Metroscape

OTHER METRO STORIES Class Apart Centenary Concert A Glided Gaze Let There Be Light Metro Minutes

It doesn't take much to lure folks to Goa. On December 8, the draw was particularly irresistible at the Marriott.

What with celebrity Goan boys—fashion designer Wendell Rodricks and pop singer Remo Fernandes—teaming up for the first time for "The Remo/Wendell Rodricks Experiment", a ramp show of Rodricks' Craftworks Collection set to music from Fernandes' new album India Beyond.

Xavier strikes a pose (above); Rodricks drapes Arora on stage (below); Vijay Mallya and Shobhaa De at the post-show do

The seven models (Fleur Xavier, Malaika Arora) gave up the privacy of the green room just this once-the dress-changes between sequences and make-up were done on stage. Fernandes didn't sing. The 56-minute soundtrack of his new age ambient album was played as "calming music" to offset the frenzy on stage. The post-show party, at Ozone, India's first designer bar, paled in comparison. The experiment worked!

-Natasha Israni

Talent Search

At the Channel V party celebrating the launch of yet another VJ hunt at Delhi's Le Meridien discotheque CJs last Saturday, spunky VJ Kim (right) stood on one leg for the benefit of the cameras. She needn't have tried-the cameras would have clicked anyway. There was more in store. Around midnight, the burly bouncers stood aside in astonishment to let in yet another burly customer, a saffron-clad sadhu-actually Bombay Boys producer Manu Kumaran-who strode in imperiously. Kumaran was in the capital shooting for his next film and was presumably dressed like a saint to honour a holy vow-whatever that means. Earlier in the evening, there was more bonhomie: over 40 hopefuls landed up for the audition at CJs, the first in a series of VJ hunts and corollary weekend parties in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Goa. Sounds like more balancing acts for Kim.

-Samrat Choudhury

Jadeja teeing off (left); Haque and Fuller on stage (top); Chivas Regal chief Dhiren Chauhan (middle); the party goes on

On Course

Time: 11 p.m., December 9. Venue: Delhi Golf Club. The second Chivas Regal Invitational Golf Challenge had ended a few hours earlier and the party was beginning to swing. On stage, former VJ Sophia Haque and fiance, ex-Channel V chief Jules Fuller were belting out Twist again with Mumbai band Aquaflow. The mood was of celebration: the Indian Airlines team of M.P. Singh and D.K. Ahluwalia had won. In the Individual Stableford category, the 10-handicap L. Talwar beat Ajay Jadeja (handicap 8) on net score. Jadeja wasn't around. Nor were cricket pals Kapil Dev and Ian Botham, all of whom had played. So was anyone missing them? Not likely: actor Mamik (Aamir Khan's brother in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander) was talking of grass and Manali and the band's guitarist Elvis was telling everyone he looked like Jesus Christ. The tourney's next leg is in Mumbai in February. Hopefully the loo there is easier to find and people don't ask: "So is it okay if I piss on the 18th hole?"

-Samrat Choudhury

French Connection

Delhi fashionista Ritu Beri may have shown umpteen times in Paris, but amchi Mumbai? It has been four years. At the Kingfisher fashion awards in Mumbai's Turf Club last week, Beri got her opportunity, showing her spring-summer Nirvana collection: from asymmetrical western silhouettes to a cheeky embroidered lehenga show-stopper with missing side panels that exposed model Jesse Randhawa's (left) hips partially. The collection was presented to the live music of Frenchman Claude Challe. He now plans to open a Nirvana Lounge nightclub in Paris in January; Beri will design livery for the crew. No wonder, Beri brags: "He loves my clothes."

-Himanshi Dhawan

Printing History

Movie classics apart, filmmaker Satyajit Ray also made an impressive 30,000 sketches for his children's magazine Sandesh. Some of those now find place in "Wood, Metal, Paper", an exhibition tracing the history of print in Bengal at Kolkata's Seagull Resource Centre. Ray's grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, was a printing pioneer. So was father Sukumar Ray. Says curator Ujjal Chakraborty who knew Ray for over 20 years: "It was difficult to escape the Ray influence." Always is.

-Labonita Ghosh