NRI DIARY

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February 14, Valentine's Day, is a few months away. But, Rahul Dholakia, who has directed his first feature film, Kehtaa Hai Dil Baar Baar, can't wait for the day to dawn. It's the date set for the release of his romantic comedy starring Jimmy Shergill and Kim Sharma (who debuted in Mohabbatein). It's also for the first time that Lal and Kishore Dadlaney of Video Sound, Edison, New Jersey, the film's distributors, have become Indo-American producers of a full-length film.

Making Kehtaa Hai ... in just 60 days, admits Dholakia, was a terrific challenge with three critical constraints: creativity, time and budget. The project was started on September 9 and, two days later, the twin towers in Manhattan were reduced to rubble. In spite of the confusion, shock and numbness, Dholakia says that the New York Police Department rose to the occasion without delay in issuing permits to shoot.

SAY YOU SAY ME: A still from the film (above); Shergill (centre) at the press conference

Dholakia, who qualified with a Master's in communications from New York Institute of Technology has earned his stripes making advertising films and won awards for his documentaries Teenage Parents and New York Taxi Drivers.

The film is about an Indian family settled in America for more than 20 years. Besides Shergill and Sharma, the film stars Paresh Rawal, a former stage actor who has been a staple on the Indian silverscreen with memorable performances in Chachi 420 and Tamanna, and comedian Johnny Lever and Nina Kulkarni who appeared in Nayak.

"It is my third film but the first one where I'm the leading lady and it is a thrill," admits Sharma. "We had a great time filming it though on some days the pace was hectic with a call as early as 4.30 a.m.," says the actress for whom the film crew was "one big family".

At a function to celebrate the completion of the film, Shergill spoke of the his anticipation of the film's success-and "a pleasing break in your busy lives".

-Raj S. Rangarajan

Attick Aristocracy

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 (V&A), 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." 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

PROUD COLLECTOR: Bagai with guests (below)

Tales of Exotic India

During the time of the East India Company, tales of exotic India attracted a host of artists, many of them amateurs, to the subcontinent. Prints of the works continued to appear until photography displaced printmaking. This winter, however, Londoners got a rare chance to view these paintings, thanks to art collector Gita Bagai, who shared the Raj nostalgia through the printed medium. So you had the Indian royalty as seen by Soltykoff, Colonel Mordaunt's celebrated"Cock Match" by Zoffany, the picturesque Himalayas by Simpson, along with paintings of tigers and polo matches, among others.

-Ishara Bhasi

High Point in Jaffrey's Life

Saeed Jaffrey is a happy man this week: the septuagenarian star was accorded the rare honour of inclusion in Michael Aspel's legendary red book, This Is Your Life, the BBC's weekly excursion into the lives of the great and the good. Accosted by Aspel at the curtain call of the King and I, a remarkably cool Jaffrey was whisked away for a whistle-stop journey down memory lane as personages, past and present, from British and Asian shores, turned out to pay their personal tributes to him. Initially rendered speechless, Jaffrey later said: "I believe in life, one must not get smug, the more you achieve the humbler you get...life is full of wonders, thrills and surprises, you must receive all that God gives you with grace." Fifty years in show business, an OBE to his name, an acknowledged builder of international bridges, one can't help but wonder what took the BBC so long in sending Aspel knocking on Jaffrey's door.

-Poonam Joshi