Soaring nostalgia
As I fly back from Singapore, I reminisce about the homey dinner hosted by my husband's school friends in this vibrant city-state. Few things are as special as reconnecting with school friends, with whom you share so much knowing you are not judged- thanks to magical shared experiences growing-up and knowing each other shorn of grown-up trappings. Despite my usual reluctance to create a social whorl during hiatuses abroad, I found myself embracing this gathering. When I’m on a hiatus abroad- plugging out of Mumbai and India’s social roller coaster in a world of constant social activity and media, I spend time with myself. You do realise that with calendars full of activity we forget the need for solitude? In my opinion an individual must find some alone time to truly know oneself, introspect and become self-assured, confident and truly whole.
Rajput royalty
Earlier in the week, we celebrated the election win of Kalikesh Singh Deo as an MLA in Orissa. Young and dynamic, he has been part of the Biju Janata Dal political party and is a cousin we're proud of. His celebratory party hosted by Abhimanyu Singh in Mumbai and his lovely wife Roopali Singh at their beautiful Lokhandwala home was brimming with Rajput cousins twice and thrice removed.
Actor Rocky Singh, aka Chandrachud Singh, known for Maachis and more recently the television series Aarya, who is also Abhimanyu's brother and my college friend, was missed. I was especially enthralled by the design of their home done by Roopali who is half German and displays great taste even in the setting of her dinner display which I enjoyed as much for the cuisine as the ‘installation’!
Trio of triumph
Is it just me, or are more women emerging from their cocoons to become entrepreneurs, creating small new businesses or scaling up enterprises they've nurtured modestly until now? A vivid example in my life last week was when my office accepted invitations to inaugurate two women entrepreneur festive fairs: Ruchika Fair by the Ruchika Trust and The Fashion Affair.
With the festive season around the corner, Mumbai is teeming with kaleidoscopic fairs. I lucked out because the two I had to inaugurate on the same day and similar timings were adjacent to each other at the NSCI Dome and were magically timed back-to-back, not simultaneously to my utter relief! And believe it or not, I even managed a costume change between the ribbon cutting and lamp lighting’s.
A third festive edit in this genre, thankfully a few days apart, was the Parv Foundation ‘Bazaar’ convened and curated by Mamta Surana, president of the same foundation which donates proceeds from this festive edit to educate the underprivileged. Needless to say I not only enjoyed addressing these vibrant and enterprising women on the need of more women joining the work force of India but I ended up shopping for great goodies too!
