Price Of A Deal
Musharraf may have bent backwards in a bid to make his country the standard bearer of the US in the region. Of course, there are financial rewards for Pakistan, but the fear of a fundamentalist backlash continues to keep the nation on tenterhooks.

Circle Of Death
Violence fuelled by bigotry and foreign money brought the Taliban to power. Now as things come full circle the Islamic militia may meet an equally brutal end.

Afghanistan 1978-2001
Its women once enjoyed social freedom, and there was joy and peace. It is now a country perverted by the missionaries of a grim utopia. A social history in pictures.

METROSCAPE

Dancers In Distress

The b/w images recall their lives. Quite unremarkable till the lights come on. But under the yellow hues, when their limbs moving in rhythm to the loud music, they are a transformed people. The poignant tale of Maharashtra's folk dancers is being explored in "Dancing Maidens", an exhibition by photojournalist Shirish Shete displayed at Mumbai's Piramal gallery.

Shete took over two years for this ssignment, travelling to the state's rural innards to track the nomadic life of the dancers.

With a portable temple, a fleet of cooks, brassy Paithani saris and bawdy humour, the troupe tours for several months at a stretch, passing through towns and villages to source a style of entertainment that has fewer and fewer takers. "Life for them begins after dusk," says Shete. You wonder for how long.

—Himashi Dhawan

Camp Language

The Mysore Sales International, a Karnataka government undertaking, is taking its side job as an art promoter seriously. After a successful experience in Chikamagalur, a second artist's camp was held at the medieval town of Hampi with 18 participants, including Delhi's Arpana Caur, Kolkata's Jayashree Chakravarti and Chennai's C. Douglas, a conscientious pan-India representation. Says the highly motivated I.M. Vittalamurthy MSIL's MD: "We're planning an art gallery soon but wanted to have camps to give artists a relaxed atmosphere to work." News is that artists are already lobbying for a place in the next camp.

—Stephen David

Lounge Ladies

	FOR THEATRE'S SAKE: Narayanan (right ) with Anuradha Chandan in An Eviening to Remember

Lounge bars have been the hottest thing to hit Mumbai since its notorious occupants, lounge lizards, made their debut. Now here's another in the lounge series-lounge theatre. (Preceeding lounge music, lounge workshops and lounge cooking.) Last Sunday, Mumbai's resto bar-cum-lounge Athena had a makeshift stage for Space Theatre Company's one act-play, An Evening to Remember, directed by Neville Dadachanji. Notable performers were Femina Miss India 2001 contestant Suvarchala Narayanan as the sultry Nina and TV actor Romi Jaswal as the comic Kenny. Fortunately, the plot of this Mumbai-centric adaptation of a Vincent Geoffrey play was engaging enough to cause a neck-strain to audiences seated on oddly arranged seats. It revolves around three schoolfriends who meet for dinner when suddenly the news of Nina's arrest for shoplifting brings their friendship to a test. Given the gimmick, seems like a testing time for theatre as well.

—-Natasha Israni

MetroScape

Fort Of Arms
In the 16th century, a Portuguese governor fortified a strategically located house to defend ships in the harbour of an island on the west coast of India acquired from the Sultan of Gujarat. Mumbai grew first into a fort and then into a city from here.
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Looking Glass

Delhi Photography:
Pradeep Bhatia

Delhi Music Concert: Pandit Ram Chatur Mallick Dhrupad Foundation

Delhi Sculpture: Sculpter Hemi Bawa