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 Beauty
and the beefcake: Against the backdrop of the Umaid Bhawan
Palace in Jodhpur Mumbai man Aryan Vaid (right, centre with the runners-up
from Mexico and China) flexed the right muscles to become the first Indian
Grasim Mr International. The sinewy extravaganza had Vishwanathan Anand
as one of the judges and included performances by waist-waver Malaika
Arora (left), blues boy Lucky Ali and event regular Raveena Tandon. Vaid
claims he's already got some film offers...
-Hemant
Chawla
Writer's
Block
The
City in Their Works, a panel discussion organised by the Embassy of France,
saw writers M.Mukundan, Radhika Jha and Upamanyu Chatterjee with mediator
Sunit Tandon occupying the High Table. The debate, marked by Chatterjee's
"I've just had a large lunch and would like to take this opportunity
to digest it" expression, was worth stopping by simply to hear the
delightful Mukundan. "People were alive when I started writing this
novel (On the Banks of the Mayyazhi). That proved a problem for me."
Equally encouraging were the writers' opinion on the Capital. Said Jha,
the author of Smell: "I associate Delhi with the odour that pervades
your clothes after sitting in a scooter from south Delhi to Connaught
Place." Mukundan: "Delhi inspires me despite its monstrosity."
But the author of English, August was the kindest: "Anyone who has
grown up in Delhi knows it's horrible." Later, Chatterjee mentioned
that the only reason he had come was because his wife, Anne, who works
at the embassy, had insisted. Even more entertaining, when Jha graciously
said, "I loved English, August", its author nodded, thanked
her, and looked as though he wished he remembered the name of her book.
-Sonia
Faleiro
Man
of Steel
WHEN the India unit of Texas Instruments-a leader in digital signal processing
(DSP)-wanted to showcase its links with the Indian Institute of Science
in Bangalore, it chose Bangalore sculptor Balan Nambiar, 63, to wrap up
a stunning spiral conch shell in laser-cut stainless steel at the Institute's
dsp centre. Kerala-born, Madras-educated Nambiar, a veteran of 35 large
sculptures, has used computer-generated images to produce the sculpture,
combining art with mathematics, technology and philosophy. The futuristic
sculpture also attempts to showcase dsp technology in India.
-Stephen
David
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CII’s
conference on Friday on corporate governance is called Independent Directors:
Why, How and Who. Why Not, How Not and Who Not, would have been better,
says INDIA TODAY Associate Editor, V Shankar Aiyar