Wiccan words

India's best known witch, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, has cast her spell again. Her bestselling book of 2000, Beloved Witch: An Autobiography, has been republished by Life Positive Books. Calcutta-based Roy Chakraverti is the founder of The Wiccan Brigade and The Young Bengal Brigade - learning platforms for Wicca in India. Indeed, to her goes the credit of giving new meaning to the word witch in India. Not surprisingly, she commands considerable respect. Her official website opens with an image that shows her standing tall with President Pranab Mukherjee. And that's some magic!

Brew blood

Not many know that before Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw started Biocon - a billion-dollar pharma firm today - she used to be a brew master, who studied malting and brewing from Ballarat College, University of Melbourne. Her brewing career may not have taken off, but the degree is fetching honours. Mazumdar-Shaw has been appointed the Australian Global Alumni Ambassador - a recognition given to the country's most inspiring alumni. While there are 12 such ambassadors globally, she is the only one from India. That calls for a toast.

Lone tone

Tie-ups are all fine, but occasionally an artiste wants his or her own space. Ask music director Anjjan Bhattacharya ( in pic). He composes songs with his group Meet Brothers, but often wants to strike out on his own. He is ready with his next solo work in the film Junooniyat. For this, he has experimented with the popular Stereo Nation song Nachange saari raat. The song has been sung by Bombay Vikings' Neeraj Shridhar and film producer Bhushan Kumar's sister, Tulsi Kumar. "Neeraj is back after a long break and his voice sounds very fresh," Bhattacharya says. He adds that he is going to do more of solo compositions now. "There is more coming up," he tells us. We are all ears.

Love bug

They are like Tweedledee and Tweedledum - our own Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra. The two together, indeed, spell success, as producers know well. Bhatt and Malhotra featured in such hits as Student of the Year and Kapoor & Sons . And now, the buzz goes, they are being paired for Aashiqui 3. Aashiqui has been a hit ever since it was first released (with Rahul Roy and Anu Aggarwal) in 1990. Aashiqui 2 (Aditya Roy Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor) in 2013 was another success story. And now Bollywood watchers want to know if Bhatt and Malhotra can draw eyeballs in Mohit Suri's film, shooting for which is scheduled to start by the year-end. What a love story, sirjee .

Appy days

So where is Zayed Khan these days? We are told that Sussanne Khan's brother and Hrithik Roshan's former brother-in-law is busy developing an app and starting his own production house. He has not had much success in Bollywood, but Khan is not giving up on acting either. He will be next spotted in a film called Desi Magic, with Ameesha Patel (and that reminds us, where is Ameesha these days?). Meanwhile, Khan is putting all his energies into his app, called ImKnotShy, which is meant to help people break the ice with a stranger by sending a digital rose or a gift which can be redeemed. Apparently, Khan has always been shy, and thought of the app to help others like him. Now if he could only think of an app to resolve boy-girl problems. That would help an ex-relative of his.