In mom's wedding sari, Sania marries Shoaib

HYDERABAD: After the high-voltage run-up to what’s being called the wedding of the season, tennis star Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik took their wedding vows in a simple ceremony before a select gathering of family and friends on Monday afternoon.

The groom placed a sparkling solitaire on the bride's ring finger to seal the union that came with a Rs 61 lakh meher, an amount promised to the bride in case of separation.

Sania, 23, draped in a tomato-red chiffon, embroidered end-to-end with heavy gold thread, said, ‘‘It’s the happiest day of my life. This whole experience, this joy, is yet to settle in.’’ Then with a blush, she added, ‘‘It takes time, you know.’’

Shoaib, 28, said, “I cannot tell you how happy I am. It’s a dream come true for me. I will treasure her for the rest of my life.’’

Despite the huge media buzz surrounding the wedding, the Mirzas — Nasima and Imran — had managed to keep details of the nikah under wraps.

But the moment Sania, wearing her mother’s wedding sari, presented to Nasima by her groom 25 years ago, left her Jubilee Hills residence, media vehicles hit the roads in a frantic chase. Sania, a veil over her head, and wearing a heavy mix of diamond and rubies, was whisked in through the back entrance of the Taj Krishna hotel.

It was a harrowing build-up to the wedding for the Mirzas, but the family threw their weight behind Shoaib, who was embroiled in controversial divorce proceedings with another Hyderabadi. By the end of Monday evening, it was clear that the Mirzas were both stronger and wiser for the experience.

Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza ended up saying ‘Qabool hai’ three days ahead of their scheduled wedding date.

The reception though, is still listed for April 15. While Sania has turned to designer siblings Shantanu and Nikhil for her clothes for the reception in Hyderabad, and the one to follow in Pakistan, she had always wanted to wear her mother’s wedding sari for her own nikah.

She made that decision the moment she first laid eyes on Nasima’s sari as a teenager. Nasima had only worn the sari once, on her own wedding day almost 25 years ago, and then had locked it away until she pulled it out for her first-born.

Sania’s nikah, which had a gathering of less than 100 people, including the groom’s immediate family — mother Sultana Malik, three sisters and their families and younger brother — was held at the Taj Krishna grand ballroom.

Rakesh Roshan was initially hesitant to cast Barbara in Kites

Even as Hrithik Roshan's sizzling chemistry with Mexican actress Barbara Mori has created enough buzz about their forthcoming film Kites, the actor's father and producer Rakesh Roshan says he wasinitially hesitant to sign her on.

When Rakesh and director Anurag Basu first met Barbara for Kites story narration in Los Angeles, the actress just had inch long hair as she had gone completely bald for her role in a Spanish film.

She had just completed shooting for her film Cosas Insignificantes (Insignificant Things) that spoke of the intricacies of human relations.

Barbara had shaved her head to express solidarity with her son who loses hair in the film due to cancer. Rakesh admits that when he saw his future heroine with only one inch long hair, he was hesitant to sign her on.

"I was aghast," said Rakesh. "I asked her how we would shoot with her six months down the line, but she was confident that her hair would grow or else she suggested that she would put hair extensions," he said.

Director Anurag added, "Barbara looked beautiful in short hair too. I had an option to have her with short hair in 'Kites', but in our industry actresses generally don't have short hair."

"So later when she came to India, we did some look tests with Barbara in short hair and also with hair extensions and she looked even prettier in long hair," Anurag said.

Rana Dasgupta wins Commonwealth Writers' prize

British author's novel Solo takes award, with Best First Novel prize going to Australian Glenda Guest

On the day when a band of former winners including AS Byatt, Louis de Bernières and Andrea Levy called for governments around the world to "find new ways to support literacy", and hoped that this award would help, the British writer Rana Dasgupta has won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' prize with his novel of two halves, Solo. The Australian writer Glenda Guest has won the Best First Novel award with Siddon Rock.
Dasgupta's second novel, which examines the impact of the 20th century on Bulgaria through the life and dreams of an ageing chemist, controversially won the Guardian's inaugural Not the Booker prize last year, a development that the author found "very depressing". On this occasion, speaking on the phone from the ceremony at the International India Centre this afternoon, Dasgupta pronounced himself delighted to have won the £10,000 award.
"This news is about five minutes old," he said, "so I'm a little stunned." According to Dasgupta there has been much discussion of the pressure English exerts on languages around the world during the week of workshops, readings and discussions in Delhi attended by the shortlisted authors, "but there are still huge benefits to the global reach of English".
The traditional invitation for an audience with the Queen, refused by Mark Haddon and Caryl Phillips in 2004, is unlikely to be rebuffed.
"I actually have had a number of questions that I've wanted to put to the Queen for a long time," said Dasgupta, "so if I was to be invited I'd be delighted to get the chance."
Praised by the judges for its "innovation, ambition, courage and effortlessly elegant prose", Solo first tells the life story of a Bulgarian chemist, Ulrich, who studies in Germany and plays a part in Bulgaria's dash for industrialisation before ending his days lonely and blind in a decaying Sofia apartment. The second half brings a swift change of gear, as Ulrich dreams of a violinist discovered by an American record producer in the chaos of the post-communist era, a format that according to the chair of the judges, Nicholas Hasluck, puts Dasgupta "at the cutting edge of responding to the chaos of our times".
Hasluck also praised Glenda Guest for her innovative use of magical realism in the Australian outback, which "stands in contrast to the realist tradition of Australian writing". Siddon Rock explores the effect of the second world war on a small town on the salt plains of the Mallee, after a nurse who got caught up on the front returns home.
Guest was as surprised as Dasgupta to have won the £5,000 First Novel award. "I'm standing here like a stunned mullet," she said.
"It's not about the money, it's not about the credit," she continued, "it's about being given verification that this is any good, that I can actually write."
She joins stellar list of winners since the prizes were launched by the Commonwealth Foundation in 1987, including Peter Carey, Vikram Seth and Sarah Hall.