Hindustantimes Brunch 2th October 2011

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 2, 2011 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

At the Marble Rocks at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, February, 1941

REMEMBERING GANDHI

We bring you a glimpse of some rare personal photographs of the Mahatma, taken by his grand nephew Kanu Gandhi

ER 25, 2011 , SEPTEMB WEEKLY MAGAZINEof Hindustan Times copy Free with your

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Now read select stories from BRUNCH QUARTERLY on the Web!

He might have appeared on TV shows and in newspaper snippets, but Yuvraj Singh opened up like never before in our exclusive interview!

EXCLUSIVE

AND FREE!!!

Log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch

facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch Kaniz Aeliya I don’t know why you continue to give as much as a page to Seema Goswami for her articles on common place or high-school level issues. Her articles are barely thought-provoking or reflect any different degree of understanding of the things around.

EXCLUSIVE

On the 142nd birth anniversary of Gandhi, we bring you some rare portraits of the Mahatma taken by his grand nephew, Kanu Gandhi. These are just a few pictures from the outstanding, intimate collection

Director Tigmanshu Dhulia is now an actor too!

INDULGE LIVE These glamour babes are savvy businesswomen too

Nitin Puri I’ve been reading Brunch ever since I arrived from Canada in March 2009.

EAT

Neighbourhood Watch

Dipak Kumar 2days Brunch is gr8.

The dresses are such a devastatingly stylish.

International cuisines are fine but do we know about the food of our neighbours?

Akansha Gupta Rude Food is really good. Read it in todays Brunch.

The TV vs Projector Battle

PLAY If you want the ultimate home theatre experience, there’s only one way to go LISTEN

Calling All Tweeple

In From The Cold: Some 1 a.m. Friends

twitter.com/HTBrunch

Romantic songs and dreamy music

@optandon Vir talk about wine prices as though taunting us. We face same situation in prices of water,tea and dal roti there. @rkhatumria Todays HT Brunch : A trendy ‘colour splashed’ Brunch with @virsanghvi Cheat sheet nicely whoofed by @rajivmakhni techilicious projector. @iamlaksmi Prateik in Personal Agenda paid back in the same coin when asked Share a secret ;print the dots!......! loved it! @NeenuSodhi @Seemagoswami you sure haven’t unveiled anyone's private life. I am lost on this. Which minister's wedding? @samratss @RajivMakhni I don’t even know what it is ?

BRUNCH ON THE WEB

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POINT, CLICK, SNAP!

EXCLUSIVE COLUMN

THE HT Brunch Photo Contest: The wait is finally over! We have chosen the Grand Prize winner of the Photo Contest. Sanjay Kaushal wins the HT goodie bag for his spectacular picture of a bazaar. Cong ratulations!

Everyone, stay logged on; we have a lot coming your way!

All My Bags Are Packed: Our resident foodie, Maria Goretti re-surfaces to say goodbye for the time being as she embarks on an all-important personal journey, attending Gordon Ramsay’s food institute.

She promises to be back with more food, love and happiness!

Plus an all-access pass to your favourite stories from this and previous Brunch issues. Log on, now!

Write to brunchletters@hindustantimes.com For marketing and ad-related queries, contact Suresh Tripathi 09818899646

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Kushalrani Gulab (Deputy Editor); Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Tewari, Pranav Dixit, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf

I ENJOYED Vir Sanghvi’s article on the variable wine prices across hotels and restaurants. (Rude Drink, 25 September). My first exposure to such variable pricing was in 1967 when we were just young lads and my cousin was visiting from Bombay. Exploring the famous Connaught Place in the summer heat, he wanted a bottle of Coke, standard operating procedure for which was to buy the cold drink from one of the paanwallahs in the inner circle. But he wanted to get into one of the restaurants which was air-conditioned. And the price immediately shot up from 75 paise to `5. All the way to back home, we kept discussing the economics of air-conditioning!

The general upshot is that hotels will maximise profits and charge what the market will bear! The other extreme is when hotels have excellently stocked cellars and the rarest of wines are offered. But they also need to ensure that these wines are sold while they are at their peak. Over the hill and they are just vinegar.

— SANJAY BHAGAT, via email

Dumb And Ditzy

Raj Verma Truly...Even the Quarterly issue doesn't quench the thirst!!

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Brunch Date 6 “No One Can Say There Is Bad Acting In My Films”

Kanu’s Gandhi 10

Ria Rana Todays Brunch edition was superb !! I loved India's Trend Report . I really loved the cool style statements and various dressing styles to enjoy in different seasons.

THE GET SET FOR NEW STYLE SEASON WITH ST THE HOTTE TRENDS FROM ABROAD INDIA AND

Economics of an AC

The man, written off just before the World Cup as a flamboyant philanderer who had wasted his batting talent due to his wayward ways, proved his critics wrong

We’re Logged On

FEED BACK

Middle path

READING THE nth article on Indian fashion (India Trend Report, 25 September), I wondered how precious newsprint space gets devoted to such articles! The photographs made you wonder whether the intention was to make the female form appear as ugly as possible, or maybe like something out of a Mad Max movie. Maybe the Brunch team could do a follow-up article on the actual number of people (apart from the poor models) who end up wearing any of the hideous dresses shown. If this is winter wear, it makes you wonder whether the dress designers have ever experienced heavy winter. Surely Indian fashion can exist between western wear and the endless zari/lacy stuff in most fashion articles.

— NADEEM KHAN, Mumbai

Deadly disease

RAJIV’S COLUMN (Techilciious, 25 September) this week was embarrassingly true. We live in a time where we upgrade our mobiles every six months. After every purchase I promise myself that I will use this phone for at least two years. But barely six months later, the itch hits again. It’s truly a disease; this Diwali I plan to buy a 42 inch TV again having bought a 32 inch TV last year. Is there no cure? Please help.

— TANMAY TALUJA, via email

DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor Design), Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Singh, Saket Misra

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

Cover design: Ashutosh Sapru Photo: Kanu Gandhi

Brunch Date

‘No one can say there is

bad acting

PHOTO: PRASAD GORI LOCATION COURTESY UBUNTU FINE DINE, ANDHERI WEST

in my films’ Film director Tigmanshu Dhulia has had just four releases in nine years. But he’s still taken seriously.

