Customs and caviar

Away from the recession, away from the Aussie bashings, and far, far away from the shanty demolitions of the Slumdog kids' homes, soirees in snotty South Mumbai are as frothy as ever

Customs and caviar

Away from the recession, away from the Aussie bashings, and far, far away from the shanty demolitions of the Slumdog kids' homes, soirees in snotty South Mumbai are as frothy as ever.

The other day at an art show, billed as affordable (With price tags starting at around 5 lakhs a sketch "affordable" to a certain fluffy set is a tad different than when it comes to us menial salaried masses), the champagne, chiffon and Chanel swished around with equal abandon.

On the walls, the art lay forgotten. The pieces that were worth it anyway, had already been picked up. But the conversation was far more animated. One of the original Moet inner circle had just been picked up by customs for ostensibly smuggling in jewellery. Depending on how the oohs and the aaahs went, any outsider could distinguish between the said picked-upee's friends, foes and merely ogling-with-curiosity fellow air kissers.

A rather bitchy bottle blonde (obviously a foe) clamped her teeth over a canapu00e9 that had more calories than she'd intaken in a week, and sniffed through the Beluga; "Poor baby is right!" she mock-grieved "Heard they're scraping the bottom of their bank accounts these days. Fifty was all she could spend this summer!"u00a0
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"Lucky cow" went an anorexic ex-model-now-married-to-a-famous-plastic-surgeonu00a0 variety, as she held up her glass (with a salutary raise) and her chin (with a surgical staple). "Food is so bad in jail, she'll lose so much weight. And save a heap ofu00a0 money not visiting her usual Gstaad health farm!"

Bitchy blonde (definitely the enemiest of the foes) wrapped her lipsticked lips around a luscious strawberry and sniffed again "Unfortunately fifty lakhs is such a piffle, she'll be out in no time and strutting around again as is she owns the world."

Meanwhile,u00a0the champagne was running out,. Everybody who was anybody had arrived fashionably late and were now ready to leave fashionably early after all "Daaahling, there are six parties to go to this evening, you know and it take such a while to change in the car in between each one."

The paintings looked forlornly on as the lights dimmed. And the jet set flirted off to another glitzy gaggle.

The lady in jail was forgotten as easily as the art there are more crucial issues like choosing the right Botega to go with that sooo-this-season Balenciaga, you know.

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