Baby, baby one more time

It was an international film directors' meeting to which Farah Khan wished she had taken her babies!

Farah Khan, Paul Berges and Gurinder Chadha (TOI photo)

Because this was in London, at Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha's home, and Gurinder has twins — Raunak Singh and Kumi Kou, who would have been great company for Farah's triplets Diva, Anya and Czar. The Bollywood director and choreographer, however, had left her kids back home with husband Shirish Kunder.

Farah was in London being felicitated by Parminder Veer's Mayfair Film Club which organised a retro section in her name. "We tend to underestimate ourselves," said Farah from London, "people from various countries who attended the event made me realise that Bollywood has reached every nook and corner of the world."

Cinema luminaries and contemporaries like Meera Syal and Gurinder paid tribute to Farah for her international work on films like Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair and Andrew Lloyd-Webber's stage musical Bombay Dreams. Besides these, Farah is also known for choreographing an Indian sequence for Shakira and working on the Chinese film Ru Guo Ai which went for the Oscars.

In her speech at the felicitation, Farah talked of how Michael Jackson inspired her in the 1980s with his dance moves, particularly his song Billie Jean. "Post event, a man called Steven came upto me and said he had directed the Billie Jean video. I almost fainted!" said Farah. It turned out Steve Martin is a Farah Khan fan and is planning a film in India.
There was more glory. She was invited by five countries to address their universities on the technique of filmmaking.

But the highpoint of her trip was meeting Gurinder's twins. "Gurinder and I only talked about our babies, there was no exchange on films," laughed Farah.