Aishwarya beat Amar Singh in speech....
Such is the oomph that Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai exudes that it can even leavespeechless a hard-bitten politico like Amar Singh who has mastered the turn ofphrase and is used to being surrounded by TV reporters eager for a sound byte.
That's exactly what happened at the Rashtrapati Bhawan Tuesday as Aishwaryaarrived in style to receive her Padma Shri civilian honour from PresidentPratibha Patil. Tall and lissome and clad in an embroidered pink sari, she wasquite naturally the cynosure of all eyes as she regally swept into the ornateDurbar Hall for the ceremony.
It was only a little later that the audience realised that she was accompaniedby her equally tall father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan and the rather shorter AmarSingh, who is the general secretary of the Samajwadi Party and a very visibleface on TV these days in the run up to the general elections.
A smaller group surrounded Bachchan and as for Amar Singh, he moved from one tothe other, not quite knowing what to do. Finally, he decided to call it a dayand slunk into the background, his expression seeming to say: "What am Idoing here?"
And, when Aishwarya trooped out as grandly as she had swept in, Amar Singhquietly followed her and Bachchan. "Come on, give him a break,"remarked a wag. "Perhaps he's feeling lost because this is one place hecan't play his politics."
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