Methinks, Brunch is rather civilised, if one is going to be a sticker, a meal a day keeps one healthy, wealthy and wise. `Truth serum' as is my coinage for champagne, should be consumed only if telling the truth causes no umbrage to the chosen company. Fun was had by one and all. Finally, when Sharon Prabhakar, Suresh Bhojwani, NeerjaShah and yours truly started to add lung power to the proceedings with `I'll do it my way' it seemed an appropriate moment to beat a retreat. Simi Garewal, my favourite karaoke partner, had left earlier, else I may have carried on and been carried out.THE Art Brunch on Sunday, at the Oberoi, was the culmination of a week-long art camp by some of the country's most talented artists. It was charming to eat, drink (yes! champagne in colours of the rainbow yet again) and mingle. With canvases the size of temple doors to doodle on, if artistic impulse suddenly overtook, the child in one reigned supreme. I spotted a couple of darling, talented, young ones and when they had the temerity to `improve' on my poor attempt -- of an arrow lifting into monsoon clouds -- I knew that these whiz kids of today were the latent talents of tomorrow.

Seeing Anjolie Menon, Satish and Amita Gupta, Manu and Madhvi Parekh all dance and make merry was like a rewind to the days of yore.

The legendary hospitality of the Oberoi's wasin keen evidence and I personally took pains to tell Sanjeev Malhotra how magnificent their munificence had been, to the artists weeklong, as told to me by them, and at the lunch, ample evidence of it was all around.

With Ajit Kerkar not at the helm of the Taj, and the Oberoi's impressive two days in a row, I begin to get the feeling that relegation to "Grand Dame" status may have more negative connotations for the Taj than they realise. The Oberoi definitely stole a march over The Brunch weekend. Big Sister Julie (as I've called Anjolie since I was knee high) and I retreated to the paint and plate (all the artists donated a canvas and a plate to the dealer) Jacaranda room for a quick `take 2' looksie. I don't know what it is about the smell of fresh paint and petrol fumes that makes me weak at the knees. Rather strange that, but it acts on the senses in almost as heady a manner as the "Shampoo truth serum".

Back in Anjolie's room we meandered down memory lane, both the happy and sad moments. As she,being sister and all, rightly pointed out, `Who is a real friend? Where were they then?' She was there with me and Varsha, my sister-in-law, as Rajan's life ebbed out in a railway station-like hospital. The faceless, graceless hospital staff, time ticking like a time bomb, the power of prayer turning futile, are all etched in my memory like art rarely portrays. Awash with anger, pain and grief, I howled like an animal does when it loses a mate -- not a pretty sight had it not been for the `STAR' cut it was recorded for posterity on Simi's show from the India Today archives -- talk of a media-feeding frenzy that fateful night. How? Who said life was a bed of roses, a big party and the Art of the Brunch -- It's not.