Two events called for celebration in the film industry - one brought pure, unadulterated joy while the other came fraught with controversy.

The arrival of Baby Adira in the lives of Rani Mukerji and Aditya Chopra was welcomed by one and all, even if she arrived in a hurry (she was expected in January), and had to be put in an incubator. Grandmother Pam, who was up uncharacteristically early on the morning of December 9 to greet the new addition to the family, was not only ecstatic but also terribly impressed with her son Adi's performance. He has been such a dedicated husband that he didn't once leave Rani's side all month and was with her to savour every moment of the happy event.

On the other hand, the arrival of Salman Khan as a free bird back at his Galaxy Apartments stirred up even more debate than Yusuf Memon's hanging. While arguments for and against will rage on until the next celebrity headline, there is one overwhelming feeling: that Salman has drawn on a huge credit balance of blessings from the beneficiaries of his charity work. Forget about individual cases; a municipal medical facility like Bhabha Hospital in Bandra has a spiffy children's wing that's incongruous with the rest of the set-up. The parents of every child born or treated there have been blessing Salman for donating this to the public.

Of course, this does not in any way dent the arguments against his walking free. But it does make his 50th birthday later this month that much sweeter for him.

On the 10th, there was one telling statement that summed up the whole Salman story. While all the OB vans and police concentrated on Galaxy Apartments, there was not one soul standing outside AI Bakery. That's where Nurullah, the bakery worker, died under the wheels of Salman's Land Cruiser.

Let's move on to something joyous again.

The only two celebrities who continue to hold on to their old world manners are Amitabh Bachchan and Sunil Gavaskar. They are the only two gentlemen who stand up and greet every lady, irrespective of age and social status.

The Kapoors are a notoriously ill-mannered lot in that respect. Once, Amjad Khan's daughter Ahlam was doing a play at Prithvi Theatre where grand old patron Shashi Kapoor watched her and was duly impressed. At one of her shows, Shashi was sitting at his cafe outside the auditorium when I introduced him to Ahlam's mother Shehla. Shashi greeted her casually when I said, "Ahlam's mother", until it suddenly struck him that the lady was also his late colleague Amjad Khan's wife. In a trice, he was on his feet mumbling, "I'm sorry, Amjad never introduced me to you in his lifetime." A Kapoor male, therefore, accords respect selectively. If due courtesy is extended to a colleague's wife, why not to a young theatre actress's dignified mother too?

Recently, at a swishy cocktail party in Mumbai, the chic crowd included Sunil Gavaskar. We hadn't met in ages but Sunil's chivalry was intact as he sprang up from his seat to say "Hi". The party was to celebrate the wedding of industrialist Nayan Patel's Hong Kong-based son Punit to Chinese girlfriend Denise. It was a Hindi- Chini bhai bhai scene with the entire ground floor of the Grand Hyatt teeming with Mumbai celebrities and Chinese guests, all in lovely cocktail wear.

Liquor and hospitality flowed generously but all the Hong Kong and Canada-based Chinese were treated to an array of pure vegetarian food. The veg-non-veg debate is an amusing one. The bridegroom's grandfather, Mohanbhai Patel, former sheriff of Bombay, extolled his business family's vegetarianism while his son-in-law Anand Sagar (son of legendary Ramayan maker Ramanand Sagar) whispered, "But their daughters marry non-vegetarians." The Sagars are hearty Punjabis who love their meats and poultry. Mohanbhai Patel's daughter Nisha who's married to Anand, however, remains a vegetarian.

The debate is a touchy one with the Kapoors. Randhir Kapoor was appalled when his cousin Kanchan (Shammi Kapoor's daughter) turned vegetarian and blamed her Gujju husband Ketan (son of Manmohan Desai) for it. "How can you do that to a Kapoor?" Randhir roared every time he bumped into Ketan. For a Kapoor it was like the proverbial lion eating grass scenario. The funny bit here was that Kanchan gave up non-veg on her own while Ketan, despite being a Gujarati, is a staunch meat eater.

The Patel party also drew Abhishek and Aishwarya Bachchan. She looking slim enough to be paired with Ranbir Kapoor in Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil . Abhishek, who has known me since he was a child, ebulliently said, "Hi Bharathi Aunty". Hearing this, Tina Ambani grinned and said, "He calls me 'Ma'. So why shouldn't he call you Aunty?" There was something exotic about this Indo-Chinese evening that had everybody in great spirits.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author