (maybe I should have asked first but honestly he’s got to be used to it by now right? Besides you were there with your wife dude its legit chill out!) I mean he literally looked like I was trying to shoot him with a gun!
Newlyweds Amrita Arora & Shakeel Ladak showed up later, looked very much in love and lovingly put away several kamikaze shots in the process! Since I’ve texted Amrita from time to time for a quote or two for my column she was very friendly and quite willingly posed for this picture (and I mean posed) I like her she’s fun.
Oh and this was the best part! I met Nilesh Pawar who said “Hey you’re Malini right, you write articles…?” Bingo. Score. Slamdunk. Malaika Arora Khan’s bodyguard reads my blog. How cool is that?! He’s even offered to mail me some pictures of himself (looking intimidating.) Love it. Really nice guy too, he’s apparently worked the door (as a bouncer no doubt) at White (Rij Eappan’s bar, I used to love White) and even Shiro. He told me that they were coming in from Zenzi Mills and life is pretty chilled out since he only needs to be on duty once or twice a week.
(Can we just take a moment to lol@Arbaaz Khan though for a sporting a mean-ass sneer but having his wife’s bodyguard around just in case! Hilarious.)
P.S. I call this one “A Model & A Rockster!”
These are my friends Joey Cheng and Sidd Coutto. Sidd is also a rockstar and you can catch him at Daddy’s Wind Song Wednesday on June 3rd (don’t miss it he’s really good!) Joey is a lovely, shiny happy girl (with exotic good looks and loads of charisma) plus she just bought this fabulous new “Symphony Dress” and bag from French Connection so I just had to post you her pictures. Pretty right?!