In this day of instant fame, their names evoke only a tiny flicker of recognition. But they were headline-grabbers not so long ago, some for their deeds and others for what they ought not to have done. Thirty news makers from the pages of history and where they are now.

K. NACHIKETA

Return Of the Native





K. Nachiketa K. Nachiketa

K. Nachiketa K. Nachiketa

Lt-Gen K.S. Brar (right) Lt-Gen K.S. Brar (right)

K.S. Brar K.S. Brar

Farookh Engineer Farookh Engineer

Farookh Engineer Farookh Engineer

Bangaru Laxman (left) Bangaru Laxman (left)

Bangaru Laxman Bangaru Laxman

Bhanu Athaiya Bhanu Athaiya

Bhanu Athaiya Bhanu Athaiya

Lakshmi Parvathi Lakshmi Parvathi

Lakshmi Parvathi Lakshmi Parvathi

Salma Sultan Salma Sultan

Salma Sultan Salma Sultan

Meher Heroyce Moos Meher Heroyce Moos

Meher Heroyce Moos Meher Heroyce Moos

Abhinav Chaturvedi Abhinav Chaturvedi

Abhinav Chaturvedi Abhinav Chaturvedi

Pamella Bordes Pamella Bordes

Pamella Bordes Pamella Bordes

Daisy Irani as a child artiste Daisy Irani as a child artiste

Daisy Irani Daisy Irani

Sukh Ram Sukh Ram

Sukh Ram Sukh Ram

Parvati Khan Parvati Khan

Parvati Khan Parvati Khan

Kumar Gaurav-Love Story Kumar Gaurav-Love Story

Kumar Gaurav Kumar Gaurav

N. Manjunath N. Manjunath

N. Manjunath N. Manjunath

Rakesh Sharma (left) Rakesh Sharma (left)

Rakesh Sharma Rakesh Sharma

Tabassum Tabassum

Tabassum Tabassum

Bachendri Pal Bachendri Pal

Bachendri Pal Bachendri Pal

Meenakshi Seshadri Meenakshi Seshadri

Meenakshi Seshadri Meenakshi Seshadri

T.N. Seshan (left) T.N. Seshan (left)

T.N. Seshan T.N. Seshan

R.K. Dhawan (right) R.K. Dhawan (right)

R.K. Dhawan R.K. Dhawan

Zoheb Hassan Zoheb Hassan

Zoheb Hassan Zoheb Hassan

Penaaz Masani Penaaz Masani

Penaaz Masani Penaaz Masani

O.P. Nayyar O.P. Nayyar

O.P. Nayyar O.P. Nayyar

Subir Banerjee Subir Banerjee

Subir Banerjee Subir Banerjee

B.S. Chandrasekhar (right) B.S. Chandrasekhar (right)

