(From left) Manali, Rupam, Hiran and Abir at the adda in Princeton Club. (Top) Hiran and Manali shake it up with the audience. (Aranya Sen)

In the run-up to the Anandalok Puraskar (at the Science City auditorium tonight), an adda session was held at Princeton Club. Tollywood stars Manali Dey, Abir Chatterjee and Hiran along with singer-songwriter Rupam joined a bunch of enthusiastic homemakers at the two-hour-long afternoon adda on December 1.

Rupam kick-started the show with Amake amar moto thakte dao, the superhit track from the hit film Autograph. If Manali spoke about her growing stardom with the STAR Jalsha mega serial Bou Kotha Kou, Hiran gushed about his co-star Koel Mullick and Abir raised a laugh when he narrated how nervous he was when his directors (Sudeshna Roy and Abhijit Guha) asked him to dance during the shooting of Prem By Chance.

All this set the tone for a perky interactive adda, which ranged from stardom to privacy, food to food for thought. “I am the quieter sort and I’m a very good listener,” Manali smiled shyly. “People know me as Mouri (Bou Kotha Kou) and when I go to the suburbs for stage shows, some mashimas and pishimas are shocked to see me in western wear! They insist that I wear a sari all the time.”

Abir couldn’t resist a dig: “Mouri is so famous that we know of a family where the couple were expecting their first child and they had zeroed in on Mouri as the name of their child. But instead of a girl, a baby boy was born. So I suggested two other names — Joan and Supari!”

Rupam spoke about his journey as a singer, about sharing the stage with a certain Mr Amitabh Bachchan while receiving the National Award and his loadshedding wardrobe! “When I was young I wore a lot of blue because then I had many relationships. But as I grew older, I see only black everywhere. So my wardrobe is full of black so someone has named my wardrobe loadshedding.”

Hiran grabbed eyeballs as he stepped in with style, in an electric blue body-hugging tee. When someone from the audience asked why his recent film was called Mon Je Kore Uru Uru, Hiran said with a smile: “It’s a film for the youth and when one falls in love one’s heart is uru uru!”

The afternoon adda came to an end on a lively jive-ly note with Hiran, Manali and some members of the audience shaking a leg before Rupam rounded it off with Kothaye niye jabe amay bolo to thunderous applause.

Kushali Nag