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Queen Victoria in an attic? Goodness gracious me. But that's how it started before Roli Books, in association with London's Victoria & Albert Museum, brought the exhibition of period portraits to the British Council in Delhi this week. It started as a chance discovery. While cleaning the attic of a London film studio, a construction worker found about 3,500-odd glass plate negatives and, recognising Queen Victoria, called the V&A: "I think I have the Queen for you."

LAFAYETTE PORTRAIT: The erstwhile Rani Amrit Kaur Sahib of Mandi, June 24,1924

The negatives belonged to the now defunct Lafayette Studio on Bond Street. The studio specialised in photo-graphing Victorian aristocracy, including visiting Indian royals.

Portraits of at least 150 members of Indian princely families lay tucked in the attic and then in a drawer of the V&A photographic section. Until they were discovered, yet again, by Pramod and Kiran Kapoor, the husband-wife duo at Roli. It was only a matter of time before they took the shape of a show and a book, The Lafayette Studio and Princely India. Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur was chief guest at the inauguration of the exhibition that features her parents among portraits of Lord Chelmsford, Rudyard Kipling and Lord Mountbatten's wedding. Curated by Russel Harris, head of the museum's photographic section, the exhibition will soon be making its way to other cities in India.

Ravi Shankar

THREE CS AND CELINA:

Last week, when Kolkata beauty and reigning Femina Miss India Celina Jaitley unveiled Zenith, a line of diamond jewellery from the Kolkata-based Ramesh Chandra Parekh Group, at the Taj Bengal, a journalist stood up and without mincing words asked if a "mere" Miss India could match the more formidable Miss World Aishwarya Rai, brand ambassador for De Beers' Nakshatra collection. A nettled Jaitley was quick on the defence. Grabbing the microphone, she replied icily: "I am not a brand ambassador. I am only launching the line. And it's enough to have a normal person for that." Back empty-handed from the Miss Universe contest in May, Jaitley still proved a stunning sparkler: there was just no stopping the flashbulbs.

-Labonita Ghosh

Living Up To Amma

Kumara Sambhavam (above); early picture of Arundale (below)

Had Rukmini Devi Arundale been alive, she would have approved. Arundale's school of dance and temple of arts Kalakshetra came away from its 100-acre campus in Chennai's Thiruvanmiyur to Delhi's Kamani auditorium after 16 long years and with its biggest troupe (42 members) yet. The recent three-day dance-drama festival brought three of Arundale's favourite compositions-one of them Kalidasa's Kumara Sambhavam, an original Arundale choreography, in which she herself played the lead Parvati, revived by Kalakshetra in 1996. In what seems a bid at an image makeover, the festival, for the first time, is also moving to Kolkata and Guwahati. There's more: Arundale's birth centenary is next year. On the cards is the release of The Kalakshetra Saree, a book written by close Arundale associate Shakuntala Ramani. A museum to house Arundale's props, antiques and costumes is also coming up in Chennai. Says A. Janardhanan, principal of Kalakshetra Foundation since April last year: "Amma may not be alive. But we have not deviated from her principles. This trip is to show everyone that we are still preserving everything she left behind." Forget the low pay, the internal quibbles, the battle with the Centre, Amma will live on.

-Methil Renuka

In Black and White

In a coalition of Indo-African art, The Legends of African & Indian Art, on at Mumbai's Nehru Centre, brings "enchanting works" of 16 world-famous African artists, like Ancent Soi, Giko and Julius Wakaba, along with an equal number of Indian artists, among them Anjolie Ela Menon and Badri Narayan. Nairobi-based art aficionado Anshul Nagar, who put the show together, calls it fusion, or an interplay of two diverse yet intimate art forms. The most pronounced sentiment running through the works is the African leaning towards depiction of nature, wildlife and simple tribal life, Wakaba's Masai With Cows (above) one of them. Pity they won't be in India to savour the harmonious convergence.

-Natasha Israni