BIG IN NEW YORK

THE INDIAN EXPRESS, APRIL 2, 2004

SOCIALITE Meera Gandhi is one lady who doesn't stop shy of using her name or that of her friends' to do some altruistic work. To start with, she's working on a venture for battered women with New York Senator Hillary Clinton. "It's an organisation called Safety Net that was aimed at women in countries such as' Egypt and Bangladesh, but we found that New York had several such stories as well," she tells us.

Meera was in Mumbai on her way back from Delhi, and her good friends Vivek and Anjali Talwar hosted a small dinner for Meera and her friends-Rati Godrej, Kali Modi, Harsh Goenka, Poonam Bhagat, Feroze and Meher Dubash, Farzana Contractor; Sudhir Behl and Lata and Vispi Patel. Once the centre of Mumbai's social scene, Meera now has New York's chatterati eating out of her manicured palms.

She chairs a faction of United World College, hosts several art and cultural events at her five-storeyed heritage home in Manhattan (it once belonged to Eleanor Roosevelt) and makes sure she's present at every launch involving India in the Big Apple. "Whether it's an art gallery or a shawl sale, I'm there. I'm almost the unofficial mayor of Mumbai there," she laughs.

Speaking of her home, we know that the super slick legal drama Law and Order was shot there, but we've also just discovered that producer Shabbir Boxwala is requesting to shoot parts of her home for his new Naseeruddin Shah-directed film.

Let's hope that works out, and we can all get glimpses into Meera's famed mansion.