WEEKLY MAGAZINE, MARCH 8, 2015 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
Three generations of women in Uttar Pradesh are pulling the trigger on patriarchy with their shooting skills
From left: Prakashi Tomar, Diksha Sheoran and Seema Tomar at Johri village in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh
4
BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS
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Brunch Opinion
by Aasheesh Sharma
A Few Gur Men
the story, visiting the shooting range amid sugarcane fields and brick kilns, was a new experience for the trio of city scribes. So, once the interviews and photo shoots were done, Sanjeev and Asad wanted to get a taste of Village India by plucking out sugarcane shoots and visiting a factory next to a field that makes unadulterated chemical-free jaggery (gur). Once we were there, we turned into excited children and lived up our own Charlie and the Gur Factory experience.
All That Glitters
Ladies, all these shiny make-up terms are very perplexing, we know. So here’s a guide
that you can individually tell apart. May scratch. Best for: Idiots who spend 1 hour getting ready for 45 minutes in a nightclub. In the dark.
If it says: SHIMMER Expect: Tiny particles of shiny stuff – you can’t count individual bits. But you can spread them easily. Best for: After-office cocktails, sophisticated glamour, when you want to show you at your least tried. If it says: MICROSHIMMER Expect: The same stuff, only a little finer and a lot more expensive. Best for: HD cameras and when you’re a slide under a microscope. If it says: GLITTER Expect: Larger gleaming particles
If it says: SPARKLES Expect: Huge chunks of glitter that you can sort with bare hands. Best for: Craft Day in kindergarten, Tinkerbell when she’s drunk, a tranny who’s trying too hard. If it says: HIGHLIGHTER/ ILLUMINATOR Expect: A cream or powder with a light gleam, or light pearl finish for some, but not all, parts of your face Best for: Turning someone like Kim Kardashian into Mrs Kanye West.
If it says: FROST Expect: A product that reflects stark white regardless of its base colour. Best for: Rekha getting ready for her danceoff in Khoon Bhari Maang, parlourwalis who still do ’80s bridal makeup. If it says: PATENTED LIGHTCREATING POLYMER Expect: Witchcraft Best for: Beauty bloggers who spend `4,000+ for something that is undetectable in photos or in real life. And write “indiscernible but definite glow” in their posts as buyer’s remorse.
ver story - a Awesome co e “back” th to e od befitting m industry. fil of ne bo l12 The interview with Nice cover story - @snehapau on the lesser knowns the @HTCoffeeMa- of the industry. Gives splen did insight chine was pretty into their unsung work as well. interesting. - @pankito09 Loved the “shove
Stuff You Said Last Sunday
You’re a star! Autograph please?? :P -@Dilli_vaa aalili
Loved “Finding Laxmi”. My Sundays are incomplete without @HTBrunc h :) - @43193d41dc7247d
it” list especially the annnoying jingle and RK’s potato chip. -@Abhisekhkgupta
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e know you want more of us. Frankly, we can’t get enough of you either! And because the next Sunday (and the next issue of Brunch) is always too far away, how about a weekday date? Tune in to Brunch Blogs, regular, fun posts about all things we can’t fit into the magazine, all the stuff we can’t wait to tell you and all the times we’re thinking of you. C’mon, show us some love and... Log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch Cover image: SANJEEV VERMA Cover design: MONICA GUPTA
by Rachel Lopez
Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK
Photo: AASHEESH SHARMA
W
hen my colleague Asad Ali came up with the idea of featuring three generations of women shooters in a UP village for the Brunch Women’s Day Special, we didn’t realise how much fun it would turn out to be. For the assignment, our photojournalist colleague Sanjeev Verma, Asad and I set out towards Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, about 70 kilometres from Delhi at the crack of dawn. Apart from the pizzazz that the feisty sharpshooter grandmothers Prakashi Tomar and Chandro Tomar lent to
From left: Sanjeev Verma, Asad Ali and Aasheesh Sharma
Shortcut To Smart
EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Aastha Atray Banan, Veenu Singh, Satarupa Paul, Saudamini Jain, Asad Ali, Nihit Bhave, Atisha Jain
