---------------------------------------------------------- Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goa-net/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Goanet2003/ ----------------------------------------------------------
Interesting how we're being reduced to a page 3 destination item.. >From Sunday Times of India-- Lifestyles Love and lust in Goa TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, JANUARY 05, 2003 12:00:01 AM ] Goa has become the prime destination for the party-hearty crowd on New Year� s eve. MPs, tycoons and socialites decend on it for some serious networking. Malavika Sanghvi reports. It would take at least 15 Page Three hacks, working 24/7 to do justice to Goa over the New Year. And they still wouldn�t fit it all in. Because, as everyone knows, for a fortnight, all of the India that fancies itself as movers and shakers, the type that parties and has enough disposable income to shell out five-star pumped-up-for-the-season rates, takes it upon itself to converge in vast multitudes to the Ibiza of the East. They come with their 100-feet yachts, their jet skis, their kids, their maids, their sun tan lotions, and their sarongs. They come with their cane bags from Thailand, their sportswear from Nautica, their Versace shades and their Mercedes vans. They come to party, network, pick up husbands, clients, boyfriends, be seen, be part of, slum it (in five-star comfort), look cool, and let their hair down. They come because they don�t want to be left out. You want glamour? You�ll get that and then some. Intrigue? Welcome to the world of the Archie-Betty-Veronica plot, and more than one storm in a C-cup. Filmis? Mega-star actors flexing their biceps (enigmatically around the kiddies� pool). Goa over New Year has it all. MPs by the bushel. Wildly over-the-top parties. Beach bacchanalias. Green-eyed socialites awash in malice. Artful seductresses, tattooed and saronged. Masters of the Universe, carving out their kingdoms. And enough testosterone to keep the whole union state submerged in fluids for the next year. A Valhalla for voyeurism Ah, Goa. A voyeuristic Valhalla, a people-watching orgasm, an exercise in exhibitionism. Hrithik Roshan, with body by Michelangelo, skulking around the pool, baseball cap pulled low over his head to avoid the crowds; Subbarami Reddy, in Eveready Red shorts and Tee, as buoyant as 20 years ago when he first threw his legendary New Year�s Eve party; Rhea Pillai, tattooed, black mini-skirted, artful in the art of living it up, the cynosure of many gazes; Gautam Singhania, ever the affable kid with the best toys, always eager to spread some fun; Hot male who�s-fast-becoming-cold, nerd-turned-wannabe jock Sabeer Bhatia, the target of all mums with daughters of marriageable age, playing volleyball on the beach. And of course, chief master of the universe, doctor and MP, media tycoon and beer baron, uber host and king of the smart set Vijay Mallya, whose every entrance is marked as a strategic manoeuver, heralded on air, water and land by machine and men boasting tastefully designed UB insignia. Ah Goa, such hysteria, such tamasha, such masti, yaar. The other side of Paradise The Taj Holiday Village is where it�s all happening, has been happening for the last 20 years, and to it is where the smart set converges. But, there is an alternative to the hyped-up, hysterical Mumbai-Delhi mega-celebrity soup that is brewing at the Taj Holiday Village, and the Can�t Afforda (the Fort Aguada for those who can afford to pay those rates). A Goa to which Sylvie and Nisha daCunha return to their ancestral property each year and spend the morning reading (yes, reading) at the Lila caf�, sipping espresso. A Goa where Remo composes, Wendell creates, and Gerard builds. What must these homegrown sons of the soil make of the Goa that emerges out of the rapacious, party-hearty, hungry-for-more, brittle crowd that descends on them each year, this monster of city people, trying hard to be cool, to devour the Goa vibes and pack all that sang froid into two weeks of five-star year-end holidays? Two parties. Two New Year�s Eves Two parties define Goa over the New Year�s Season. Mallya�s, of course, is the party of the year. Written about for weeks, the subject of speculation and serious neurosis (if you haven�t been invited you might as well be on the next flight home). But good things don�t come easy. The smart set is caught in a bind. They have to, you see, attend another party. This is a must do. A downer. The marketeers at the Taj have come up with a veritable road-block. They have charged residents of the Taj Holiday Village a prohibitive amount for their New Year�s Eve stay, and in doing so, have made attendance almost mandatory. So, all the worthies, the jet set, the glamour dolls, the leather-clad boys have been forced to postpone attending Mallya�s party of the decade, to spend New Year�s Eve with their kids, at the twee bash, put together by what appears to be first-year catering college boys and girls from Bandra. The birdie song (I kid thee not), funny hats, and a group of dancers so bad, that they make the Lokhandwala building society annual entertainment seem like dancers from the Moulin Rouge, is what this is about. The party sinks around our ankles like the Titanic and the plastered smiles of angry and in many cases, impatient parents eager to get on to the main act, is beginning to wear thin around the edges. Putting up a valiant effort for the sake of