She might not have had a fiery debut at the Cannes Film Festival Red Carpet last week, but that was the least of Minissha Lamba’s worries when she landed back in Mumbai from the French Riviera. Upon her arrival at the Mumbai International Airport, Minissha was detained by the Customs department for carrying approximately 50 lakhs worth of undeclared jewelry. Reports state that the jewelry belonged to Anmol Jewelers and had been lent to the actress purely for promotional purposes. Spokesperson of the jewelry brand confirmed that though they had ensured all the documents to facilitate Minissha’s carrying the valuables were in order, the actress simply forgot to carry them along. The interrogation that lasted around 16 hours was eventually brought to a close and Minissha was released after the requisite penalties and fines were made.
To add insult to the injury, India’s largest dairy brand Amul, known for their print campaign spoofs on current events cashed in on Minissha’s custom debacle by running a cartoon on the incident which says, ‘Lamba wait at airport!’ with hoardings all over the city. Thankfully the actress being quite a sport about it tweeted the picture saying “This is hilarious!!”
While the actress herself made a laugh out of it, columnist Shobhaa De wasn’t very amused with the situation and was quick to take a potshot at Minissha. De who is known to have had a fair share of twitter feuds, posted on her page “”Poor Minissha: Lamba race ki ghodi or lame duck? Warning to other Bollywood wannabes to leave those borrowed rocks at home. Dazzle wt yr talent (sic).”, to which Minissha promptly responded, “Ms De, real writers write books. Slandering on #Twitter is a job of the less gifted. ‘Dazzle with your talent’ Ms.De, Not ur slander 😉 (sic)”
Ironically, this wasn’t the first untoward incident Minissha had during her Cannes visit. Between losing her baggage at the Nice airport, almost missing her red-carpet moment because of a mis-communicated name call and having others tripping over her trailing gown on the carpet, the Cannes first-timer wouldn’t have carried back home many pleasant memories of her first trip. However she says, “On the contrary the experience has made me a stronger human being. I think I’ll go every year now.”
The actress is currently promoting her upcoming film Bheja Fry 2 co-starring Vinay Pathak, which is up for release on June 17th.