MARCH 8, 2015
LOVE IT n Pop Vulture – best
boardgame ever n Ctrl Alt-J Delete jokes n Sharpening a pencil (when was the last time you did that, by the way?) n There’s going to be a new Mumford & Sons album in May (but they’re going electric #sceptical) n That the wedding season is hopefully over
DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Payal Dighe Karkhanis, Ajay Aggarwal
by Saudamini Jain
n Holi without alcohol n George RR Martin
(I finally read A Dance With Dragons, and I no longer care about anything) n That ‘lesbian' is now a bad word n That damn dress n The ban on beef. And yes, this is coming from a vegetarian Jain
SHOVE IT
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6
COUCH POTATO
The Curious Case Of Indra The Tiger A blockbuster Telugu film has been a permanent fixture on Indian television for a decade. We find out why by Saudamini Jain
T
HE FILM opens with death and unrest. A village in Andhra Pradesh is caught in turmoil caused by its two feuding families. They decide to end war with a wedding. A red wedding: the bride poisons the groom on their first night together; her father murders all the men in his family. Indrasen must take over as head of this unfortunate family: the young schoolboy with a fierce temper is now the village headman. How many times have you watched Indra The Tiger? For a decade now, the Telugu blockbuster Indra dubbed in Hindi as Indra The Tiger seems to have become a permanent fixture on TV. It was, we always assumed, a blip. Some sadist schedulers playing a joke on national audiences. Because Indra seemed to be on TV on some channel or the other at any given point in time. Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, you name it, there it was: a Telugu action film we never watched. So here’s something you may
not know: when it was released in 2002, Indra the Tiger grossed more on the box office than any Telegu film before it. “It was about `40-45 crore, almost twice as much as any other hit film usually made,” says C Ashwini Dutt, the film’s producer. In the same year in Bollywood, Devdas, the top grosser, made just `34 crore (though figures vary between `24 crore and `34 crore) in comparison. In Telugu cinema, it resurrected actor Chiranjeevi, whose career had started to wobble by the late 1990s. “He had quite a bit of competition from Junior NTR, the grandson of great NTR,” says film journalist Rentala Jayadeva, referring to Telugu cinema legend and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, NT Rama Rao and his grandson. “Factionism is a hit formula in Telugu cinema, particularly with Rayalseema as a backdrop. And Chiranjeevi attempted this formula to catapult his career,” he says. “Rayalseema is an arid area, with high water scarcity. The plot revolved around people
“Indra the Tiger is no longer a movie. It’s a channel”
MARCH 8, 2015
8
COUCH POTATO
LADIES’ MAN
Chiranjeevi with Sonali Bendre (left) and Aarthi Agarwal (right) in Indra
praying for more water. And here is Chiranjeevi, for the first time enacting the leader of a faction. He’s all for people and against bloodshed. The film was bound to be a hit.” It has all the masala: the hero with superhero abilities, a cause, lots of action, many, many songs, and a Bollywood actress (Sonali Bendre) for glamour. And it is partly set in Varanasi. It is, if you set your pretentions aside, a rather enjoyable film. And if you don’t, the dubbed version has gems such as these: (the other female lead, Aarthi Agarwal, to Chiranjeevi): Tumhaari nazrein mujhe bohot pasand aayien. Greek shilp mein jaise banaaya ye figure pasand aaya. Teri chaal mein ek style hai. Aur kya boloon? Totally teri body mein jo kuch hai, sab mujhe pasand aaya. “When I was heading Sahara One (in 2010-11),” says TV and film writer Mushtaq Sheikh, “we had these perpetual, evergreen films: whenever you needed ratings, you could close your eyes and screen them. Indra was one of them.”
Other films give channels high ratings too: the YRF films, the Karan Johar films, the SRK films. But if you watch a film repeatedly, you will know its scenes by heart. So, “the time spent by the audience on these movies is diminishing over the years,” says Sheikh. “But this logic escapes Indra. This movie is so engaging and so bizarre… it still gives you numbers. How can something break all rules? Movie making is uncertain, but Indra The Tiger is not. It is the answer to everything.”
