Starting with a splash!

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">starting with a splash!</span> he''s set the ball rolling. sunil mehra showcased his latest collection at a fashion presentation -- the first this season -- at the grand hyatt on friday evening. the show sure had all the trappings of glamour with the designer flying down some of the top, hot-shot models from mumbai.and so, the capital got to see the new face of lakme on the runway -- the stunning yana gupta -- together with former delhi lass anupama varma, aditi govitrikar, zulfi, sheetal mallar, carol gracias and others.<br />the presentation, titled <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">the bhiku collection</span>commenced with bhikshus (enlightened people), draped in orange robes, asking for bhiksha and a woman donating a universe to them. the presentation that followed was a mixture of both ethnic as well as contemporary silhouettes, including jackets, ties, short kurta with trousers, sherwanis, robes...<br />forming part of the appreciative audience were secretary home ministry m b kaushal, sitar player debu chodhary, odissi danseuse kiran sehgal, osia italia''s narin jain, the ambassador of uzbekistan mavlanav, british council''s nic humphries, among others...<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">leaves of art!</span> the hyatt polo lounge wore an arty look recently. paintings on the walls making for a pretty picture. colourful canvases by upcoming artistes rubbed frames with those of senior painters. the occasion? the informal launch of an art catalogue, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">harvest 2001,</span>put together by priya jain and payal kapoor of arushi arts. ``we have been working on this catalogue for the past eight months. we aim to bring the best of indian art together on a uniform platform. the idea is to make indian art much more affordable and certainly more accessible to art lovers,'''' said priya.<br />the catalogue presents the works of artists like ganesh pyne, m f husain, souza, suhas roy, shyamal dutta ray, jogen chaudhary, pasitosh sen, arpana caur, s h raza, among many other stalwarts of the art world.<br />among those present to laud the efforts of these two young ladies were <span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">d k</span>and <span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">usha jain, sadia dehelvi, sumeet chopra, industrialist miki punj, dabur''s v c burman, shalini pasi, designer suneet varma, model sonalika oberai, tv anchor shivani wazir and art connoisseur rohini khosla...</span><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">yeh munda...!</span> nothing could keep music lovers away that evening. especially since everyone was in a balle balle mood. and calling the shots, musically, was pop singer shankar shahney. the punjabi pop singer held centrestage on the premises of bharat petroleum in noida recently.<br />the evening saw the singing sensation belt out hits from his latest album -- kudiye. needless to say, his kudi kurmuri had the entire crowd dancing. keeping the independence day spirit high were a few patriotic songs as well. giving him company on stage were the energetic dancers of the benzeer group.<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">pssst...!</span> there''s a rumour that''s gonna be doing the rounds of delhi soon. and we thought we''d let you know in advance. it''s about ramneeka dhillon lobo, rashid raza, roshni chopra, ramesh thakur, debbie menezes, bharat kapur, ambika shukla, bobby singh and vandana mohindra. and before the tongues start wagging, let us tell you that we''re talking about the vivek mansukhani directed production, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">rumours</span>that is being presented by delhi times and planet m. to be held at the sri ram centre starting august 31, the play is a riotously funny farce that promises to keep the audience in splits. watch it...! </div> </div>