Broken dreams in the Caribbean

India’s early departure from the World Cup is having adverse consequences on this summer’s tour of England from July 7 to September 8 for three Tests and seven one-dayers.

“No one is taking (corporate) boxes,” disclosed a senior Indian businessman, who spoke to me on condition he was not identified as he had made heavy losses in the Caribbean. “People are not that interested in India any more.”

I trust the loss of passion is temporary and that when the tour actually gets under way in bright sunshine at Lords, the past will be forgotten. Personally, I would like to see Sachin once more (having first interviewed him when he was 16 just before his first tour of England) and Sourav and Dravid, plus some exciting new players of the future.

My businessman friend lost $100,000 on the 18-seat box he had rented for all the India matches in Barbados — he had to cancel because he was suddenly taken ill.

“That money is gone — no one wants to buy the box,” he said.

He had also booked eight rooms, including a $2,500 a night suite, for 10 nights at the exclusive Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados. Ignoring his illness, the hotel docked a punitive $54,000 from his advance payment of $154,000.

England, I predict, will do well against India on English pitches this summer. I must say I like the look of Ravi Bopara. In England’s game against Sri Lanka, the 21-year-old played one flick off his legs that had class written all over it.

He’s a boy to watch.

Maiden voyage

We will soon have the pleasure of meeting & greeting Madam Mallika on what I believe will be her maiden publicity voyage to London. Rohit Khattar, a brave man, is bringing Ms Sherawat to Sitaaray, his Bollywood restaurant, for brunch on April 25.

There will be a pack of paps there that morning since Ms Sherawat has a distinctive style of dressing. But unwary journalists should take care.

Personally, I got on well with her when we met in Cannes two summers ago when she had come with Jackie Chan to promote her “role” in The Myth. A Norwegian journalist, who didn’t understand one of her answers, asked Mallika to repeat her response to his question.

“I’m not surprised you didn’t understand,” teased Mallika, delighted someone had fallen into her trap.

“You were not listening, you were looking, weren’t you?” she added, as the poor fellow turned crimson.

Rohit has flown back to Delhi after doing a “meet & greet” with Aishwarya Rai, who dropped in at his restaurant before going off to promote her film, Provoked.

Incidentally, Rohit, who has been in the hospitality business for ages, has been able to explain why he thinks Scotch whisky exports to India were down by 6 per cent in 2006, compared with 2005.

“Once, if we had to cater for a party for 300 — 150 men, 150 women — we would calculate 125 of the men would go straight for Black Label and consume five pegs each,” says Rohit, who is well placed to detect new drinking trends in India. “But in the last two or three years, wine, white spirits — rum, vodka — have really taken off.”

However, after a photo session with Mallika, who I am sure will dress appropriately for the occasion, even seen-it-all-before British paps might need a drop or two of the harder stuff.

Snap happy

Mallika Sherawat happens to be among the innumerable actors and actresses Gautam Rajadhyaksha has photographed over the last 20 years.

“Of course,” he responded, when asked if he had done Mallika. “Right from her first film. She is a wonderful, bright girl. Cerebral. She has a body that matches her mind.”

In recent days, Gautam has also photographed Shilpa Shetty, promoting a new sari line.

Just before Aishwarya dropped into Sitaaray, Gautam talked for an hour, providing an insight into the personalities of the stars, many of whom had become his friends. A long time back I visited him in his Bombay apartment which I remember as airy, light and tastefully decorated.

As Gautam provided the context for the pictures he had taken — 45 stars are represented in his book, Faces — it seemed he was very un-Indian in one way: he had something good to say about everyone.

Over a slide show, he talked of the photographs he had taken of, among others, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan, Smita Patil, Rekha (“the ultimate cover girl”), Rishi Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor, Aamir Khan and Madhuri Dixit.

Gautam made them seem human, as opposed to flawed but talented personalities with outsized egos.

Bollywood stars expect film journalists to be little more than extensions of their PR machine. One critical word and they find themselves removed from the charmed circle. But Gautam’s mission is different — it’s to help fans see the stars as the stars see themselves. It is much more than that, of course. It is to bring out hidden qualities that the stars may not themselves be aware of.

“I have known some — for example, Abhishek — as children,” Gautam pointed out protectively.

Biter bit

It was a seriously bad idea for Vinod Nayar publicly to disown his sons, Arun and Nikhil, in his searingly honest interview with a British Sunday newspaper.

Does Arun now back his father or his wife?

Whatever the humiliation Vinod felt he had suffered at the hands of Arun and Liz Hurley at their wedding — camera snatched away, not given a room at Umaid Bhavan, name excluded from invitation card, etc — he should not have come out into the open with the secrets of a dysfunctional family.

My guess is that Arun and Nikhil probably sided with their German-born mother, Gunna, who was divorced from their father after 20 years of marriage. Vinod married his second wife, Joanne, in 2004.

Vinod hinted as much when he said: “I can only imagine that my ex-wife, with whom I’ve had a difficult relationship, had managed to influence Liz in the same way she tried to turn our sons against me in the years since we parted in 1989.”

Vinod should have exercised restraint.

That said, if it were up to me, I would give Angela Johnson, who did the interview for The Mail on Sunday, this year’s award for interview of the year. It was riveting.

Tittle tattle

Bofors never got much play in the British media because the story was too tedious, complicated and lacked sex. This last element is present in the alleged scandal surrounding defence contractor BAE Systems’ £40 billion deal to sell Tornado fighters and Hawk jets to the Saudis.

The Serious Fraud Office inquiry into whether BAE offered inducements to the customer was stopped by Tony Blair when the Saudis threatened to cancel the contract. But it is widely suspected that Saudi princes were well supplied with girls.

Now, one of them, Anouska Bolton-Lee, has admitted she was looked after financially for being the mistress for two years of Prince Turki, a former head of the Saudi Royal Air Force. Blair said he had to act in Britain’s “national interest”.