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METROSCAPE
Completing The Look
The "complete
man" in the Raymond ad will now have company. Raymond launched its
two-letter pret line, Be:, at its new Ansal Plaza store in Delhi last
week. The company's first foray into women's wear also seems to be "the
first time designer wear has been corporatised in India", according
to chairman Gautam Singhania. The store has eight Mumbai and Delhi designers-Arjun
Khanna, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Raghavendra Rathore, Puja Nayyar, Priyadarshini
Rao, Manju and Bobby Grover, Ashish Soni and Aparna Suneja-retailing in
the label.
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| COUPLE OF LINES: Singhania with wife Nawaz |
The apparel mix, it follows, is as eclectic-anything
from contemporary ethnic formals to minimalistic western and embellished
clubwear. "Be: stands for attitude," explains Ami Desai, the
store's deputy manager, merchandising. "It lets you be whatever you
want to be." But this is not going to be Raymond's only new "line".
Singhania's got another: "We want to be the 'complete company' now."
—Methil
Renuka
 NUDE
PLAY: Probably in an effort to loosen up the country's notoriously
squeamish painters, Mumbai's Guild Gallery decided to have a show called
"Nudes". Most works by the 19 artists, including those by Meera
Devidayal and B. Vithal (below), were brash and provocative. However,
male genitalia was conspicuously ignored (except in a work by Sajal S.
Sarkar), suggesting that artists are still stuck on the female form as
the archetypal nude study. Nothing seems to have changed.
—Himanshi
Dhawan
Return To Ray
 How
much of Satyajit Ray can Kolkata take? Quite a bit it seems. A new book.
A photo exhibition. Now a memorabilia show. But the display unveiled at
Gorky Sadan last week-close on the heels of that mandatory retrospective
of his films-isn't just some personal nick-knacks thrown together. The
exhibition takes a rare look at Ray the artist, rather than the artiste.
About 50 sketches done by the filmmaker-right from his student days in
Santiniketan's Kala Bhavan, through his stint in ad agency DJ Keymmer,
to his days as a children's fiction writer-dominate the display.
To go with that are several lesser-known items
like the sketch he did for a commemorative stamp on Rabindranath Tagore
in 1961, or the Jamini Roy copy he used as a prop. "Many of these
items have never left his Bishop Lefroy Road house," says Gorky Sadan
programme officer Gautam Ghosh, who borrowed from the family to put the
show together.
Ray's son, filmmaker Sandip Ray, agrees. "There
are some things never seen before and some things that were discovered
only much later." The title cards for Kanchenjunga and Joy Baba Felunath
that Ray sketched, but didn't use. Even the clapboard from the last-ever
shot Ray canned (it has a date: March 9, 1991). So... another Ray event?
Sure, bring it on!
—Labonita
Ghosh
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