BENGALURU: I just bundled myself up in a warm sweater before I sat on the computer and lo and behold! The Sol decided to show her face again! I bet most of you thought of the ‘sun’ as a masculine gender but wrong again. The sol, sun or whatever else you may deem to call it is of a feminine gender!
Even though the weather has been kind, tempers have been frayed. No place is a safe place.
At a very highfalutin soiree, an angry and inebriated (wannabe) social being, first tried to make a spectacle of oneself on the dance floor and since that was not garnering enough eyeballs, proceeded to maliciously kick another guest! Stunned into submission, the guest beat a hasty retreat. But of course, the news got out and we all discussed how we should deal with such debased behaviour from our ‘frisky-filly’. A word of caution: Check the ‘guestlist’ under a microscope before you let the ‘microbes’ in!
Thankfully, we were far away from the madding crowd in the elegant confines of The Leela Palace surrounded by genteel people who were thrilled to be witnessing our very own homegrown hero Ricky Kej’s concert. A two-time Grammy award winner, he is also the Ambassador of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. His strong message about compassion, sustainability, and nature…with its inter-dependency with mankind is at the core of all his music. His songs on Ganga, Cauveryamma and Kudrath mesmerised us with their impactful lyrics and soulful melodies.
The Afghan refugee Abi Safa’s song touched every heart in that room. His ‘Rhythm of the Earth’ pan-India tour kicked off in namma ooru, with a lot of Ricky’s friends and fans rooting for him in the audience. Kudos to GM Madhav Sehgal, who I know for a fact, did not rest till he pulled off this musical coup.
Tammy Ben-Haim, the easy-going and friendly Consul General of South India and her good looking deputy, Limor Bletter hosted an intimate party at The Den Hotel. The room teemed with representatives from various consulates and guests who enjoyed the fun quiz and the premiere screening of season 4 of the spy thriller Fauda.
The party continued with a great DJ, a free-flowing bar and plenty to eat. The young all-women team is engaging and friendly, as they show-case a different side to a new and vibrant Israel. The genial Raunak Kundu, founder of Bangalore Foodies-Club, has invited me to dine with him on numerable occasions, but unfortunately, I was always committed elsewhere.
This time, though the restaurant ‘Stories Brewery and Kitchen,’ was well off my beaten track (BTM 2nd Stage!!), I managed to make it there for an ‘exclusive cocktail sit-down dinner’. Chef Vikas Pathak pulled out all the stops and we were treated to a dinner that surpassed many five-star hotels in taste and presentation! Chatting with the young owner, I was pleasantly surprised at how business savvy he was. Apparently the locals flock to these watering holes rather than making a long potholed-ridden trek
into town!
A smidgen of intelligence sprinkled with resourcefulness is the key ingredient in the ‘secret sauce of success’.