B.S. Chandrasekhar B.S. Chandrasekhar

Arvind Swami-A still from Roja Arvind Swami-A still from Roja

Arvind Swami Arvind Swami

Mohammed Shahid Mohammed Shahid

Mohammed Shahid Mohammed Shahid

Baba Sehgal Baba Sehgal

BaBa Sehgal BaBa Sehgal

Reita Faria Reita Faria

Reita Faria Reita Faria

May 26, 1999: Disaster. MiG-27 flames out and Fl-Lt K. Nachiketa is taken prisoner of war by Pakistan, after an engine failure while raining rockets on the Munthadalo range in the Batalik area. June 3: Pakistan hands over Nachiketa to India in a "goodwill gesture". Kargil War: Images-Soldier's Hour, INDIA TODAY, July 26, 1999.Seven years later, Squadron Leader Nachiketa has no qualms about living life away from the limelight in the IAF colony of Chandigarh. The 32-year-old, married to Prasanthi and father of a six-month-old, is no longer a fighter pilot and flies an AN-32 transport plane to maintain the supply line to the troops' forward locations, including the ones on the Kargil heights which he wastasked to bombard on May 26, 1999. "It was a life-shattering experience," he recalls, of being India's first, and only, prisoner of war in Kargil. For the first three years he was medically downgraded and given ground duties. It was only in mid-2003 that he was flying again. He still has a nagging back pain caused by ejecting at 18,000 ft. "The biggest thing my Kargil experience has taught me is the value of life," says Nachiketa, who was awarded the Vayu Sena Medal in 2000.On June 1, 1984, Lt General Kuldip Singh "Bulbul" Brar, then a major-general, was picked to head Operation Blue Star to flush out militants, led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, from the Golden Temple. Calling it "one of the most traumatic operations carried out in recent times", he urges that the damage to the Akal Takht be seen against the "likely damage to Indian sovereignty had the operation not been launched". The Blue Star Story, INDIA TODAY, May 15, 1993.Today, Lieutenant General Brar, 72, who retired as eastern army commander 14 years ago after four decades in the army, leads a quiet, retired life in a secret location, guarded round-the-clock. He spends quality time with his family, plays golf in the morning and divides the rest of his time between surfing the Internet and passionately devouring books ranging from Dan Brown thrillers to military biographies. A decade ago, Brar worked as consultant to British novelist Frederick Forsyth for his novel on a fourth India-Pakistan war over Kashmir, an unfinished work of fiction which was overtaken by fact when Pakistan invaded and occupied Kargil.The West Indians are coming, the Australians are coming, the Pakistanis are coming. And greeting them on the playing fields of Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta will be two former cricketing kings, ace wicketkeeper Farookh Engineer and spin maestro Bishen Singh Bedi. Farookh and Bishen have pulled off something of a coup. They have been jetting all over the world persuading cricket greats to come to India and grace a series of benefit matches. This is one series that should give spectators considerably more runs for their money. Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, February 29, 1984.At 68, silver-haired Farookh Maneksha Engineer looks as sparkling as his batting used to. Now brand ambassador of Cobra Beer and a consultant to Citibank, Engineer lives in Cheshire, outside Manchester, England, and is "busier than ever". Having played 46 Tests and five ODIs for India, with two hundreds and 17 fifties to his credit, he is vice-president of Lancashire County Cricket Club and supports many charities. The first Indian cricketer to be offered a professional contract to play County cricket in 1966, he also succeeded Keith Miller and Dennis Compton as Brylcreem's poster boy in the '70s. "Life has been greatly rewarding," he says. Though he has spent almost 40 years in England, he claims: "Dil se desi hoon, yaar. I am one million per cent Indian at heart.""What's my crime? What was Eklavya's crime?" Bangaru Laxman, who resigned as BJP president after the "fictitious" defence deal expos by Tehelka.com showed him receiving Rs 1 lakh, asks his admirers at his Kushak Road bungalow. Not ruling out the possibility of a conspiracy within and outside the party to sabotage his career, he says the "middlemen" cameto discuss investment and talked about defence purchases casually while offering to invest Rs 5,000 crore in infrastructure. NDA Under Seige, INDIA TODAY, March 26, 2001.Five years later, he is still a bitter man. "The party did not extend moral support to me," he says. While he hopes for a clean chit, the case against him has not progressed beyond the FIR stage. His wife, Sushila Bangaru Laxman, who was given a BJP ticket in 2004, is currently a Lok Sabha MP from Jalore, Rajasthan. For Laxman, whose sole recent contribution to his party's affairs was his criticism of L.K. Advani's "ideological deviation" during the Jinnah controversy, it's a long ride back from ignominy.Having dressed legends like Nargis, Meena Kumari and Waheeda Rehman, Bhanu Athaiya, who won an Oscar for