Eye Catchers

Q & A Nafisa Joseph
The pretty animal-rights' activist (also former Miss India, now a VJ) is busy campaigning against Gemini Circus which opened in Bangalore last week:

Why is a beauty like you worrying about the beasts?
We are the beasts, they are the beauties.

Don't most of our beauties make fame and fortune their purpose?
Fame and fortune are bestowed upon us ... How we use it is what matters.

Do you think there's an animal in each of us?
Yes, but (the animal) is dormant, otherwise we'd be better people.

Why are you opposed to the circus?
You cannot expect an elephant to ride a cycle -- animals are not born with such talents. Circus animals are drugged ... It's a terrible, terrible profession.

Reviewers have called it "repugnant". His family thinks it's worse. "Hanif has made us sound like the dregs of society just because it suits his image and career," says British Asian writer Hanif Kureishi's mother Audrey, about his latest book, Intimacy. We agree, says the celebrated author's sister Yasmin,

and his one-time love Tracy Schoffield. But Kureishi remains unmoved. "Yes, the book comes from my own life," he admits, but no, "I don't see writing as a way of attacking people, I see it as a burst of energy and pleasure." Read: I'm pleased, the readers are pleased, so if the family's not, who cares?

First the bathroom, now the recording room. Suchitra Pillai, best known as Channel V's Suhitra Pillai

Simply South veejay, is on to her nth profession. So watch out for her first shot at music -- a Hindi pop album -- later this year. "Acting gave me the opportunity to be other people," she says, "veejaying allowed me to be myself, but singing, it's what I always wanted to do since I began my career in the bathroom." Simply.

What's 50 x 49 x 48 x 47 x 46 ... x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 (gasp!)? By the time you've caught your breath, Dammulapati Vijayakrishna will have the answer. Experts across India are amazed at the speed with which this 19-year-old does tough maths sums. "His abilities seem to be extraordinary," says Professor C. Musli of Hyderabad University, one of the many who have tested him. Vijay's quickness comes from a formula he has derived. "I will reveal it only after my name is entered in The Guinness Book," he says. Shakuntala Devi, your time starts now ...