And now he’s even acting

by Udita Jhunjhunwala

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RITER-DIRECTOR Tigmanshu Dhulia loves to cook, his speciality being mutton. But when we meet for lunch at the fine dining restaurant Ubuntu in Andheri, Mumbai, he orders only vegetarian dishes. This is some sort of superstition prior to the release of his new film Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster, so a crispy veg starter precedes nazakat ke kofte, kaali daal, tandoori roti and mixed veg raita, all washed down with fresh lime soda.

Allahabad boy Dhulia trained as an actor at the National School of Drama (NSD) but a “bad production” of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck in his second year helped him decide he was a “very bad actor.”

Twenty years later, he was persuaded to take on a pivotal role in Anurag Kashyap’s film Gangs of Wasseypur, making him one of Bollywood’s most multi-faceted men.

How did you end up in Bollywood?

I moved to Delhi from Allahabad because I wanted to go to a place of intellectual indulgence with a liberal environment and girls.

I checked out NSD and saw Irrfan Khan and Mita Vashisht performing in a very good play. The girls on campus were pretty and some were smoking. And I thought, I have to come here! After graduating, I became an assistant director on Pradip Krishen’s Electric Moon and then joined Shekhar Kapur on Bandit Queen. Shekharji said come to Bombay, so I did. In Bombay, I worked with Shekharji, did some TV shows, wrote dialogues for Mani Ratnam and Rajkumar Santoshi and then I directed my first feature film, Haasil (2003).

You have only made four films so far, including Charas, Shagird and Sahib... How come?

Well, Paan Singh Tomar should release by March 2012, and I had begun others like Killing of a Porn Filmmaker (with Irrfan Khan), Ghulami (with Sunny Deol) and

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FAVE DIRECTORS: Vijay Anand, Raj Khosla, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor.

RECENT FILMS I LIKED: Nauka Doobi, Dabangg, and The Burning Plain by Guillermon Arriaga.

NEW TALENT: Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Kapoor. He is the best, and like his father, he is effortless.

THE KHANS: SALMAN is the true superhero of this industry; nobody can match his charisma. AAMIR is the finest actor we have. He is the best combination of actor and star. SHAH RUKH is the most charming of them all and is full of energy.

SAME, SAME BUT DIFFERENT A still from Dhulia’s latest film, Sahib, Biwi Aur Gangster (above)

“MY FILM TAKES ITS PREMISE FROM THE GURU DUTT FILM, BUT THE PLOT IS DIFFERENT”

Showman (with Govinda), all of which got stalled for various reasons. I have two other projects brewing now – Milan Talkies and Bhiwani.

How different is Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster from Guru Dutt’s Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam?

My film takes its premise and the three characters from the Guru Dutt film, but has a completely different plot. My film is an exploration of betrayal. The Sahib (Jimmy Shergill) has feudal values and for him betrayal is not immoral. The Biwi (Mahi Gill) thinks she will betray her husband for a while and then take control of things, but they get out of hand. The Gangster (Randeep Hooda) betrays for love. In our case, the title came first, then the location and then the script.

You are a trained actor. What do you think of the acting talent pool today?

The lack of acting talent is the greatest difference between Bollywood and

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

Hollywood. In the West, the actors are trained. But not here. For instance, a classical singer does riyaaz for his or her art.

But here all an actor has to do is go to the gym. It’s a joke. My biggest strength as a director is getting performances out of my cast. Men between the ages of 14 and 60 are terrible actors, because they are inhibited and afraid to make mistakes. Since I am a trained actor I get a performance out of them. However my films may fare, no one can say there is bad acting in them.

How come you decided to act again?

Anurag asked if I would do a part in Gangs of Wasseypur and since he had just played a part in my Shagird, I felt I should do it. I only read the first part of this two-part film, not realising that I play the main villain in both parts. My character ages from 45 to 75 years. I have not acted for 20 years and this role requires a seasoned, trained actor.

But Anurag insisted, so I did it. brunchletters@hindustantimes.com

The Way We Are

IVEK PREMACHANDRAN loves to tweet. He spends most of his free time on the micro-blogging site with his tweeple. Of course he’s witty. At least, that’s what his 2,000 followers say. And if you go by what Vivek says, all 2,000 are his ‘best-buds.’

Unfortunately, there are such things as Twitter wars. And after a bad one, Vivek felt he needed to cut a few people off. He stopped re-tweeting their tweets, but they didn’t seem to get the hint. “So I had to go off Twitter,” Vivek says mournfully.

“Those were the worst few days of my life. My fingers were itching to tweet. Trust me, ‘de-friending’ someone is the hardest thing to do.”

S

V

U B S T K E C R O

BL

In the age of social networking, subtly slithering out of a tired friendship is not as easy as it was

by Amrah Ashraf

We’ve all slithered out of friendships that once seemed perfect, and then seemed pointless. We’ve done it as subtly as we could. Been busy and still sooo busy. Been in ‘meetings’, so couldn’t take phone calls. Been hovering over a sick pet, so couldn’t meet. Rarely do we end a friendship with a flat, ‘I don’t think we have anything in common any more’. Nobody wants an ending as final as that.

But subtlety doesn’t work on social networking sites. Either you are a friend – and that’s there for everyone to see. Or you’re not – and that’s equally upfront. “To ‘unfollow’ someone is to switch on the red light in that relationship,” says Vivek.

“And it’s worse when a couple you know breaks up. That means all their friends have to choose whose side they’re on, and while earlier you could still be friends with both and neither of them had to know about it, now it’s all out there.”

Facebook’s new ‘timeline’ feature doesn’t help, wails Ankita Sahni, a student and Facebooker.

“Earlier you could unfriend someone and they wouldn’t even know unless they visited your profile,” she says. “But now everyone knows if you strike someone off your list. It even takes you back in time so everyone can see who you removed from your list, and who removed you.”

LOGGED IN FOR LIFE

It’s lovely to have 2,000 followers or 2,000 friends.

You feel popular, smart, witty. Everything you say seems to please someone, so you post everything about yourself everywhere you possibly can.

