Advantage Outsiders
With the balance tilted against it, the Taliban regime will soon find itself vanquished.

Lull Before The Storm
Amid calls for a quick and decisive end to the conflict, Afghanistan has been abuzz with talk of an imminent Northern Alliance ground war against the Taliban.

History's Pointers
The Soviet Union's 10 years campaign in Afghanistan — a conflict that led to a humiliating withdrawal and, some say, its eventual breakup
— can be a learning experience for
the US.

METROSCAPE

After The Nobel ....

The timing is perfect. When Ismail Merchant decided to make a film of V.S. Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur, the writer's recent Nobel Prize wasn't part of the publicity plan. The lucky coincidence is one of many things going for this latest Merchant-Ivory film. The celluloid Masseur has already won high praise at the 24th Mill Valley Film Festival in California and the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. Then there's the impressive cast which includes Om Puri, Zohra Segal and James Fox apart from New York actor Aasif Mandvi in the lead role of Ganesh, a struggling writer.

CRITICS'CHOICE: Merchant (below); a still from Masseur (above)

With The Mystic Masseur scheduled for release on Valentine's Day in London and in March in New York, Merchant is busy answering the media's questions. Has he been true to the novel? "Obviously when you make a film you stay faithful to the essence of the novel, that is why you buy the book to film," he responds.

"We added a few things to make it visually more dramatic, but the spirit of Naipaul is very much there." Critics seem impressed. "The film has the instinct for period and setting of all the Merchant-Ivory productions, but seems to have absorbed them into its very pores," writes Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. Over to Naipaul.

-Lavina Melwani

Show Your True Colours

Rao	Manuel	Abraham
Gracias	Pavate	Mallar

She waves aside cliches with the disdain that the dust off her shoes deserve. "What else can you expect than a "fair is beautiful" mentality in a country where fairness creams are sold?" shrugs Nina Manuel. Actually, there's no colour bar on the country's catwalks these days. Manuel is just one of a whole slew of dark-skinned mannequins coming close on the heels of Madhu Sapre and Noyonika Chatterjee.

There's Bipasha Basu, Sheetal Mallar, Carol Gracias, Vidisha Pavate, Kiran Rao, Diya Abraham, Bhavna Sharma, Nethra Raghuraman and a host of others. "In the fashion world we have a fair mix-pun unintended-of models with different complexions," designer J.J. Valaya chuckles. And unlike print and TV ads in India, where bronzes are usually lightened and tans are toned down, at fashion shows models aren't cosmetically touched up to conform to any colour schemes.

"In advertising you are trying to reach out to a mass market where the concept of the Indian beauty still includes a fair skin," reasons Valaya. "But as designers we are targeting a niche, far more open-minded audience, so we can get away with a lot that is not conventionally acceptable." Adds fashion show producer Aparna Bahl: "Colour doesn't matter on the ramp. What matters is body, height, walk and the way you carry the clothes, so you don't have to fit into the traditional image of a Punjabi beauty to make it in the fashion world." Remember Manuel manipulated to appear light-skinned in the Bausch and Lomb ad? Well at least she gets to show her true colours on the ramp.

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Mumbai Restaurant:
India Jones

Mumbai Puppetry Festival: Toccata

Bangalore Restaurant: Chung Wah

Kolkata Exhibition : Life Is Beautiful