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METROSCAPE
New Beginning
Neither the tormented Priya Kapoor in Saans nor
the petulant Ketaki in Khandaan could ever comprehend Neena Gupta's bohemian
living or exhibit her flair for production and direction of small screen
serials. After many years and over 40 dramas, including the TRP-hogging
Saans, Siski and Palchin, Gupta is back where she began-in Hindi films.
 She
is now the director of a "contemporary love story" produced
by Pantaloon Films (of the Hrithik Roshan-Esha Deol starrer Tum Jaane
Na Hum). The theme, she says, is about what she knows best-women. "They're
fascinating. I find women are always nasty to other women... I've always
had the maximum trouble with them!" Currently absorbed with two soaps
she plans to produce for Doordarshan and Star, Gupta's keeping mum about
the film's storyline: "It is difficult to deliver a classy and commercially
viable product."
Hasn't Indian cinema always thrived on this
premise?
-Himanshi Dhawan
Glint Conscious
First, for some figures. India is the largest
consumer of gold (in any form), touching 855 tonnes per annum. The US
comes in a distant second with 350 tonnes. So how do you make sure the
rest of the world catches up? The World Gold Council's figured out a way:
an annual India-specific jewellery design contest called Swarnanjali that
will move away from the chunky pieces Indians associate with gold to more
lightweight options for the global market. Last year's winners were egged
on to do just that when the organisers incorporated two new categories,
men's accessories and a "casuals" line.
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| NECK TO NECK: Swarnanjali's winning
designs |
Last week, Kolkata jewellery house PC Chandra
put the last year's 36 winning designs on the ramp with a fashion show-another
promotional. "Gold jewellery isn't only about wedding wear,"
says WGC's manager (East) Manos Mukherjee. "We should start looking
at low-carat designs that most other countries prefer." Especially
now, when Swarnanjali winners also get a shot at the WGC's international
contest, Gold Virtuosi. Last year, five of the 36 Indian designs won honours.
Taking a cue from all this, PC Chandra plans to go funky too. "We
want to tell people you can wear gold in a trendy way," says director
Suvro Chandra. "After all, gold never goes out of fashion."
-Labonita
Ghosh
PURPOSE OF BEAUTY: When
beauty expert Blossom Kocchar and South African model Shelley Pearce (left)
co-hosted a workshop in Delhi last week, it wasn't just make-up tips people
had gathered to hear about. It was the announcement that the QCGirl International
Model Hunt, a contest with a first prize valued at $35,000 and contestants
from 33 countries, is being extended to include India this year where
the world finals will be held. Variety is the spice they claim for their
own: each contestant can present their own 60-second routine in the clothes
and music of their choice. The only qualification is that a participant
must be between 17 and 30 years. To win the finals in October, she would
need "character and personality", says judge-to-be Pearce. Let
the preening begin.
-Samrat Choudhary
Private Goes Public
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Paintings by Mesquita
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The Bodied Self, an exhibition of 12 works by
artists Jehangir Jani, Anju Dodiya and Theodore Mesquita offered three
diverse, enticing interpretations of a social conundrum-separating private
desires from the necessities of social mores.
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The artists at Sans Tache; Jani
and Dodiya (right)
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The selection of watercolours, curated by critic-poet
Ranjit Hoskote at Mumbai's Sans Tache Art Gallery, was inaugurated last
weekend. Good thing, too: people had a day off to decipher Dodiya's "Pillory",
for example, which, inspired by medieval European history, displayed both
the royal influence and the brute force of the period. Sculptor-installation
artist Jani stayed closer home with his Kalighat-inspired works of colour-drenched
man and animal, both of whom remain heroic and vulnerable in their nakedness.
Out-of-towner Mesquita (he lives in Panjim, the other two are Mumbaikars)
gathered his thoughts from the German art nouveau (Jugenstil) period;
in Later day saints, he uncovers the "half truth of dreams and fears"
that plague the individual, delving into a culture he feels is no longer
defined.
The exhibition, which Hoskote describes as "intimate"
(he had Jani in mind here) is on till July 14. Till then, try defining
the undefined.
-Himanshi
Dhawan
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