Koffee With Deepika, Alia and the 'elephant in the room'

Business Standard: The new season of "Koffee With Karan" kickstarted, rather 'quip-started' with plenty of girl giggles and nymph nudges to whet the viewers appetite.

Sadly, at the end of the wildly conversational carousal, I knew nothing about Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt and Karan Johar that I didn't already know. Or nothing that I wanted to know. Except that Karan Johar has private Whatsapp conversations with Deepika's fiance Ranveer Singh, which from what we gathered from the secret smiles, was proof of a secret crush that Karan harbours for Ranveer.

Well, good for them.

What happens to that crush after Ranveer weds Deepika? We weren't told. In fact, we weren't even told about the Ranveer-Deepika wedding which, coincidentally, was announced hours before Deepika came in the inaugural episode of the new season of "Koffee With Karan". Deepika flatly denied any immediate marriage plans. Alia seemed willing to marry her man any time he wanted.

So what's new!

What do I say about the naughty banter among the threesome? Except that the audience was not invited to the three-guest party. We felt like complete outsiders as Karan, Deepika and Alia spoke animatedly about men that they were interested in and the parties that they recently attended, and about the parties that they attended with the men they were interested in.

They also spoke about the "elephant in the room". I got that one. Since I know Deepika dated Alia's current crush Ranbir Kapoor (do I get the hamper for guessing this one?), I don't know if Ranbir enjoyed being called an elephant. But we were told what he did enjoy -- prying into people's phones and reading their messages.

Curiously, all the three participants in the tripolar tete-a-tete seemed okay with Ranbir's prying mentality. BS