NAFISA ALI dislikes being called a socialite in New Delhi, even though her picture appears often enough in the entertainment and gossip pages of the capital�s press at some soiree or the other. �What does it mean to be a socialite,� she asks bluntly. �Does it mean being somebody who does a lot of social work? Because... I do much of that. Yes, I do go for parties, and I do entertain a lot, but does that qualify me to be called a socialite? I wonder.�

She does her entertaining from home, playing hostess to old nursery-school friends, her husband Pickles Sodhi�s business associates, some people from the real estate, and sometimes Bollywood folk who are in New Delhi on work. These include Shashi Kapoor (who started her film career in the late Seventies with Junoon), Vinod Khanna, Sonali Bendre and Amitabh Bachchan.

Home is a sprawling ground-floor garden flat in the capital�s affluent Greater Kailash I area. And it is home to Nafisa and Pickles, her two daughers and son, and six dogs. The French Miniature Bulldog is called Mischief, the male Pekingese Macho, the female Cheeky, the Daschund Cocoa and the Labradors are named Sushine and Amber.

Nafisa Ali loves good food. �That means I love food that looks good and tastes better,� she quips. �I am no connoisseur of any one cuisine. But I cook Continental food very well. I do so only for parties. I look at a recipe in any cookery book, shut the book and make the dish my way. It always comes out well. All our guests are always surprised and delighted.�

Being an army wife has made Nafisa Ali simple and unpretentious. Sure, she loves the good things of life, but these need not be Wedgewood, Baccarat and Robbe and Berking. �I hire the crockery and cutlery for the large parties,� she says simply. �I think it is more important to go to the market, buy the produce, concote the recipes and find out that at the end of the day, everything has worked out well.�

So the parties she hosts, are simple affairs where people get to know one another and where no deals are struck. They have as little as 10 to 15 people at their parties and as many as 150. �I can safely cook for 25,� says Nafisa Ali. �Three salads, two meats, perhaps a fish, a baked dish, two kinds of veggies, the dessert I order from out. I serve a dish and dash of French wine (that�s my husband�s department), and prefer Absolut vodka and tonic myself. The food is never Indian. We eat Indian food everyday, so it has to be different for the party.�

Does she prefer going to a party or hosting one herself? �I like my privacy, I don�t like parties where I know I�m going to be watched, so I prefer entertaining at home. I can listen to the talk and watch people. I find that more enjoyable and amusing. I can then put my feet up and chill,� says Nafisa Ali, happy that this kind of picture will never make page three in the capital�s press the next morning.