their children, to appear amused and celebratory are good parents, Tanya and Arvind Dubash, Dr Naresh Trehan, Aarti and Kailash Surendranath, card-holding Page Three members, who have not given up their basic human values. The rest of the crowd growls and grumbles at the terrible music, terrible planning and terrible pricing. No matter, post-New Year�s and all the pumpkins are turned to princes, At Vijay Mallya�s (Mediterranean? Balinese? Chettinad?) mansion, a convenient hop from the Taj, the party more than makes up for the Taj�s Titanic turkey of an evening. Vijay�s is how a party should be thrown. Acres of lawn, candle-lit, water-lined rooms, gurgling fountains, a DJ from heaven, enough food and drink and glamour by the square yard. Here the grumblers come in to their own. Karan Johar dances, Uday Chopra bounces, Rhea Pillai circulates, Remo swings, Fardeen Khan hobnobs and Delhi �s A-listers spread warmth and cheer. To be sure, Vijay Mallya�s smooth as silk, super deluxe New Year�s Eve bash is almost a validation for every arriviste of his own arrival. Some other worthy parties over the New Year season: Wendell and Jerome�s low-profile, but startlingly stylish bash. Here, amongst breathtaking works of art, the fairy-lights, and champagne, is Ujjwala Raut, the lovely, long-limbed international model in faded blue jeans, the aristocratic Jagdeep Chowgule, the fresh- from-London composer Biddu, the have-done-it-and-seen-it-all Devika and Suresh Bhojwani, and Ajit and Anjali Singh, voluntary retirees from the party-hearty circuit, genuinely tuned in to the Goa vibes. People with talent, beauty and achievement. Too intelligent to be taken in by the tawdriness of Page Three. Couples married to each other for decades, with all the mellowness and warmth that ensues. A warm glow spreads over the evening. Raj and Dipti Salgaonkar�s pre-New Year�s Eve party Take a Wharton-educated, guitar-playing, handsome scion of a blue-blooded Goa industrialist family and the pretty charming daughter of Dhirubhai Ambani and what do you get? The warmth and dazzle of a Mumbai-cum-Goa affair. Set in his jewel-like mansion, the Salgaonkar�s party has both worlds, the Mumbai industrialist-politician-glamour set and the Goa creative arts society well represented. If Suresh Kalmadi, Praful Patel, PC Chatterjee and Ramesh Chauhan are present, then so are singer Remo, designer Wendell, cricketer Dilip Sardesai (Rajdeep�s father) and guitarist Lucia Miranda�s wife. At Raj Salgaonkar�s, both worlds converge gracefully. Babes and Vodka shots on the beach, at Rajeev Samant�s Beach Brunch The man who, through sheer relentless partying, has made the product of his vineyards Sula a household word, throws a true-blue, dyed-in-the sarong babes-by-the-square-foot Goa beach party. Pre-pubescent boys and girls and trendy expats sit on Morjim beach swilling vodka shots, surfing the waves and looking for the elusive lunch that was promised. No matter, the young do not need to eat. And for some exquisite pet pooja, there is Olive Ridley�s next door, where Gautam Singhania and a party of 20 have arrived on their jet skis to savour the calamari and catch of the day. Subbarami Reddy and the who's who What can you say about a Subbarami Reddy party? That his graceful wife Indira makes sure that every guest is made to feel ten feet tall? That he manages to get everyone who matters? That the food and drink is always plentiful. And that no party is complete without the host telling you what a Shiv bhakt he is and how he has an open, tariff-free hotline connection to God. The line is good. God has certainly been kind to Subbi. And Malice to One and All To counter all that good cheer and Goa bonhomie, here�s a whiff of some foul Page Three malice, imported fresh from Mumbai. Take a Mumbai couple. Call them the toadies. No one knows what he does for a living, and as for her, her reason for existence is to get in to J class set. As a raison d�etre that is an edifying life affirming function in itself. But, with that comes the toadying. She lashes out at him. He glowers at her. They shout at the maid. It�s all a breeze. And around them, other lesser members of the set ebb and swirl: strutting, planning, strategizing, plotting, gnashing. And, of course, toadying. Legends in their own lunch time; famous for being famous; pleased-with-themselves denizens � with not a genuine achievement between the lot of them. Memories are made of this In the end, Goa will be the snapshots of memories. A now in a new, thinned-down pack, Karan Johar stepping gingerly around the pool as if he were still the shy fat boy he was and the mega success had not happened. A delicious beach side cat fight over Sabeer Bhatia, where two prime babes, slug it out employing the subtlest and most vicious of put-downs and come-ons. The ever-present hierarchy of ayahs huddled by the pool establishing their domains. And the beatific, bare-chested Sohail Khan cradling his baby while taking a ride through Goa�s curving bylanes, in a beat-up rented scooter, slipping effortlessly in to the driver�s seat of his blonde Mercedes Benz at Mumbai airport. From scooter in Goa to Mercedes in Mumbai. That sums up the Goa weekend. The sight of all those worthies revving off in their luxury limos and hot wheels into the Mumbai sunset after their lost weekend in Goa is the defining snapshot of the season. Bas? Maaza aaya na? Agle saal phir milenge! ----------------------------------------------------------------