But now that there’s no concept of privacy any more, relationships are even harder to handle than they’ve always been. So do you go offline like Vivek did? Or can you stay online and still manage to slough off unwanted friends?

Whatever you do, you have to recognise that if you want to keep your social networking persona, you have to put up with an uneasy co-existence

PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

need to remain secret) it’s perhaps best to post with former friends. Still, that doesn’t mean you pictures on websites like Photobucket or Picasa, don’t have some control over who you hang with. which allow viewing only by invitation.

For instance, Ankita realised she hadn’t done a In fact, it may make sense to seriously consider very basic thing. She hadn’t checked her privacy how much you want to give away online, as settings. “It does make a difference, even more people find that while they can quit though it’s small,” she says. “You still can’t their jobs, get married, make new friends or defriend anyone discreetly, but at least your move out of the country, they will always be friends will not get notifications known by their Twitter handle about your failed relationships.” or Facebook display picture.

Often, mutual friends are “Even after quitting my responsible for letting cats corporate job, my former colout of bags, as designer THE QUICK FIX leagues kept making their Ketaki Mishra realised after Sift through your friends presence felt on my wall,” says her bachelorette party. list and weed out people Pune-based PR professional “I decided to not invite a you don’t mind offending.

Aarti Das. “Obviously particular friend and she did Create a new profile and defriending them is not an not know about the party, till add only select people as option because social protocol our mutual friends put the friends or followers. does not allow that. But it pictures on Facebook,” she Spend less time on social does cause serious problems.” says. Which has made her networking sites. People The solution? Spend less aware that (apart from conwill automatically stop time on social networking sites stantly reminding mutual pinging you. and gradually fade out your friends about things that Don’t give out your presence on them. In the land Blackberry PIN to of fleeting attention spans, it everyone. won’t be long before your Starting now, reject friends stop bothering you. friend requests from

“TO ‘UNFOLLOW’ SOMEONE IS TO SWITCH

ON THE RED LIGHT IN THAT RELATIONSHIP. AND IT’S WORSE WHEN A COUPLE BREAKS UP” 8

people you don’t know.

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

amrah.ashraf@ hindustantimes.com

COVER STORY

1946

The Mahatma reading a letter at four in the morning at Khadi Pratishthan in Sodepur in the 24 Parganas

Kanu’s Gandhi

On the 142nd birth anniversary of Gandhi, we bring you some rare portraits of the Mahatma taken by his grand nephew, Kanu Gandhi. These are just a few pictures from an outstanding collection that forms an intimate, personal chronicle of the last 10 years of Gandhi’s life 10

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

1940

Above: Gandhi looking through a train window at the crowds on a railway station platform

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HEN KANU Gandhi decided to take pictures of the Mahatma, he had to agree to certain conditions.

Gandhi allowed Kanu to photograph him provided no flash would be used (only natural light), that he would never be asked to pose and that Sabarmati Ashram would not finance his photography.

Kanu agreed. He was given R100 by Ghanshyam Das Birla to buy his first camera and a film roll. Over 10 years, from 1938 to 1948, Kanu took some of the most moving and compassionate personal photographs of Gandhi ever seen. By then (in 1936, to be precise), Kanu had already joined Gandhi’s movement for India’s independence and become a member of the Mahatma’s personal staff. He had been a child when his parents came to live with Gandhi in Sabarmati Ashram. In 1944, he married Abhaben Chatterjee and both of them devoted their lives to Gandhi and his cause.

Kanu Gandhi passed away in 1986, and Abhaben in 1995. Though some of his photographs are well known, he was never credited for them. And even though some of his images have been reproduced in many books on Gandhi, his body of work still awaits acknowledgement for its historical and artistic importance.

1941

Above left: A pensive Gandhi in a train on the way to Assam

1938

Left: On the telephone in the Sevagram Ashram office

Photographs of Mahatma Gandhi taken by Kanu Gandhi will be exhibited at the Delhi Photo Festival, from 15 to 28 October, at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

The festival is an initiative of the India Habitat Centre and Nazar Foundation. For more details, go to delhiphotofestival.com

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

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Frame Of Mind

Kannagi Khanna ‘Hollywood’

bout 7,000 people live A in the filth and squalor of

How many stories can a single picture tell? Many, as it turns out. Three women photographers give us a glimpse into their lenses

by Pranav Dixit

face off ‘I couldn’t find a face to match Keira Knightley till my last day,’ says Khanna.

‘Then I found this woman sitting outside her house and she was such a natural! I thought she looked hot’

all smiles This woman’s husband actually encouraged her to pose for this picture and even helped put the Drew Barrymore up poster on the brick wall, says Khanna

Anusha S Yadav

‘In Tune For Fame’

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hen she was a child, 36-year-old photographer Anusha Yadav studied music. She participated in school competi-

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tions and even sang for Jaipur Television (she was brought up in the Pink City) and All India Radio.

Those were the days when reality shows on Indian television didn’t exist. “I don’t care much for Indian reality shows that air today,” says Yadav who currently works from Mumbai. Still, there was something about the latest season of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L’il Champs, Zee TV’s blockbuster singing talent show, that got her hooked.

“I connected with these kids,” she says. Over a

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

Gulbhaitekra, a slum in the heart of Ahmedabad that has been nicknamed after the glitziest destination in the world – Hollywood. The reason? The women who live here (mostly Bavris from Rajasthan), have a wild, rustic beauty reminiscent of top Hollywood stars.

In June, 22-year-old photographer Kannagi Khanna embarked on a unique project: she printed out posters of top Hollywood actresses – Keira Knightley, Angelina Jolie, Drew Barrymore and many more and photographed the slum women in the same, exact poses “It was exciting to find affinity between two entities that were geographically, socioeconomically and culturally so far apart from each other!” she says. “The women themselves were eager, but it was the husbands who posed a problem! Also, I had to constantly remind them to look at the poses in the posters and not their clothes!” she smiles.

glitter and grit 9-year-old Priyanshi Srivastava from Lucknow participated in Zee’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. ‘She was instantly attracted to the camera,’ says Yadav

COVER STORY

shy guy Azmat Khan, 10, hails from a family conservative family of musicians from Jaipur. He was shy but very interested in the camera. ‘If he saw me around, he got self conscious,’ says Yadav, ‘But perhaps, it was this same self conscious instinct that made him perform for the camera, though he never looked at it directly’ PHOTO: ALBERT KLEBEL

Aparna Jayakumar

‘Flex, Feroze’

ast year, Aparna LJayakumar

spent a chilly winter evening clicking muscle at the Annual Zoroastrian Power-Lifting and Bodybuilding Championship in Mumbai.

