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Women
In Black
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| Power-dressing
for success: budding legal eagles from Mumbai |
Here's
a stereotype-buster: You think female lawyers are staid ladies in saris
and capes? You think showing some leg-or attitude-is for Ally McBeal and
her "brazen" colleagues? Well, looks like TV's most famous female
lawyer is making an impression right here. At a recent all-India moot
court competition in Delhi, a sort of debate among law colleges, most
of the women participants took the stage in smart skirt-and-jacket ensembles.
Not just metro misses: they came from 10 Indian cities. Mumbai girl Shruti
Bhatt favours western wear because "most people nowadays dress in
the international vein". Not all her seniors tut-tut their disapproval.
Says Delhi lawyer Ritu Bhalla: "As long as these girls are sticking
to the code laid down by the bar, that is the black-and-white rule, who
says they must stick to old norms?" By the way, seven of the eight
finalists at the contest were women. They've got "the look".
They've got the talent too.
-Shuchi
Sinha
True
Story
There's
the usual way to talk about HIV/AIDS on screen. And there is this way.
In That Lovedance, a reflection on the epidemic in middle-class India
that was screened in Delhi last week, filmmakers Monalisa Mishra and Ramesh
Venkataraman tell the story not through a documentary, but in a feature-film
format. It's about a woman coping with the loss of her husband to aids
and with her own HIV-positive status. It's about her sister-in-law who,
on discovering that her husband has contracted the virus after an affair,
is more traumatised by his infidelity than his infection. "Our interest
in the issue is because we've got friends who are HIV-positive,"
says Mishra. And though there are actors in the film (the third in their
series on the subject), this isn't fiction. It's about real people and
real reactions to a very real problem.
-Anna
M.M. Vetticad
Youth
Talk
Theatre-types
are different," explains aspiring playwright Nicholas Kharkongor.
True. When Kharkongor, 25, dropped out of IIM in Calcutta "for the
love of theatre", he says friends termed him "delusional".
Two years later, Kharkongor is playing the lead in a play he's also written-To
Each His Own, to be staged at Delhi's Habitat Centre this week. He's lucky
there's no Censor Board for theatre-the script has some offensive references
to the female anatomy and four-letter expletives. "It's about youngsters.
That's how they talk," insists director Sanjoy Roy of Teamwork Films.
The story: Wild model (dancer Puja Mukherjee) falls for neighbour (Kharkongor),
who's dominated by his mother (Prabha Tonk). The play has some witty one-liners
on relationships in an urban setting. Says Roy: "It's a good first
effort." Let's see what the audience thinks.
-Leher
Kala
Rocking
Grannies
This concert
had a strange entry pass: a grandparent. When Calcutta NGO Prayasam organised
"Rock Barsha", (literally, rock rain) with bands Chandrabindu
and Abhilasha, youngsters were allowed only if they had an elderly relative
in tow. Those above 60 packed in almost 40 per cent of the 400-strong
crowd. This "rock the grannies" idea was conceived by Ruby Roy,
Sadhana Bagchi and Ratna Sarkar (all around 65). The idea: for youngsters
to bond with their grandparents. But some hip grannies didn't need the
kids as escorts. They cheered, clapped and laughed raucously throughout.
They even jeered at a boring singer. Swosti Majumdar, 62, later said she
came "to hear what these kids listen to". But for R.C. Ganguly,
70, the event was a break from boredom. "This takes care of one evening,"
he says. Co-organiser Roy, however, insists: "I'm a young 60."
And 'with it', it seems.
-Labonita
Ghosh
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