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EYECATCHERS
Doing Her Bidding
 At
an auction of 20th century Indian paintings in New York recently, all
eyes were pinned on Mallika Sagar, 26, Christie's first woman auctioneer
of Indian origin, also the first to auction contemporary Indian art. Sagar
made more records in the sale of three Indian masters: she auctioned a
Raza, an untitled Vasudeo S. Gaitonde and a 1959 Ram Kumar in excess of
their estimated value. A major in art history from Bryn Mawr College in
Philadelphia, Sagar has been with Christie's three years, and is now their
India hand in Mumbai. Memories of that record-breaking first auction are
still fresh: "It's not like acting in a play or being in a debate."
The stakes are much higher.
Spinning Around
 The
words corporate hi-flier suit him fine. Raymond CMD Gautam Singhania
is now among the first Indian civilians to fly the 30-tonne Sukhoi
Su-27,a variant of which serves as the Indian Air Force's (IAF) frontline
fighter. Singhania didn't fly in India though- the IAF didn't oblige him.
He had to jet off to Ukraine, which promotes military-tourism. For Rs
5.7 lakh, he got to sidle into a Sukhoi for a 40-minute spin that's "difficult
to explain now". The MiG-29 next?
Factory Fresh
 If
anything, the homegrown Lara Duttas, Priyanka Chopras and Diya Mirzas
(all of whom won beauty titles abroad in 2000) brought full-blown encomiums
for the Indian beauty factory. Now, it seems, wannabe NRI beauties elsewhere
too want to enrol with India's beauty magicians-Sabira Merchant, Mickey
Mehta, Jamuna Pai, Anjali Mukherjee and Co. 18-year-old Hiral Shah,
Miss India Kenya 2001, is no exception. In India to smoothen the rough
edges in anticipation of the Miss India Worldwide Pageant in California
early next year, the Nairobi-born Shah purrs: "I came to India because
I wanted to be the best." Wonder why the magic wand did not work
for Femina Miss India 2001 Celina Jaitley at the Miss Universe pageant
in May.
Inside Story
 Govinda
can hawk underwear with unblinking ease-and he's unpardonably funny. In
the past, Shekhar Suman has also been tolerable. But Sunny Deol?
Not content with the insanely successful Gadar, the serious Deol is now
loosening up for product endorsements. For an as-yet-undisclosed sum,
he has edged out Govinda to mouth the infamous Yeh andar ki baat hain
line in an underwear commercial. Says Deol, a tad bashfully: "I haven't
done an ad in a long time." Recall that the actor's first and last
brief stint in modelling was in a whiskey ad. But guess what? Deol does
not drink. As for the underwear ad, guess we'll never know.
—Compiled by Methil Renuka
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