costume design for Gandhi in 1982, finds today's stars "flippant". Athaiya, who is designing costumes for Vinod Chopra's 1942: A Love Story, prefers no work to routine work. "Costume designing is an art but what is happening here is only a fashion parade." Scene Stealers, INDIA TODAY, December 31, 1993.For Athaiya, God lies in the details. It was her keen eye for detail that gave Lagaan its authentic rustic touch. Today, the girl who travelled from Kolhapur to live with theatre personality Hima Devi, studied at the J.J. School of Arts and then went on to work as an illustrator in Eve's Weekly magazine, looks back with pride at some of her creations: from Nadira's stylish cholis in Shri 420 to Vyjayantimala's cabaret outfit in Sangam's Buddha mil gaya number. A voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles since 1994, she is on a year-long sabbatical, working on a book and a documentary tracing her creative journey, after which it's back to the film circuit.Lakshmi Parvathi may have been a back-seat driver in the chaitanya ratham during N.T. Rama Rao's (NTR's) election tour, but now the Andhra Pradesh chief minister's wife has planted herself firmly by his side. Parvathi stands by her man wherever he goes and attends functions organised in her honour, where printed invitations depict the couple and silk sarees are showered on her. Lakshmi Parvathi: Leading Lady, INDIA TODAY, February 28, 1995.Parvathi stood by NTR and nursed him until his death as a bitter man in January 1996. It marked the end of her two-and-a-half-year-old marriage. Her subsequent attempts in electoral politics failed, with the party unable to win a single seat. She continues to live in the house where he died and took his ashes for immersion to Haridwar only after Naidu lost the elections in 2004, eight years after the death of NTR. With no funds or following, politics is ruled out. Today, Parvathi sits behind a desk, with a bust of NTR by her side, running a trust that promotes cultural activities and campaigns for gender justice. Beyond that, her only hope is Koteshwara Prasad, her son from her first marriage, who is a student of medicine and interning with a Bangalore hospital. Yet, Parvathi, who will be 49 in September, says she will be guided by three letters of the alphabet till her end-NTR.After completing her post-graduation in English Literature from Indraprastha College, Delhi, when Salma Sultan was called by Doordarshan for an audition and asked to read a bulletin in Hindi, she read it so fast that they could not even start the roll. In due course of time, she overcame her fear of facing the camera and became a regular face on TV, the rose pinned in her hair her distinctive feature. My Decade, INDIA TODAY, December 31, 1985.In 1989, she produced a TV series called Panchatantra Se and Suno Kahani, a 26-episode serial based on issues concerning the youth. Widow of Aamir Kidwai, who worked for Engineers India, and mother of two, she now lives in Jangpura, Delhi. Her production house, Lensview, produces serials and she also directs and hosts Jalta Sawaal, a programme on Doordarshan that focuses on women-oriented issues like dowry, prostitution, infertility and rape. At 62, Salma has a busy schedule, but manages to find time for gardening and interior decoration.Thirty-three, worldly-wise and intrepid, Meher Heroyce Moos has already achieved a modicum of fame as the first Indian woman to set foot on the South Pole. Her other adventures in exotic places like Mongolia have made her a much sought after speaker at clubs and schools. Now Meher Moos, a former stewardess with Air-India and currently its tourism promotion officer, is embarking on an eightweek swing through China, Japan, Bali and Papua Guinea, "a cannibal-infested territory" on the Sepik river. Says Moos, "What I want to prove by these trips is that if an ordinary person like me can do it, so can anyone else." Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, September 15, 1978.The woman they called the Marco Polo of India is still on the road. At 61, after four decades of wandering, Moos is still stoking her insatiable appetite for travel and adventure. She intends to extend her roster of countries visited from its current 165 to 200 by the time she is 75. "That leaves me with 14-odd years to do it," she says in her nononsense voice. Her to-do list includes geographical extremes: a huskie dog trip across Alaska, and the oases and deserts of Tunisia and a chain of islands they call Micronesia. "I can do what a teenager can do," she says of her exhaustive jaunts around the world, "but much slower." Retired after 37 years in Air India, she was international travel consultant to Thomas Cook for two years and says travel is not collecting snapshots for photo albums but experiencing a country through its people, cuisine and culture. After retirement she hit the ground running, visiting Yemen and Israel. The countries knocked off her list last year include Madagascar and Mauritius and her experiences include a visit to Amritstar's Golden Temple at 4 a.m., when the Granth Sahib is brought out of the Akal Takht. Adventures