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METROSCAPE
Singers'
Pact
The high cheekbones and wide smile are inherited
but the attitude is fresh. The latest from the stable of cocky bratpacks
is 20-year-old Ishita Arun, daughter of singer Ila Arun, who staged her
theatrical debut with Goonj at Mumbai's Prithvi Theatre last week.
The play, a 90-minute musical written by South African playwright Athol
Fugard and adapted by mama Arun and directed by K. K. Raina, investigates
the tenuous relationship between a grandfather and an orphan child, Veronica.
And Ishita as Veronica couldn't have chosen a more challenging part for
a debut.
 It
just wasn't the portrayal of cloying cross-generational encounters-in
any case among the more difficult standpoints in acting. As the true child
of a crooner, Ishita also had to prove her symphonic worth-she ends up
singing no less than nine ditties written and composed by her prolific
mother.
But the experience should come in handy to the
former Xavier's student who is acting in Kahan Ho Tum opposite Samir Soni
and Dil Vil Pyaar Vyaar with stars like Juhi Chawla and Sanjay Dutt. She
also maintains that a "live-wire" theatre performance is no
match to cinema. Could mean fewer retakes.
-Himanshi
Dhawan
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| STING A SONG: Scorpions in Bangalore |
BANGALORE SYNDROME: Every
international rock group worth its bandanna and tricep tattoo jets straight
into Bangalore ... and back out of the country. Reason: marginal tax on
high-decibel entertainment making the concert affordable at both ends.
(Compare that with a 50 per cent impost in pleasure-grudging Mumbai.)
This time it was the turn of German rockers Scorpions to include the Deccan
metro as a part of their 26-country Acoustica Live Tour. There were other
good reasons as well. Rudolf Schenker, guitarist and songwriter, said
after the concert that he was "amazed to see the crowds"-about
25,000 at the Palace Grounds-going frantic over Winds of change, Holiday
and Rock you like a hurricane. (Bryan Adams got 45,000, but he's more
of a populist ... with a lower decibel quotient.) The concert had to end
by 10.30 p.m. though, without the obligatory encore-city laws are intolerant
of loud music after that.
 THE
RIOT CHOICE: It wasn't a surprise when writers-at-large-Khushwant
Singh, Anita Pratap, Sudhir Kakkar, Mark Tully, Manju Kapoor, among others-braved
the rains and sodden streets to celebrate Shashi Tharoor's latest offering,
Riot, at Delhi's Taj Mahal hotel, Penguin's favoured launch venue. Enthused
by former colleague Harsh Mandar's account of a riot he was involved in
and a young American volunteer's death in a riot in South Africa, the
novel is about "stories we do not tell each other but we desperately
need to talk about". The "weekend writer" now plans to
take a break till Riot is "out of my psyche". It's likely to
be a short pause.
-Mridula
Chettri Singh
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