(From top): Fardeen Khan and VJ Ramona at the Eau Bar; Rabin Mondal with one of his paintings at Jehangir Art Gallery; Udita Goswami, Rajneesh Duggal and Rashmi Virmani at the launch of The Ramp School; Indira Goswami releasing Love in the Time of Insurgency at Café Turtle

Getting fresh

Who is a fantastic female? Perhaps Fardeen Khan can help. The actor put in an appearance at the Eau Bar in Delhi?s Le Meridien recently for a worthy cause ? well, at least that?s how all his female fans would see it. The occasion was the International Lux Body Wash?s ?Get Fresh with Fardeen? contest held in association with MTV. Helping Fardeen host the show was bubbly VJ Ramona.

?It?s not a pageant,? insisted Fardeen. ?But a representation of today?s youth. Someone smart and fantastic.? Nevertheless the girls (and there were plenty of them) were judged on four parameters ? attitude, confidence, skin and presentation. Going by these, one would think the winner would have been some pretty young thing. Yet stealing the show was a chubby housewife called Chitra who impressed Fardeen with her ?spirit? and went on to become his dinner date for the evening.

The actor, who?s gearing up for his upcoming wedding, patiently posed for eager shutterbugs along with the five girls chosen for the final round ? who made it to the stage thanks to the fact that they turned up for the event wearing orange. And orange just happened to be Fardeen?s favourite colour for the evening. The star, however, was not the only one asking the questions. The crowd didn?t miss a chance to shoot queries at him ? so what if some were inane like ?Why aren?t you clean-shaven??

Model mantra

Jesse Randhawa, Rahul Dev and Udita Goswami all have one thing in common ? besides their smouldering hot looks that is. All these beautiful people have been groomed by The Ramp Model Management helmed by fashion choreographer and producer Rashmi Virmani. She announced the launch of The Ramp School of Fashion Modelling in association with Wigan & Leigh College to help transform wannabes from dull to dashing and delightful.

The event, which took place at the Park Hotel in Delhi was marked by the presence of Vinay Pasricha, director of Wigan & Leigh College, and several proteges of Virmani including Aditya Bal, Rajneesh Duggal and actress Udita Goswami.

The school offers course modules for print models and pageant aspirants. The Ramp trains its students in picture posing, television commercials and personal presentation. Of course, training of this kind doesn?t come cheap -? one has to cough up anything between Rs 35,000 and Rs 55,000 for the course.

?We?re working to create both models and stylish young professionals. The course gives young ladies and men that extra dash of confidence that goes a long way in making them truly rounded professionals. Whether on the ramp or off it, social graces and a sense of style is yours for the asking after the course,? said Virmani.

Write on

He won the Sahitya Akademi Award at the age of 37 and the Jnanpith award almost two decades later, at 55. Today Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya (1924-1997) is recognised as one of Assam?s foremost literary figures. Eight years after his passing, his works are still considered classics. That?s why Bhattacharyya?s classic Love in the Time of Insurgency, a translation of Yaruingam, published by Katha was released at Full Circle?s Caf? Turtle in Delhi recently. And doing the honours was prominent Assamese activist-writer Indira Goswami.

Goswami said she was inspired by Bhattacharyya?s dedication to literature on the downtrodden. In a letter to Goswami about the novel, the author had written: ?For critics, it is easy to label Yaruingam as a political novel because by dividing the literary works into different categories, they can analyse and dissect them according to their subject. It is difficult to divide life into compartments, and politics is just one of the many divisions of life.?

A lively discussion followed the launch of the book. Indira Goswami, Dr Deepshikha Mahanta Bortamuly, a lecturer at Delhi University and Manjeet Baruah, a research scholar, writer and translator spoke at length about Bhattacharyya.

Love in the Time of Insurgency is a classic that leads you through the battlefields of the Burma during World War II and its aftermath in Nagaland.

Strokes of genius

When you have six decades of commentary on India?s social history, you should be able to draw the crowds. That?s what happened at the opening of a retrospective of the works of the Calcutta-based veteran artist Rabin Mondal. Brought to Mumbai by the Delhi Art Gallery, the show opened at the Jehangir Art Gallery.

Kekoo Gandhy, art historian and owner of Gallery Chemould, released a book on the artist titled After the Fall: Time, Life & Art of Rabin Mondal. Authored by renowned art critic Santo Datta, the book has a foreword by Pritish Nandy, who was present at the opening. Filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta?s documentary Rabin was also screened.

Mondal has witnessed it all ? the Bengal famine, partition and the political turmoil that led to mass migrations and communal unrest. Those experiences colour his work ? his canvases, which are layered with bold textures, are emblems of suffering and survival, and a critique on the alienation of mankind and social inequality. The exhibition was divided into thematic segments like The Deity of Frozen Tears, Exiles and their Kingdoms, Whispers of Immortality, Spectres Within and Notes from the Underground. They showcased the artist?s obsession with certain themes and their changing intensity down the decades.

Seen at the opening were artist Jehangir Sabavala, designer Nisha Jamwal, and Page 3 regulars such as Dolly Thakore and designer Krsna Mehta.

Photographs by Rupinder Sharma, Prem Singh and Gajanan Dudhalkar