Oysters and orchids with Simi Garewal

<div class="section0"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">HOW wonderful to eat oysters amidst orchids with Simi Garewal at her terrace apartment in Mumbai''s upscale Malabar Hill. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">How wonderful and how apt. After all, nothing less will do from India''s consummate sophisticate, whose extraordinary life has afforded her a ringside view of some of the most charismatic personalities of the country.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Consider this: Simi has met Pandit Nehru, been discovered by Mehboob Khan, dated Ratan Tata, acted with Vinod Khanna, played word games with and been directed by both Satyajit Ray and Raj Kapoor, flown in a private plane piloted by Rajiv Gandhi, been sung to by Jayalalitha, and has had the staying power - the sheer longevity - to rap with AR Rehman, laugh with Kajol - and hold your breath - compete with Karan Johar in the talk show stakes. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Do you have any idea how many decades, generations, worlds, social sets, and verbs that straddles? The mind boggles. Another oyster please. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"But I have so little to talk about," she is telling me in that well-modulated famous voice, that snooker-at-the-Willingdon-Club voice, "I''m not great at giving interviews..." </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">And yet, the interview unravels, with revelation ("I pray to Sai Baba of Shirdi every night"); poignancy ("after my mother died, I stopped writing my diary. Who, I thought, would cherish my words in the same way I cherished hers?"); insight ("I married the wrong man. Smart woman, foolish choice"); honesty ("I feel I looked better in the first season of Rendezvous"); and confession ("I have a sleep problem, my brain is too active, it keeps me up till 5 am most days"). </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"I have studied myself, introspected a great deal on why I react the way I do, love the same people or behave in a particular way, and now I am at peace with myself," says the lady who has directed a feature film starring Mithun Chakraborty, been commissioned by Channel Four between ''87 and ''91 to make a three-part documentary on Rajiv Gandhi, has directed nine election campaign films for the Congress, acted in approximately 65 Bollywood films, produced India''s first TV series in a magazine format - Women''s World, won an international award for her Only Vimal commercial and acted in a docudrama mini series on Indian royalty in the UK. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Is it any wonder that she is a compendium of character analyses, a storehouse of anecdotes and an encyclopaedia of stories? </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">For instance, she will tell you how Ratan Tata arrived in a Maruti 800 for his interview with her, Jayalalitha took exactly four minutes to relax with her and eight minutes to sing to her, Raj Kapoor refused to initially but then spoke honestly about Nargis. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">And that even though she was aware that Jaya Bachchan was in the control room listening in to her interview, it didn''t stop her from asking Amitabh about Rekha. ("Jayaji is a very enlightened person; she understands media and is never petty about things"). </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">With Simi, there are no boring moments. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">She will share with you how the one question she longed to pitch on her show was to Abhishek Bachchan about his breakup with Karisma - but didn''t - because she felt he was too raw to handle it. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">She will narrate how Imran Khan let down his hair and talked for the first time about his break-up with Jemima on camera. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">She will tell you how her heart went out to Sonia during filming of the documentaries, when she saw how she lived under the constant fear of her husband''s assassination. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">And she will regale you until all the oysters have been eaten, with the insights of one who has spent a lifetime studying people''s body language and reading people''s minds. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"I have the added advantage of having been interviewed a thousand times as an actor - so I know what it is like to be interviewed," she says of her skills. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"Being sensitive myself, I can sense what questions will get people to open up, and which ones will make them curl up and shut down." Which brings us to the vexed issue: is India''s most famous talk show host, a veteran of 110 episodes, just a little, er, soft on her guests? It is a question Simi has faced before.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:=""> "I may talk softly, my style of talking is soft, but the show is not soft, I get people to reveal a lot on it," she says, "I''ve watched all those MTV spoofs on me and even Shah Rukh Khan imitating me on the Karan show - and I thought may be that''s the way people think I talk - is that the way I sound?" she asks touchingly. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Oh dear, time for another oyster and a change of subject. What has she learnt about human nature from her years of observing people? </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"Power is the strongest motivation on earth even stronger than sex," she says. "Everything I''ve done has been early for its time," she says.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"When I was acting, there were not a lot of people in the industry I could relate to but had I come in today, I would have been very comfortable," she says.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">And now, for Simi fans, here''s some trivia: as a teen she went on a five-day hunger strike to persuade her parents to let her act in movies. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Her report card in school often called her ''assertive''. Karan Johar has invited her to be a guest on his show, but she has declined - because she believes exclusivity has an aura of its own. Her father played polo and spoke fluent Spanish.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:=""> Without her sister Amrita, she says everything in her life would come to a standstill. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">She is passionate about food, is an excellent cook and has taught herself to use Adobe Photoshop. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">She''s addicted to playing pool on the net. Every time she tries to meditate, she gets distracted by songs in her head. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">She does a 40-minute workout on most days. She has 600 hours of footage on Rajiv Gandhi. And for the next season of Rendezvous, she has an all-new set and 38 names of guests out of which she will choose 26. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">And finally one important revelation: one of Simi''s earliest memories is also one of her most unpleasant. "I was in kindergarten, and there was this little boy who kept sataoing me, by talking. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">But when I told him to stop, the teacher saw me, and punished me by sticking a plaster across my mouth to stop me from talking. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">It was the most traumatic thing. I wept and wept for hours afterwards." Mercifully, that was in the past, and now India''s most glamorous talk show host''s talking has a nation''s approval. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">In fact, such is the popularity of her show that I am willing to lay bets that somewhere in the future, when Shah Rukh Khan''s son proposes to Kajol''s daughter - it will be on Simi''s Rendezvous - that he''ll tell all. </span><br /><br /><br /></div> </div>