RIGHT CHOICE: Shabana Azmi

The Bombay Club, revealed

Consulted by a BBC editor, who is on her way to do a series of TV programmes, Out of Bombay, I can do no better than hand over my till now secret list of the 100 people, with brief descriptions, who give the city its buzz:

Ramakant Achrekar, cricket coach; Javed Akhtar, lyricist; Anil Ambani, industrialist; Mukesh Ambani, industrialist; Neeta Ambani, educationalist; Tina Ambani, arts promoter; Khalid Ansari, media magnate; Shabana Azmi, actress, social activist; Amitabh Bachchan, Big B; Abhishek Bachchan, Baby B; R “Balki” Balakrishnan, advertising supremo; Kishore Biyani, md, Pantaloons clothing group; Kumaramangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla group; Asha Bhonsle, playback singer; Anil Chopra, head of Lakme Lever, fashion promoter.

Yash Chopra, producer; Gerson Da Cunha, actor, poet; Rahul Da Cunha, theatre director; Shobhaa De, author, columnist; Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister, Maharashtra; Anil Dharker, journalist; Queenie Dhodie, socialite; Lillette Dubey, theatre director; Priya Dutt, MP, inherited Sunil Dutt’s legacy; Sanjay Dutt, actor; Amy Fernandes, editor, Femina; Shireen Gandhi, runs Chemould art gallery; Sunil Gavaskar, cricket journalist; Arun Gawli, bruiser-turned-politician; Adi Godrej, industrialist; Parmeshwar Godrej, socialite; Subhash Ghai, film producer; Vikram Gokhale, actor; Ashutosh Gowariker, film director (Lagaan); Naresh Goyal, founder, Jet Airways; Pradeep Guha, publisher; Lalita Gupte, joint md, ICICI Bank, part of the “Petticoat gang” of women bankers; Ashok Hinduja, businessman (youngest of the Hinduja brothers); Niranjan Hiranandani, property developer; M.F. Husain, India’s best-known artist; Ustad Zakir Husain, tabla maestro; Dawood Ibrahim, Bombay’s most wanted but absent don; Boman Irani, actor; Abu Jani, fashion designer; Pandit Jasraj, north Indian vocalist; Karan Johar, director; Prahlad Kakkar, advertising man in hat; K.V. Kamath, chairman and md, ICICI, India’s largest private bank; Dimple Kapadia, actress; Ektaa Kapoor, TV producer.

Sanjna Kapoor, director, Prithvi Theatre; Shekhar Kapur, film director (moved back from London); Shah Rukh Khan, actor; Aamir Khan, actor.

Salman Khan, “bad boy”; Saif Ali Khan, actor; Sandeep Khosla, fashion designer (duo with Abu Jani); Uday Kotak, banker; Anand Mahindra, industrialist; Lata Mangeshkar, playback singer; Manish Malhotra, costume designer; Anu Malik, singer; Ayaz Memon, journalist; Sudhir Mishra, director; Khalid Mohamed, film critic, director; Kalpana Morparia, deputy md, ICICI Bank; Shubha Mudgal, queen of classical singing; Peter Mukherjea, executive, Star TV; Rani Mukherjee, actress; Pritish Nandy, media celebrity; Pramod Navalkar, Shiv Sena politician; Alyque Padamsee, theatre director; Akbar Padamsee, artist; Piyush Pandey, advertising celebrity; Prasoon Pandey, advertising filmmaker; Amol Palekar, director; Rhea Pillai, TV personality, ex- Mrs Sanjay Dutt; Sharad Pawar, politician; Ajay Piramal, industrialist; Cyrus Poonawala, horse breeder; Aishwarya Rai, Bollywood Queen and former Miss World; A.N. Roy, police commissioner; Himesh Reshammiya, pop singer.

Jehangir Sabavala, artist; Sushmita Sen, actress; Naseeruddin Shah, actor.

A.D. Singh, celebrity restaurant owner; Rahul Singh, veteran journalist; Gautam Singhania, industrialist, Raymond Textiles; Vijaypat Singhania, industrialist and balloonist; Mallika Sherawat, sex kitten; Laxman Shreshta, artist.

