Power talk

You can always trust Tehelka to be a little ‘hut key’. When newspapers and magazines are going to town with high-powered summits, spilling over with top politicians and ministers, Tehelka chief Tarun Tejpal is giving the finishing touches to Tehelka’s own conference — called the summit of the powerless. To be held in Delhi, the summit will be addressed by activists such as Anna Hazare and Madhu Kishwar, Marxist-Leninist Vara Vara Rao, Dalit leader Udit Raj and so on.

The two-day summit, starting on November 20, will look at issues that seldom make news — farmers’ suicide, rural success stories and so on. Not surprisingly, the theme is: Two Indias, One Future.

Shroff in Sonagachi

If all of Bollywood can do it, why can’t Jackie Shroff? The actor will be in Calcutta on November 27 to shoot for a Bengali film. Shroff, who continues to cause hearts to throb, plays a widower in Sanghamitra Chaudhuri’s Raat Porir Rupkatha. “I was so impressed by his portrayal of Chuni babu in Devdas that he was an automatic choice for the character,” says Chaudhuri. Jackie believes that the character of a widower who falls in love with a sex worker from Sonagachi is a strong one. But his interest in the character goes well beyond the tinsel world. He wants to visit Sonagachi to spread AIDS awareness among sex workers. Now that’s Chuni babu in a different role for you.

New chapter

Speaking of Sonagachi, get ready to welcome Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi. The Iranian peace activist and lawyer — and a vocal advocate of the rights of women and children — will be visiting India later this month. Among other things, she will preside over the New Delhi launch of a book brought out by Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a non-governmental organisation working on sex trafficking.

What makes the event different from run-of-the-mill book launches is the book. Titled The place where we live is called a red-light area, it has been authored by children living in Sonagachi and Kalighat.

High notes

There was a time when you couldn’t switch on your television without encountering a young Sikh in a white turban, playing his triangular guitar. We haven’t seen Rabbi ‘Bulla ki jaana’ Shergill for a while, but we may be listening to some of his music in the near future. The sufi singer is waiting for the theatre promos of Delhi Heights — a soon-to-be-released film for which he has done the music and lyrics. The singer, who got the jet-set crowd swaying to Sufi pop, has roped in people such as Sonu Nigam and Kailash Kher to sing his songs. Shergill tells us that the music will be a mix of the old and the new. “There will be some echoes of my old music — along with new elements,” says the Delhi lad.

Going places

If Hema Malini made a record for having changed into the maximum number of outfits for the title song in Dream Girl, a song in director Priyadarshan’s Bhagam Bhaag is set to create a record for being shot in the maximum number of locations. The song featuring Akshay Kumar and Lara Dutta will be shot across 32 different locations in London including Green Park, Hyde Park and Piccadilly Circus. Now that’s called going places.