Year-end musing

To encapsulate the events of the past year is an onerous task which few of us can recall but from a memory data bank. To watch 25 years unfold with dramatic footage culled through 701 covers of India Today made compelling watching at the Taj Palace last week.

India Today laid on a grand bash to celebrate 25 in 2000 in the capital. The Prime Minister, L K Advani, Vasundhara Raje and a retinue of senior leaders, Sonia Gandhi, Sharat Pawar, Natwar Singh, V George all coalesced in the spirit of the evening. Top bureaucrats, the Attorney General and a host of dignitaries graced this proud celebration.

Mumbai was represented by industrialist Anil Ambani, the Godrejs and the Shah brothers. Rajan nanda, Shekhar Gupta, Anjolie Ela Menon, Raja Menon, Rupika Chawla, Arun Kapur, Nafisa Ali, Prannoy Roy, Vinod and Kavita Khanna, Aroon and Rani's son Ankur, daughters, Koel and Kali with husband Raj, all made the evening a gala of the virtual who's who. After the cocktails we converged to the ballroom to watch the audio visual, interspersed with two brief, humourous acts, one by Cyrus Broacha, our man from MTV and the other by our very own mover Shekhar Suman.

A compelling reason to be photographed that evening was a going home present of the photo made to the cover of India Today, as Millennium Woman/ Couple/ Sisters. Undoubtedly many in the august gathering had made it to the cover but it provided a light movement of fantasy and fun.

Mumbai, the same weekend, witnessed a migration en flock of the tittering classes of champagne purists, to Pawai where Nawaz and Gautam Singhania hosted their giga year-end celebration. Over two thousand of Mumbai's fun, fake-tan-from-a-sunbed lot ate, drank and partook of the fabled warmth of the Singhania hospitality. Ritu and Ajat Shatru Singh, my close friends from Delhi, were in Mumba for the weekend and the mammoth crowd and a general Mumbai-on-a-Saturday-night ambience, came as a pleasant surprise.

Suman Ranganathan the gorgeous south Indian babe, married the hunk Gautam Kapoor at Gallops, at the race course this week. A simple elegant function, all their close friends and family converged to wish the couple. The bride looked radiant, dew drop perfect in red and gold and hugged Gautam's arm lovingly for the photo calls. Cute? Sure! Suchitra Pillai, ravishing in pink, Bandana Krishnan, radiating a glow in red and mustard, Ravi Krishnan calm in blue and the irrepressible Sharad Kapoor, debonair in black.

Perplexing. Media-fuelled rumours, aimed at our numero uno star Hritik Roshan, made for confusion galore on both sides of the Indo-Nepal border, this past week. The papers carried the news of the death of two students and the burning of Hritik's effigy. The star had still not issued a personal denial and the media went into overkill.

When I was asked by a prominent film director where the solution perhaps lay, I unhesitatingly said: "Get him to a camera and a microphone and flash the denial to the electronic media immediately." Yet when the stout, clarion clear, ringer of truth, denial came from Hritik, the delay perhaps kept the wheels of opportunism and grudge turning. Indeed the sad, sad, aspect of all this is that the newly weds have barely been married a week and do have a right to privacy on a honeymoon. Yet, the controversy meant Hritik had to take centre stage again.

There was an air of discontent amongst the press corps when they didn't get their scoop photos of the wedding. An oversight, I am sure, but security was the overwhelming concern, so perhaps the slip was unintentional. Again, this family has been to hell and back with Rakesh's shooting episode and the threats to the family. The unprecedented success of Kaho Na... brought with it a buck-caught-in-the-headlight wave of media attention, which flattering as it may well be, destroys every semblance of privacy. Then came the little niggling stories of Hritik and another actress. Again, the timing of the stories left much to be desired, especially in the light of the fact that Hritik and Suzanne were newly weds and deserved a respite.

The Nepal drama could well have been the work of the nefarious underworld and lumpen elements thereof. But a quick personal denial, thus questioning the veracity of the rumour, may have stopped the escalation of electronic sound bytes and the proliferation of print speculation. I can personally vouch for both Hritik and Suzanne as truly in love, thus on cloud nine as a couple. I am sure they never meant to give umbrage when they guarded their privacy so carefully on their wedding day.

Living under any kind of fear is debilitating and as young lovers world over they wanted just to be left alone. Fate, however, meant otherwise and Hritik became a victim of a vicious, unfounded rumour campaign. Sensitive as he is the loss of life and India bashing that prevailed in the aftermath must have hurt. Now that the dust has settled, may the Lord bless and protect both of them, always. A Happy New Year to one and all...