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Poonam, who religiously works out and watches her waistline, has a natural ability to get along closely with a large variety of people and to be available to them when it matters, be it celebration or mourning. And so at her party (she always inaugurates a new place with a party) she had a handful of columnists and editors, including those without a portfolio at the moment which is a huge plus point, and one or two with whom she’d had problems but had pleasantly put the past aside. There was celebrity lawyer Satish Maneshinde, all Poonam faithfuls like Padmini Kolhapure (with husband), Talat Aziz with artist-wife Bina, art curator Meena Hingorani, painter Subhash Avachat, top cop Javed Ahmed and Yash Chopra with wife Pam.
Yash and Pam Chopra are not regular partygoers but Poonam is special for them. They not only gave her a break more than two decades ago (Trishul, Noorie) but have also brought her back to the studios in their Shahid-Rani film Hadippa. Through all the ups and downs of her life and career, Poonam never lost touch with the couple.
Also at Poonam’s party on April 18 was Evita singer Sharon Prabhakar with her daughter Shazhan Padamsee (ad guru Alyque Padamsee’s daughter) who is the new Yash Raj discovery — all hush-hush and yet to be formally announced.
Another rare bird was the 75-plus Asha Bhonsle. Ashatai is no party animal but she never misses her annual date with Poonam who has consistently kept in touch with the senior singer.
By the way, Poonam, who does not harbour grudges for long (one more quality that will take her places in politics), has made up with former boyfriend, Hong Kong-based businessman Surendra Wadhwa. When Poonam and Suri split and there was acrimony over his money and assets (he’d issued a public notice withdrawing the power of attorney given to her), Indian Television Academy boss Shashi Ranjan had gone along with the forlorn ex-lover to arbitration meetings. All that’s firmly in the past as it was one big happy family, the Ranjans included, when Poonam Dhillon cut her birthday cake this year.
The party wound up with Padmini Kolhapure and Satish Kaushik salivating over the mutton chops.
A late night guest at Poonam’s was Vidya Balan whose business manager is close to Ms Dhillon. Vidya who is keeping away from the media glare is looking unbelievably pencil slim, with a tiny waist. She laughed that she’d been browbeaten so much over her weight that she had to lose it — “Logon ne maar maar ke karvaya”. Somebody promptly said, now they should maar-maar Satish Kaushik too.
Watch out for Vidya Balan this year. She has two huge films coming up — but there’s a gag order on her and she can’t speak about either. Visitors are just not allowed on the sets of Cheeni Kum maker Balki’s new film Pa, co-starring the two Bachchan men. So Vidya’s work in it will remain under wraps until Balki is ready with his promos. Similarly, she has something really interesting coming up in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Ishqiyaan where she has Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi as co-stars. Arshad is also upbeat about it — he and Vidya are said to have some sizzling chemistry between them in the film, but the gag order is on all the actors.
Who is vocal about Vidya is Satish Kaushik. “I’m really looking for a great role to cast Vidya in. I’m dying to work with her,” said Satish, watching her dazzle in a dull red and duller gold churidar-kameez. It transpires that it is not only Vidya’s talent that has impressed the director but the person as well. Apparently, for a small children’s film called Hawaii Dada that Satish Kaushik has directed (about a girl child’s aspiration to fly a plane), he wanted just one shot of the girl all grown up and in the cockpit. Vidya watched the film and not just agreed to do the fleeting appearance but did it with utter sincerity and didn’t take a penny for it.
The Parineeta girl can count Satish Kaushik as an ardent admirer forever.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of
Movie Mag International
