Sightings

* BILLED as the India Fashion Week (IFW), it was expected to be a mega buster of sorts. And though the lines were pretty much the same, the IFW did manage to establish one fact - Indian designers have finally come of age and are daring to go. For the fashion enthusiasts this season's diktats are: keep it easy and hang loose, the shorter the better, show some skin here and there and of course, when in doubt cut it out. To dress it all up add a bindi, fix your belly button and wear your attitude with panache.

* THE film festival for children took off with much aplomb but little publicity. And since the first film to be screened at this very special show for children in the Capital was titled "The Goal", Union Minister for Information and broadcasting, Arun Jaitly, kicked a football declaring the festival open, to the loud cheers of tiny tots. Interestingly the entire inauguration ceremony was managed by children who absolutely refused to handover the normal bouquets and presented their VIP guests with coconuts and caps instead. Film maker Gul Bahar, Sai Paranjpe and festival director Sunit Tandon were present. At another special ceremony, eminent poet and filmmaker Gulzar addressing the National Prize Competition for children's literature organized by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, emphasised that "the generation gap between up and our children needs to be addressed." He added that authors who wrote for children, must "pamper them in a positive manner" to give children a feeling of belonging. His latest venture? A guide for parents on positive interaction with children during all their stages of growing up. But what he really needs to know is: "Which age group should I write for?" Tough one, that.

* HE called it a baithak of sorts. But writer Amitav Ghosh's conversation with another writer, Mukul Keewani, which was really a literary cocktail attended by people from diverse professions, over the release of his new book The Glass Palace, got him admitting that he was partial to the works of James Baldwin and our very own, yet distant, V. S. Naipaul. "His beauty of phrase is unmatched in its sheer power," remarked Ghosh of his all-time favourite, while admitting somewhat wryly that the "act of writing in English is a struggle for an Indian author. Of his own example he said in a place like Calcutta he would write in English but speak in Bengali and Hindi. Politician Jayanti Natarajan wanted to know if Ghosh made a political statement through his books while Javed Akhtar querried whether it was the plot that came first and then the characters of vice versa. To Shabana Azmi who asked if finally getting down to writing was easy for him, Ghosh said, "The five metres to the desk are the hardest to cover. Writing is a process of battling resistances."

* THIS is the ultimate tribute to a great woman and a great singer. Savita Devi's book on her mother, her life and times Maa Siddeshwari, chronicles some poignant memories where the mother has shared with her daughter and others close to her, about how she became a singer. It is a story full of life, of hardship and eventually one of undaunted courage which a woman displayed because she just had to learn music.

* HIS is a tall order where the bureaucracy has to be the one to wave the magic wand. But master illusionist Franz Harary, is not giving up yet and plans a mega show inIndia sometime later this year, with his long blonde grizzled mane and electric clothes. Harary appears anything but a magician. "It's pure entertainment in the west," says he. But "in India there is the real thing." His magic, he says, is a mixture of psychology and technology. As with any well-planned event, the special effects add more than value of the show.

* IT was a quaint sort of show, where one man tried to bring alive an entire lifetime. And even the result was not quite slick and professional. Lewis Albinger's one act musical "An American in Khadi" deserves some applause for the tremendous conviction and commitment of its protagonists. The play is based on a book of the same title by Asha Sharma, a young American who stayed on in India.

SUCHITRA BEHAL

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