Roving Eye

Krishnaswamy, who writes, directs and very often anchors his own work, is famous for Indus Valley to Indira Gandhi. It was premiered during the Emergency, which, Krishnaswamy now says, was an 8220;unfortunate coincidence,8221; because it invited charges of sycophancy. India 5555, too, is quite a family enterprise for the filmmaker. His wife Mohana is the producer; his daughters Lata and Gita dance as Shiva and Parvati. They couldn8217;t make it, but the Chennai-based Krishnaswamy and Mohana were around to accept former President R. Venkataraman8217;s commendation.

It was essentially a media crowd that partook of MEA8217;s generous hospitality, though it was no poolside five-star party as was the practice in the days of Pawan Verma. Aruna Vasudev was talking at length about ten years of the film journal Cinemaya, Odissi dancer Sharon Lowen about her Barakhamba Road barsati, the colourful installation specialist Naresh Kapuria inquired solicitously about everyone8217;s welfare even as Lowen talked in superlatives about his golden-jubilee monument coming up at Badhkal Lake, and Lalit Mansingh was busy tackling questions about his much-reported departure to the High Commission at London.

Star Bust
It seems Rohit Bal has been partying so hard that he doesn8217;t have any creative juices left to conjure up a few decent designs for such simple things as T-shirts. As part of its 20th b8217;day celebrations, Ghungroo plans to merchandise T-shirts, rucksacks and other sundry items, all designed by Gudda and Ritu Beri. So they had a little fashion show8217; to display the designs8217;.

The only problem was that though the model-members who wore the outfits did a great job, the designs, if one can call them that, were nothing to write home about. For one, Beri was travelling in France, which left just Gudda on the scene, and he seems to have taken his promise to make the line casual a bit too seriously.

For starters, there were no signs of the rucksacks or caps or the other knick-knacks meant to be there maybe the Ghungroo management is waiting for Beri to get back. And some of the T-shirts on display looked like straight lifts from the famous Adidas three-stripes. The only obvious difference was the Ghungroo logo emblazoned across them. Thankfully, Sunny Sarid decided to give us a foretaste of his collection of Ghungroo8217;s best-loved tracks over the past 20 years, which made the evening bearable. The disc promises to be something worth waiting for, not the duds that Gudda is palming off.

Model Watch
It was sheer magic 8211; it left everybody spellbound and tongue-tied! The 11 super models trooped in for a chit-chat with the media at North Park, on the eve of NIFD fashion show. The first to enter was Ruchi Malhotra. Clad in a short dress and high heels, she looked lovely. While the scribes got their breath back, in trooped a bevy of beauties that left those in the room with rounded lips8230;Ooooooh! Manpreet Brar, Preeti Mankotia, Shweta Menon and Tanya all smiling away to glory. But it was the last model to enter and definitely on whom you can say 8220;saved the best for last.8221;. Clad in casual blue jeans and a sleeveless black top, with her hair swept off her face by a pair of goggles 8211; the gorgeous Helen Brodie.

Eleven beauties and top super models of the country ready to answer the eager8217; queries of the media.

But what happened next was an anti-climax. Tanya, the model turned choreographer introduced the beauties as if they needed any introduction! and coolly said, The girls are ready to answer questions, if any. And there was pin drop silence in the room. No scribe present had either any question for them or they did not not know what to ask- we will never know. A full two minutes silence punctuated by Tanya8217;s voice calling Anybody? This was probably toomuch for the models who one after the other started giggling.

And it was only after the awkward silence and still more awkward giggling that one of Newsline team members broke the ice- With a direct attack 8211; Why is it that models are more into body baring and blatantly aping the west as far as designs and cuts are concerned? That surely touched the raw nerve. Most of them cried out simultaneously No, that8217;s not true, Who says that?, I don8217;t agree, That8217;s unfair8217;. Although the ice was broken but still none of scribes present made an attempt to carry on the show. So in the end what happened was that there was one reporter shooting questions to 11 models when normally its8217;s the other way round!