“Not many people know that the Parsis are great connoisseurs of the body,” says the 27-year-old photographer who has always had an affinity for the Parsi community.

She first saw an advertisement calling for bodybuilders in a Parsi newspaper and was intrigued. “The Parsis are a dwindling community and yet, here was this show of Parsi strength.

The irony was striking,” she says. The event was like a big party: there was everyone from young children to elderly women, loud music and crackling energy. “I think it was simply a way for a dwindling community to show its solidarity and togetherness,” muses Jayakumar. “Or, I don’t know... maybe elderly Parsi women just like to look at muscular young men!”

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bawas and brawn The Annual Zoroastrian Power-Lifting and Bodybuilding Championship in Mumbai saw Parsi bodybuilders strike some of their finest poses in the final round

the waiting game Bodybuilder Percy patiently awaits his turn behind the stage at the Championship Photos by these three photographers and others will be exhibited at the Delhi Photo Festival from 15 to 28 October, at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

period of 10 days, Yadav went behind the scenes on the sets of the show and shot more than 2,000 pictures of the little contestants. “It was shocking to see how seriously the children and their parents took their careers even at that stage,” she says.

Friendship, rivalry, peer pressure, affection, internal politics among parents... all come together in Yadav’s series. Was there an urbanrural divide on the sets?

“The small towners looked up to the city people in some ways… the way they dressed, the way they talked. But ultimately, when you’re in a competition like this, your talent is all that matters,” she says.

Wellness

MIND BODY SOUL

BE SWEET SMART

SHIKHA SHARMA

On the fast track

Don’t say an outright no to mithais and desserts this festive season. Just make an informed choice

by Veenu Singh FOR THAT

SWAP THIS

CHOCOLATE ECLAIR 250 Kcal/1piece

JALEBI 200 Kcal/1serving

CREAM PASTRY 400 Kcal/1piece Kcal= Kilo Calories

Chocolate éclairs have loads of cream. Tarts often have almond, honey or fruity flavours.

This gives them more nutritional value. And no cream!

Jalebis are a combo of sugar and oil since they are fried and dipped in sugar syrup.

Rasmalai uses more milk and malai and is not fried.

FASTING BENEFITS YOU IN THESE WAYS

■ It gives the digestive system a rest and allows the process

CHOCOLATE TART 100 Kcal/1piece

RASMALAI 170 Kcal/1serving

Soufflés use loads of butter for that soft creamy taste.

Fruit custard has maida, but it also has milk and fruits and better nutritional value.

A cream pastry has a bread base but the cream content is very high. Not to forget the sugar. A fruit muffin has fruit, egg, bread, minus the cream.

of detoxification to begin.

■ It allows the energies of the vital life force to awaken.

■ It improves mental clarity and focus.

■ It allows old, pent-up emotions to be resolved, which may contribute towards emotional healing ■ It allows you to experience stillness and calm.

However, fasting doesn’t mean simply giving up a certain food (or all foods) for a day. Since it’s a process of detoxification, you need to keep certain things in mind to get the full benefits of your fast and avoid side effects.

■ Avoid stimulants like coffee, masala chai, cigarettes and paan. Stimulants do not allow the detoxification process to take place.

■ Avoid non-vegetarian foods as they tend to overload the system. Also avoid fried foods.

■ Do not eat refined foods such as sooji and sugar.

■ Avoid packaged food and drinks during a fast.

■ Avoid strenuous physical, mental and emotional activities whilst fasting.

■ Avoid cooked food from outside your home.

RASGULLA 125 Kcal/1piece

IMPORTANT

FRUIT CUSTARD 142Kcal/1bowl

MUFFIN 130 Kcal/1piece

Information courtesy Dr Simran Saini, weight loss consultant, Fortis Hospital, New Delhi

PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK AND DINODIA

Gulab jamuns are made of maida and are deep fried.

But rasgullas are made of chhena, have a more watery chashni and less sugar.

GULAB JAMUN 143 Kcal/1piece

SOUFFLE 250Kcal/1bowl

F

asting is a ritual or activity common across almost all religions. Most religions advocate fasting on special, usually auspicious, days as a means to purify the body and soul. There are many kinds of fasts, and each is associated with special benefits. For instance, you could go on a water fast, juice fast, non-cereals fast, non-food and non-water fast for a day, satvik food fast, religious fast or naturopathy or therapeutic fast.

Hydrate yourself: You can only detoxify if you drink enough water. When you fast for a day, drink 1-2 litres of fresh, good quality and slightly cool (but never chilled) water. However, the water you drink early in the morning and at night should be lukewarm.

Eat lots of fresh fruit: Fruit has high powers of detoxification, so eat as much of it as you like.

Drink fresh organic vegetable juices: Like fruit, vegetables are a storehouse of vitamins, minerals and enzymes which help heal the body.

Drink herbal decoctions and infusions (teas): These are also healing.

Drink soup at night: Soups are healthy and nourishing. ask@drshikha.com

indulge live

| eat | play | listen

Dumb And Ditzy?

spectator

Seema Goswami

NO DUMB ACT We should admire Rakhi Sawant (right) and Mallika Sherawat for their ability to make the most of whatever assets nature has bestowed on them

T

HE INDIAN media was all agog last week with the visit of Paris Hilton to this country. The cameras were in attendance when she arrived at Mumbai international airport at some unearthly hour. Packs of hacks followed her wherever she went in the city. And breathless reportage was according to every minute of the stay. Paris wore a sari-drape dress. Paris did a namaste.

Paris was offered a role in a Bollywood film. Paris went shopping. Paris ate a kebab. Oh well, you get the drift.

