A very happy Mann: Gone are the days when those in power were circumspect about making their personal lives public. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann recently hosted a grand celebration to mark the first birthday of his daughter, Niyamat. The event featured performances by popular Punjabi singers and was attended by former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and top AAP leaders. Heart-warming images from the celebration showed Mann, Kejriwal and the governor, Gulab Chand Kataria, cutting the cake together. Mann’s bhangra was perhaps the highlight of the event.

A tryst with theism: P. Jayarajan, a towering CPI(M) leader from Kerala’s Kannur district, has been dealt a double blow. At the recent party congress in Madurai, he was not given a position in the party’s central committee. This after being overlooked for a post in the party’s state secretariat—the CPI(M)’s highest decision making body in a state—during the Kerala state conference in March. However, despite what looks like a side-lining, the strongman’s vocal fan base remains steadfast. This was illustrated on a flex board declaring: “Just as God is present in iron and rust, this comrade will remain in the consciousness of this land.” However, the theistic tone used to exalt a communist leader turned out to be a full-toss, and KPCC vice president V.T. Balram was only too happy to step out and hit it with: “Now the real question is; is CPI(M) a monotheistic or polytheistic religion?”

A troubled childhood: Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks’s daughter from his first marriage, E.A. Hanks, has written a memoir—The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road—in which she reveals her dark and troubled childhood. She and brother Colin mostly grew up with their mother Susan Dillingham, who struggled with mental illness and addiction. “As the years went on, the backyard became so full of dog s**t that you couldn’t walk around it, the house stank of smoke,” she writes. “The fridge was bare or full of expired food more often than not, and my mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible.” Dillingham died of lung cancer in 2002, at the age of 49. The book, which describes an introspective six-month journey along Interstate 10, is published by Simon & Schuster | Getty Images

Belle of the ball: Soon-to-be-mum Kiara Advani is all set to make her Met Gala debut on May 5. The theme this year is ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, focusing on the influence of fashion and tailoring on black culture and identity. Advani joins an elite group of Indian celebs—which include Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Isha Ambani and Alia Bhatt—who have blazed a stylish trail at the Met Gala (sometimes, like in the case of Chopra, quite literally as her 2019 gown included a feathery trail). While most celebs are banking on their fashion and makeup artistes for the ‘visual effects’, it is Advantage Kiara, with no rouge able to rival that natural pregnancy glow | AFP

Game time: Jared Hess’s A Minecraft Movie, based on the popular video game, had a fantastic opening, soaring to number one at the box office with a collection of $163 million domestically. The film is about four people who inadvertently enter an alternate world and must find their way out. Fans went crazy over video game references like ‘water bucket release’ and ‘chicken jockey’. To the ignorant, a chicken jockey is a Minecraft baby zombie riding a chicken like a horse. Movie-goers were seen screaming and throwing popcorn in the air at these references. There has been an “exceptional” crowd response to the film, stated the UK Cinema Association. The only ones who are not happy? Theatre workers who have to clean up the mess after each screening | Getty Images