After a Delhi summer that feels as if the dev-il’s been breathing down your neck. After the monsoon has finally exhausted itself and bid goodbye for the year. After the bell jar humidity it brings in its wake, has been gradually zapped, the season finally begins. The early signs are sightings of the NRIs. Like migratory birds they flock here when the going is good – signalling that the party has begun.

Traditionally, this October-to-March marathon fest is referr–ed to as the Ramnaumi-to-Shivratri rush. Now re-christened the Diwali-to-Holi season, it starts with the month-long frenzy of cards that finally peters out with the lamps for Diwali being lit. On the high end tables for the serious card players – the smell of money mingling with thickening Cohiba cigar smoke – the players are getting even more Yudhishtra-like in the abandon with which they gamble away their nearly-all.

Ironically though, there was a surreal twist to the Maha–bharata episode in a village in Harayana. A woman, left with nothing else to gamble, offered herself. She lost and it was her husband who bought her back. I suppose this is an evolution of sorts for women’s liberation: at least this 21st century Draupadi took her fate in her own hands and was not put up as collateral by her husband.
It is also party time: you party for no reason but the fact that it is ‘The Season’. You meet people you’ve hardly exchanged weak smiles with for the rest of the year. But come September and October, you air kiss them on practically a daily basis, carrying on as if they are your best friends. Le tout Delhi now moves outdoors, into supersized gently undulating velvet lawns. Of course, with such expansive grounds socialites have to go beyond the numbers on their cell phones to put together a respectably-sized guest list.

It isn’t easy for the dahlingjis though. Every socialite has exactly the same idea. The resourceful ones almost injure their index fingers or thumbs working their mobiles trying to entice a fashion guru to their do: Rohit Bal (blond or brunette) always gets the flashbulbs popping and an entourage of acolytes often follow in his wake. Some blue blood, minor or otherwise, will also do: the various Scindias always add lustre.
Starlets and starlings also brighten up the scene – usually those who may have come down from Mumbai to cut the ribbon for the opening of a new jewellery shop or even a shoe shop. After which they drop by at parties, stealing for a brief spell the limelight from the regular page3wallahs. The best accessories, however, are nubile young men and women, brandishing their hot bods. Weddings have metamorphosed into a string of theme parties, leading up to the big day itself. You need mujras, dancing starlings and venues that look like film sets with massive Buddha heads or Ajanta-like murals to have a big fat Punjabi wedding.

Just a word of advice to the seasonal party-givers: don’t worry your well-coiffeured heads about the food. You see savvy party-hoppers flit from one place to the other, nibbling on a lettuce leaf here and another there. The really wise ones eat at home before they start out on their social binge.
And then, with the first hint of summer, everything is put away with the mothballs. It is also pack-up time for the overseas desis, until the next season.

On the diplomatic front
There are magical soirées though. Under the canopy of stars and a sliver of moon, the new French envoy, Jerome Bonnafont, hosted an elegant evening to savour Bouvet-Ladubay’s array of wines from the Loire Valley. If you remember, our very own ‘King of the Good Life’, Vijay Mallya, bought this French company last year. A little bit of disclosure: my husband and I spent a delightful evening under a Paris sky tasting half a dozen of these sparkling wines in the garden of the former ebullient Indian envoy, Ambassador Rangachari (as sparkling in his wit) and his wife Kokila. These were testing-tasting times: UB and Bouvet-Ladubay had yet to sign on the dotted lines.
Meanwhile, back to the unforgettable Delhi evening. Terracotta diyas (the real thing) lit up the path to the residence. But what is remarkable is the rangoli of flowers along the path: delicate white tuberoses encircled the lamps and rose petals filled in the spaces. The lawn had little pavilions for each of the wines. And of course, where there’s wine there has to be cheese. Before the serious wine tasting began, Ustad Kamal Sabri played the sarangi.
The wine, however, was hitting different kinds of notes. Bouvet Tresor Blanc, we were told, is the bubbly for the more sophisticated palate, compared to the Bouvet Brut. But, as we were also told that evening by M. Patrice Monmousseau, whose family owned the company, these two sparkling wines were like Versailles is to Paris. In this equation, Paris was Champagne, home of the real thing and Le Loire was Versailles. Not quite Paris, but charming.
The French are known to take their wine (and food) seriously, imbuing it with philosophical and even spiritual meaning. For the French ambassador wine carried “the secrets of life”. For, only the French can elevate grapes to these heavenly heights. Well, cheers!

Of art malls and molls
Art is going places – to malls and molls in bars. Naren Bhiku Ram Jain is going to launch an art mall this winter in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar. Covering 15,000 sq ft of space over three levels, with the intention of extending it to 100,000 sq ft, he probably wants to make it into an art supermarket. Walmart, perhaps, of the fine arts?
Is art going the mall way, as has much of fashion, after the over-zealous sealing drives of the Delhi Municipal Authorities. Bodhi Art has relocated to a mall in Gurgaon.
Art is no longer just pricey but sexy – and a great conversation piece, at the moment. Pankaj Sahni, a 35-year-old entrepreneur, has just started something he calls Artoholix. Get it? Addicted to art. And what better place to hold exhibitions than nightclubs and restaurants. In what is probably a clever marketing move, he has established a movable club – only members can follow the art and wine, on whatever trail.
Sahni also has a candid view about art. As he said, in a newspaper interview, “Personally, I feel that there is nothing serious about art. It’s for everyone and if everyone loves going to a nightclub, why not take art there?” And if somebody spills some bubbly over a painting, he is quite sanguine about it. “I hope people don’t spill champagne on a painting but then, that’s what insurance is for.” Well, I am not sure I can say cheers to this one.