He had a marriage proposal for the daughter, dressed in a Manish Malhotra kurta and straight pants embellished with his signature Kashmiri threadwork, and faced a bouncer from the mother. And Bollywood's favourite designer smiled through it all at a Ficci FLO chat that had the pretty Raima Sen quiz Manish Malhotra on the making of Manish Malhotra, at Taj Bengal on Tuesday evening.
At the end of it all, the designer to the stars made the select audience erupt when he said, "Raima is one of the nicest girls I know in the film industry and when I met her for dinner on Monday night, I asked her to marry me!" Raima's response? "I said yes!"
And what did mother Moon Moon make of 'son-in-law' Manish? "I think you got by because you had the best-looking face!" she smiled from the front row and then added, "If I had a choice, I would wear only your clothes!"
And MM played to the well-heeled galleries like a good jamai. "Calcutta feels like my third home. It is always a pleasure coming here and there can never be a better evening with so many women listening to what I have to say!" smiled the 45-year-old designer. And the women simply could not get enough of him. No wonder Manish later tweeted: "Overwhelming: talk at FICCI event 185 women and me in conversation: FUN".
Pictures by Rashbehari Das