Will Daler show?

And even as the suspense over Daler Mehndi's promise to join EDM superstar Deadmau5 on stage for his much-awaited concert this weekend in Mumbai builds, we asked the show's organiser Percept's Shailendra Singh about the mutual admiration society between the two very different artists.

Deadmau5

"I'm super shocked, awed and excited at the deadly Deadmau5 and Daler bromance... Los Angeles to Ludhiana. Wicked," said the impressario, who'd just returned from London with enough hyperbole and enthusiasm, to stun a dozen bulls in their track.

Daler Mehndi

But when questioned directly on whether the bhangra star will actually appear, all we got was a bit of waffle. "To be honest maybe, maybe not," said Singh. "It depends on how it all works out. But yes it will be nice to get them to meet," he said. So about whether the Mehndi and Mouse meet - your guess is as good as mine.

SoBo snobbery
And more about the billionaire banker who's been rapped on the knuckles by his snooty SoBo club. Apparently, his membership had been sponsored by this old school gent, father to a successful CEO of a dotcom art website. "It ran against the grain as far as the old boys of the committee were concerned," said a source. "There's a great snob system that exists and it extends to carpet bigger financial lords and the likes of what they call the ‘trader-class' set, people who basically get their hands soiled with ‘work': architects, accountants, bankers, and horse trainers," said our source.

A snob system against good honest labour? Could only happen in SoBo..

Free spirits all

Undoubtedly, it's the year of the outspoken female icon. Following on the heels of Kangana Ranaut's delightfully honest pre-Queen interviews in which she comes across as an unashamed, unapologetic and refreshingly honest, non-conformist free thinker, we have another Bollywood actress whose made a strong case for the intelligent and unafraid to be so woman: Kalki Koechlin's feisty monologue delivered at the India Today Conclave in which she takes on centuries of misogyny armed only with the insouciance of her words and clad in pair of silk jammies no less has become a great talking point on the net.

And with filmmakers such as the likes of Zoya Akhtar, Farah Khan, Kiran Rao and Suzanne Khan who each in their own way have struck out for womanhood there's almost a small tsunami of authentic female voices emerging from Bollywood. We've come a long way, baby!

Kiran Rao

Raghu Rai is on the course
The good souls at the RWITC are ever active. After the visit of Dr Farooq Abdullah and Dr Rajendra Pachauri a few weeks ago to launch the RWITC's Green Circle Foundation, the Club, lungs to a swathe of SoBo, we learn, had another interesting visitor over the weekend.

The celebrated lensman, Raghu Rai, whose pictures of deserts, disasters and despots has won him many admirers has been commissioned by the Club to shoot its heritage property.

Vivek Jain with Raghu Rai

Apparently, Vivek Jain, chairman, RWITC, took it upon himself to chronicle the 130th anniversary of the racecourse and engaged the lensman to capture images of the 220 acres in its entire splendour.

"The Club hopes to exhibit about 50 of these images shortlisted by Raghu on the 130th Anniversary Cup Day, which falls at the end of March, and then take steps to put together a coffee table book with pictures also from its archives, a first for the RWITC in its history," said Jain.

Hope they're lots of pictures of fancy Derby hats too!

Say it for LSD
And even as John Lennon's Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is believed to be a subtle paean to LSD (Lucy Sky Diamonds, geddit?) it appears that he wasn't alone in using the acronym as a riddle.

John Lennon

This self-made retail magnate, who is known for his down to earth and practical homilies, is famous for saying that LSD is what every businessman intrinsically craves for and seeks. "L for Lakshmi (wealth), S for Saraswati (knowledge) and D for Durga (power) is what his caveat is. LSD=Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga?

Nice!

The battle of the bulge
There is nothing quite as delicious as the vanity of the Indian upper crust. And newest on the list, according to a source, is the Capital's latest craze: apparently, it's called ‘blouse liposuction' and it has to do with the fact that however much the aunties of ‘saddi Delhi' try and achieve zero-ness to fit into their designer cholis for the ‘wedding season', the effects of their labours is brought to naught by that one offending tell tale bulge that rises above and below the choli borders.

A model displays a choli on the ramp

Hence: blouse liposuction, a completely new original and indigenous variant of the age-old beauty regimen, because nowhere else in the world is such a service called for.

Just another medical repose to ‘choli ke peeche kya hain?'

we say.