Bharathi S. Pradhan
On August 29, when Ganesha was brought to the Kolhapure bungalow, aptly named Abhinay, the three sisters were on their feet looking after over 150 guests who streamed in and out all day. Padmini and producer-husband Tutu Sharma have their set of friends (including Rajkumar Santoshi in whose Phata Poster Nikla Hero, Padmini played mother to Shahid Kapur).
Sister Shivangi (married to Shakti Kapoor) has two more actors in her family with daughter Shraddha Kapoor speedily climbing up and son Siddhant also making a career for himself like his father.
Tejaswini who has Anurag Kashyap's Ugly coming up opposite Ronit Roy, is married to Pankaj Saraswat, a busy television producer. So you can imagine how many guests all the sisters together had on their main list.
Shakti's son Siddhant told me that he was officially engaged to his girlfriend Erica. Mother Shivangi rolled her eyes and said, 'Would you believe that they got engaged all by themselves, just the two of them, in Thailand?' Hmmm, better than Shivangi herself who had eloped to marry Shakti.
Shraddha who is petite and reed thin, tucked into the coconut-filled modaks and ate her meal heartily. 'I make an exception on this day,' she happily said, as she tucked into everything in sight. 'It's her seventh plate,' teased Siddhant.
Siddhant has an idea for a film where Shraddha and he can work together. 'A brother-sister story that's still in my head,' he disclosed.
Ever since celebrity daughters too reached out for pancake, there's been an interesting development in the film industry. Sonam Kapoor has her real brother Harshvardhan turning actor with Rakeysh Mehra's Mirza Sahibaan and also has cousin Arjun Kapoor in the same field. Sonakshi Sinha has brother Luv getting ready to hit out and prove that he has it in him and can't be written off after Sadiyaan. Kareena and cousin Ranbir Kapoor work in the same industry. Lots of brother-sister stories could be made with all these fresh young names.
In the Kolhapure house on Ganesh Chaturthi, a guest mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's association with Japan's Shinzo Abe and pronounced 'Abe' like it is in, say, Abraham Lincoln's abbreviated name, rhyming with ape.
'It's not Abe like John Abe,' Padmini corrected the guest. 'It's pronounced Ah-bay in Japanese,' she explained.
Padmini and Shivangi have a spiritual connection with Japan and know a lot about the country, its customs, cuisine and names because of Mahikari, a religious movement that originated in Japan. Introduced to it by a friend, the sisters have been members of the Mahikari association in Japan for a very long time and practice its meditation and prayers regularly. In fact, the doors to Padmini's bungalow are open on one day of the week to close friends to whom she gives 'light'. It's a small exercise in which she transmits positive energy to the person receiving the light.
Padmini and Shivangi, sometimes with one or more of their children and sister Teju accompanying them, regularly visit Japan for an annual Marikari gathering. The meditation certainly helped Shivangi in her more trying moments as Shakti's wife.
When the discussion turned to Shinzo Abe, Padmini and Shivi were excited because they had heard that the Japanese premier too was a member of the Mahikari movement. They are scheduled to go on their annual visit to Japan this December. Perhaps they will get a chance to check out first-hand if Abe is indeed a follower of Mahikari. Meanwhile, Padmini served green tea 'specially from Japan' to those who wanted a cuppa.
Back to the film industry, Sushmita Sen was shooting her first Bengali film Nirbak in Calcutta when she was contacted by a Mumbai-based director for an ad campaign for a mouth freshener. One hears she turned it down because the sum on offer (approximately Rs 2 crore) was not tempting enough. Apparently, Preity Zinta bagged it at a much lower price. Her first hero, Sunny Deol, has also shot half-a-dozen ad films for the same product and has minted money from each of his campaigns. It's certainly been more lucrative than doing films which either flop like Dishkiyaoon or get shelved like I Love New Year.
Sunny's Gadar heroine Ameesha Patel is said to be surviving well on ad campaigns now that the film offers have dried up. The buzz is that Ameesha will be selling a brand of cooking oil for a manufacturer in Pakistan. It is an oily deal — with Indians not allowed work permits in Pakistan, the campaign had to be shot in Bangkok.
