BOOK WATCH: Tahmima Anam

Is it Tahmima’s time?

Having attracted favourable attention with her debut novel, A Golden Age (John Murray, £14.99), set against the bloody birth of Bangladesh, Tahmina Anam is moving on to Calcutta for her second book.

Tahmima, who was born in Dhaka in 1975 but has lived in the west for most of her life — her journalist father, Mahfuz Anam, is editor of the English-language Daily Star in Bangladesh — says: “I went to Calcutta for the first time last summer to vibe with the city. I want to set the novel in 1920s’ Calcutta against the last two decades of British India and events leading to partition.”

Tahmima, who studied social anthropology at Harvard and now lives in London, where she did freelance editing jobs whilst writing A Golden Age, adds: “There aren’t too many partition novels about Bengal. Most are about Punjab — I’m only talking about novels in English.”

Last week there was a little party in London to celebrate the publication of A Golden Age and hopefully, the arrival of a new young author.

Culturally, Tahmima tells me, she feels “Bangladeshi — and Bengali”. She speaks Bengali and has made the commendable effort to learn to read and write the language. She helped during the filming of the much praised Bangladeshi film, Matir Moyna (The Claybird).

Tahmima is delighted that all last week A Golden Age received welcome promotion on BBC Radio 4, where an adaptation was “beautifully read” for the “Book at Bedtime” slot by the actress Sudha Bhuchar.

One of Tahmima’s ambitions is to teach “creative writing”, something about which the British are less enthusiastic than the Americans.

“It’s changing,” argues Tahmima.

FASHION FARE: Monsoonal downpour for Liz Hurley

Face value

Mrs Arun Nayar might be on honeymoon with her husband but there is no getting away from the “lovely Liz”, as the tabloids once styled her. At London’s busy Victoria station, innocent bystanders waiting for trains are confronted by a big Hurley shop window display for the Monsoon line of clothes for which she is the face.

If the Daily Mail headline — “Liz Hurley factor fails to put sparkle into sales at Monsoon” — is to be believed, business is not too good despite her endorsement.

“Liz Hurley’s extravagant wedding celebrations may have made acres of news coverage but it has done little for fashion chain Monsoon, which pays her more than £1 million a year,” it claimed.

Instead of the profit forecast of £55 million for the year to May, the figure could slump to between £46 million and £50 million.

This is the sort of situation which leads to a loss of face.

Newsmaker: Ronnie Screwvala

Run, Ron, run

Friends sensing new business opportunities have been ringing me wanting to know, “Do you know Ronnie Screwvala?”

The reason for this newfound interest is a big article on Screwvala in the Sunday Times, accompanied by what I estimate to be a 10 inch by 12 inch photo (for Indians, this size is normally reserved for Bollywood babes).

The “charmingly chatty” Screwvala, 50, “with black silk shirt, handsome fleshy features and elegant coiffed hair”, and who “looks like Mumbai’s answer to Engelbert Humperdinck”, doesn’t like the word Bollywood, as the headline warns: “Don’t say Bollywood as mogul goes global.”

Screwvala speaks “quiet, perfect English” and loves listening to Mozart, as so many of us sophisticated Indians tend to do,

Readers are also told: “Screwvala claims he will be the biggest moviemaker in India this year. But he wants more crossover hits, so he can bring big projects to India where production costs are lower.”

Screwvala has been in London as “adviser” to the Indian Media Fund, which is expecting to float on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

He is also “plugging” Metro, Shilpa Shetty’s new film.

On the strength of a brief brush at Bafta with Ronnie (when Rang De Basanti didn’t win), I could easily arrange meetings with my best friend for the usual consideration.

Anyway, Screwvala ought to be warned that flattering publicity is a double-edged weapon. Everyone is after him now.

Sky's the limit:Shilpa Shetty

In the news

Her jealous detractors in India, still burning with jealousy over her Celebrity Big Win, won’t be pleased that Sky Television last week rushed out an hour-long profile of “Britain’s favourite Bollywood actress”.

Although there is no shock horror revelation when you scrutinise the transcript of The Real Shilpa Shetty (Akshay Kumar, Anubhav Sinha, her family’s alleged mafia links, etc etc), I quite enjoyed the hastily stitched documentary which is quite chatpata in tone.

Shilpa will have to remember to thank her “school friend” Vinitha Ramchandani, who bitched: “Shilpa was a very average looking teenager. Hairy and lanky, she wasn’t pretty, she was just average looking, there were prettier looking girls in the school, definitely. No, the boys weren’t very interested in Shilpa at that point in time.”

There was some breathless narration from the documentary’s (unseen) narrator: “We managed to get an exclusive interview with Anubhav. However, he refused to talk about the speculated affair. He did, however, have a few things to say about Shilpa so judge for yourself his feelings for her.”

Anubhav allowed himself a gentle tease: “She is a wonderful person actually and a great human being, a great professional, a fantastic stunning human being and an actress. Is she as stunning as everyone thinks? No, she is more stunning.”

Interested as we all are in the really profound issues of life, it is worth quoting Neeta Lulla, Shilpa’s favourite fashion designer, who disclosed: “I haven’t met anyone yet so passionate about clothes as Shilpa is. I think with a body like that you have to flaunt it, that’s why her favourite jeans are Diesel 60 which are completely skin fit. Leopard print is Shilpa’s hot favourite, every film offer has to have a leopard print. I think she must be having 90 per cent of her wardrobe in leopard print.”

This is one leopard which won’t change its spots, the documentary concluded.

Meaning the real Shilpa Shetty is “a very nice person”, which is an opinion shared by the Queen, Tony Blair, Max Clifford and Shilpa’s mum.

Tittle tattle

Lakshmi Mittal, president and CEO of Arcelor Mittal, has shown himself to be a characteristically broadminded Indian. The footage from the Cricket World Cup showed a couple of spectators flaunting tee shirts with “Arcelor Mittal” logos.

“Rings a bell,” commented a spokesman for the group’s Luxembourg headquarters, reminding me that Mittal acquired a steel plant in Trinidad & Tobago in 1989.

Actually, back in February, I missed Mittal’s announcement of his commercial sponsorship of the West Indies team.

Clive Lloyd enthused: “Mittal has been working in the Caribbean for a long time. We hope that this very special World Cup will deepen ties and become extremely beneficial to both the WICB and Arcelor Mittal.”

In return, Mittal said: “We are very pleased to support the West Indies cricket team. We wish the West Indies every success for the upcoming tournament and are proud to be associated with a team with such a large local and international supporter base.”

As Sunil Gavaskar has pointed out, Indians would much rather that the West Indies, not the Australians, emerged champions.