THE BEGINNING
For years, south Indian movies (mostly Tamil hits) dubbed in Hindi had been successful in theatres. Roja (1992) and Bombay (1995) did very well at the box office. “But this hadn’t been attempted on TV. We started the trend,” says Udayan Shukla, the programming head at Sony Max. “These films work with all kinds of audiences. [National] audiences relate to them – we’ve had a history of south Indian producers making
blockbuster Hindi hits in the ’80s: Himmatwala, Sooryavansham…” Sooryavansham is the Amitabh Bachchan film that could give stiff competition to Indra for being aired the most. The other is Nayak, the one where Anil Kapoor plays an aam addmi chief minister. It was a bizarre film, more so since it came a decade before Arvind Kejriwal appeared on the scene to play it out in real life. “We have a large library – of 1,500 films, but only 250-400 films resonate with the audiences,” says Shukla. This arrangement worked out fine when there were three Hindi movie channels, but now there are about a dozen and all play the same films. It would still work out if you weren’t subjected to them on Saturday evenings when you have absolutely no plans, but, says Mushtaq Sheikh, the best films are reserved for, say, January 26 and Diwali and Holi... you still have a lot of primetime slots to fill. And to push numbers, “you have to show the films that you know will do well,” he says. We’re surpised when the film is not playing on television. The strange thing is that both Set Max and Star Gold claimed to have not shown the film since 2011. Yet, we remember watching it
A REMAKE?
This makes one wonder why the film hasn’t been remade in Hindi. In 2012, there were rumours that Sanjay Leela Bhansali had acquired the rights and was going to make it with Akshay Kumar in the lead. But as it turns out, Bhansali and Kumar were actually working on the remake of the Tamil film Ramana, to be released this year. Ashwini Dutt, Indra’s producer (he also produced Jaani Dost, the hit 1980s film starring Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Parveen Babi and Sridevi) has been constantly trying to make it in Hindi. “I offered Prabhudeva the direction also,” he says. “I keep telling dad, it’s high time we made it in Hindi,” says Dutt’s daughter, Swapna. “There have been a lot of calls from Bollywood, but each person wants to make the film on their own, whereas we want to co-produce it. So that’s where it’s got stuck,” she says. “And we need a big hero. I want Salman Khan!” Is Salman listening?
It has all the masala: the hero with superhero abilities, a cause, lots of action, many, many songs
ON LOOP
Sooryavansham is the Amitabh Bachchan film that could give stiff competition to Indra for being aired the most. The other is Nayak, where Anil Kapoor plays an aam addmi chief minister MARCH 1, 2015
after 2011 on the two channels – in the last year too. Twitter is full of jokes about the film being every movie channel’s favourite film, because “Indra the Tiger is no longer a movie. It’s a channel.” Now though, you will find it playing on Sahara One and Filmy: both, however, declined to comment on the film.
saudamini.jain@hindustantimes.com Follow @SaudaminiJain on twitter
10
COVER STORY
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On Women’s Day, meet the gunslinger grannies who are inspiring a new crop of shooting stars in Uttar Pradesh’s sugarcane belt text by Asad Ali and Aasheesh Sharma; photos by Sanjeev Verma
AMID MILES of sugarcane shoots, trucks emerging from brick kilns and the odd bullock cart, you can easily miss the road to Johri, an inconspicuous village that connects the western Uttar Pradesh towns of Baghpat and Baraut. But in the last few years, politicians, sports scouts and journalists have been thronging the village to visit a shooting range made famous by a pair of grandma sharpshooters. “Tomar dadiyon ka gaon? Just drive four kilometres and take right,” is the advice from one in a group of people waiting for a UP Roadways bus. “Prakashi dadi is at the gher (barn),” says her grandson Gaurav Tomar, as he ushers us into a modest living room where a black-andwhite picture of Sonia Gandhi with two pistol-wielding women clad in ghagras and shirts takes pride of place next to a handwritten note from actor Aamir Khan and hundreds of medals, mementoes and assorted memorabilia. We follow Tomar into the barn where four buffalos chewing on cud make nervous noises as they see journalists walk towards an elderly woman plastering cow-dung cakes onto a wall. She may have hit bullseye and helped change attitudes in Uttar Pradesh’s feudal villages with her shooting exploits, but back home Prakashi Tomar, 74, is just another country woman tending to buffaloes. “When the men are away working in the fields, women of the house have to look after the animals. I am not any different, beta,” says Prakashi Tomar. Don’t let her smile and her simple manner mislead you. Prakashi and her sister-in-law Chandro Tomar, 79, have helped usher in a sporting
revolution. They’ve inspired three generations of women shooters to make their mark in Bollywood’s Desi Kattey territory, the MeerutBarot belt, infamous for youngsters whipping out country-made pistols at the slightest provocation.
