February 9, 1998

Just Between Friends

In the heart of Lutyens' Delhi, on a pleasant January morning, a little party had gathered. As Viscount Ridley, grandson of that capital architect, stood by, Baroness Shreela Flather said: "When I entered the House of Lords in 1990, I realised nothing was being done to tap the good feelings for India." So tap, tap she went. Result? A trip to India by a group of British peers -- mostly viceroys' descendants -- last month: Marquess and Marchioness of Reading, Viscount and Viscountess Ridley, Lady Darcy de Knayth, Countess Mountbatten and husband Lord Braybourne, Lord Lawrence, Earl and Countess of Lytton, Earl and Countess of Elgin. Well, should the Queen have apologised for Jallianwala Bagh? "What about the Indian Mutiny?" Lady Mountbatten countered, "Terrible things were done then too ..." Lord Reading disagreed. "Perhaps the Queen was not the right person to apologise, but I don't see why the country cannot," said Simon Charles Henry Rufus Isaacs of Reading, whose great grandfather was a viceroy. So was the Raj revisited? Nope. It was more a journey into the present.

Pucca Pickering

The pucca-sahib look has always been there, propah accent in place. Saeed Jaffrey has now put both to good use, playing Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. "An inspired bit of casting," cried a drama critic in London. "A pucca, perfect Pickering," said another. Jaffrey is thrilled: "I like challenges. It's been absolutely wonderful playing Pickering." The last time he sang on stage was in 1963 for a Broadway production of A Passage to India, after a lesson in Raga Purya Dhanashri from his friend Ravi Shankar. This time he's sung Tonight Old Man You Did It! I say, old man, so you did!

Picture Perfect

Madhuri Dixit in a film on construction engineers? Eek. Actually not. The engineering bit forms just the backdrop of Engineer, Dixit's first non-Hindi film. Hello, why did it take so long to travel beyond Bollywood? "I was wary of experimenting with a tongue in which I'm not fluent," she replies. For Engineer (co-starring Arvind Swamy), Dixit is already taking Tamil tuitions. "To get involved with my character, learning the language is important." We always said she's pretty close to perfect.

Watch This Woman

She was here promoting watches, but she didn't watch herself. Cindy Crawford was late at every function she attended, her trip was poorly managed ... but ... well ... "She's gorgeous," sighed designer Rohit Bal. "She's lovely," gushed herbal diva Shahnaz Husain. "Trust your instincts, be professional, work hard," Cindy advised a gathering of students. What instincts, dahling, tell us?

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