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Into Farah Khan’s ambit has come builder Vicky Oberoi. The conduit was Akshay Kumar who has cosied up to Farah ever since she broke up her professional association with Shah Rukh Khan.
All this was as evident as the navels on display at Farah’s third annual lingerie show with foreign models sashaying to Hindi film music and ogled by Mumbai’s celebrities. The venue was the same, the lavish garden in a five-star hotel. The ambience, ditto as the previous years, with a free-flowing cocktail party preceding the fashion show. The setting, a large stage for the models and formal tables for the guests, was also as familiar as the people trickling in. Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao formed a Golmaal gang by themselves. Sameer Soni, fresh out of the Bigg Boss house, walked hand in hand with fiancée Neelam (actress turned jewellery designer). They will wed today and it will be the second time for both of them. Neelam was briefly married to someone from the dubious Sethia family in London. Remember Rajendra Sethia who hogged the headlines for a huge financial scam and you’ll know which family she went into unwittingly. Neelam got out of that marriage in a jiffy and returned to Mumbai, remaining solo for a long time before hitching up with Sameer.
While Sonakshi Sinha in a LBD was a predictable invitee (she is in Farah and Shirish’s next film Joker), the well-toned Deepika Padukone glittering in gold was unexpected. Imagine, Farah’s OSO heroine was there but not her Tees Maar Khan Sheila.
Of course, the show wouldn’t start until Akshay Kumar, Farah’s chief star attraction for the last two years, fetched up looking natty in a suit with wife Twinkle in a short, figure-hugging dark blue dress. With them came builder Vicky Oberoi and his wife Gayatri, the tall, elegant model who partnered Shah Rukh Khan in Swades. Vicky has become a part of Farah’s crowd ever since Akshay introduced them and the Tees Maar Khan director snagged a good deal from Oberoi builders for a three-storeyed penthouse with a swimming pool and private terrace garden.
Anybody watching Farah’s lingerie fashion show for the first time would have come away impressed by the razzle and dazzle. But having seen it before, one couldn’t help but notice that something vital was missing this time. The first year, Farah had been exuberant and creative, putting all the models in lingerie in see-through cubicles all over the garden where the cocktails were held before the show. And Shah Rukh-Gauri were the main attractions. The second year she had a live band and live singing on stage while the models strutted their stuff. Farah had invited people personally and whipped up a lot of enthusiasm for it.
This year, Farah didn’t invite a soul. It was just models and recorded Hindi film numbers. That little extra was completely missing. “I was busy writing my next script, I haven’t invited anybody personally this year,” explained Farah. One sure hopes the backlash to Tees Maar Khan has not demoralised her or doused her normal spunk. By the way, one didn’t spot husband Shirish Kunder.
Talking of spouses, it is fairly certain that there won’t be any criticism of Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat since her husband Aamir Khan is too powerful (and files away negative comments forever) for the media to do anything but suck up to him. But if truth be told, would Aamir or any other major producer have made and marketed Kiran Rao’s script on such a scale if she had not been in the privileged position she is?
Also, why on earth did everybody buy those well-marketed stories about how Kiran didn’t want Aamir in the film but he was so excited by the script that he auditioned for the part? What was in that role for a seasoned actor like Aamir Khan to woo its director and bag it? Or conversely, if Aamir hadn’t led the cast, would the film have attracted such a dignified opening? Like Farah who backed her spouse’s script and marketed it like it was a masterpiece, Aamir Khan too has backed his spouse and marketed Dhobi Ghat well enough to take home several times more than what he spent on making it.
Aamir has had a predilection for different cinema right from the beginning when he did a very art house product called Raakh which came just after his blockbuster debut in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. So now, decades later when he is in a position to finance an offbeat film, Aamir indulging his own penchant for variety is understandable. But all those stories about auditioning for a plum role and those five-star promo launches and 3 Idiots type of marketing for a Dhobi Ghat? Just call it the case of a very lucky spouse.