Ratan Tata, entrepreneur and head of Parsi clan; Sachin Tendulkar, best batsman of his generation; Bal Thackeray, leader, Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena.

Raj Thackeray, politician, leads breakaway faction of Shiv Sena; Dolly Thakore, media personality; Maureen Wadia, runs Gladrags magazine and beauty contests; Nusli Wadia, head of Bombay Dyeing; Preity Zinta, actress.

Since then, my partners in crime have pressed the claims of 40 others (eg. Murli Deora, Praful Patel, Mahesh Bhatt, Charles Corea, Ram Jethmalani) so some in the first list will, alas, have to be dropped.

I can be persuaded for the usual consideration (lunch at Oh! Calcutta). Any blame for omissions or commissions rest firmly with my Mumbai mates (they know who they are). But I reckon this is a good working list for the BBC.

STARSTRUCK: Peeya Rai Chowdhary

Arun’s dreams

Residents of the Maharashtra village of Pusi Savar, “10 hours by slow truck from Mumbai”, are in for a treat.

A movie set in the village, Truck of Dreams, had its European premiere last week in Canary Wharf, London, as part of the East End Film Festival.

The documentary-cum-feature tells the story of a travelling cinema, Alankar, run by one Sharad Deshpande, who plays himself as do members of his family. For 40 years, he has used the same projector from the back of his truck but is about to be rendered redundant by digital technology. As he gears up to screen Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, it is possible to understand how deities and Bollywood stars merge in the minds of the entranced villagers.

The cast has only one professional actress, Peeya Rai Chowdhary (Bride & Prejudice, Bhoot), who plays Meera, an impressionable girl who finally runs away to emulate the heroines she sees on screen.

The director, Arun Kumar, 37, who was born and brought up in London, says that the film is a charming depiction of “India’s last travelling cinema making what may be its last journey”.

Having seen Truck of Dreams, I can confidently say that Sahara One Motion Pictures, who financed the film, have backed a winner.

GOOD DEED: Sonu Nigam

Sonu’s song

It’s jolly decent of the Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam to offer to help with raising funds for a new boarding school for boys in Karachi called the Hub ? president Musharraf performed the “earth breaking ceremony” at the proposed site last year.

Businessman and former Pakistani high commissioner in London Abdul Kader Jaffer recently presided over a dinner in London, where it was revealed that Sonu Nigam, Abida Parveen, the “queen of sufi music”, and Fuzon, the Pakistani pop group, would all perform at the fundraising concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on May 19.

The point about most Indian public schools is that they are so good precisely because their pupils are taught to be (happily) secular (which does not mean being against religion, only against religious bigotry). If the Hub School is to adopt a similar philosophy, then Musharraf and Jaffer are nudging their country in the right direction.

Raj still rules

Happiness is a subject on which it’s worth consulting Dr Raj Persaud, Britain’s best known psychiatrist ? BBC television is doing a six-part series on what makes us happy.

He is pretty happy that the charges of plagiarism against him, arising from two articles, have been dropped by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London, though British papers have been slow in reporting that.

“The investigation into allegations of plagiarism against Dr Raj Persaud has been concluded in accordance with the regulations of King’s College London,” says a formal statement. “At the conclusion of that investigation the College decided that the allegations had some substance but were of a nature which could be addressed at ‘departmental level’ (i.e. Institute of Psychiatry) without the need to initiate a formal inquiry.”

“Dr Persaud accepts that he failed to properly acknowledge the work of others in some of his journalistic writings. He apologises for his errors, and retractions have been published in the appropriate periodicals. In view of this, the Institute has decided that no further action is necessary and the investigation is therefore closed.”

WORDSMITH: Soumitra Chatterjee

Tittle tattle

My opinion that London is the best place for theatre is not changed by the announcement that the actor Soumitra Chatterjee will come for a play reading on May 26 of the Tagore novel, Shesher Kabita, in which he will take the part of Amit Ray. Farewell, My Friend is crying out to be turned into an English-language film.