<p>A photographer aiming for a shot of Fatima Sana Shaikh exiting a Bandra beauty store on Tuesday found himself unexpectedly in the frame, when the actress reached in to share the sweet potato he was snacking on.&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Flying high, thinking higher</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/feb/Rahul-Bhatia_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Bhatia. Pic/Getty Images" width="1280" height="720" /><strong><em>Rahul Bhatia. Pic/Getty Images</em></strong></p>
<p>Late last year, IndiGo experienced one of the biggest operational disruptions in its history. Flight cancellations and the ensuing chaos left many passengers disgruntled. Not surprisingly, the airline faced some serious flack, with commentators bandying about words like &lsquo;poor governance&rsquo; and &lsquo;oversight.&rsquo; The board, and even Group Managing Director Rahul Bhatia, was the target of barbs. It&rsquo;s a sad treatise on our times that people complain vociferously but compliment softly &mdash; a pattern evident in the case of IndiGo. &ldquo;There was no clamour to remark on how quickly the airline bounced back,&rdquo; says our fly on the wall in the capital, while letting us in on a little-known fact. Through it all, Bhatia was undergoing treatment for a nerve-related back ailment in Switzerland. And yet he remained hands-on when firefighting was required. Moreover, despite battling on two fronts at the time, we hear Bhatia was thinking about those with less access than he has. &ldquo;His medical ordeal prompted him to consider the need for similar world-class recuperative facilities in India. He wants to open a post-operative care unit here, where people unable to afford exorbitant costs will receive subsidised treatment,&rdquo; I&rsquo;m told. It may be some time before thought begets action, but the thought is certainly a noble one.</p>
<h2>Sinful Sage</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/feb/Deepak-Chopra_e.jpg" alt="Deepak Chopra" width="1280" height="720" /><br /><strong><em>Deepak Chopra</em></strong></p>
<p>They say there&rsquo;s no such thing as bad publicity, but that may not be the case for Deepak Chopra. How does a &lsquo;wellness guru&rsquo; recover from a globally publicised friendship with a notorious sex-trafficker? Worse still is the flippant, distasteful tone of their exchange, laid bare in the latest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein documents, released by the US House Oversight Committee and the Department of Justice. &ldquo;God is a construct. Cute girls are real,&rdquo; says Chopra in a 2017 email to Epstein &mdash; and that is just one indigestible morsel. The latter&rsquo;s crimes were an open secret by this time, so our godforsaken guru should have known he was laughing with Lucifer. If Chopra now thinks that a pseudo-apology expressing &ldquo;regret&rdquo; for his &ldquo;poor judgment in tone&rdquo; (not in friends!) will suffice, he severely underestimates public outrage. Good luck finding any &ldquo;cheerleaders&rdquo; going forward.</p>
<h2>Social Engagement</h2>
<p>Power moves happen in boardrooms, but the ones that are cemented in ballrooms are far more telling. Late last week, the worlds of telecommunications and entertainment collided in the capital, with the engagement of Zubin Bharti Mittal and Nayana Bijli. On February 6, both proud fathers &mdash; Bharti Enterprises&rsquo; Rajan Mittal and PVR&rsquo;s Ajay Bijli &mdash; welcomed an august gathering at the Mittal home on Amrita Shergill Marg. Expectedly, the evening was a who&rsquo;s-who of influence, with titans of industry, media moguls, and policymakers mingling over carefully curated cocktails and hors d&rsquo;oeuvres &mdash; from our dapper Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar to Mahua Moitra and DLF&rsquo;s Rajiv Singh, to cigar czar Chetan Seth, carrying his customary Cubans. Mumbai representation came in the form of veteran politician Praful Patel and wife Varsha, as well as Sajjan and Sangita Jindal.</p>
<h2>Soory not sorry</h2>
<p><img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/feb/Vaibhav-batting_e.jpg" alt="Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. PIC/PTI" width="1280" height="720" /><br /><strong><em>Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. PIC/PTI</em></strong></p>
<p>A good pun is like a six over midwicket &mdash; fun to watch when someone else gets hit. England&rsquo;s U-19 World Cup hopes were smashed by India in Harare, courtesy of Mumbai marvel captain Ayush Mhatre and Rajasthan&rsquo;s own Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The 14-year-old dynamo didn&rsquo;t just bat; he launched a fireworks display of 175 runs, blasting 15 sixes and as many fours. Reporting the matter under the headline SOORY ENGLAND CRUSHED, British tabloid The Sun put its best foot forward. Clearly, when its headline writers get the chance to combine cheek and cricket, they hit it out of the park.</p>

It may be some time before thought begets action, but the thought is certainly a noble one

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