Way to Goa!

Goa-based designer Wendell Rodricks, famed for his vaporous, languid whites and stark blacks, has been putting down work in black and white — through the written word. The designer who put Goa on the fashion map is close to wrapping up his 250-page coffee table book on the history of Goan costume. Three years of research, done largely at the Xavier’s Centre for Historical Research in Goa, have gone into the making of the body. Not the one to stop at academic research, Rodricks has also been sourcing material from the general public, willing to throw light on what their ancestors wore once upon a time. The book, slated to be published next year, is being designed in Lisbon. Here’s to the new combo: warp and weft merging with words.

A time for friends

When you write 13 books over 27 years for a single publisher, the firm owes you a party. And veteran sociologist Ashis Nandy is duly being granted one by his publishers, Oxford University Press (OUP). Of course, there’s an occasion to celebrate as well. Nandy has just received the Grand Prize of Fukuoka Culture Awards, given out annually to eminent personalities in Asian culture by the city authorities of Fukuoka, Japan. Earlier awardees of this prize include music maestro Amjad Ali Khan and Bangladeshi social visionary Mohammad Yunus. Friends, well wishers and representatives of OUP are expected to meet this evening to raise a toast to Nandy — and everyone’s welcome. In case you can’t make it, don’t worry. There will always be another book!

This bird has flown

Bangladeshi director Tareque Masud is all set for his new project. And though dismayed that his film Matir Moina (The Clay Bird) is going to be released in Calcutta only on Tuesday, four years after it was made and screened at film festivals, Masud is not going to let the experience pull him down. “I don’t understand why there has to be an embargo on the commercial release of movies in each other’s country in the subcontinent,” he says. “It is a legacy of Indo-Pak relations going back to the 1965 war.” But Masud is now upbeat about his new film set in the undivided India of the 40s. “It will be a tribute to both the Bengals just before partition, the intellectualism of the time, the common pain felt by the liberals because of increasing separatist tendencies and other contemporary issues,” he says. And it will be, he says, a tribute to the “stalwarts” of the Indian People’s Theatre Association who impacted the director. But how long will Calcutta have to wait before it gets to see it?

Lara’s theme

So what if her latest movie Partner has just hit the screens across the country? Lara Dutta, the grapevine has it, is headed for London. And she’s not alone. News has it that uber-director Karan Johar has also packed his bags to partner the sassy lady on her westward journey. No. Not what you are thinking, silly. It’s only an advertisement for a global fashion chain that the two are slated to co-star in. Apparently, the ad is scheduled to be shot on the streets of London, and that is precisely the reason why the duo are flying down to the British capital. How’s the Koffee there, did anyone just ask? Not too sweet, apparently.

Rhythm and Ray

A song for every season. That’s the mantra Abhishek Ray seems to be living by these days. The Delhi University graduate, who took a plunge in the world of music a few years ago, has just come out with his seventh solo venture, titled Ritu, which he says is a musical journey through the six seasons of India. Comprising six tracks, each dedicated to a particular season, Ray’s latest offering is a mix of Sufi strains, fused with modern drum and bass and topped off with an assortment of traditional Indian musical instruments. “It’s an effort to reach out to the masses,” says the guitar-toting Ray, who teamed up with Gulzar for his first musical effort, Udaas Paani, and has never looked back since. Strumming one’s way to glory, shall we say?