"When Indians Danced 'Bhangra' In Cypress

NEW DELHI (IANS) - Indian High Commissioner to Cyprus, Shyamala Cowsik, believes she is a ""lucky mascot"" for Indian beauties competing in international pageants.
Cowsik was the Ambassador to the Philippines when Sushmita Sen became the first Indian to win the Miss Universe contest there in 1994.
Six years later, when Lara Dutta won the Miss Universe crown in Nicosia on Saturday, Cowsik was there to congratulate her and relive the proud feeling as Indian envoy that she first experienced in Manila six years ago.
""I think I am a lucky mascot for these Indian girls,"" Cowsik told India Abroad News Service on telephone from Nicosia.
Cowsik said about 250 Indians were in the crowd at the Elletheria Stadium in Nicosia to cheer Dutta and broke into a spontaneous 'bhangra', the boisterous Punjabi dance, when the winner was announced.
Cowsik said Dutta was a local favourite and expected to be among the top three. She impressed most with her poise, her articulation and her ability to keep her emotions in check. Cowsik said Lara had even sent her parents back to the hotel from the stadium as she did not want to get distracted by their presence during the contest.
Dutta was presented a Golden Apple by the organizers as a symbol of the island which is known as the birthplace of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and the world's first beauty queen.
Interestingly, the first lady of Nicosia, Lilla Irene Clerides, 78, is of Indian descent. Her father, Abraham Erulkar, was the personal physician to Mahatma Gandhi. She was born in Ahmedabad and studied in Bombay (Mumbai) before moving to London.
Lilla Clerides worked in the overseas service of the BBC under George Orwell and met her future husband and present President, Glascos Clerides, when he was in the Royal Air Force (RAF).
Clerides was a long-time admirer of Gandhi and the couple are now into their 55th year of marriage. Lilla Clerides still retains a strong interest in India."

India's Lara Dutta Crowned Miss Universe 2000

     NEW DELHI (IANS) - For Lara Dutta, the Miss Universe 2000 crown marks the fulfillment of a dream she has nurtured since the age of seven, when she was growing up in Bangalore.
      As a child, Dutta absorbed every bit of information she could access about beauty contests. The husky-voiced girl with a way with words would practice answering questions posed to beauty contestants to see if she could do better than them.
All that practice paid off when Dutta, the youngest child of a retired Indian Air Force pilot and whose first name is derived from the heroine of Boris Pasternak's unforgettable classic 'Dr Zhivago,' clinched the Miss Universe crown in Nicosia, Cyprus on Saturday.
     Six years after a jubilant Sushmita Sen made history and placed India firmly on the international beauty map, 22-year-old Dutta became the first Miss Universe of the new millennium and the 49th winner of the pageant.
Dutta, 5 ft. 8 in. tall and weighing 55.5 kg, beat 78 beautiful contestants to win the crown, India's fifth in international pageants in six years. Other winners from India include, besides Sushmita Sen who won the Miss Universe title in 1994, Aishwarya Rai (Miss World 1994), Diana Hayden (Miss World 1997) and Yukta Mookhey (Miss World 1999). Rita Faria bagged India's first-ever international beauty crown by winning the Miss World pageant in 1966.
Dutta, who graduates in economics this year, impressed judges with her beauty, poise and personality and was a favourite among the bevy of beauties on the Mediterranean island. It was her answer to the final question - What would you say to those condemn the contest as an affront to women - that finally won the day for her.
     A self-assured Dutta answered: ""I think pageants like Miss Universe give us young women a platform to foray in the fields that we want to and forge ahead, be it entrepreneurship, be it the armed forces, be it politics.""
""It gives us a platform to voice our choices and opinions and it makes us strong and independent that we are today,"" she added.
Dutta, hailing from Bangalore in Karnataka, was crowned Miss India-Universe on January 15 in Pune. Since then she has been hard at work, training under a panel of experts for the international pageant. Her regimen included workouts at the gym to tone her body, sessions with a dermatologist, dentist and designers and training in public speaking among other things.
Dutta stepped on to the catwalk at the age of 15 and two years ago left home for Mumbai to pursue her modelling career which includes assignments with Synergy, Walls, Siyarams suiting, Coca-Cola, and Hero Honda. Before the Miss India contest came a string of victories like the Glad Rags Supermodel Contest in 1995, when she was still in school.
      The girl who grew up poring over the exploits of boisterous Joe in Louisa May Alcott's novel 'Little Women' is a true woman of the outdoors, revelling in adventure sports like rock climbing, para-gliding and bungee jumping. Twenty years from now, she says, she sees herself as ""someone who had done what she wanted to.""
Dutta, who is keen to make a contribution to the lives of people ""by instilling in them the confidence to forge their own paths"" wants to obtain a degree in media marketing after completing her graduation."