to her have meant many things: landing in Antarctica as well as working out how to get a visa through apartheid South Africa in 1977. The visa adventure stories could make a book of their own but then so could the list of creatures she's supped on during her world travels-the weird and the wonderful, locust and linguine, ants and antipasti.It was an epic ending-heavy and tearful. Last fortnight, when the labyrinthine Hum Log family walked off into the December fog, and Dadi, in the very last episode, had died as imperiously as she had lived, the proceedings constituted the frothiest finale to the first soap opera on Indian TV. Hum Log: The Final Flourish, INDIA TODAY, January 15, 1986.Abhinav Chaturvedi, 42, a member of Indian television's first family, is still recognised as Nanhe, though his brief stint in Bollywood features half a dozen films including Subhash Ghai's Saudagar. An only son, he was forced to abandon his fledgling career in Mumbai and return to Delhi because of his father's pancreatic cancer. The actor, who wanted to become a cricketer (he played in the Ranji Trophy for Delhi) before Hum Log happened, has now set up an audio-visual software company and is often seen compering local events. With the 22nd anniversary of the first telecast of Hum Log round the corner, Chaturvedi, father of Ayushman, 10 and Navya, 7, is preparing an autobiographical one-hour solo to be staged around that date.For Britain's lurid, sensation-soaked tabloid press, it was a case of "wham, bam, thank you Pam". Once the tabloids got scent of what promised to be a snowballing sex scandal, the India-born Pamella Bordes (nee Chaudhury) was transformedinto a cross between Mata Hari and Linda Lovelace. Pamella Singh Bordes: Indecent Exposures, INDIA TODAY, April 15, 1989.She has shifted home a few times after her return to Jaipur, where she studied at the Maharani Gayatri Devi School. A morning swim at a local club and an occasional appearance at parties apart, the 45-year-old is now a photographer and accessories designer who keeps her "deadline and her word", according to Harpreet Sodhi, who runs a boutique in Singapore. She now avoids the media, surfacing only when she has exhibitions of her photographs. Her argument? "I don't want to be featured anymore," she says.In the early '50s, Daisy Irani-with sister Honey-stormed tinsel town at the tender age of three. The child superstar delighted viewers through the next decade (Bandish, Ek Hi Raasta, Devdas). Then, 125 films later, she settled for domestic bliss. Now, the actor is back on the small screen. In Gadbad, she plays a bumbling detective caught in comic acts. Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, April 30, 1988.Today, she is a loving, elderly mother on STAR Plus's Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii. Irani, who married scriptwriter K.K. Shukla in 1971, tried her hand at theatre in the '80s and even started her own acting school. In the early '90s, after the demise of her husband, she put on the grease paint for Dekh Bhai Dekh and movies like Aastha, Kya Kehna and Shararat. The 56-year-old mother of three now spends her time shooting for TV and advertisements, working with street children and making glass paintings.When the CBI seized currency wads worth crores from his official residence as telecommunication minister, the Congress lost no time in dropping him like a hot potato. But Sukh Ram floated a party and extracted revenge by aligning with the BJP. Sukh Ram: Finger in Every Pie, INDIA TODAY, September 15, 1996.When corruption charges were framed against him, the BJP dropped him from the Himachal Pradesh ministry and engineered a split in the Himachal Vikas Congress, the party he floated in 1997. Ram's political fortunes have been on a downhill slide since then. His party was almost wiped out in the 2003 Assembly elections, and only Ram managed to retain his Mandi seat. Reduced to a rump, Ram merged his party into the Congress, which conveniently overlooked his scamtainted credentials. With his political base limited to Mandi, the 79-yearold is now in the political wilderness.Pop star Parvati Khan is crooning, rocking and popping. And she has a legion of fans lapping it all up. At a joint performance with Mehdi Hasan in Lucknow, around one lakh fans clamoured for her desi pop, while the ghazal king wasrelegated to the sidelights. The cassette she released that day, Dil Diwana Ho Gaya, has already sold out two editions, and Weston is now releasing the third. Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, November 15, 1989.After a spate of pop albums in the early '90s, Parvati Khan, originally from Trinidad, disappeared from the public eye, only to reappear in 2000 as a "messenger of peace", performing compositions like Insaaniyat ke naam and Down with the guns. In her new avatar as Parvati mata, she sparked off a controversy with Shiv Sainiks banning her entry into Hindu shrines because of her Muslim last name. Now in her mid-40s, Khan lives in Mumbai with cinematographer husband Nadeem Khan and 20-year-old son Jatin. She sings for Shirdi Sai Baba and Ma Amritanandamayi. From discos to dargahs, her journey is complete.The teenage heartthrob of Love Story (1981), who after a spate of forgettable flicks disappeared into oblivion, is back in action and, predictably, on the small screen. Mr Chocolate Face gets to play a terrorist. X Zone has Kumar Gaurav in the lead role being directed by technical whizkid and Pallavi Joshi's husband Vivek Agnihotri. Teletalk, INDIA TODAY October 19, 1998.After Phool in 1993, there was a gap of almost a decade before Kumar Gaurav appeared on the big screen, this time in Kaante in 2002. The year 2004 saw his first international release, Guiana 1838. Gaurav-who also started a travel company in 2001-and brother-in-law Sanjay Dutt have now decided to come together to revive their fathers' production banners, Aryan Films and Ajanta Arts, respectively. Milan Luthria, of Taxi No. 9211 fame, will direct the company's first film.The archetypal village imp-Nagaraj Manjunath, 10-was busy entertaining viewers with his antics in Malgudi Days. Timid and brave by turns, the capricious child-star-33 films old-won the Best Child Artiste Award at the 5th International Film Festival for the lead role in Swami and His Friends, based on the serial. Newsmakers, INDIA TODAY, January 15, 1988.Manjunath, 29, leads a different life today as PR and liaison manager for Nandi Infrastructure in Bangalore. "I never managed to go to college," he says. Not that it stopped him from getting an MA by correspondence. Sixty films and dozens of serials later, Manju decided to give it all up, but he still dreams of directing a film. "It's not a closed chapter, but I have moved on," says television's Swami, who idolises the late Shankar Nag, "the guiding force" of his life who directed Malgudi Days.In a widely publicised telecast, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told a weightless Rakesh Sharma bouncing like a rubber ball aboard Salyut-7: "Yours is a historic endeavour and I hope it will make our country space-conscious." After spending seven days, 21 hours, 40 minutes and 6 seconds in space and the safe landing, Sharma was given the Ashoka Chakra and theSoviets made him a "Hero of the Soviet Union". Rakesh Sharma: Saga In Space, INDIA TODAY, April 30, 1984.After being posted back to the IAF, Sharma, India's first cosmonaut, spent nearly 20 years as chief test pilot at Hindustan Aeronautics and survived two near-death experiences testing MiG-21s. Five years ago, he quit the job to land himself in a tech company called Automated Workflow and later in Parametric Technology. He and wife Madhu, an interior decorator, love singing classics by Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan and Hindi favourites Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi. He has not yet said goodbye to flying. Fifty-seven-yearold Sharma says he would love to be on the trip to the moon planned by the Indian Space Research Organisation in 2012.She has truly flowered-from child artiste to compere of the popular Doordarshan film chat show, Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan. Last fortnight, Tabassum's first directorial venture Tum Par Hum Qurban, produced and co-written by her, wasreleased. Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, November 15, 1985."It's been nearly 60 years of working full-time. Now there is no greed for fame or money," says Tabassum Govil, pointing to pictures of her two grand-daughters. Besides being editor of the Hindi magazine Grihalaxmi for 15 years, she has authored many joke books. Now the 61-year-old is working on a radio show and shooting for the STAR Plus serial, Pyar Ke Do Naam? Ek Raadha Ek Shyaam. "Till I enjoy my work, I will keep doing it. The day I get bored I will start boring others," says the woman whose DD show ran for 21 years and an appearance on which was a sign of having arrived.Bachendri Pal, 29, who became the first Indian woman to scale Mt Everest, is a tough girl from the Himalayan foothills. Her achievements will go down along with Tenzing Norgay, the Indian member of the 1953 Everest duo, in the mountaineering annals. Mountaineering: Triumph At The Top, INDIA TODAY, June 30, 1984.The fifth woman in the world to have scaled Mount Everest is busy making people achieve their highest peaks-in their lives and careers. The 51-year-old, who heads Tata Steel's adventure programme outside Uttarkashi, believes that the success of an organisation depends on teamwork. "We teach river-crossing, rafting, para-gliding and target-achieving to trainees. People come closer to one another while facing difficult tasks. Egos are sidelined and when they go back, they work as a perfect team," she explains. Pal, with the support of Tata Steel, where she has been employed for more than two decades, has so far trained nearly 8,000 people and feels satisfied with their output later in their careers.For months now, there has been intense speculation about the actress Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao would finally pick for the part of Menaka in his cinematic comeback, Brahmarishi Viswamitra. He has offered the role to a rank outsider in the Viswamitra sweepstakes-Meenakshi Seshadri, 26. Eyecatchers,Remember Ding dong O baby sing a song? The year was 1983. Hero's heroine, fresh from a Miss India title in 1981, is now 42. Having bid Hindi films farewell with Ghatak (1996), today Seshadri leads a simple life in Dallas, US, with businessman husband Harish Mysore, eight-year-old daughter Kendra and three-year-old son Sanjosh. Her involvement with dance continues with Cherish-a school she has founded-where she teaches Bharatnatyam, Odissi and Kuchipudi. The one thing she didn't do right in her 15-year acting career? Choose the right films. "By the time I started doing films that suited my personality, it was time to move on," she says.Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan suffers from a terminal case of candour. His utterances and activities have created debate, criticism and admiration. Even on the eve of the crucial elections in the south, he was making waves over his indictment of two powerful Union ministers as well as the tough monitoring of poll expenditures. T.N. Seshan : "If I Sneeze, It's News", INDIA TODAY, December 15, 1994.When he retired, T.N. Seshan announced that he would dig three pits in his backyard and move the soil back and forth from one to another to spend his time. The 73-year-old, who has made Chennai his home, has much more to do as a regular on the business school lecture circuit and board member of several educational institutions. He spends his time reading, surfing the Net and teaching the art of governance to babus in North Block through a course in leadership at the MIT School of Government, Pune, where he is dean. "It is not for money or power. I feel my time and talent should be beneficially used," he says.The Thakkar Commisson report, finally unveiled, had hardly any convincing evidence to prove that R.K. Dhawan had conspired to murder Mrs Indira Gandhi, his protector and mentor of 20 volatile political years. Says Dhawan, "I have been the victim of a political conspiracy hatched against the Gandhi family and against me in particular. R.K. Dhawan : Eye Of The Storm, INDIA TODAY, April 15, 1989.His skills as family troubleshooter still come in handy. His rapport with Lalu Prasad Yadav helps the Congress smoothen coalition problems. Sonia Gandhi, who made him party general secretary and gave him his second term as Rajya Sabha member, has a soft corner for the family loyalist. Six years ago, when P.A. Sangma made a scathing remark about her foreign origins, Dhawan was the first to jump to her defence. The 68-year-old bachelor who lives in Delhi's Golf Links knows his tryst with power is coming to an end, but says he has no regrets.Our very own disco deewanas, Nazia and Zoheb Hassan, who came some years ago, sang a highly provocative Aao na pyar karen and disappeared into thin air, are back and have charmed CBS into releasing their fresh new album Young Tarang, estimated to do at least a double platinum. Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, January 15, 1985.After a six-year break, Zoheb Hassan, who divides his time between London and Karachi, is back on the music scene. His album Kismet, soon to be released in India, is having a good run in Pakistan. His sister and singing partner Nazia Hassan died of cancer in 2000. Zoheb, now 40, is keeping her memory alive through the Nazia Hassan Foundation and his next dream project is a play, Nazia Hassan, the Musical.After making herself heard, she is bent upon making herself seen too-if only in a soap opera. Penaaz Masani, the ghazal singer from Bombay, will now breeze into living rooms-perm and all-through the national tube. The serial is Suarnarekha and the role is of a singer all set to make it big despite odds."I have already recorded a Meera bhajan for the second episode," says the singer. Eyecatchers, INDIA TODAY, February 15, 1986.She does less of TV, but anchors two shows every year for Sangam Kala Group in Delhi and Sur Sangam in Jaipur. "I do it out of love for music and to encourage young talent," says Masani, who is still single. She has been travelling extensively for shows but has not cut an album for the last four years. "Earlier it was fashionable to listen to ghazals but now people look for good poetry," says the ghazal diva, about the metamorphosis of the gentle art.One composer who stood out for his distinctive style and instinctive melody was O.P. Nayyar. He brought folk and modern music in perfect sync with each other and created an identifiable individuality. Nayyar's music for films like Baaz, Aar Paar,Mr and Mrs 55, Howrah Bridge and C.I.D. earned him the status of a legend in the industry. Rhythm King O.P. Nayyar Turns 80, The Hindustan Times, February 17, 2006.The '90s saw the composer try his hand at scoring for two films-Zid and Nischay-but none of them came close to his earlier successes. Sometimes spotted as a judge on TV music shows with his trademark hat in place, Nayyar was also recently seen launching a music album in Mumbai. But apart from these appearances, he leads a retired life, having given up his homoeopathy practice too. "I am 81. I just sit at home all day and do nothing," he says, with perhaps