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Eyecatchers
A Girl's
Dream
 She
picked up Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu watching Indian films. She sang in Punjabi
in her new indipop album Akhiyaan Vich Yaar Vasda "because
it's 'in' in Bollywood". Good for London-based Mona Singh,
22, an "ardent Hindi movie fan", also a sitar, keyboard and
piano player, that Bollywood was only a song away. For Singh might just
land a chance to sing in a forthcoming Feroze Khan film. What's next,
the big screen? The London lass gets all excited: "A lot of people
have suggested I take to acting." An album, a film, it's happening.
For
Moms With Love
 She's
putting her work experience to good use. Model-choreographer-anchor Achala
Sachdev and her Mumbai-based company Vision Beyond have just announced
a "campaign" to "pay substantial tribute to the complete woman". And just
how? With a contest titled Mrs India for "married Indian women between
24 and 35 years", to be held on International Women's Day in March. Such
names as Ila Arun, Anil Dharker, Remo Fernandes, Rakesh Roshan and Archana
Puran Singh are on the advisory panel, so the lady means serious business:
"We are looking at creating icons of ordinary, everyday women." Not a
far cry then from the Miss India pageants, but worth looking at anyway
for Miss Sachdev.
 And
She Came Home
Jhumpa Lahiri's finally arrived. The 33-year-old Kolkata
darling's first post-Pulitzer visit home will be doubly special because
of her high-security wedding to Time magazine journalist Alberto
Vourvoulias. The wedding is to be attended by some 500 invitees. But,
says the London-born author who's "more at home in New York": "I never
considered Calcutta my home, just my parents' hometown." At least she's
honest.
State-of-Art
 It's
half a kilometre long, and took 17,484 children in the United Arab Emirates
526 hours to make. The longest painting in the Guinness Book of Records,
titled 'One World', also depicting national flags of some 192 countries,
will be gifted to UAE president Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The
idea came from Kochi native K. V. Prakash of the Abu Dhabi-based
SFC Group that picked up the project's Rs 40-lakh tab. He is now planning
to take "1,000 children from UAE to UN to appeal for peace in West Asia".
What's next? A Nobel for Peace?
Compiled
by Methil Renuka
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METRO TODAY
Sagarika
Ghose's The Gin Drinkers is easily the best diaspora novel set in India
and an account of existential dilemmas of Indian PLUs , writes INDIA TODAY
Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta in 