Sahara group chief Subrata Roy
Suveen K Sinha
By 9.40 that evening, you had to watch your step; you had to be careful not to crush the pedicured and expensive toes of an A-list celebrity. And you had to hold your elbows close to your sides, lest they stick into another star's ribs. Worse, you could bump into one of several bodyguards, their safari suits concealing tree trunks where lesser men would have a chest.
The lucky men could get close to one of the several pretty women on view. But you could not be sure whether they were for real, or whether years of grooming had made them what they appeared to be from a distance: porcelain dolls with white skin and blonde, dark brown, or bleached hair.
Hrithik Roshan looked shorter and thinner than he looks on screen. But the air about him was the same as one of his more pleasant characters: warm, cheerful, open, and relaxed.
You could see that Abhishek Bachchan and Yuvraj Singh, as their handshake lingered, wrists above the elbows, are the exact same height, give or take a bit of the heel. Both came with their mothers.
In general, cricketers looked taller and film stars shorter than they do on screen. Virat Kohli looked taller than Anil Kapoor, who quietly slithered through to a table where brother Boney also sat. Virender Sehwag, whose wife did more of the namastey gesture than the handshake, Ashish Nehra, and Pragyan Ojha, as they lingered around an exclusive buffet line, looked much taller than they appear in match telecasts .
Not many in the hall recognised Sanjay Khan, who came wearing shades, and J.J. Valaya, who was clearly overshadowed. But Baba Ramdev created physical ripples as most of those he met touched his feet.
Mohammed Azharuddin's hairline has moved much farther back than in his playing days, but his abdomen has stayed where it was: tightly pushed back.
Loose and slightly flowing was Arindam Chaudhuri's ponytail; its length does not get captured in all those photographs and advertisements. When he met Roy, the Sahara Chairman was talking to Ramdev. Chaudhuri bent all the way down from his waist, but it could not be seen whether he touched the feet of only the baba or both.
Sheila Dikshit, Nitin Gadkari, Ajay Maken, and Jitin Prasada made their presence felt. But none as much as Mulayam Singh Yadav. While the others were in the main banquet hall, Yadav was seated on a sofa in the open-air VIP lounge. Looking as comfortable as he would in his own drawing room, he ate with a spoon out of a small bowl, with at least eight people sitting around him. They were mostly quiet.
And no, Beni Prasad Verma wasn't there. Nor was Sebi Chairman U.K. Sinha.