New Beginning
Neither the tormented Priya Kapoor in Saans nor the petulant Ketaki in Khandaan could ever comprehend Neena Gupta's bohemian living or exhibit her flair for production and direction of small screen serials. After many years and over 40 dramas, including the TRP-hogging Saans, Siski and Palchin, Gupta is back where she began-in Hindi films.
She
is now the director of a "contemporary love story" produced
by Pantaloon Films (of the Hrithik Roshan-Esha Deol starrer Tum Jaane
Na Hum). The theme, she says, is about what she knows best-women. "They're
fascinating. I find women are always nasty to other women... I've always
had the maximum trouble with them!" Currently absorbed with two soaps
she plans to produce for Doordarshan and Star, Gupta's keeping mum about
the film's storyline: "It is difficult to deliver a classy and commercially
viable product."
Hasn't Indian cinema always thrived on this premise?
First, for some figures. India is the largest consumer of gold (in any form), touching 855 tonnes per annum. The US comes in a distant second with 350 tonnes. So how do you make sure the rest of the world catches up? The World Gold Council's figured out a way: an annual India-specific jewellery design contest called Swarnanjali that will move away from the chunky pieces Indians associate with gold to more lightweight options for the global market. Last year's winners were egged on to do just that when the organisers incorporated two new categories, men's accessories and a "casuals" line.
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| NECK TO NECK: Swarnanjali's winning designs | ||
Last week, Kolkata jewellery house PC Chandra put the last year's 36 winning designs on the ramp with a fashion show-another promotional. "Gold jewellery isn't only about wedding wear," says WGC's manager (East) Manos Mukherjee. "We should start looking at low-carat designs that most other countries prefer." Especially now, when Swarnanjali winners also get a shot at the WGC's international contest, Gold Virtuosi. Last year, five of the 36 Indian designs won honours. Taking a cue from all this, PC Chandra plans to go funky too. "We want to tell people you can wear gold in a trendy way," says director Suvro Chandra. "After all, gold never goes out of fashion."
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PURPOSE OF BEAUTY: When beauty expert Blossom Kocchar and South African model Shelley Pearce (left) co-hosted a workshop in Delhi last week, it wasn't just make-up tips people had gathered to hear about. It was the announcement that the QCGirl International Model Hunt, a contest with a first prize valued at $35,000 and contestants from 33 countries, is being extended to include India this year where the world finals will be held. Variety is the spice they claim for their own: each contestant can present their own 60-second routine in the clothes and music of their choice. The only qualification is that a participant must be between 17 and 30 years. To win the finals in October, she would need "character and personality", says judge-to-be Pearce. Let the preening begin.
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Paintings by Mesquita
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The Bodied Self, an exhibition of 12 works by artists Jehangir Jani, Anju Dodiya and Theodore Mesquita offered three diverse, enticing interpretations of a social conundrum-separating private desires from the necessities of social mores.
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The artists at Sans Tache; Jani and Dodiya (right) |
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The selection of watercolours, curated by critic-poet Ranjit Hoskote at Mumbai's Sans Tache Art Gallery, was inaugurated last weekend. Good thing, too: people had a day off to decipher Dodiya's "Pillory", for example, which, inspired by medieval European history, displayed both the royal influence and the brute force of the period. Sculptor-installation artist Jani stayed closer home with his Kalighat-inspired works of colour-drenched man and animal, both of whom remain heroic and vulnerable in their nakedness. Out-of-towner Mesquita (he lives in Panjim, the other two are Mumbaikars) gathered his thoughts from the German art nouveau (Jugenstil) period; in Later day saints, he uncovers the "half truth of dreams and fears" that plague the individual, delving into a culture he feels is no longer defined.
The exhibition, which Hoskote describes as "intimate" (he had Jani in mind here) is on till July 14. Till then, try defining the undefined.
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