BOOKER NOMINEE: Mistry

The Booker judges have proved their critics wrong. Instead of the "goodie-goodie" novels, this year's longlist feature works on drugs and sex by popular culture writers. Indian-Canadian author Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters is perhaps an exception. Set in Mumbai, the celebrated book traces the life of a Parsi family.

But Mistry faces tough competition. The early favourite for the award is Howard Jacobson for Who is Sorry Now, a raunchy tale of womanising and fidelity. Next in contention is Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man and William Boyd's Any Human Heart. Will Mistry make it to the short list of six to be announced on September 24?

-Ishara Bhasi

HOLLYWOOD VENTURE
Nair Goes Universal with Vanity Fair

CLASSIC COUP: Nair will direct Universal's film

It was a year ago at the Cannes film festival that Universal Studios spotted Mira Nair and Monsoon Wedding. Taken by the movie and the director, the US studio did something unheard of-it acquired Nair's movie and slotted it as a mainstream product in the US. Not many would have bought that logic at that time. Six months after a very successful debut run-grossing nearly $12 million (Rs 57.6 crore)-the studio is laughing all the way to the bank.

Universal is now charting a new relationship with Nair, entrusting her with the direction of its $24 million movie, Vanity Fair. It's no coincidence that Donna Gigliotti, who was part of the Universal team at Cannes that decided to buy Monsoon Wedding, has been cast as producer of the William Makepeace Thackeray classic. "Monsoon Wedding had so many characters and such broad strokes," says Gigliotti, who won an Oscar in 1999 as producer of Shakespeare in Love. "Mira handled it all so well. She fits our bill perfectly."

That brings the movie considerable star power. Besides Gigliotti, Nair herself was an Oscar contender in the foreign film category for Salaam Bombay in 1988. Then there's Julian Fellows, Vanity Fair's screenplay writer, who got an Oscar last year for his work in Gosford Park.

The film will be shot entirely in England and is scheduled to be released next autumn. Says Nair: "I am delighted to do the movie. We have already worked out the broad modalities and should be able to begin shooting by January next year." Will Vanity Fair work the same magic for Nair as the novel did for Thackeray in the literary world?

-Anil Padmanabhan

SILICON VALLEY
Infamous Techies

IT VILLAINS: Deshpande and Sidhu figure in Fortune blacklist

Tomes have been written on the corporate governance scandal that has rocked the US for the past one year. Now business magazine Fortune has given this tale a very controversial twist. By tracking stock sales by company insiders largely acquired through stock options, the magazine has come up with an astounding revelation: many top executives in 1,035 corporations bailed out during the heights of the tech boom and raked in personal wealths totalling $66 billion (Rs 3,16,800 crore). Of that amount, $23 billion was cornered by 466 insiders in 25 corporations.

With Indian entrepreneurs playing a key role in the tech boom, it is not surprising to find three representatives in this infamous list-Sanjeev Sidhu of i2 Technologies, Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande of Sycamore and Naveen Jain of InfoSpace. Their respective booties are $1.03 billion, $726 million and $541 million. These ill-gotten gains make them presumably the highest net worth global Indians.

-Anil Padmanabhan