In the courtyard of an old house made of burnt-clay bricks, a group of trainees is busy aiming at 10 cardboard targets operated by hand-drawn pulleys. The house has arched doorways and a tin shed where monkeys often create a racket and have to be driven away by firing pellets in the air. When Prakashi makes her way to the Johri Rifle Club’s thatched-roof 10-metre shooting range located next to a mosque, a gaggle of girls gawk and giggle, giving ‘Prakashi dadi’ a reception generally reserved for actors and cricketers. As is expected of a rural champion, Tomar’s fame isn’t built on Olympic medals or TV commercials. Her legend finds root in the anecdotes that resonate across the sugarcane belt. “She once defeated a deputy superintendent of police and he refused to come for the presentation ceremony saying he’d been slighted by an old woman,” says Neetu Sheoran, 34, the Sports Authority of India coach at the range, as she helps a girl take aim at the target. The range was launched in 1998 by Dr Rajpal Singh, president of the Johri Rifle Club. He says the emphasis gradually shifted to teaching girls once enrolment rose after the Tomar grandmothers began practising there. “We launched the range to harness the energy of Baghpat’s youth. My son
MARCH 8, 2015
[Commonwealth Games medallist] Vivek Singh and I donated our own pistols to the trainees so they could stay away from crime and not get involved in land disputes that often end in gunfire.” Prakashi’s foray into shooting at the age of 60 wasn’t planned, she says. One summer afternoon in 1999, she was chaperoning her granddaughter Shefali to the shooting range. Out of sheer boredom, Prakashi borrowed her granddaughter’s pistol and let fly. “Maine ghoda dabaya, aur charra lag gaya (I pulled the trigger and the pellet hit the target),” recalls Prakashi. “Bas, Rajpal told me that I’d do well in shooting and I should form a team,” she says with a smile.
When she began, says Prakashi, none of the other women in the village wanted to join her in her new pursuit, except her sister-inlaw Chandro, five years her senior. Among Singh’s famous students are former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who reportedly took shooting lessons at Singh’s south Delhi farmhouse. In 1999, the sexagenarian sisters-in-law began practising with pistols borrowed from village kids. “Shooting came as just the catalyst that women in Johri needed to break free from the diktats of patriarchal village elders,” says Prakashi’s daughter Seema
Tomar, 31, the first woman shotgun shooter from India to clinch a medal at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup at Dorset, UK, in 2010. Seema, who joined the Indian Army in 2004, has won 32 gold medals at the national level and five international gold medals, since she first wore India colours in 2005. “Till my mother began shooting in her 60s, I wasn’t encouraged to learn shooting. But I persuaded my parents to allow me to compete,” says the champion shooter. “Even after I got married in 2011, although I was competing at the international stage, my in-laws took time adjusting to my routine. I wish I had received more support from them. But then, most families share the same thought: women should stay home and do the housework. They want them to earn but still don’t want them to step out of the house. Shooting is helping change these mindsets.” Initially the response of the men in Johri, inhabited by about 5500 people, wasn’t encouraging, says Prakashi Tomar. “They used to make fun of me and joke that I should go to Kargil and send my army-man son home. But after Rahul gifted us two Pardini pistols worth one lakh rupees each, they began to take us seriously.” For the first few months, Prakashi didn’t let her family catch a whiff of her secret passion. Her neighbours didn’t mind sending their daughters to the shooting
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JOHRI’S ANGELS
From left: Shotgun shooter Seema Tomar (31), pistol sharpshooer Prakashi Tomar (74) and rookie Diksha Sheoran (18) represent three generations of champions at the Johri Rifle Club range MARCH 8, 2015
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DUMMY
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range as long as a village elder was keeping an eye on them. “Little did they know that I had started pistol training too. Even my family didn’t have any clue. When everybody had gone off to sleep, I used to hold a jug of water in a closed room to enhance my grip and strengthen my wrists,” says Prakashi with a chuckle. Soon, the devrani-jethani team was winning tournaments such as the National Shooting Championship and in the process helping soften deep-set patriarchal attitudes. In 2001, Prakashi went on to win the national championships in the veteran category. And the next year Chandro stood second in the North India Shooting Competition. “When I saw the two dadis and their family win medals, I decided to allow my daughter to train with them too,” says Narveer Sheoran, 72, an ex-serviceman. “I hope Diksha goes on to compete at the Olympics. That’s why I sent her to Punjab for training,” adds Sheoran about his daughter. How have the menfolk reacted to women calling the shots in Johri? Coach Neetu Sheoran says the gender dynamic in the village is evolving. A few years ago, not many of the 25 girls training at the Johri Rifle Club range today would have been allowed to step out of home. “Girls who train at the range have got jobs with the Army, the Air Force and the Border Security Force. This has reassured the men. They understand finding
SUCCESS IN THEIR CROSS-HAIRS
Top: The 10-metre range at Johri, Baghpat that has produced more than 40 international shooters; coach Neetu Sheoran with her girl trainees (above) employment for their children is easier because of shooting. So they no longer insist that they should just stay at home.”
