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OTHER METRO STORIES Metro Minutes Spirited Challenge High Heart Clean Up Call

Painter Shanu Lahiri's mother loved art. The otherwise unlettered Renukamoyee Mazumdar would stay up nights and practice calligraphy crouched under the family's tall bed. Perhaps that's why three of Mazumdar's seven children-Shanu included-took to the easel with ease. Recently, when Lahiri released Smritir Collage ("A Collage of Memories"), a book about her culture-hip family, she decided to illustrate the point for Kolkatans by organising an exhibition of paintings that would have works by her, older brothers Kamal and Nirode Mazumdar, nephew Chitrovanu and niece Oditi. "This is the first time the family is coming together in a show," says Lahiri. "This is Team Mazumdar." They play well together.

-Labonita Ghosh

Metro Minutes

Swingers is a dance studio started in Chennai three years ago by choreographer B. Murali who thought that the metro's youngsters needed some additional steps in their eurhythmic repertoire. Now the studio, affiliated to Broadway Dance in the US, had its first public performance at the Music Academy showing ballet, jazz and hip hop and rock 'n' roll. Many of the 236 performers, aged between three and 46, have made the rubber-spine dancer Prabhudeva as their role model ... but Nureyev also figures somewhere.

Navtej Johar and Jemina, in iridescent shorts and matching vests, allied together in a supple and sophisticated duet of fusion dance at an evening at Delhi's Grand Hyatt. The theme of "Time" wasn't a coincidence-Rado, with Lisa Ray as its ambassador, was launching its Rs 34,000 plus eSenza-a novel watch whose limbs move with the aid of encircling magnets. Johar and Jemima, of course, need no such help.

The new Beaujolais Nouveau (at the risk of sounding tautological) got uncorked at Delhi's The Oberoi hotel. In-house sommelier Cordon Brunu, a Frenchman familiar with the annual launch ceremony of this wine in France, cycled down the lobby with roses, baguettes and the wine. This was the first such celebration for the young Nouveau in a quasi-public space in Delhi-Air France used to have such annual rites but they never called many people, thus leaving out many Japanese oenophiles. The Oberoi was more considerate.

Contributed by J. Binduraj, Samrat Chowdhary and Anshul Avijit

Spirited Challenge

Manohar "Manu" Rajaram Chhabria, chairman of Shaw Wallace, is in high spirits. He wants to give his arch rival Vijay Mallya's United Breweries group a good fight. To start with, he plans to serve India's tipplers Whyte & Mackay Scotch, Dalmore Single Malt, Vladivar Vodka and Veba, a ready-to-drink mix, all brands belonging to the Glasgow-based Kyndal, which claims a 9 per cent share of the global Scotch whisky market. But that's not all. Chhabria wants to see the domestic Royal Challenge whisky on shelves across the world. "We will be bottling some of these brands in India and as the costs would come down a Whyte & Mackay bottle would be available here for less than Rs 1,000. And in one year we will be bigger than them," says Chhabria refering to UB. Mallya, when last seen, didn't look like he was losing any sleep.

-Vivek Law

HIGH ART:

Wish Dream, Arpita Singh's massive new mural unveiled recently at the Nirlec building in Delhi's Qutub Institutional Area, is a visual assemblage of many small canvases with numerous allegorical details. Multi-winged aircraft, many-limbed soothsayers, corrugated bedspreads, contrasting colours and hundreds of four-petal flowers crowd the 24 ft by 13 ft expanse. Amit Judge, art collector and low-profile owner of the Barista chain, commissioned the work about two years back... and, as if to make room for it, appears to have put some of his own Arpita canvases up for sale. Clearly a bonanza for other collectors ... but for Arpita, well, she might do another mural to tide over the sudden glut.

-Anshul Avijit

CLEAN UP CALL:

It's like a last-ditch effort. To clean up streets and sidewalks, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), the civic overseer of central Delhi, is laying lengthy green strips along thoroughfares. After Tilak Marg, the connecting artery between India Gate and ITO, saplings are being planted on Ashoka Road with railings along pavements to keep off pesky intruders. Traffic junctions are also being turned into "green islands".

To top that, NDMC has also handed over the maintenance of its subways to private parties in exchange for advertising. Says Pramod Bhandula of Selvelmedia Services, which has looked after 16 subways since June: "We had to redo everything." That obviously meant flushing out the vendors, but the more difficult task was scouring the betel-stained walls. No wonder the NDMC gave up.

Greening Ashoka Road (right); a Connaught Place subway

-Teresa Rahman