Starry-Eyed
Considering that some of the country’s most priceless stones are mounted inforeign museums and crowns, the Nizam’s Jewellery exhibition is an achievement forthe GoI to have acquired it at a much-devalued price of Rs 218 crore. But it’s anachievement the country’s top institutions aren’t equipped to handle. Forexample, the National Museum, host to the 173-piece collection, will be turned into avirtual fortress, manned and regulated by men in khaki and metal detector doorways, duringthe entire six-week period of the exhibition. People queueing up to catch a glimpse of thelegendary collection will get exactly half an hour to file past the bullet-proof glasstantaluses enclosing the sparklers. This half-hour of visual pleasure will come at a priceof Rs 50 for Indians and Rs 500 for those holding foreign passports.
But the treasure has a way of causing sleepless nights. On June 28, as news of thecollection’s arrival broke, it caused a security situation that was followed byclampdown orders on officials involved in the transfer. Delhi Police Joint Commissioners,no less, were asked to sniff and vet the jewel’s passage from the airport to anunknown destination when the trove arrived on June 30. Since their arrival in the citytill the Department of Culture decided to release information a few days ahead of theexhibition, National Museum experts working on the collection were sworn to secrecy. Dr U.Das, assistant director general of the museum, attributed the silence to the threatperception.
Now what remains to be seen is whether the cloying concern was worth the trouble.
Dhiraj Singh
The Matinee Aperitif
Is Delhi heading the Bangalore way? Perhaps yes.Close on the heels of theannouncement of a refurbished Fireball (renamed Nyx) in neighbouring Gurgaon, anotherwatering hole has opened its doors in the southern parts of the Indian Capital, Saket tobe precise.Named Buzz, Delhi’s latest pub is the brainchild of Gagan Kapur and C.S.Oberoi and hopes to cash in on the milling crowds which are never in short supply atDelhi’s pvr Anupam shopping complex. The launch party last week was attended by theusual Page 3 fixtures—designers Rohit Bal and Suneet Verma and models Ajay and VijayBalhara among others. "We are looking at it as an ideal place to party which willalso double up as a comfortable hangout," says Kapur. With the classy decor andmoderate rates, that shouldn’t be a difficult task to manage.
Rum And Fun
At Mumbai’s unashamedly British pub Geoffrey’s, a hallowed tradition ofdrunken banter has given way.For a change, the onus of delivering ‘the lines’is on a woman. Good humour officially visits a pub for the first time in India, whentheatre personality Mahabanoo Kotwal gets down to work every Thursday at 10 pm. The ladyperforms a string of stand-up comedies and short skits that satirise food, marriage, menand other perishables. She has been variously praised and thrashed for her humour but theconsensus is that she gets it right most of the time. "The pub approached me for aone-year deal," Kotwal says, "but I thought that was a long time. So, we decidedto have a weekly performance of about an hour, for 3 months." Everything, otherwise,goes down well, in Geoffrey’s.
Manu Joseph
The Non-Classroom Scene
It’s all about learning without really being taught.TarunTaaleem is an alternate, open-ended education initiative started in the Capital. The ideais to create a non-classroom situation where children are free to make mistakes and learnon their own, where things are left largely to their own initiative and sense of wonder.An exhibition of children’s work done during Tarun Taaleem’s Summer 2001workshops was held at Mirambika school earlier this week. It included Photosynthesis, aworkshop jointly conducted by graphic designer Ranmal Singh Jhala and photographer ShailanParker in which the children simultaneously learnt elementary photography and botany. Alsoon display was the work done in the terracotta programme conducted by Ambar Agnihotri andthe wallpainting and educational rambles programmes. These will be ongoing educationalprogrammes and in addition to them Tarun Taaleem plans to take kids on visits to villagesand forests. Here they will do ‘shramdaan’ for water harvesting, plant saplings,learn craft skills and interact with village people, see historical sites and wildlifeparks, gaze at the stars and generally take part in the festivities. Programmes for thefuture include workshops on cooking, calligraphy, creative writing and textiles.
Paapi Pate KaSawaal
It must be the first Bollywood film to have derived its success from a pair of scissors.Dil Chahta Hai will go down in cinematic history as yet another film which initiated a new hair-style. After Sadhana,Dimple and Amitabh, it’s now the turn of Akshaye Khanna’s Ceasar cut in DCH.The short and spiky hairdo has found takers in the celeb circuit as well, be it apolitician like Omar Abdullah or a cricketer like Saurav Ganguly. In a spirit ofsolidarity of sorts, writer-director Farhan Akhtar and producer Ritesh Sidhwani too sportthe same cut.
Make-up artistes and dress designers have been receiving their due in Hindi films butdch must be one of the rare flicks to have given official credit to the hairstylist. Thenovelty doesn’t end here. For most films, the stars bring along their individualdesigners and make-up people. However, according to Farhan, DCH used one make-upartiste and hair-stylist for all its stars to create "a uniform and consistently cooland hip look for the film". There were other advantages—the sharp goatee tookyears off the ageing Amir Khan, the short hair made Saif look different from his usual,boring self, and the mousy chuha cut made us overlook the fact that Akshaye isbalding fast. Now to the lady who wears the crown of the star hair-stylist: AvanContractor runs the upmarket Juice salon in Mumbai. But her cut is now available withpractically all the friendly neighbourhood barbers. And it’s not just a matter ofstyle—it’s also no fuss and easy-to-maintain.
Trash Of The Forthnight
Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke : How many times have we seen this one before? Two lookalikes, one gets killed,the other steps in as an easy replacement so that the wife of the former doesn’t dieof grief. The charade is kept on despite all odds till the wife finally gets to know thather husband is no more and reconciles to her fate. Yeh Raaste... is too moth-ridden andboring. Every turn of the plot, every situation, every character is utterly cliched. AjayDevgan’s face is like a blank wall, no emotion ever registers on it. Preity Zintaremains teary-eyed and Madhuri Dixit looks much too cheerful throughout. In hermuch-touted return, Madhuri cuts a sorry figure. Surely the lady should have graduatedbeyond the token seduction number which she gets to play out here as well. YehRaaste’s archaic and obsolete sensibility is sure to put any viewer to sleep.
