Dress designer Neeta Lulla who famously dressed up Aishwarya Rai as an Indian celebrity for the red carpet at Cannes, and as a bride when she wed Abhishek Bachchan, has had a gala time putting together a trousseau for her own daughter, Nishka. She also threw a glitzy Sunday brunch as a pre-wedding celebration. Along with doctor-husband Shyam Lulla and businessman son Sunny, Neeta and Nishka made a handsome foursome as they stood receiving guests with a lot of warmth and style at Hakkasan, the good meal restaurant for the well-heeled.

Overflowing with cocktails and celebrities, Neeta's most famous client did a quick guest appearance, accompanied by her even more famous father-in-law, Amitabh Bachchan. Neha Dhupia in a flowing gown floated around solo all afternoon while Shilpa Shetty's mother Sunanda came with second daughter Shamita.

Shamita whose acting career didn't quite take off, had announced her pack-up some time ago. "I have been doing interiors for some time," she said, "and a bit of real estate. But the glamour world keeps beckoning me. So here I am, now doing Jhalak Dikhla Jaa as a participant." There have been reports that Madhuri Dixit's contract as a celebrity judge on the dance show will not be renewed. (Considering the Maggi controversy, bad times for Ms Dixit?) In her place, Shilpa Shetty's name has been doing the rounds. If that happens, Shilpa will be in the judge's chair rating sister Shamita as a performer. That should add namak to Jhalak .

Ashutosh Gowariker, who's currently shooting his jumbo-scale Mohenjodaro with Hrithik Roshan, is one of the many filmmakers who have worked closely with Neeta. Neeta had styled Aishwarya for Gowariker's Jodhaa Akbar. Ashu said he was shooting his film in the crazy heat of Kutch but he's making sure we don't see a tanned Hrithik in Mohenjodaro . "We've managed to keep him in the shade so far," he grinned.

Esha Deol, whose entire trousseau had been designed by Neeta, swished in late, with husband Bharat Takhtiani and a glass of sangria. "I'm okay with wines, don't like the hard stuff," she explained. Mother Hema Malini had recently arranged a programme at Mathura, her constituency, for Esha to perform. But when the dates of the event changed, Esha found them clashing with something she had to do for her mother-in-law. "I had to choose between my mother and my mother-in-law. I chose my mother-in-law's work," she grinned. The Takhtianis own a whole building in Pali Hill; Esha lives there in a joint family. "And everybody's cool. My mother is very chilled out. Ask Esha," said her husband.

We hear that two nights before this brunch, the feisty Esha had pulled up sister Ahana's Delhi-based husband in public. The argument had been over Ahana's frequent trips to Mumbai and Esha was heard loudly defending her pregnant sister. Fortunately, Esha seems to be getting on fine with her own in-laws. But talking of Ahana's pregnancy, imagine, Hema the Dream Girl will soon be Hema the Dream Grandmom.

Another afternoon event: this time Amitabh Bachchan was the toast of the Wazir unit at the launch of their new trailer. Directed by Bejoy Nambiar, this taut, tense and dead serious film has AB sharing screen space with Farhan Akhtar who, incidentally, calls him "Amit Uncle".

Vidhu Vinod Chopra (who is the producer of the film), Raju Hirani (who was there as honourary editor of Wazir ; Sreekar Prasad is the official editor) and Farhan talked of how they were awestruck by Bachchan. Vidhu said that he "publicly" wanted to talk about how he had longed to work with AB for 40 years, making it sound like Wazir was a dream come true. Amitabh also said something about Vinod "publicly". In all these "public" outings, neither Vidhu nor Amitabh mentioned Eklavya , a film in which Chopra had already directed Bachchan way back in 2007. The film had flopped.

Similarly, Farhan spoke of being awestruck which worked well for the first scene they shot together for Wazir . While this may be their first as co-actors, Farhan and AB have worked together before. Young Akhtar had directed Amit Uncle in Lakshya. It was rumoured that when senior actor Amitabh had said "Cut" during a take that was going wrong, Farhan had ticked him off, reminding him that only the director had the right to say "Cut". Dad Javed Akhtar had stepped in to patch things up between Bachchan and Farhan.

Farhan's latest film, his sister Zoya Akhtar's disappointing Dil Dhadakne Do , has given birth to a new saying: like you must never judge a book by its cover, you must never rush to declare a film a hit based on its glitzy promo.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author