Shooting is an expensive sport. For shotguns, each bullet costs `45 to `50. During a day’s practice trainees end up firing 150 to 200 bullets. Although bullets used for air pistols are not very expensive, each pistol costs between `1 lakh and `1.35 lakh. Except important
MARCH 8, 2015
competitions, trainees end up using locally-made dummy pistols costing `3,000 apiece. Many of the girls who train at shooting academies at Johri and other villages in Baghpat such as Ranchad, Dadri, Binauli, Chaprauli and Katha, are daughters of brick kiln workers, says Rajpal Singh. “Children who stare down the barrel of poverty know that supporting a sport like shooting is an expensive proposition for their parents. So, they make the best of the limited resources they have,” he says. “At our range, we don’t charge fees from girls and students from families which are not economically sound.” Gulafsha Khan, 18, for in-
stance, isn’t just the first person in her family to get sports training, she is also the first to complete school. Khan’s unlettered father Islamuddin Khan, in his late 60s, says the family wanted to ensure that Gulafsha got an education unlike her parents and brother Ekramuddin, 22, who drives a bus and earns just `5,000 a month. “Gulafsha hamare budhape ki lathi hai. She was born late in our lives, but she’ll make our family proud by getting a job in the city,” says her father. The success story of the Tomar sisters-in-law is inspiring young girls to take up pistol shooting in other rural districts of Uttar Pradesh, too. Vartika Singh, 19,
from the village Raichandpur Bhatti in Pratapgarh district, learnt shooting at Johri and went on to represent India in international meets at Germany and Singapore in 2013. The daughter of a farmer father and teacher mother, Vartika says convincing her parents to send her to study at Delhi University’s IP College was easy once she started doing well in sport. “All that parents want are results. Although it was considered a big deal for girls in my district to even complete class 12, they were proud of me once I became president of the IP College students union. Now, I’ve got a scholarship from Air India and get air tickets free!” She says the sight of grandmothers in their 70s shooting with perfection and the cult status that they have achieved is motivating girls like her. “Like them, we too come from rural families. They are our biggest role models.”
