Ooof. Some candid moments from Simi Garewal's Rendezvous 100 party, shown on Star Plus this Sunday, were really candid, so much so that everyone wants to know how the stars manage to lose all their inhibitions on Simi's talk show, and why Kajol is perpetually able to get away with the most outrageous statements.

"It's the colour white," Abhishek told Nafisa Joseph with a straight face at the entrance to the party. Later his face dropped like a hot potato when Simi said she hoped to have Abhishek and his bride on the show some day.

At times the lady with the microphone misused her position of power. For example was it right for her to question Rani Mukherjee about why Rani hadn't followed the white dress -code for the evening. Come on! This wasn't a high-school PTA meeting. It was an evening when all the stars congregated to let their hair down, and they deserved their private space to do so. Mercifully the cameras rolled out once the dancing and drinking started.

Sahara's top-man Subrato Roy smoked throughout and Sushmita's little bundle of joy passed from one lap to another.

Sadist is what the soaps have come to now! At least in two of Ekta Kapoor's soaps Koi Dil Mein Haiand Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi we have newly married sadistic husbands torturing their spouses with words rather than physical blows.

It's an interesting gum-chewing venom-spewing variation on the theme of domestic violence, done in a way that's tantalizingly combative. The fact that the wives are not kitchen concubines but savvy working women who refuse to get cowed down, gives a delicious edge to the fight.

Gone are the days when snivelling wives suffered their husband's brutal tantrums in the soaps. Even Raveena Tandon's `Choti Malkin` in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is breaking out of her bedroom mindset to emerge as a woman who won't take her husband's philandering ways lying down.

It looks like Simi Garewal's status as the talk-show queen has reached a point of no return. Last week on Sony's Yeh Meri Life Hai we saw a Simi Garewal look alike conducting her own Randezvous (imitation-white décor and all!) with Sujata Mehta who plays the stereotypical `Rich Bitch`, the kind who tells her daughter's friend , "Here's some money. Buy yourself some decent clothes, so you can look like my daughter's friend."

Ouch! In the same episode of Yeh Meri Life Hai I also saw the Hum Tum director Kunal Kohli (or was that too a lookalike?) making an appearance as a creative-writing judge. Some months ago the soap had started with Karan Johar. How the mighty have fallen..

It looks like the season of the wannabes and the imitators. Sveta Salve who seems to have a Madhuri Dixit hangup (can't say for sure because it might be a Suchitra Sen hangup, ha ha) is now on Jassi Jaisi..Koi Nahin. She plays a character called Arundhati Roy! No relation to the firebrand writer of The God Of Small Things.

Dunno about the Gods, but there's no dearth of selfstyled goddesses of the small screen. On Sony's bizarre socio-mythological Devi the original 'goddess' Sakshi Tanwar has been replaced by a new actress who doesn't even remotely resemble Tanwar. The prime focus of the plot has been shifted to Juhi Parmar who plays a spunky supernaturally blessed gao ki ladki called `Kalika`.

Last week's episode saw a spirited battle of supremacy between the two ladies as they fought over a divinely blessed `lep` (ointment) meant to cure Mohnish Behl's blindness. Look before you `lep`, or `lep` before Mohnish looks?

While we figured this one out `Kalika` got hold of the `Other Woman's` hand and snarled, Yeh pakad kissi shehar ki ladki ki nahin hai jo sirf mardon ko rijhane ke liye lipstick utha sakti hain.

Hold on! City women are cosmetic in their convictions? Fire the dialogue writer. Hours after Anupam Kher was awarded a national award NDTV got him into a discussion on whether these annual awards should be scrapped.

A bit inopportune , if you ask me. It's like asking a lately -blind man whether cornea transplants should be abolished. Cartoonist Sudhir Telang had the last word on the absurd debate. "I've got mine. They can scrap it from next year."

But Mr Kuldip Nayar went on and on about the redundancy of the awards. He was back again on the BBC on Sunday night in the very moving and incisive docu-profile on Mrs Indira Gandhi. There were varied and multifarious opinions on the amazing lady. The images of Mrs Gandhi giving speeches, conducting conferences or simply reclining to reflect, were memorable.

Why did it take a foreign channel to bring back vivid memories of Mrs G? And why did it take an M.J. Akbar to ask Mahesh Bhatt probing, piercing and painful questions to Mahesh Bhatt on his Muslim background ?

On CNBC's The Encounter, Mr Akbar wanted to know if Mr Bhatt saw himself as "a kind of Muslim" because of his Muslim mother. The interviewee launched into a passionate monologue on how upset he gets whenever he sees a Muslim being badly treated.

Just why the ill-treatment of only one community should effect Mr Bhatt wasn't clear. Shouldn't we concern ourselves with compassion on every level rather than narrow it down to one group of people?

On asked whether politicians use their power to get women from the film industry, Mr Bhatt hemmed and hawed a bit and said he had "heard" of such things.

Right. That takes care of that. On Saturday night Aaj Tak was taken up with a very critical issue. Standing outside the prime minister's new residence the correspondent excitedly told us that he had some important information to share with us. We held our breath. He tiptoed over to a man standing at the gate to ask his identity and what he was up to.

"I'm the man who's putting up the new name plate," said the man. And then he passed on quietly into the hall of fame.