(From left) Rita Bhimani, Koneenica Banerjee and Julie Sen at The Good Life Talk Show at Patuli on Sunday evening. Picture by Pabitra Das

The Good Life got up close and personal with the Co-operative Housing Society of Baishnabghata-Patuli Township on Sunday evening. The meeting point — a talk show with beauty expert Julie Sen and actress Koneenica Banerjee, anchored by Rita Bhimani.

The rain-washed Asia Cup evening drew quite a crowd of kaku-kakimas and kids to the community hall in the complex. An impromptu quiz for kids saw winners Barnik Bardhan and Jasashree Sengupta walk off with The Telegraph watches, followed by Iman Dastidar and Soumita Roy Chowdhury (Music World gift vouchers), and Arnab Mukherjee and Hirak Bhawal (Parker pens). The others got to sport The Telegraph T-shirts.

Next, it was the turn of the local ladies to quiz the panelists on their area of expertise. Sen, who runs the beauty salon Julie’s at Saturday Club and another one on Shakespeare Sarani, started off with a refresher on the oft-forgotten golden rules of maintaining a healthy skin and body with special emphasis on diet, exercise and proper cleansing.

The Patuli pet peeve seemed to be the high iron content in the water that is giving residents a lot of bad hair days. Sen had a ready mix for this as well — a concoction of oil, amla powder, coffee, trifala and tea liquor with henna to be left overnight in an iron vessel and applied on the hair the morning after. The rain-and-shine game was another problem point, forcing Sen to soothe frayed nerves with coconut and rosewater dabs.

As the comfort level soared, the discussion veered more towards an adda session. The pivot seemed straight out of a K-soap. Julie stirred the hornet’s nest by advising young brides not to be so forthcoming in their new home during the first year of their marriage, after which, she promised, the in-laws would be “eating out of your hands”.

Adjustment from the bride’s side was the key to a happy home (and a glowing skin as a result) she emphasised, which drew a passionate antithesis from young Jasashree Sengupta as to why it can’t be the other way round, with the in-laws doing the adjusting. Mutual understanding was the common cry, which then set the tone for a division-of-labour debate between husbands and wives. Baijayanti Roy urged the panellists to “teach the men in the audience a thing or two about being well-behaved husbands”. The men, in turn, lent a patient ear to Sen’s sermon on acknowledging the housewife’s role in housekeeping and sharing the load at home.

The working women in the audience were more interested in finding simple solutions to their immediate problems like skincare and diet. This brigade readily identified with Koneenica’s recipes topped by a pyramid diet — a heavy breakfast, a light lunch and a milk-or-soup dinner.

If that left one a little famished, there was food for thought in the form of simple make-up tips from the actress who had just used Lactocalamine, kajal, blush-on and a dash of nude lipstick for the evening.

Just before the evening to remember drew to a cosy close, Sen pulled out a final sensation from up her sleeve. She got the sporting Amrita Mukherjee from the audience to model for a make-up demonstration and led a step-by-step session with Rita explaining the moves to lend Mukherjee a muted glow in a simple evening make-up.