A couple of kilometres away from the Pathanon Ki Masjid complex – which houses the old shooting range which has helped Baghpat produce as many as 41 international shooters – a new 10-metre range has come up, thanks to donations from a local politician. It has better training facilities and
DOUBLE IMPACT
Chandro Tomar (right) and her sisterin-law Prakashi are the poster girls for women shooters in Uttar Pradesh 30 shooting pulley targets. Practising here, 11-year-old Khushi Tomar, the youngest of the girl trainees, is a picture of concentration. At an age when most urban kids are busy playing Angry Birds on smartphones, this girl with a pixie-like hairdo and steely, unwavering eyes doesn’t flinch even as the report of gunfire booms across the hall. “Looking at the dadis, my father and his elder brother encouraged me to take up shooting. If the dadis can feature in television shows and be honoured by the government at their age, what stops us children from doing it? After all, our eye sight and reflexes are much sharper than them,” she says with the poise of a grandmother. The next generation of women sharpshooters from Baghpat has the future in its cross-hairs. And nothing short of bullseye will do! asad.ali@hindustantimes.com aasheesh.sharma@hindustantimes.com Follow @AsadAli1989 & @Aasheesh74 on Twitter
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MARCH 8, 2015
20
PEOPLE
Photo: RAJ K RAJ
s d a e H Ten etter B e r A e n O n a h T
in tic alib e log s Gh re’s o p e e na serv e. H ht u , g ks ads plat trai o s o e e n l enh sam to, ound i ing na T the listen ergr m a d u ss Rav p on ould g un a Un sic, bste u sh rivin mu d du t yo ’s th an ar tis elhi aul an m D upa P fro atar S by
I
’VE SPENT most of it partying,” he says simply when I ask him about his life so far. The 38-year-old is easy to miss in a crowd, or even when he is at the console spinning his discs. In plain clothes and even plainer demeanour, the only things that stand out about this underground artist are his long salt-and-pepper hair, his signature music and his stage moniker: Ravana Tenheads. Then of course, he has 10 SoundCloud accounts, but we’ll come to that in a bit. “My real name is Shravan. In 2002, when I became a DJ, I had to have a stage name. A friend suggested I remove the “Sh” from my name. That’s how Ravan was born, it evolved into Ravana and subsequently into Tenheads,” he says. Born in Mumbai, brought up initially in Banaras, Shravan moved to Delhi when he was eight. A lack of faith in the education system meant he took to music instead as a teenager. “Metallica and heavy metal first got me inter-
ested in music,” he says. All these influences later formed the base for how most of his music shaped up: dark, heavy and downright unapologetic.
A
dubstep artist, Ravana Tenheads mixes heavy bass lines and beats with “Third World” ambient sound samples and most uniquely, with vocals that range from songs by Girija Devi and Parveen Sultana to the Radia tapes to his mother’s voice to speeches by P Sainath, Osho, and Vandana Shiva to dialogues from Gulzar’s 1988 TV serial Mirza Ghalib. It is this last bit that forms his brilliant and highly trippy Ghalib series. “The idea came last year when I was hanging out at a friend’s place. He had several books of Ghalib’s poetry. I don’t read at all,
MARCH 8, 2015
but I am a fan of documentaries and 1980s Doordarshan serials,” he says. “I remembered having this serial on Ghalib on my hard drive. I went back home, played it alongside a mix of music by various artists, and it just gelled together so well!” He went a step further and made what he now calls ‘conflict music’ out of Mirza Ghalib dialogues and music by a British electronica artist of the 1990s called Muslimgauze. “Ghalib’s was a time of upheavals and revolts, his poetry reflected the tension in the society of that time. Muslimgauze made music on Middle Eastern conflicts of the 1990s. Same emotions, different eras. I just brought elements of both together, added my touches, and found a vent for my own angst over life and society.”
“Old school, new school... We who belong to the underground belong to no school”
“Why are you angry?” I ask him. “I worked for three years in one of these big corporate places,” he says. “You look at their people and you see their dazzling cars, their nightly drinks. They don’t worry where their next meal is going to come from. But these corporations suck the life out of them. Then there’s the dirty, dirty politics. And of course, the helplessness of being a citizen of this country.” Shravan says that now that he has found his foothold in music, he’s finally found a meaning to life and a way to live it. “I do a gig once a month, I do odd data-entry jobs once in a while, I live minimally and I save most of what I make and invest it all into my music. I hardly go out now, I party large once a month, I hang out with my friends at a park,” he laughs.
