Society

Look Who’s Coming To Dinner

<i>Outlook</i> asked a few celebrities for their fantasy I-Day party guestlist. Gandhi and Nehru dominated; Rakhi, Mayawati came a close second.

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Look Who’s Coming To Dinner
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Vir Sanghvi
Writer and Broadcaster
I would want to dine alone with Nehru. It would remind me of the time John F. Kennedy hosted a dinner in honour of Nobel laureates and called it the biggest gathering of intellectuals in the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone. I would serve him a Gujarati meal because I am a Gujju and it would also remind us of Gandhi and Patel, without whom there would have been no Independence and no united India. As a last course I would serve bread and butter pudding, marking a farewell to the British.

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Jagdish Khattar
Entrepreneur

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  • My wife Kiran: Because if I didn’t call her, it would be the end of my independence.
  • Azim Premji: My benefactor.
  • Silvio Berlusconi: The Roman emperor of the 21st century and the envy of all other premiers around the world.
  • Mayawati: If she can’t make it, she can send her statue.
  • Jayalalitha: To see if she lets her guard down.
  • Amar Singh: Will call a spade a spade.
  • Vijay Mallya: No party is complete without the king of good times.
  • Rakhi Sawant and Mika: Needs no explanation.

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Shashi Tharoor
| Minister of State for External Affairs

I would wish to do the impossible and retrieve from Heaven eight people who did do much to win our Independence and shape the nature of independent India. My eight guests dreamed of an India that embodied a certain spirit. We have given passports to their values and ideals.

  • Mahatma Gandhi: He won’t eat much and I hope it won’t be his day of silence, but we would hang on to his every word for his wisdom, humanity and quirky sense of humour.
  • Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru: Perhaps the finest mind ever to grace Indian politics. He was also a famously entertaining dinner guest with a remarkable talent for mimicry of foreign leaders he had met.
  • Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: A man of few words, but well-chosen ones. His doughty spirit and iron integrity would make him a fascinating guest.
  • Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: His sagacity, wisdom and great erudition, as well as large-hearted and syncretic nationalism, breathed the spirit of an inclusive Islam into the Independence movement in the face of the bigotry of the Muslim League.
  • Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The voice of an alternative idea of the struggle for freedom, one which abjured both Gandhian philosophy and tactics. Seating him next to the Mahatma would make for a fascinating exchange.
  • Rabindranath Tagore: The Shakespeare, Goethe, Rilke and Montesquieu combined of India, a towering figure whose nationalism went beyond nation, and whose breadth of vision continues to inspire lovers of Indianness around the world.
  • Sri Aurobindo: Another alternative to the classic nationalism of Gandhiji and Nehru, the former Akroyd Ghose made the most astonishing intellectual journey in a life that spanned Anglophilia and Hindu revival, and went from terrorism to spiritualism. He would have a lot to say and in a mellifluous English rooted in the highest Indian philosophical tradition.
  • Sarojini Naidu: The poet of the national movement, she would also be counted upon to deflate any overly earnest conversation with piercing wit and willingess to debunk (“Only God knows how much it costs us to keep the Mahatma in poverty”).

All in all, this would be a dream Independence Day dinner. But since there are only eight places at the table, I would want to invite two others for a tumbler of their favourite Scotch before the meal. I would ask Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Lord Louis Mountbatten why they did what they did to vivisect the nation as it was just about to gain its freedom.

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Saif Ali Khan
| Actor

I would invite Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah for my Independence Day dinner. I would want to talk to Nehru and Gandhi about their vision of India and whether we have achieved enough, economically, socially and politically. I would discuss the Pakistan and Kashmir issue with Nehru and Jinnah. Why were those divisions created? Why does the Kashmir issue seem so insoluble?

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Cho Ramaswamy
Satirist and Editor, Thughlaq

  • AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha: To bring her out of Kodanadu (her estate near Ooty) where she’s hibernating. Her partymen need her. Moreover, there is no real opposition in the state.
  • Mamata Banerjee: So that I can give Manmohan Singh a respite from her tantrums for a few hours.
  • Laloo Prasad Yadav: Nobody takes him seriously. I feel really sorry for him and would invite him out of pity.
  • Osama Bin Laden: If word gets around that he was invited, the others will not come. So much expense saved!

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Abhinav Bindra
| Shooter and Olympic Champion

  • Mahatma Gandhi: The Father of the Nation got us independence from the Raj and, being a witty and intelligent conversationalist, he’d probably be the life of the party.
  • Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam: The Missile Man of India is the only surviving former president of India, it would be an honour.
  • Kapil Dev: Wisden’s Cricketer of the Century, one of the greatest sportspersons India has ever seen.
  • Roger Federer: He may be the greatest tennis player of all times, but he is a wonderful, humble man.
  • Warren Buffet: A great businessman and a greater humanitarian, who still lives in the same house and drives the same car he had before he got rich.
  • Bill Clinton: A world statesman!
  • Princess Diana: The people’s princess, need I say more?
  • Amitabh Bachchan: Actor extraordinaire who has faced adversities only to emerge stronger.

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Rana Dasgupta
| Writer

I-Day is too comfortable a commemoration. We pretend, for this day in the year, that all our problems were miraculously resolved by a simple change of guard.

We rejoice in the “freedom” that, for the other 364 days, we know is very partial. My I-Day dinner party will be a therapeutic disaster that will destroy all complacent thoughts and stale responses, and force out a new reality—glistening and terrifying.

At one end of the table will be the sculptor from Bihar, Subodh Gupta. Devilishly handsome, and possessed of titanic artistic powers, Subodh will supply a wild creative energy to the evening. Next to Subodh will be Mayawati, who has many thoughts of her own about sculpture—and whose unique experience of India is essential to any consideration of the nation’s future. Next to Mayawati will be Slavoj Zizek, the brilliant social theorist, Lacanian psychoanalyst and self-professed Marxist, whose alchemical analyses will transform Mayawati’s opinions into pure jouissance. But Zizek will not be able to monopolise the conversation, for on his other side will be Aung San Su Kyi, whose views on contemporary politics will certainly equal his in authority.

On the other side of the table will be Rakhi Sawant, the shape-changing starlet whose indeterminate identity will mix up the evening well. Next to Rakhi will be Steve Jobs, who will lend his visionary sense of contemporary business and technology to the
conversation. Then will come Zaha Hadid, the world-famous architect from Iraq, who will force the gathering to think about the physical appearance of this twenty-first century of ours.

Finally, at the far end, will sit the slight figure of Bei Dao, the Chinese poet. Bei Dao will say nothing all evening, but will act as a kind of levitator. He will inject a silence of such profound lyricism and political sensitivity that the other guests will become embarrassed at any hint of vulgarity in their thought, and will wish to rise above such things: They will become weightless, float away from their seats, and conclude their conversation just below the ceiling.

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