A jaunty beret and a goblet of champagne. Venue: the business centre of a multi-star hotel in Mumbai. Clinking a flute of bubbly at tea-time and getting right to the point, she asked, “Can you draft a note on my fund-raiser for AIDS awareness?” It was an errand that couldn’t be refused.
What Parmeshwar Godrej, aka Param, wanted she would get. “In return can I get an exclusive interview with you?” I bargained.
“Darling no deal. Just do it,” she laughed her trademark husky laugh. “You know I don’t like publicity.”
“It’s not publicity,” I said though I knew I was stonewalled. “I just want to know what makes you tick.”
“I am no clock which makes tick sounds, silly goose,” she pressed a platter of pineapple canapés on me. “ I keep getting approached for interviews and even for biographies. What’s there to say? I’m so boring, no?”
Param was anything but. A head-turner, the Air India hostess-turned-Godrej-tycoon, to me at least was straight out of an event-crammed bestselling novel. She just had to saunter into a Shah Rukh Khan party and she’d take over the scene, conversing on every topic under the sun and moon. Only the topic had to be sanitized of controversy.
Yet Mrs Godrej could never be dull, she was to a gregarious manner born. By contrast her perfect match, Adi Godrej, would speak only when spoken to, bemused on recounting everyday stories like his daily one-hour-plus commute from Malabar Hill in south Mumbai to his factory in the suburbs. “I am used to it,” he would shrug.
“That’s Adi for you,” the full-throated laughter would interject. “Nothing upsets him. He’s cool.”
Param’s parties were something else, hosted more often in the Godrej bungalow in Juhu, instead of their Malabar Hill sprawl caressed by the Chowpatty sea waves. I can’t say I was a frequent invitee except once in a bluish moon. For writing that AIDS awareness note, she insisted that I should be there to meet Richard Gere. “And I can read your mind,” she had said. “You’ll get your exclusive, the first interview with Richard.”
Deal. With precision, Param organised a pre-party interview with Richard Gere at a hotel close to where his private jet planes was landing. “Darling, ask him anything you want,” she had instructed. “But there’s a young American woman travelling with him. She’s his girlfriend, I think. She’s off-the-record.”
Right. The Richard Gere evening bash at her Juhu villa – sumptuously decorated and adorned with the early masterworks of M F Husain – was the sort which can never be replicated on film. Incidentally Husain had designed the Godrej logo for her. An interior decorator herself, it was said that she had done up the cavernous Khyber restaurant at Kala Ghoda in Mumbai and the Rishi and Neetu Kapoor bungalow on Pali Hill. Beige stones, original artworks, rich drapes and calf-leather upholstery were her signature. She must have designed many more homes and hotspots but these were the only ones I were familiar with.
From what I could detect she had a soft corner for the Bollywood’s leading lights. Vinod Khanna was an early favourite, she assigned him the task of endorsing Godrej soaps. And there was this product endorsement of the G-soap in close up in the Vinod Khanna produced film Himalayaputra.
Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, Param adored. When Bachchan’s father the eminent poet Harivanshrai passed away, she took out a full-page shradhanjali in a leading national daily. “Darling,” she had called. “Could you have a look at the text and see if it’s okay? I must get every word and comma right.Done?”
Yes of course, done.
The only time I saw her frazzled when a star wife had some issues with her. The wife had felt offended that she was not included as a part of a trip to Udaipur to raise funds for AIDS awareness. “My husband will not be available,” she had informed Param curtly.
“Imagine, the cheek!” she had confided. “There was a time when I would be sitting and listening to this woman’s sob talk. I would give her my hanky to wipe her tears. And now, she’s talking like this to me.”
It happens. Parmeshwar Godrej somewhere would have wanted to produce films, which I say because out of the blue, she called once, “Can I invest Rs 5 lakhs in this film you’re directing?”
I promised to ask the producer but the finances had already been sorted. “No issues,” Param said. “But I’ll kill you if you don’t invite me to the premiere.”
Predictable Param was not. Restless and on-the-go she was. A style and fashion diva, she was identified more as a socialite rather than the business entrepreneur and sharp negotiator that she was. She’d talk about her children succinctly but dotingly.
There was so much you could know about Param. No probing please. She had obviously reached a happy zone in her private and professional lives. A couple of years ago I met Param was at a mall. She was trying on hats of all shapes and sizes and asked spontaneously, “Which one suits me, you think?”
“Please don’t ever wear anything but your beret,” I replied.
“You’re right. See you soon.”
That soon was not to be.
(The writer is a film critic, filmmaker, theatre director and a weekend painter.)
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