A
fter DJing for several years, Ravana Tenheads made his first track in October 2011. “Funnily enough, it was thanks to Metallica again. When their show in Gurgaon got cancelled, I went over to a friend’s house. He had a 10-year-old Apple computer which he sold to me for just `3,000. I made my first track on it.” Since then, he has made over 150 tracks, all of which can be found in one of his ten SoundCloud accounts. “Initially, I had only one page: Lankesh. As my music developed, I realised I could categorise them into different groups, so each group became a different account.” So while Shoorpanova, dedicated to Shravan’s sister and girl power, has female vocals, RavanaORama has tracks that denote harmony, “because what is good without bad, or Ram without Ravan?” Kumbhakarna becomes active once every 3-4 months when he uploads one single track. “It is my darkest, heaviest, and most intense SoundCloud page,” he says. “There’s another account called Scratchoski with tracks of classical music and scratchings by me.” I point out that old school musicians may not call that music. “Old school, new school, how does it matter? We who belong to the underground belong to no school. We hate schools. And colleges too. We’re like anarchists,” he laughs. satarupa.paul@hindustantimes.com Follow @satarupapaul on Twitter
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24
indulge
The 4K TV Dilemma
While 4K may be an unfulfilled promise abroad, operators here are already cashing on it
MORE ON THE WEB For more Techilicious columns, log on to hindustantimes.com/ brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter. com/RajivMakhni The views expressed by the columnist are personal
I
N JANUARY this year, I was chewing on a pizza slice and browsing the stalls at the fag end of one of the halls at CES, Las Vegas. Most of my work was done, I had seen thousands of new products, my feet were killing me, and I had a flight back to India in a few hours.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
I had seen several 4K TVs with slow motion videos, shot just to make people’s jaws drop. And frankly, was overwhelmed by the disconnect between the 4K hardware (available) and the 4K content (still as elusive as Big Foot). This was the fourth year that thin 4K TVs with an ever-widening array of features were being showcased. But what were we going to watch on these incredible machines? Every time some company used the dreaded word ‘upscaling’ (turning regular HD content to make it look more detailed and clearer), I knew we were doomed for one more year. It was starting to feel ridiculous. It’s true that even Full-HD had a period where you could buy the display but see no HD content, but never was the loop this poorly executed. Almost every company promised a 4K player or streamer every year, and then came back next year and made that promise all over again. But, at the fag end of CES, at the fag end of the hall, I was finally shown 4K nirvana.
Rajiv Makhni
techilicious
4K Is OK
BACK UP
Big brands like Sony that offer this TV will ensure that more and more 4K content becomes available soon
countries has created complications in one arena: GO FOR IT My life! All I’m asked now are LG is offering a 105-inch serious questions. Should I buy a curved 4K-front TV in India 4K TV now or wait, what should I be careful about if I do want to buy one, does 4K broadcast in India live upto expectations and what will I be able to see in 4K after the World Cup is over? That, and a lot more get answered right here.
Does 4K Broadcast In India Live Up To Expectations?
Well, yes and no. The technology being used is world class, and the cricket World Cup in 4K is spectacular – but in phases. That’s because not every camera used in the broadcast is 4K. Most are, but when they switch to one that is not, it’s like a slap to your face or to your eyes! The difference between 4K and Full-HD is incredible. It’s only going to get better from here.
What Do I Watch After The Cricket Euphoria Is Over?
Quite a bit, but it may not be the kind that you would want to watch all day. You have a dedicated channel of 4K from Videocon with varied content like movies and sports and video-on-demand, plus Tata Sky has one channel with a lot of cerebrally rich content in full 4K on at all times. So, it’s not that you won’t get 4K! On top of this, let me lay down one more little wager. The Samsungs, LGs and Sonys of this world will pump in money with operators to make sure that more and more 4K content becomes available. The TV industry needs 4K to be available in droves for 4K display demand to pick up. Billions of dollars worldwide are at stake and India could unwittingly become a test case.
