Channel [v] Launch Pad after party (unplugged)

The afterparty at Tequila Lounge, Mumbai was sick (that’s American for superfun) and featured a fab and much less Bollywood hangover act featuring Ankur Tewari & The Ghalat Family, Anushka Manchanda and Tough on Tabacco live and extremely plugged in! Slowly but surely the cast and crew of the Channel [v] Launch Pad Concert for Change rolled in and proceeded to get happily high on open bar and extra tunes. Here’s my night in pictures (since you liked my last photo journal so much) I give you the who’s who;

Anushka Manchanda is a singer and a VJ. I think I’ve watched her evolution with rapt intrigue since the time she won a spot in the girl band VIVA and even scored some corrective lip surgery turning her into the vivacious, quirky and very very funny songstress that she is today. I am a superfan of her just-for-fun song called “Asshole” and she even dedicated it to me last night!

Shikar is Anushka’s borther. Clearly there is no dearth of reality show talent in this family! Shikar’s band Reverse Polarity won the Launch Pad challenge and popped some champagne to celebrate at the after party. I love the fact that brother and sister both pick sneakers & boots as their preferred footwear. Comfy but with oodles of attitude!

You gotta love the fact that mom and dad came to the after party. Clearly proud and progressive the Manchadani’s have oodles of pride in their children. Not only did Anushka make it big now it looks like Shikar is on his way too. The bonus for mom was that’s it’s Mother’s Day today and it turned out it was her birthday too! (Of course Anushka kicked off a sing-a-long to celebrate!)

So I’ve mentioned how awesome Raghu Dixit is already. Everyone also commented on just how down to earth too. He told me once that the reason he isn’t picking up and moving to Mumbai is because he wants to “keep it real.” I like that.

Ankur Tewari is a very talented musician. He sings, he writes he comes into the radio station and plays live and unplugged. He was also kind of shy and nervous before his gig, he says he always is (which made me feel so much better about always being nervous before mine too.) Eventually he totally rocked it of course.  (Oh and he was previously dating Yana Gupta!)

Daddy aka Sameer Malhotra is responsible for creating the other live music venue I told you about (from scratch) in Mumbai. Formerly married to Sapna Bhavnani he now seems mostly in love with music and shows musicians of every form and design a lot of love! I’m not sure why everybody calls him Daddy but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Anuradha Menon aka Lola Kutty is the quick-witted comic character on Channel [v] that everyone just adores. In this case she was beauty off duty. But I strongly advise you check out her various shenanigans on YouTube!

Speaking of beauty on duty Juhi Pande is the most adorable VJ on Channel [v] that makes every boy do a double take. She’s spunky, she’s fun and surprisingly totally unaware of how hot she is (this probably makes her much more fun to be around.) I have heard both boys and girls comment on her sparkling charisma from time to time and have also noticed that she likes to dance with her shoes off.

For those of us who were blissfully unaware this is Rajiv. Raghu Ram’s twin brother. Raghu is the guy who scares the crap out of the MTV Roadies on a regular basis. (Don’t worry I did a double take too.) Turns out (as if Raghu wasn’t enough) his identical twin is part of the Roadies jury too! Their main hobby is to create hell for the Roadies as twin terrors. I personally found Rajiv wonderfully amicable but I’m told they both have tempers that would scare the pants off any unsuspecting lush who tries (too hard) to hit on a girl in their vicinity. Be warned creepies!

Vikram Sathaye is a comic too. He specializes in cricket humor and does some hilarious imitations. (I’ve also been lucky enough to see him do his “Salman Khan” and South Indian TV special.) Check him out here. Vikram and I used to work together at MTV what feels like a lifetime ago and he maintains that my lifestyle still gives him a headache.

Raghav Sachar is the multi-talented musician I’ve mentioned before. He’s currently shooting a brand new video I’ll give you a sneak peak of hopefully soon. He formerly dated Gauhar Khan until she decided to date the other Brit Asian rapper also called Raghav who’s not nearly as adorable as this one.

Mantra is a radio jockey and VJ who I initially wasn’t crazy about, in fact I just assumed he’d be annoying but I watched him do his thing on stage with Juhi yesterday and you have to hand it to him he’s a super emcee in Hindi especially. I guess it does take a certain kind of skill to be that guy and be it well so props to you Mantra. (I just don’t know about the scarf when its 45 degrees out.)

Sheetal Sudhir is the Creative Director at Channel [v]. Basically this was her baby and she managed to survive the hecticness with a sun stroke and a smile for shiny happy Bappi Lahiri. (On an aside, who do you think does his clothes?!) She did scoot off early from the after party to rest up for Sunday brunch at Bonobo, Mumbai and seemed mildly amused and pleased by the show in general. She also totally cracks me up.

I met Sid Coutto at my first radio job where he was having fun sound engineering. He’s since been part of three bands, Zero, Helga’s Funk Castle and now Tough on Tabacco. I’ve always loved this song of their’s called “Not my Kind of Girl” and admired his drumming skills but dude the boy can sing too! He rocked out at the after party to thunderous applause and quite clearly that certain something that all rockstars possess. (I particularly liked the little spin he took around stage between lyrics. Too cute.)

Even though Pentegram boycotted the concert Vishal Dadlani came to the after party since he was the primary judge I suppose that makes sense.

Amman was kind enough to let me into the MIP* section of the afterparty (where all the cool kids hang out) and saved me from being evicted by the bouncer (because I didn’t have the right stamp and its true I was technically MIP gate-crashing) twice. I don’t actually know what Amman does (or his last name) but I can tell you that he hurt his hand in a a karate competition and also his head by walking into a door. The fact that he shared this story quite sincerely makes me think that Amman is a rockstar. I was also momentarily confused as to which one was Amman after he and his buddy swapped hats and glasses a few times. (I realize in hindsight and the clarity of detox that I could have just gone by their clothes. Ah well.)

*Most Important Person just a notch above VVIP!

The Channel [v] crew were the first to hit the dance floor and the last to leave. Full props for the energy. As you can see my friend Ken passed out but thanks to my other friend Redbull, I did not! 🙂