But no matter what event the media were covering, the sub-text was quite clear. Paris Hilton was this frivolous It Girl who had pink sequins where her brains should be. She was someone who was famous for being famous, a C-class celebrity who had made a career out of posing in small, tight clothes for the gawking paparazzi. To put it plainly, she was depicted as some ditzy party girl who didn’t have anything going for her but her family name, a generous trust fund, and an impressive décolletage.

So far, so completely wrong. If we have learnt anything over the last decade, it is that it is dangerous to under-estimate Paris Hilton. She may sport a giant blonde beehive when she’s channelling her inner Marilyn Monroe, but she has a sharp business mind ticking underneath it. And though you may have missed it among all the party pictures of her frolicking with various Mumbai celebrities, Paris was here on serious business: to promote her own name brand of handbags and accessories.

In case you think this is just a case of rich girl plays at business, consider this. There are now 30 ‘Paris Hilton’ boutiques in more than a dozen countries in the world, which retail around 17 different product lines. She has launched as many as 11 fragrances, all of which sell on the basis of her brand name. And if you include all her business earnings along with her trust fund, she is worth a staggering $45 million.

So, how has Paris done this? Why, by parlaying her image as an emptyheaded celebrity into a international brand that now has better name recognition in some circles than the original Hilton group of hotels which were founded by her grandfather Conrad Hilton. And on that basis, she has launched a career in reality television, her own fashion labels, a perfume line, and God alone knows what else.

Whatever you may think of her predilection for pink, you have to admire Paris’s chutzpah. She has mastered the art of taking the most unpromising situations and turning them into drivers of positive publicity for herself. Cast your mind back to the

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last US Presidential campaign when John McCain poked fun at Obama by comparing him to a Zlist celebrity like Paris Hilton.

Unfazed by the snub, Paris retaliated by sending out her own video message, wearing a skimpy bikini and promising to paint the White House pink if she was ever elected President. By sending herself up so brilliantly she didn’t just show that she had a sense of humour; she also showed up John McCain as being silly and outdated.

So, why do we persist in seeing Paris as a pretty airhead? Part of it is down to what I call the Legally Blonde trap. We are so conditioned to seeing pretty young blondes as dumb and dumber that we often miss the fact that they have bright minds under those gleaming tresses.

LOOKS ARE DECEPTIVE And as it is in the West, Paris Hilton has a sharp business mind ticking so it is in India. Only here, underneath her giant blonde beehive it’s best described as the Rakhi Sawant syndrome.

Just as Paris is dismissed as a silly little thing, Rakhi is routinely derided in our media as a crass vulgarian, a talentless bimbo who is good only for carefully-orchestrated publicity stunts. But while she is undoubtedly good at that, Rakhi is also savvy enough to spin off a show-business career on the basis of that.

Just consider, for a moment, just how far she has got on the basis of very little talent and very average looks. She regularly features on prime-time television, she breaks up with her boyfriend in full view of the cameras, she hosts a programme to find herself a husband, she hits the newspaper headlines every other week with some stunt like wanting to marry Baba Ramdev. And as her celebrity quotient goes up, so does the fee she charges for every new gig.

Or take that other media darling, Mallika Sherawat, who has, quite literally, made a career out of saying outrageous things on camera.

Mallika may not be the best-looking actress around or even the most talented, but she knows how to make a splash. And sometimes all you need is name recognition when Jackie Chan comes looking for a new heroine. (And sometimes one half-naked appearance on the red carpet is worth more than a dozen good roles.)

But instead of knocking these women down as dim-witted vulgarians, I think we should admire them for their ability to make the most of whatever assets nature bestowed on them. They have enough selfknowledge to know what works for them, and enough drive to work that to their best advantage.

It’s time we recognised that no matter how many dumb blonde-type jokes we crack about them, the laugh is really on us seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

PHOTOS: REUTERS

Don’t be taken in by the packaging; these glamour babes are savvy businesswomen as well

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Neighbourhood Watch

The average educated Indian is fairly knowledgeable about international cuisines.

But do we know as much about the food of our neighbours?

rude food

Vir Sanghvi

BEYOND BORDERS The food in Bangladesh can be delicious: better rezalas than Calcutta and great beef biryani (below)

I

AM NOT sure if I should be talking about this but a television channel is planning a massive food show that pitches a team of Pakistani chefs versus an Indian team. The show will probably be telecast early next year if all goes according to plan – though, when it comes to India-Pakistan issues, nothing ever seems to go according to plan.

I have some involvement in the show and I have been sitting with the channel’s programmers to try and tweak the format. One thing that has struck us quite clearly is how little we know about each other’s cuisines. Indians imagine that Pakistanis eat the same food as us and that’s probably true. But who is ‘us’? Do they actually eat the same food as people in southern India? Have most Pakistanis ever seen a dosa? Do they know what bhel puri is? Have they any experience of the joys of Indian vegetarian cuisine?

I don’t know the answers to these questions though perhaps we shall find out what the truth is when the show begins shooting. But just as we think of Pakistani food as being no more than naan, mutton, chicken and more mutton – which must surely be an unfair characterisation – I’m sure Pakistanis have little idea of the variety of cuisines available in India.

All this got me thinking. Ask the average educated Indian about international cuisine and you will get surprisingly knowledgeable responses. Indians know enough about real Chinese food to recognise that Chicken Manchurian was invented in Colaba and not in any part of China. We know about Italian pasta. We have some understanding of French cuisine. We understand the basics of American food. And most of us probably know what a tom yum soup is or what a Thai red curry should taste like.

But are we as knowledgeable about the food of our neighbours? Ask the average Delhi resident (even an educated, well-travelled one) what Sri Lankan food is like and you will be greeted with PHOTO: THINKSTOCK a blank stare. No Indian who goes to the Maldives ever eats Maldivian food. The complexity of Bangladeshi cuisine and the way in which it differs from the food of West Bengal are mysteries to most Indians. Few of us recognise that momos, which we think of as some kind of snack food from the north-east of India, are actually of Tibetan origin. Many of us do not even realise that Bhutan has a cuisine of its own. The few of us who bother with Burmese food think that it begins and ends with khao suey. The wonders of Nepalese cuisine – which must rank as one of the most outstanding cuisines of our region – do not even interest most Indians.

