SHELF LIFE: With love from London

Outsourcing the British bodice ripper to India

Indian writers who think they have a talent for writing romantic novels may soon get their chance since Mills & Boon are setting up a publishing venture in India.

Details will be disclosed at a news conference in Delhi tomorrow but my guess is that Mills & Boon will not only reprint novels that have sold well in the UK and other markets but also seek out a new generation of Indian writers, both in Britain and in India.

Indian boy meets Indian girl, boy fancies girl, girl rejects boy, boy shoots girl is not the kind of story line that Mills & Boon editors will be looking for. Actress meets Bollywood actor but dumps him for a bigger star won’t do either.

This is the centenary year of Mills & Boon, although the publishing house began specialising in romantic fiction from 1930 onwards. The company, which now sells a staggering 200 million romantic novels a year, is now called Harlequin, Mills & Boon after being ravished by a strong, silent Canadian publishing group.

Once upon a time, a Mills & Boon heroine might engage her dark, handsome hero in a passionate clinch but always drew the line at going any further until the honeymoon. With passing time, the innocent ways of the past have had to yield, rather like the virginal heroines of yesteryear, to the changing values of society.

In Britain, romance remains big business, though. This year all six shortlisted books for the Romance Prize in the Romantic Novelists’ Association awards have come from the Mills & Boon stable.

Perhaps readers in India will get a chance to savour The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella; Driving him Wild; Her Parenthood Assignment; English Lord, Ordinary Lady; The Mediterranean Rebel’s Bride; and Breakfast at Giovanni’s (may be this will be adapted to Breakfast at Bhojohori Manna).

The point is India is now viewed as a market with a huge potential.

“India is all about romance, everywhere you look, be it Bollywood, television soaps or even on the radio, love is in the air,” Andrew Go, the head of the Indian operation, tells me.

“Our books are fun, uplifting and very empowering for women,” adds Go, who will be unveiling the Mills & Boon India strategy tomorrow. “Over the decades our editorial has changed to keep pace with women as they change. We intend to offer women new books consistently every month at a great price of just Rs 99 each!”

He says India represents “a new pool of creative talent” and expects more Indian authors to join the Mills & Boon ranks.

I wonder whether Mills & Boon will be attracted by such British Indian tales as I may have to offer, among them The Newsagent’s Moll; Promoted: Accountant to Lover; Cash & Carried Away to Ahmedabad; Breathless in Brick Lane; and Steel Tycoon Takes All.

However, as Dr Watson would say, the world may not be ready yet for the unusually explicit Buy Two Brides, Get One Free.

GO, GIRL: Antonia Bernath

Ghai’s girl

Remember Kisna: The Warrior Poet, Subhash Ghai’s 2005 “blockbuster”? Although reviewers were unkind about the movie, praise was heaped on its English female star, Antonia Bernath.

I am happy to say that Ghai, who has an eye for budding talent, picked well, for Antonia now has two more significant achievements to her credit. She is one of a clutch of young actresses in the cast of St Trinian’s, a naughty film about what high-spirited schoolgirls get up to when they should really be revising their Latin.

The film has achieved only moderate success.

However, Antonia is also one of two faces for a new collection, JL Womenswear, from John Lewis, the retail group which has a big department store in Oxford Street. It is stepping up its clothes collection, which will include citrus colours and nautical styles, in a bid to attract younger, more fashion-savvy shoppers.

“F1 driver Jenson Button’s girlfriend Florence Brudenell-Bruce and St Trinian’s star Antonia Bernath look stunning as the store’s new faces for 2008,” enthused the Daily Express.

I remember Antonia telling me that her male star, Vivek Oberoi, got to kiss her in one Kisna sequence. The kiss was cut out of the Hindi version but was going to be retained for the English one. I am not sure the latter ever got a distributor. But Antonia confided she thought the version without the kiss was more romantic.

Ghai should be pleased that every time there is a story about Antonia, papers tend to use her bejewelled photographs from Kisna.

REEL TO REAL : Shekhar Kapur with Heath Ledger (right) on the sets of The Four Feathers

Going for broke

Contrary to reports, it was not Brokeback Mountain which first focussed attention on the talents possessed by Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old actor found dead in his Manhattan apartment (Shekhar Kapur even spoke to him the night before).

Back in 2002, Shekhar told me that he had cast the then largely unknown Australian in The Four Feathers, a film based on a 1902 adventure novel by the British author, A.E.W. Mason.

Shekhar hasn’t so far got an Oscar himself but he has made stars out of Cate Blanchett and Ledger. The Four Feathers, a film which deserves a re-release, did not do well because it tells of a British soldier who was brave enough to say he did not want to join a British military expedition to Egypt in 1882. The film came at a time when Bush and Blair were gearing up for war in Iraq — and therefore bit the dust.

Rising son

While Lakshmi Mittal has been nominated for a Padma Vibhusan, his 32-year-old son, Aditya, the proud father of two young daughters, also has the chance of winning a prestigious award.

Aditya, who met his wife, Megha, when the couple were students at Wharton, has been nominated for “European Business Leader of the Future” in an awards programme presented by CNBC Europe in partnership with the Financial Times.

His grandfather, Mohan Lal Mittal, reckons Lakshmi is very clever but Aditya is cleverer.

“Lakshmi is better than me, and Lakshmi’s son, Aditya, is even better than him,” granddad Mittal told me once.

Mind you, Aditya, chief financial officer of ArcelorMittal, is up against Rupert Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch, non-executive chairman of BSkyB, and Jochen Zeitz, CEO and chairman of Puma.

UBIQUITOUS: SRK goes underground

Tittle tattle

It’s a bit like the film Jaws — just when you think the water’s safe, there is something hidden lurking there.

Even in the depths of the London Underground, there is no escaping the Badshah of Bollywood. Posters have sprouted mysteriously, warning us that SRK will be making an appearance at a carnival at the Grand Hall Olympia from February 15-17.

We love Shah Rukh, of course, as much as he loves ICICI Bank but just occasionally it would be a relief to have a Bollywood-free month in London.