Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Hot wheels

Trust Farah Khan to transform, with her humour and creativity, a personal injury into a social media trend. The indomitable director-choreographer and TV host is currently laid up in bed owing to a fractured foot (that might or might not have occurred on the dance floor!) and a wheelchair has been placed next to her bed to facilitate her movement. But, such is her motor mouth, wisecrack-a-minute popularity that this contraption has quickly become the hot seat for a stream of famous personalities. In a short span, it has accommodated the celebrated derrieres of the likes of Shilpa Shetty, Raveena Tandon, Sonali Bendre, and Huma Qureshi, among others, photos of which Farah uploads to social media with the hashtag #wheelchairdiaries. “My foot is still fractured! Can’t put it in my mouth at least for a month,” she quipped when we spoke yesterday. “The wheelchair diaries keep me entertained, though I must say Sonam’s wedding has slowed down visitors. My son thinks my air cast makes me look like Iron Man.”

WTSWTM

What They Say: The $16 billion acquisition of e-retailer Flipkart by retail giant Walmart facilitates the “backdoor entry” of foreign capital and Chinese goods to take over India’s huge multi-crore retail trade sector.

What They Mean: “Honestly, even we ourselves are confused how we got ourselves into the position of attacking a right wing government against communist China…”

— India’s Left parties on the recent acquisition

TRUE LIES

Even as it remains a bone of contention between the state government and its developers RIL for being behind schedule, the ambitious under-construction convention-cum-exhibition center at Bandra Kurla Complex continues to exercise the grapevine. According to the latest reports, not only will the complex feature cutting edge architecture , IT and design , it will also daily boast of what is being described as the ultimate city-defining, lights-sound-action extravaganza, a must see for any visitor to the city of dreams. And now, word comes in that the world’s leading international fine-dining Japanese restaurant, the benchmark in its genre, will also be housed in it, along with an ultra-luxe seven-star European hotel.

SoBo might as well call it a day and retire to bed with its teddy, as the city tilts further on its northern bias.

THE BENEFITS OF SUSEGAD AND SIMOES

One learns the darnedest things at public events. This week, while attending a photo and art exhibition in tribute to Amitabh Bachchan, we ran into our old friend Sheetal Jain, the dignified and self-effacing gentleman who has served as one of the superstar’s closest personal aides for the past 43 years! During the course of our conversation, completely by chance, we learnt a fascinating piece of information, that shed light on a completely different Mumbai personality: advertising guru, author and ace copywriter, the late Frank Simoes (at whose eponymous agency tucked away in a leafy lane of Colaba we had worked, during our nascent copywriting career). Apparently, Simoes had been responsible for the design of Bachchan’s very first personal letterhead. And, when you consider that he had also come up with the wildly successful slogan ‘Only Vimal’ for Dhirubhai Ambani’s textile brand, which became the building block for what is today’s largest corporation, two such outstanding aces, are inarguable evidence of the laidback, soft-spoken visionary’s genius, who, in his personal interactions had spoken so eloquently about the benefits of Goan sunshine and Susegad.

Speaking of which…