There are many reasons for this. One obvious explanation is that India is a very large and diverse country and that Indians are only just beginning to understand the range of food available in our own country. For instance, hardly anybody in Delhi knew what a dosa was till the 1960s. Even now, most north Indians do not know what a kori gassi is. People in Bengal have very little experience of the delicately-spiced cuisine of Gujarat. When we have still to uncover the mysteries of our own country, how can we be expected to have time to learn about the food of our neighbours?

The second explanation has to do with what I call the Big Boy syndrome. Because India is the dominant power in this region, the world thinks of the food of south Asia only in terms of Indian cuisine.

Take one example. In the ’50s and ’60s, Bengalis from the Sylhet region of East Pakistan opened hundreds of curry houses all over the UK. At the time, India and Pakistan were bitter

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MUCH MORE IN THE POT The few of us who bother with Burmese food think that it begins and ends with khao suey (above)

LOOK, DON’T EAT The local cuisine of the Maldives (below) is not of the same standard as its natural beauty

ORIGINAL SIN Indians know Chicken Manchurian (right) was invented in Colaba and not in any part of China

enemies (and in many ways, perhaps we still are). But even in that era, the East Pakistanis did not describe their restaurants as Pakistani restaurants.

Instead, they called them PHOTOS: DINODIA Indian restaurants.

Now that East Pakistan no longer exists, you might wonder if the Sylhetis use the term ‘Bangladeshi restaurant’. Far from it. The curry houses are still called Indian restaurants. What’s worse is that though the staff often speak no sub-continental language other than Bengali, they refuse to serve any Bengali food at all. Instead, the menu is full of dishes they claim are Indian: prawn patiyas that no Parsi would recognise; vindaloos that would bemuse most Goans; and Madras curries that are unknown in Madras.

It’s the same with the Pakistanis. Unless the restaurant’s name is a giveaway (Lahore Kebab House, for instance) even Pakistanis will claim that they are serving Indian food. Rare is the restaurant anywhere in the world that describes itself as a Pakistani restaurant.

Even places that specialise in that Pakistani favourite, kadhai cook-

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

indulge PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES

WHAT’S THIS! The curry houses in UK serve vindaloos that would bemuse most Goans

SAME, BUT DIFFERENT In 1970s in Sri Lanka, the menu in my hotel offered hoppers, a version of the Kerala appam (above) NORTH BY NORTH-EAST Few of us recognise that momos (right) are actually of Tibetan origin NEWS TO THE NORTH Hardly anybody in Delhi knew what a dosa was till the 1960s

PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK

SUB-CONTINENTAL DRIFT Sri Lankan food looked superficially like Indian food but the use of spices and fish reminded me of the cuisines of south-east Asia

ing (and its English half-brother, balti cuisine), and have only the most tenuous link to India will describe themselves as Indian restaurants – though few Indians will recognise the dishes on the menu.

I can understand the commercial considerations that make our sub-continental neighbours pretend that they are serving Indian food when they open restaurants in the West. But I find it strange that we in India have so little curiosity about the food of our neighbours.

Some of this is pure arrogance. When I first went to Colombo in the late ’70s, I was young and naive and imagined that they ate some variation of south Indian food. The very first day I was there, I found that the menu at my hotel offered ‘hoppers’. I called the waiter and demanded to know what a hopper was.

He was incredulous. Had we never heard of hoppers in India?

No, we had not, I told him grimly. So, could he just tell me what the dish was?

By the time I found out that it was a version of the Kerala appam (which only confirmed my original hypothesis that Sri Lankans ate some variation of south Indian food!), I had met Sri Lankan friends who introduced me to the joys of their cuisine and helped dispel my ignorance. It looked superficially like Indian food but the use of spices and fish reminded me of the cuisines of south-east Asia.

Over the years, I have made a conscious attempt to eat as much of the food of our neighbours as is possible. Unfortunately, the only way to do this seems to be to visit the country in question. You don’t find too many Sri Lankan, Burmese or Bangladeshi restaurants in India (or anywhere else for that matter). But because the distances are not large, it is easy enough to travel to SAARC countries.

For instance, Sri Lanka is now in the midst of a post-Prabhakaran tourism boom and is a wonderful destination with good hotels and great restaurants. Burma is more difficult to get to but that only adds to the charm. As much as I love the Maldives, I have to state that the local cuisine is not of the same standard as the natural beauty so you are best off eating seared tuna three times a day. The food in Bangladesh can be delicious: better rezalas than Calcutta and a great beef biryani. The most rewarding, however, is Nepal because the food is something like ours and yet it is recognisably an original cuisine. Each time I go to Kathmandu, I put on several kilos but because I eat so well, I have no regrets (my favourite Nepali cuisine is the food of the Ranas, which, sadly, is not well-represented in restaurants and is best enjoyed in private homes).

I have no idea how the India versus Pakistan food show will turn out. I’ve been talking to Indian chefs who seem intimidated by the Pakistani familiarity with mutton. They fear that our curries and our tandoori items will not match up to the high standards prevalent in Pakistan. On the other hand, the Indian chefs seem confident that they will win every vegetarian round because, they say, Pakistanis still haven’t learnt how to cook vegetables without adding meat. “They even put mutton in their gobhi-aloo,” I was told.

Nor are we sure about the range of Pakistani cuisine. Given that they are such close allies with Beijing, do Pakistanis eat real Chinese food? Or do they eat the same sort of Punjabi Chinese that is popular in India?

We were still puzzling over that one when we looked at the audition tape for one of the Pakistani chefs. We waited to see which dish she would choose to demonstrate. A great mutton curry? A tandoori chicken? Or even gobhi aloo with mutton?

We knew we were okay when she began by saying “Aaj main aapko Chicken Manchurian sikhaoongi...” So, no matter how many missiles Islamabad shares with Beijing, when it comes to Chinese food, the Pakistani reference points are recognisably Indian in origin.