a tinge of sadness and irritation in his voice.To Subir Banerjee, 33, who played a little boy, Apu, at the age of eight, the 25th year of Pather Panchali would have passed unnoticed if he had not been tracked down by the press at the engineering factory in the suburbs where he is employed as a millhand. Pather Panchali: An Odyssey Revisited, INDIA TODAY, March 31, 1980.He never worked in another film. Satyajit Ray's luminous Apu, now 60, is just another face in the crowd. Five years ago, he retired from an engineering firm as provident fund officer. But such is his retreat into real life that it was only when his wife Madhuri came to live with him on the outskirts of Kolkata that she discovered he was an integral part of cinematic history.They called it a celebration of one hundred years of heroes- and they filled a hall with them. From Mushtaq Ali, whose gait would do a Royal Guardsman proud, from the halting figure of leg-spinner Bhagwat Chandrasekhar to the familiar quickstep of Gavaskar. Wisden Cricket Awards: Celebration of the Century, INDIA TODAY, August 5, 2002.Scourge of batsmen in the '70s, Chandrasekhar, 61, lives a quiet life in Bangalore, dealing with the struggles of life after a road accident in 1991. The accident ended Chandrasekhar's coaching stint at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where he was mentor to bowlers like Anil Kumble. He spent three years in a wheelchair and today moves about with the help of crutches and because he cannot be seated for too long, he switches on his TV every half an hour to catch 15-minute passages of play when he can. He has lost his mobility, but Chandrasekhar keeps going. There's a trip to America to plan for, his son's wedding to organise and an honourable life to be lived.Bombay deals with the explosive theme of communalism. The protagonist, played by Roja hero Arvind Swami, works in a newspaper in Bombay and falls in love with a Muslim girl despite friends warning him of the implications.Swami describes his role: "It's definitely more satisfying than Roja, altogether different." Bombay: Falling in Love With the 'enemy', INDIA TODAY, January 15, 1995.In 1992, he burst on to the Indian film scene with Mani Ratnam's Roja. Fourteen years later, Arvind Swami, 39, leads a very different life. "I was not an actor by choice, so I wasn't too ambitious," says the reticent actor. After a cameo in Mani Ratnam's Alai Payuthe, he started a company which outsources talent in software and management. "My children are my first priority," says the management graduate and father of two. The other thing on his agenda is social service, especially children's welfare, which he says is a non-political ambition.For the Indian team what seems to have made the vital difference is 26-year-old captain Mohammed Shahid. Says Shahid, "There is no substitute for experience. I do not want to boast but today I have the confidence that if I get the ball I canmake something happen." Hockey: Back In Form, INDIA TODAY, February 15, 1986."For me, scoring the winning goal against Spain in the 1980 Olympics was unforgettable," recalls Shahid, who is a sports officer with the Indian Railways in Varanasi, where he was born. Not happy with his present role, the 46-year-old says, "Most of my time is spent in administration. I want a field assignment to improve the performance of the younger generation." Despite better budgets and facilities, he does not understand why Indian hockey is not doing better.He's a 26-year-old dude whose daffy mix of inanity and insight has turned him into an electrifying phenomenon. And it probably won't be long before Baba Sehgal, a former electrical engineer from the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking, earns the status of a superstar. Baba Sehgal: Hot Hot Baba, INDIA TODAY, November 30, 1992.After 21 albums, Baba Sehgal-now Saigal, thanks to numerology-suddenly dropped off the musical radar. Adamant on doing only "good work", he took a break ("there were personal problems I had to deal with") and vented his creativity in a Manhattan musical, Britney Marries Krishna. Five years later, he is ready with an album tentatively titled Welcome to Mumbai. In the pipeline is a film, STAR One's soap Yeh Dil Chahe More and a composing stint for the film Bhoot Unkle.Once upon a time, a dusky beauty glided awkwardly down a ramp at London's Albert Hall. The year was 1966; the girl, Reita Faria, a medical student at Mumbai's J.J. College, and the first Indian woman to become Miss World. Making The Indian Beauty, Grace and Grit, INDIA TODAY, December 20, 1999.Soon after she won the Miss World title with a swimsuit borrowed from Persis Khambatta, Faria renounced fame and fortune to return to medical studies at King's College Hospital, London, where she married her mentor Dr David Powell in 1971. Two years later the couple moved to Dublin, where she developed a successful medical practice. "I was keen on studying medicine and I never wavered from that goal," she later told a newspaper. She now leads a relaxed life, playing golf, painting, gardening, supporting charities and playing with her grand-daughter.