Family guy

Family guy

Shikhar Dawan was at the Chinnaswamy along with his wife Ayesha and son Zorawar on Saturday to watch his national teammates slug it out for the Champions League title.

Love’s labour...

The road to their wedding has been full of hidden curves but who said the path of true love is ever easy? After a bitter falling out with her former boyfriend, part-time restaurateur Arish Khajotia, that involved him returning an eight lakh rupee loan taken from her father as well as a Canali suit that she had gifted him, animal activist Ambika Hiranandani is finally set to marry Delhi advocate Pritpal Nijjar. While Pritpal, son of Supreme Court judge SS Nijjar, is a well known name in the legal circles, we in Mumbai know the beauteous Ambika for getting Victorias banned on grounds of cruelty to animals. The low key wedding is slated for this week. Our best wishes to the couple.

Saving six yards

Erstwhile royal Shubhangini Raje Gaekwad of Baroda is known for her taste and rare collection of Chanderi sarees that according to a television host who was lucky enough to spend time in Laxmi Palace, sit protected in a endless row of trunks, all of the best quality cotton and highest thread count. The oldest pieces, she has often said, she preserves for reference when designing a new collection. Evident from Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings, Maratha royalty including the Gaekwads, draped the Chanderi in nine-yard style. The weaving industry touched its biggest high during Mughal rule, and a famous story goes that when Shehenshah Akbar received a Chanderi fabric piece wrapped in a hollow bamboo, he pulled it out to reveal cloth large enough to shroud an elephant. For Raje, upholding the ancient weaving tradition with origins in Madhya Pradesh means she connects with her roots (she is from Gwalior). This week, the city that’s used to shimmying in chiffon, gets a taste of a weave known for its luminescent transparency as Raje and her daughter-in-law hold a private viewing of an exclusive collection that will be on sale. A couple of suites have been booked at a five-star, we are told, so that the ladies dripping pearls can debate their fashion in peace.

Host with the most

On Sunday, artist and former managing director of Bodhi art gallery, Sharmistha Ray hosted a quiet brunch at her swanky studio in Khar for friends in the art fraternity, including, Tasneem Mehta, Ranjit Hoskote, Nancy Adajania, Shilpa Gupta and Rajiv Saini. The event – a concept that combines the 17th century Parisian salon with a modern artist’s open studio – was a culmination and celebration of Ray’s eight-yearlong journey in the city. Besides, for a week, the artist has turned her studio and workshop into a viewing space to share paintings, drawings and photographs of her process. Among them is a large work, City of Eros (in picture), which in Ray’s words is, “an abstract landscape that represents the feminine, ritualistic and erotic nature of Bombay – its intense energy and depths and opposing dualisms of the sacred and sexual.”

Tailpiece

H is friends are still trying to come to grips with the sudden death of Rajesh Sanghi, Sah and Sanghi Motors owner Ranjan Sanghi’s heir. Rajesh was vacationing in the Maldives and was out jogging when he was felled by a massive heart attack on Friday. The 43-year-old who had graduated from Warwick Business School and was married with two girls, was known to be a fitness freak. We hear Deepak Parikh, an old friend of the family, flew out to the Maldives along with the grieving family.