"Film Music Still Top Of The Pops

       The verdict is clear. The Indipop bubble has burst, and how! The year's biggest chart-scorcher of the year 2000 is, of course, 'Kaho Na.. Pyaar Hai', followed closely by 'Josh, Tarkieb, Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge, Pukar' and the just-released music of 'Refugee'. Hindi film songs (which make up 70 per cent of the music market) still rule the countdowns and are major money-spinners. A non-film best-seller sells about 5-10 lakh copies (unless you discount Daler's steady 25-lakh figure or Altaf Raja's record-breaking 65 lakh copies), while most hit film music albums sell anything between 20 lakh copies and above.
       Music giant HMV (which marketed 'Kaho Na... Pyaar Hai') has recently gifted
Hrithik Roshan a Merc for making the album such a mega-seller (completing
ignoring the role of music director Rajesh Roshan). A senior official of HMV lets on, ""Our other best-sellers 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun! Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai' touched the one crore copy mark. This year 'Kaho Na...' has sold in the region of 70-80 lakh copies at least and is still selling."" Most big players like Venus, Tips and T-Series do not release correct sales figures (for IT reasons).
The other grosser has been Sony Music's 'Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani' which sold around 30 lakh copies, say industry sources, unlike the previous megahit 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' which sold about 60 lakh copies. Venus, whose fortunes are dipping dangerously, badly needs a hit after 'Dil Se' (released in 1998). They can perk up a bit (after 'Jaanwar, Badshah' and 'Mela' just about touched the 10 lakh figure each), now that their recently released 'Josh' (OST) seems to be doing reasonably well.
Says Deepak Marwah, owner, The Music Shop in Khan Market in New Delhi, ""So far we've sold about 600-700 albums of 'Kaho Naa..' and the album still continues to rule the sales figures. HMV, in fact, has a good year ahead, with their second big album 'Refugee' doing extremely well (it sells about 15-20 copies everyday). And most of the publicity of the 'Refugee' album is by word of mouth, because initially the sales were lukewarm. 'Josh' sells about 10-12 copies every day and 'Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge' has sold about 150-200 cassettes so far.""
       The boom has encouraged music companies to step big-time in recording and
promoting film music with sleek music trailers. As long as films continue to be the staple diet of a star-struck nation, Bollywood will make record companies sing to their tune, like they've done for years."
"Asha Parekh Worried At Sleaze Explosion

In Indian Cinema, Television

by Subhash K. Jha
     MUMBAI(IANS) - Censor board chairperson Asha Parekh, who seems to have controversy waiting to pounce on her at each turn, says films with ""filthy language"" should not expect to be cleared without a few snips.
     Parekh is being accused by certain sections of the film industry and press of using the scissors unfairly on two recent films: Sam Mendes' multi-Oscar winner 'American Beauty' and Dev Benegal's Hindi-English satire on metropolitan quirks 'Split Wide Open', which addresses such thorny issues as pedophilia and male prostitution.
The yesteryear actress is livid at the suggestion that she personally had anything to do with the cuts ordered in the two films by the board members.
    ""I want to know where Asha Parekh comes into all this. The decision to pass the two films was unanimous. I was adamant about all the expletives being deleted. I won't allow filthy language in any film,"" Parekh told India Abroad News Service.
In a forthcoming Hindi film 'Bichchoo', leading lady Rani Mukherjee apparently uses cusswords and abuses like they were going out of fashion. The censor board has asked its makers to clean up their soundtrack before hoping for a certificate.
Parekh is very clear in her attitude towards abusive language. ""When Paramount Pictures came to us with 'American Beauty' we didn't touch a single scene that would hamper the narration,"" she said. ""We have allowed a crucial lovemaking scene at the end to go intact. Also (some) dialogues.....are intact. But why should my panel allow the 'f' word to be used unnecessarily? Is this what we want our kids to learn from the movies?""
     Another film, 'Such A Long Journey' based on Indo-Canadian Rohinton Mistry's book by the same name, was also told to clean up its soundtrack. The film is yet to be released in India.
     Incidentally, Parekh has also been criticized by moralists in Mumbai for being liberal with 'Split Wide Open'. The actress is outraged by the apparent hypocrisy.
""If I don't pass a film I am a prude. If I pass a film I'm over-liberal. I seem to be caught in a heads-you-win-tails-I-lose situation. I want people to make up their minds about what they want me to be -- prudish or liberal,"" she said.
Personally Parekh feels films like 'Split Wide Open' do a disservice to impressionable minds. ""We are exposing young minds to urban values that they do not understand. I think its a very unhealthy sign,"" she said.
      Parekh is worried about the sleaze explosion that has hit Indian cinema. ""I have been told that hardcore pornographic scenes are interpolated into films distributed by certain sleazy distributors in Mumbai. I have no proof of this,"" she said. ""But we are taking steps to curb such interpolations. You see, sleazy sex films are being made at a cost of Rs. 1 million. If a filmmaker sells his film for Rs. 1.5 million, he goes home with Rs. 500,000.""
     Parekh is also worried about the explosion of sex and violence on satellite channels. ""Why aren't parents objecting to what their children watch day in and day out on television? Crime is on the rise everywhere. I think television is responsible for this to a large extent,"" she said.
Parekh hoped the approval of the Broadcast Bill by Parliament will check the sleaze explosion on television."