If the show does take off (and I always say ‘if’ for fear that I will jinx it by giving too much away before we start shooting) then I imagine that both sides will discover that we have many misconceptions about each other’s cuisines. It is my hope that the show will work as some form of cultural diplomacy.

In the old days, people like Inder Gujral were always going on about people-to-people contacts. Well, judging by the mess that India-Pakistan relations are in these days, that approach clearly didn't work.

So now, it’s time for some pulao-to-pulao contacts.

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

19

IN NEPAL,

THE FOOD IS SOMETHING LIKE OURS AND YET IT IS CLEARLY AN ORIGINAL CUISINE

ALL THEIR OWN WORK Many of us do not even realise that Bhutan has a cuisine of its own

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If you want the ultimate home theatre experience, there’s really only one way to go

The TV vs Projector Battle

techilicious

Rajiv Makhni

PICTURE PERFECT Anamorphic lenses can give you true Cinemascope

W

E LIVE in strange times.

There I was, lamenting and whining in my column last week about being bitten by the ‘upgradetitis’ disease and how I was suffering. What I was expecting was some messages of concern, what I got was a full-blown war based on one small innocent remark in the column.

I had pointed out that a projector is now the way to go if you really want the full ‘I own my own IMAX in my apartment’ feel. Well, the large screen flat panel purists completely lost it. They called my thinking old and outdated and not with it. They pointed out that flat panels are now huge, can’t be touched for brightness and contrast, and are the only option if you don’t want to watch movies in a dimly lit black room.

To all of them I have just one thing to say in my defence: Whatever medication you’re on, speak to your doctor – it’s making you hallucinate big time. Here are the real facts.

THE CASE FOR LARGE SCREEN FLAT PANEL TVS

Yes, TVs are huge now, bigger than ever before; pixel density is very fine so nothing looks blotchy and ugly on screen, and brightness and colours are incredibly rich and very vibrant. Flat panel quality has been the true showcase for how much technology has jumped in the last few years. From plasma to LCD and now even LED – these are brilliant TVs with pictures that are sharp as a knife. Your quest for big TV supremacy can start at about 63 inches and go to as high as 150 inches. Also, prices are coming down and availability is better. Thus it sounds perfect and they do seem to be the perfect choice for a true home theatre. Except…

THE NOT-SO-BRIGHT PART OF LARGE SCREEN TVS

BRING OUT THE MOVIE The DreamVision Dreambee 2 is a fully calibrated projector that a TV can’t match (above). The Benq-w1200 can give you full HD on a huge screen for about 50K, while the Panasonic AE4000 has fully motorised zoom and focus (left)

coming down – you’re still talking about R6 lakh (down from R15 lakh) or more for the really big ones. And for all those who think that a 55-inch TV is more than adequate for a home theatre, one trip to a store that has a 200-inch projection screen – and you’re going to hate your little TV a lot.

I will admit this. I was so far up the TV camp till last year that the whole projector revolution was something I missed. You may be in the same boat. Projectors today are completely different animals. You may have hated home theatre projectors of yesteryear for many reasons. They had the screen door effect (the picture looked like it had tiny little black squares), bulb burnout (most people replaced the very expensive bulb every six months), professional set-up (and those guys charged a bomb), heat generation (and noisy fans), the need for clean power and clean rooms (dust could bring a new projector to its knees in a week), the need for pitch darkness (and just couldn’t be used in the daytime)... let’s just say it was tough. Projectors today have scratched off almost all of those negatives and have added some incredible features.

THE SHINY, BRIGHT AND NEW PROJECTOR WORLD

Extra lumens give you an incredibly bright picture and with a high gain screen you can watch anything in a brightly lit room; bulb life can go to even 400 hours (which should last you around three years if you watch a movie every day); most projectors are completely sealed and dust has no chance; set-up is as easy as plunking it on a table and using the motorised focus and zoom; and great technologies like DLP/ LCD/ LCOS and others have made sure that you can’t find any grid or black squares even if you stand with your cheek to the screen. LED projectors consume almost no power and even the others aren’t power hogs at all. A pretty good full HD 1080P projector starts as low as R45,000 (and spending about R1.5 lakh can get you state-of-the-art stuff).

The problem with belonging to a camp or becoming a fan of one particular technology is that you are blinded to anything else and not open to see what new magic the world of technology has popped up. If you’re still sitting adamantly and shaking your head right now, just go to a store and try out all the things I’ve just said. Not only will your jaw drop to the floor, even the effects of that hallucinatory medication will completely disappear.

Let’s start from the truly big problem – size itself. It’s all very well to talk about how much thinner and lighter they’ve become. But compared to what? The giant beasts they were before! A slimmer, thinner beast is still that – a beast! A truly large screen TV (and you really do need more than 85 inches for the real big picture feel) still weighs a ton. They need special steel reinforced walls to install, your doors may have to be cut open to get a TV that large in and handling and installation will need an army of people. Then there’s power consumption – these are as ungreen as you can go and consume copious amounts of power. Also TVs like these aren’t really manufactured for home theatre, more for commercial and office use – so perfect calibration and set up BIGGER IS BETTER? options are few and far between.

Panasonic 103 and 150 inch – it’s big, it’s beautiful, but can you afford it?

And while I’ve said prices are

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3.

Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com/RajivMakhni

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In From The Cold: Some 1 A.M. Friends

Romantic songs, quirky lyrics and dreamy, distant music, courtesy a random sampling session on my iPod

download central

Sanjoy Narayan

I

HAVE HAD an album, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, by Sweden’s Jens Lekman for a number of years. But I never did really listen to it much. True, he is easily one of the more prominent members of a growing bunch of contemporary Swedish pop musicians (think of Peter Bjorn and John, The Radio Dept., Tallest Man on Earth and so on) and his songs are often romantic and have wit, self-deprecation and interesting lyrics, albeit with quirky twists, but for a while it was as if I’d rather listen to Scotland’s Belle & Sebastian or even Morrissey for that kind of stuff than the Lekman album.

Till (during a recent random sampling session on my iPod) I came across a song called The Cold Swedish Winter. It was a love song about meeting a girl but there were two verses in its lyrics that immediately made me interested in Lekman’s songs: “When people think of Sweden/ I think they have the wrong idea/ like Cliff Richards who thought it was just/ porn and gonorrhea. And Lou Reed said in the film/ ‘Blue in the face’/ that compared to New York City/ Sweden was a scary place.’

