Q 1. Ravi Chopra's Baghban will reunite Amitabh Bachchan with a heroine he starred with decades ago. She is...
a. Rekha.
b. Hema Malini.
c. Rakhee.

Q 2. The poet-turned-actor in Unko Yaad Karo, a six-minute video by director Priyadarshan, is ... ...
a. A.B. Vajpayee
b. Javed Akhtar.
c. Gulzar.

Q 3. The filmmaker who has been invited to represent India as a jury member for the 2002 International Emmy Awards in United States in November is...
a. Yash Chopra.
b. Ketan Mehta.
c. Subhash Ghai.

Answers:1(b). 2(a), 3(c)

THEATRE
Playing on Questions of Identity

BEYOND 9 TO 5: The cast

What could be common among a clutch of young NRI lawyers, bankers and architects in New York? A collective desire to go beyond their 9-to-5 jobs and channelise their latent creative talents. The outcome: Alter Ego, a non-profit theatre group. Its first professional performance, Hayavadana (The Talking Horse), a satire by Girish Karnad, was staged in lower East Manhattan last week. It ran to a near full house each night.

By asking whether an individual's identity is derived from the brain or the body, the play explores the issues of perfection and imperfection and the nature of reality. Drawing from Sanskrit theatre-where rules about time and place are flexible-it adopts the nautanki format.

Says Director Bhavna Thakur, "The play addresses questions about how identity issues are handled. Something particularly relevant to the immigrant community. Because you look and speak differently, you are treated differently." Perhaps Alter Ego will help change that.

-Anil Padmanabhan

MANY NOTES: Chaudhari

After Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray, Bengal has thrown up another multi-disciplinary talent-novelist Amit Chaudhuri, who has recently bloomed as a singer of Hindustani classical music.

Chaudhuri, 40, who lives in Kolkata and Oxford, attracted attention with his second novel, Afternoon Raag, in 1993. His next two novels established him as master of an evocative narrative style. His passion for music is less well known, though he has recorded two cassettes, both of khayal. Due for release this week is his first CD of songs (being brought out by Lotus India), on ragas Gurjari Todi and Madhuvanti. Close on its heels will be the Indian release of Real Time, his first collection of short stories.

Chaudhuri's boyish charm may match the subtle elusiveness of his prose but is out of character with the commanding bass of his voice and the lightning taan, delivered with the energy one would associate with only a handful of maestros.

Proficiency in music is a family trait for Chaudhuri, with his mother Bijoya an accomplished singer of Tagore's songs. While in school in Mumbai, the novelist trained under Pandit Govind Prasad Jaipurwale. Now he practises for at least an hour-and-a-half each day, notes wafting out of the eighth-floor flat in Kolkata's Ballygunge.

-Sumit Mitra

SOTTO VOCE

Gujarat State Congress President Amarsinh Chaudhary has welcomed the state Government's proposal to set up the "Ahimsa University" and suggested that Chief Minister Narendra Modi be its first student ... Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie and community activist Aruna Roy are featured in Businessweek's Stars of Asia, a list of 25 leaders who are expected to shape the future of the country they live in ... The Samata Party has launched a non-party forum called Lok Manch which aims at generating employment and involving citizens in economy-building, with a Swadeshi thrust. Defence Minister George Fernandes will be its patron ... Actor-director Amol Palekar will head the 23-member feature film jury for the 49th National Film Awards and Indian Panorama 2002.