Dads will be dads. Historian Upinder Singh’s new book — A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India — is slated to be released in the capital on Tuesday, and her father, who works in an office in Delhi’s South Block, wants to be present at the book launch. So what’s the problem? Nothing but the fact that Dad is the Prime Minister of India. Publishers Pearson Education, for which book launches usually are informal affairs, now have to take such issues as security into account. But they don’t mind. The PM will not release the 700-page tome, but will be a mere member of the audience. The book — with some 500 pictures by photographer Aditya Arya, Upinder Singh’s contemporary from their student days at St Stephen’s College — will be released in Calcutta on August 26. And no, Dad doesn’t want to go all the way there too.

If it’s Bhojpuri, it’s got to be Manoj Tiwari. Or so we thought. Now we are told that if it’s Bhojpuri, it may well be Mithun Chakraborty. The Bengali actor — who figures as Tiwari’s elder brother in the film Bhole Shankar — is now being signed up for another Bhojpuri film. Scriptwriter and director Pankaj Shukla is ready with the new script. “It is a period drama and it will be a big film,” Shukla promises. Meanwhile, Shukla awaits the release of his film Bhole Shankar —where Chakraborty is Shankar to Tiwari’s Bhole — in the last week of August. And the two popular actors —Manoj and Mithun — are set to show the world that there’s nothing quite as entertaining as Bhojpuri humour. Ask Lalu Yadav.

The nice thing about a surprise birthday bash is the surprise. But actor Benaf Dadachanji’s surprise party will hold no surprises — the details are all out in the open. For those who came in late, Benaf is Baby in the television series Baa, Bahoo Aur Baby. Baby’s birthday is a big event, and this year, her sitcom family, the Thakkars, will hold a masquerade party in her honour. The Thakkars will all land up in strange costumes to, no doubt, make Baby’s day. The other surprise — and yes, that’s out as well — will be Katrina Kaif, who’ll join the fun and frolic in today’s episode by shaking a (shapely) leg. Dressed up as Santa Claus? Or is that the surprise?

So Saif Ali Khan plays the guitar when he is not acting — big deal. Brian May, guitarist for Queen, works on astrophysics when he is not strumming. May took a sabbatical of 30-odd years and completed his PhD in astronomy last year. His thesis — A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud — has just been published. May formed Queen with Freddie Mercury in 1970, and the band’s phenomenal success forced him to abandon his doctoral studies at Imperial College London in 1974. Three decades later he went back to his thesis, which has now been co-published by Springer and Canopus Publishing Ltd. “I have thoroughly enjoyed my years playing the guitar and recording music with Queen, but it’s extremely gratifying to see the publication of my thesis,” May says in a statement issued by Springer. Spaced out was a phrase we usually associated with musicians. With May, it takes on a new meaning!

Last heard, Neil Nitin Mukesh was rotting in jail — only to shoot a film, of course! But now that his role in Madhur Bhandarkar's Jail has been widely spoken of, the word is out that Neil, in true family fashion, has found shelter under Orpheus's wings. Freeze, an action thriller directed by Jehangir Surti with Neil in the lead, also has a song sung by the young man. That apart, Neil — the son of Nitin Mukesh and grandson of the legendary singer Mukesh — has also composed two of the film’s tracks, though he isn’t sure if they would finally be used in the film. One thing at a time, shall we say?