The Cold Swedish Winter is from the Lekman album When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog. That album has a track with the same name and while that too is a romantic song (most of Lekman’s are), it also has a line about being taken for a walk in the park where he’ll be “peeing on every cold black stone”. By the time I re-heard the album I was warming up to Lekman. So much so that I checked his catalogue and found out that he had another full-length album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, and has also regularly released EPs. A new EP, An Argument With Myself, came out last month. I got the two and both are great. The title track of the EP has particularly clever lyrics and is accompanied by four other songs, including the short but very funny, So This Guy At The Office.

Sweden has one of the world’s most vibrant rock and pop scenes.

Talking about guys at the office, one of my colleagues recently wrangled a junket to the annual Way Out West concert in Goteborg where he watched not just one but many, many gigs (the bastard!).

He came back and couldn’t stop gushing about his experience.

There are several Swedish indie pop and rock bands that I like – besides the ones I mentioned in the beginning, there’s Lykke Li

GIVE ME BLUE A A Bondy (right) produced solo work that was folkie and bluesy.

Like all his albums, Believers (below) is worth trying

POP GOES THE SWEDE Sweden’s Jens Lekman (above) plays contemporary pop. Night Falls Over Kortedala (left) is his latest album

(electropop), Jose Gonzales (indiefolk) and guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen (heavy metal guitarist but with a classical music influence). Swedish bands abound in the heavy metal domain and Swedish rockers are considered by many to be pioneers in melodic death metal – a genre that you can sample in the music of bands such as At the Gates, Nihilist and Scar Symmetry. Yes, I know but what did you expect death metal bands to be called?

I

come across so many instances of musicians, mainly American singer-songwriters, who seem to disappear into cabins in remote areas and write and record music that is Spartan and minimalist that it must be some kind of a trend. Four years ago, Bon Iver (real name: Justin Vernon) disappeared into a wooden cabin in remote Wisconsin and produced For Emma, Forever Ago, which pitchforked him to fame. In the same year, A A Bondy (that’s his real name) quit Verbena, a grunge rock band from Alabama, and recorded an album, American Hearts, in a barn in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. The music he produced was very different from his former band’s oeuvre – in place of the band’s rock, Bondy’s debut solo work was folkie and bluesy, it had spare arrangements (with Bondy on a harmonica and acoustic guitar) and lyrics that were reflective and sentimental.

Just as I had Lekman’s album languishing in my iPod for a few years, Bondy’s American Hearts has been around in my collection for some time. Each time I’d put it on, I just couldn’t get into the mood for his music. It seemed too dreamy and distant. Then, I read somewhere that Bondy’s music is best heard late at night, preferably after midnight when you’re done listening to other more peppy stuff. I tried it at 1 am. It worked. And probably will if you put it on, preferably on headphones, just before sunrise. From American Hearts, I have gone on to explore some more Bondy, including his second album, When the Devil’s Loose, and the most recent one, Believers. All are worth trying. But, as I said, around 1 am.

SWEDEN HAS

ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST VIBRANT ROCK AND POP SCENES

To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/download-central, follow argus48 on Twitter or visit our website: www.hindustantimes.com/brunch

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

21

PERSONAL AGENDA With a renowned lyricist, writer and poet father, actor mother and actor-cum-director-cum producer brother, Zoya Akhtar has Bollywood running in her veins. She worked on a number of film projects in different capacities, starting as assistant director for Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya, and moving on to executive producer for her friend Reema Kagti’s Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd. Zoya made her directorial debut with Luck by Chance, which didn’t do too well at the box office. She then moved on to direct Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara in 2011, which was a huge box office success.

ACTOR

ZOYA AKHTAR

One word that describes you best?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

If a traffic constable hauled you up, what would you do?

Your first kiss was…

A horse... I think people would move out of the way.

Private.

What makes you feel sexy?

Being fully covered.

Earth’s crowded and chock full of trash. Choose another planet.

You get high on…

Venus.

Laughing.

If you could be born either rich or intelligent, which one would you choose? You can’t say both.

A tune you can’t get out of your head?

Life in Mono by Portishead.

Intelligent.

Love is…

What did you do with your first pay cheque?

The cure for everything.

I think I gave it to my mom and it was so measly that she gave it back to me :-) I like good stories... the genre is irrelevant.

Which law you would break if you could get away with it?

I would stay at a bar till I was ready to go home. This 1 am deadline sucks.

Choose: Air India or Indian Railways?

A place where you would like to be lost for a month?

What makes your day?

Last year in London.

Music – no matter what the mood is, the band plays on.

Skipping breakfast or a bad breakfast.

MK Gandhi.

One girl’s weird is another girl’s delicacy...

— Interviewed by Pooja Biraia

THE ROLLING STONES – IT WOULD JUST BE THAT KIND OF WEDDING :-)

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2, 2011

What screws it up?

Your favourite freedom fighter

What is the weirdest thing that ever went into your mouth?

PHOTO: MCT

PHOTO: SATTISH BATE PHOTO: MCT

I’d be lonely.

The last time you rode on a bus?

IF YOU COULD HAVE A STAR PERFORM AT YOUR WEDDING, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

22

If you were the last person left on earth, what would you do?

I am lost – I need a place where I can be found.

I like Zoie.

A POWERPUFF GIRL – THEY MEAN BUSINESS

Anything with meat or dipped in chocolate.

Indian Railways.

If you could have chosen your own name, what would you have chosen?

CHAMPAGNE

The last movie that made you cry?

Dhobi Ghat – the end was moving.

Life in the fast food lane: Choose your menu.

Do you love Luv Storys?

WHICH SUPERHERO WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AND WHY?

You’re quite funny :-)

You are late for work and all the roads are jammed. Choose a mode of transport: a cycle, a horse or a skateboard. Why?

I’d ask my driver what the problem is.

THE COLOUR ‘PINK’ FOR YOU IS…

Share a secret with us… you can trust us, we’ll only print it!