Downtown : The Delhi-Mumbai Gazette

The drama started with a garden-variety disco brawl that broke out a few days ago atthe venue. In keeping with the tradition of such brawls, the cause of the body blows was awoman. Vikki Pherwani and Vishal Shetty, a director of Fire and Ice, exchanged some hotwords and a few hard blows while sorting out whether the latter had impure thoughts aboutthe former’s girlfriend. Seeing their director being hammered, the bouncers got downto do what they do best. Eventually, it became a police case and some of the Fire and Icestaff were arrested along with Rajiv.

Once he reached the cop station, Rajiv allegedly did not deal too kindly with the cops.According to a staff member, when Rajiv was roughed up a bit at the NM Joshi policestation, he screamed: "Do you know who I am?" In acknowledgement, an ACP slappedhim. "When Rajiv tried to block the second slap, it was termed an assault," saysthe staffer. The cops have gone ahead and registered a case against Rajiv for assaultingthe police. In turn, Rajiv’s supporters are fuming against the high-handedness of thepolice. Says one of his lawyers: "Obviously the withdrawal of the licence is personalvendetta." Whether it is or not, it surely does keep up with filmi traditions.

People say he’s in his mid-30s but hebelieves he’ll be 18 till he dies and Paul McCartney and Govinda wear his creations.That’s Ranjiv Manchandani, owner, spirit and ideaman behind Tantra T-shirts, thatunderground brand that’s chiselled out a niche among teenagers. His latest is athree-design Peace range that strangely coincides with Gen Musharraf’s visit to meetour PM. Ranjiv, who has been a cartoonist, a slave at an ad agency and at mad magazine,seems to have a great muddle for a mind that churns out Ts with a counter-culture cool."I thought it would go down the tourist sale route but I was surprised that Indianteens have taken to it as a break from the Tommy Hilfigers," says Ranjiv.Ranjiv’s Ts cost Rs 250. Next he plans to do another mtv casual wear: launching a newrange of Ts, Barking Dogs. Ts with, you guessed it right, a bite!

When the group started on June 17, 1991,from an obscure place close to the Delhi University, not many took notice of Parikrama.But 10 years down the line, they’re the only band in the country who’ve stuck tothe original format of hard rock and not deviated into Indipop or belting swinging musicvideos for Bollywood. "Someone must stick to the original and avoid joining thegrowing gang of fusion," quips group member Subir Malik, whose compatriots for thisdecade-long journey include his brother and lead vocalist Nitin, Sonam Sherpa, ChintanKalra, Sharat Srivastava, Rajat Kakkar and Dilip Ramachandran.

Stinky flows the Yamunathrough Delhi. Just how yucky and smelly the river by which Shah Jehan mooned over Mumtazhas become, Delhi CM Sheila Dixit discovered when she kicked off a "clean theYamuna" campaign on World Environment Day.Here’s what the clean-up crew found:several 100 plastic bags, some containing ashes, flowers, coconuts and rudraksha malas; adozen coins dating back to the Raj; one dead baby wrapped in cloth; three mini templesmade of wood; a couple of marble murtis; and countless rags, tins and wrappers.A PRexercise prompted by a fiat from the Supreme Court it may well have been, but it struck achord. Toiling alongside the sarkari cohorts comprising the Cabinet, the bureaucracy,Delhi Police and Home Guards were Mr, Mrs and Master Dilliwalla. Mobilised by ngos andresidents’ welfare associations, they snagged plastic bags and cleared waterhyacinth. Notable absentees were members of the Congress’ hate-Sheila brigade. Guesseven community efforts aren’t proof against partisan politics. Next on the agenda:relocating the one lakh riverbank jhuggis which use it as a dhobighat-cum-potty. Now,that’s a toughie.

The National Foundation forIndia (NFI) in association with World Press Photo (WPPH) is organising an internationalseminar/workshop in India for photographers and photo-journalists. Spread over threeyears, the programme is sixth in the series of six seminars/workshops being conducted incountries like Uganda, China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam. Pablo Bartholomew willdesign and coordinate the India-based programme. The applicants need to be below 35 yearsand will be selected by a committee chaired by Raghu Rai. The participants would beexpected to work on two picture stories after completion of the three-day workshops everyyear. The programme will be held in Delhi from Aug 11-13. For more details, contact NFI,Zone IV A, UG Floor, India Habitat Centre, Delhi. Call 4648490-92.e-mail—anuradhamaharishi @ hotmail.com.

She is an interior designer with an edge.Monica Khanna specialises in giving trains a makeover and is the only designer who’sdone up both the luxury trains in India——Palace on Wheels and the Royale Orientrunning in the Gujarat sector. Why trains, and not a living room, kitchen or an office?The challenge of overcoming the many problems. Designing for trains presents the maximumconstraints related to space and movement because one has to work within the confines of acoupe. "My work also required indepth research into the culture craft and heritage ofthe Rajasthan and Gujarat region," says Monica. Not just that, she also had to playsurrogate engineer by solving technical problems like water leakages or rusting. It’scertainly no easy job, for even as she designed the Palace on Wheels in 1999, the budgetwas slashed from Rs 2 crore to a mere Rs 45 lakh because of the Kargil war. Now that shehas had her fix on the trains, what’s next? A catamaran is what Monica’s dreamsare sailing on next.

It’s a Sherlock Holmesof a different kind. eBlaster is a sleuth that keeps an eye on your computer, monitors andrecords each and every key movement, secretly sends organised reports to specified e-mailID, takes screen snapshots and more. This computer surveillance software, being introducedin India by Software Technologies Ltd, monitors all your PC and Net activities from aremote location and can tell you everything your kids or employees do on the PCs. "Itcan prevent young children and teens from visiting and uploading inappropriate websites,chatting, learning hacking etc," says Umesh Gupta, MD, Softalk Technologies. eBlasteris like a camera inside the computer. "It’s all about getting people to usetheir PCs more responsibly," says Gupta.And the price for the package: Rs 3,536.

Hathway, having a strategic alliance withStar, has added on its portal a food channel called Bombaybite, one with a‘bite’ and not ‘byte’! Bombaybite holds a unique appeal for thefoodies, providing them information about a range of cuisine in an interactive andviewer-friendly manner.The main focus, however, is on South Mumbaiites who can even orderfood online through this new channel. Hathway’s endeavour is to help you order foodfrom a variety of restaurants that otherwise may or may not themselves provide delivery oftheir cuisine to your doorstep. For online food orders, bombaybite.hathway.com has anexclusive alliance with Meals On Wheels (MOW), the only vendor service of its kind inMumbai city that delivers meals within an hour. Telephone has been the only connection formow. Bombaybite adds more bite to it by collecting orders through the Internet.