Mumbaila ‘Barkha’ zhaali

Barkha mhanje paaus, paaus mhanje rain. Mumbai experienced December rains because of the cyclonic winds that blew the city away. But that’s not the only barkha that happened to Mumbai. 

Maajhi maitrin Barkha Dutt was in the city over the weekend to rake up a storm. Barkha and her superfantastic team put together a super-sexy agenda for two days at the #WeTheWomen event at the iconic Mehboob Studios in Bandra. The event is so fab that it would need two articles. 

So, here is an account of what happened on saturgay. The event was blessed with several stars, not all were popular. If some spoke, some like Ginni Mahi turned their struggle into a song on Dalit pride. Amid the celebrtities whose cough and cold gets reported, there were also some unknown voices that got an equal platform. 

Like, for instance, Arunachalam Muruganantham, the man who revolutionalised sanitary pads was as much a hero as Twinkle Khanna. The audience watched with amazement when he shared that he wore a sanitary pad and below that a pack of goat blood under his v-shaped underwear for a while to experience and test how it feels like to be a women in her periods. 

The audience cracked up when the uninhibited Twinkle protested against taxes on sanitary pads by saying that every male politician should wear the same bag between his legs for a whole day. Then there was the panel between Ekta Kapoor and Smriti Irani that super smart Barkha rani recused herself from anchoring and instead roped in Karan Johar to do the honours. By this, Smriti was able to open up and drop the facade that minister’s have to put up all the time. Though she did take a few digs on Rahul Gandhi, she did it only when she was prompted to. Otherwise , she was totally Smriti Irani from Tulsi Virani days. 

Ekta Kapoor was as fab as ever as she left no holds barred in sharing about how she almost dissuaded Smriti from taking a plunge in politics. Filmstars are considered superior to TV stars, so it was nice to see the biggest producer of bollywood refer to the biggest TV star of an era as “Ma’am”. Another filmstar who used the word Ma’am was Alia Bhatt. The super intelligent young Bhatt left Dutt stumped a couple of times with her questions in her role as an interviewer.

The best thing there has to be the queer thing. I am biased. I admit. Godrej’s India Culture Lab headed by vikhroli-chi corporate kothi-bai Parmesh Shahani, curated the art in the event and it was done so damn tastefully. The team of India Culture Lab spread themselves everywhere to ensure that speakers feels at home. I cant recount the number of times I was asked “can I get you something”. I had to remind them — “Bahin, me celeb naahi, family aahe. We are family!

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