It was a DTH operator based in the US, and what they were showcasing was their first 4K broadcast channel. It was pure Should I Buy A 4K TV Now? heaven – rich, incredibly deOr Should I Wait? tailed, colours so natural yet Aaah, the 4096x2160-dollar queshypnotic and images so vivid. I tion (also the resolution of a true was mesmerised. The overly exCHECK LIST 4K TV)! If you’re a sports fan, a cited female demonstrator promearly adopter of tech, a tech show off or a ‘I ised that it would be available in the third quar- Buy the biggest screen need the latest even if I don’t understand anyter of the year and she would be glad to have TV that is LED illuminated thing about it’ kind of person – buy now! Not it set up in my house as soon as it launched. I and UHD certified much that you need to be careful about other told her I lived in India and she looked suitably than the fact that you should buy the biggest crestfallen. Her expressions more or less said screen you can afford and that the TV should be LED illumi‘not in your lifetime, dude’. Well, Ms 4K-only-for-the-USA, nated, UHD certified, HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2 compatible and India just beat the pants off most countries. We’ve got 4K the refresh rate and frame rate should be as high as posbroadcast and we’ve got it now! sible. If you are in the market for a new TV, then too, you Game On should invest in a 4K TV to make sure you are future proof. Both Tata Sky and Videocon have launched But if the above categories don’t apply, then I would suggest their 4K service in India. The services will be the following. Wait about six months and put in a certain available for World Cup cricket matches that sum of money every month into a piggy bank called the 4K feature India, as well as the semi-final and final TV fund. In about six months, you’ll be able to buy the most matches. If ever a country could be catalysed kickass large-sized 4K TV at a price about 25 per cent lower into buying a new technology, sports (and speand be able to watch an incredible amount of 4K content on cifically cricket) would be the way to do it. But, it much before any other country in the world! Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, this spectacular announcement and Indian and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3 buyers jumping the 4K gun over many other
MARCH 8, 2015
Photo: RAJ K RAJ
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Ladies speciaL Let’s celebrate Women’s Day by celebrating the women we admire and love
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S YOU may well have noticed, today is International Women’s Day. Yes, yes, we’ve all heard that tired old refrain: Every day is Women’s Day. And no, it wasn’t funny a decade ago, and it’s not funny now. Nor are the annual fulminations of 'how Women’s Day is a farce because we really haven’t come a long way (baby)' very helpful. So, this year, I decided to celebrate the day by listing some of the women I think are worth celebrating.
Seema Goswami
spectator GAME CHANGERS
Farah Khan (left) is one of the most bankable names in the movie business now, while Mary Kom has made a comeback to boxing after having twins
NORA EPHRON
Her most famous saying was: “Be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” But I have to confess that Ephron is the heroine of my life, and has been ever since I first read her in college. She had the brilliant knack of tapping into her own life to come up with universal truths that every woman could identify with (take the title of her book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, for instance). So, her story became our story, and our stories became hers. There could be no greater tribute to any writer.
PD JAMES
Photo: PRODIP GUHA
There is much to admire in Phyllis Dorothy James’ fiction: her intricate plotting, her mastery of suspense, her writing style, and her ability to create characters (Adam Dalgliesh, Cordelia Grey) that we fell in love with. But there is even more to admire in James’ life. A civil servant, whose husband died early of a drug and alcohol overdose leaving her to bring up their two young daughters, she published her first book at 42, having written it while working full time. And then, there was no stopping her. She wrote 14 books featuring Dalgliesh, two featuring Grey, and wound up her writing career with a Jane Austen tribute novel, Death Comes To Pemberly, at the ripe old age of 91.
Y AS RO RABH
:P Photo
MORE ON THE WEB For more SPECTATOR columns by Seema Goswami, log on to hindustantimes.com/ brunch. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ seemagoswami. Write to her at seema_ht@ rediffmail.com The views expressed by the columnist are personal
SMRITI IRANI
If a fiction writer made up a story like that of Irani’s, she/he would be accused of over-egging the pudding. She left the family home after finishing school, heading to Mumbai to make a living (where she famously worked at McDonald's). She participated in the Miss India pageant, and then hit the big time with her role as Tulsi in the TV serial, Kyunki... Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi... In 2003, she joined the BJP, and had such a meteoric rise that 11 years later, at 38, she became the youngest cabinet minister, in charge of the crucial portfolio of Human Resources Development. That’s an impressive resume by any standards. But what is even more impressive is Irani’s amazing ability to shrug off the many unpleasant personal attacks on her and concentrate on doing her job.
MARCH 8, 2015
Photo: VIPIN KUMAR
Photos: GETTY IMAGES
REAL LIFE HEROINES
Clockwise from top left: Nora Ephron, PD James, Smriti Irani, Mamata Banerjee, Madonna and Sania Mirza
MAMATA BANERJEE
I can hear those gasps of disbelief all the way from Calcutta to Delhi. But bear with me a moment and let me tell you the story of a young woman, born in the most humble of circumstances, who took on the might of the communists in a state which they had ruled for decades, without a thought for her own personal safety. She stuck to the task until she had driven them out of office. But even after assuming office as West Bengal chief minister, she never forgot where she came from. She still lives in her old, two-room house, wears the same crumpled cotton saris, and has the same fiery zeal that she displayed as an activist.
MARY KOM
It takes a special talent to excel in a sport at an international level. And Kom’s achievement is even more special because of the many obstacles she had to overcome to become a champion boxer: her early life in the disturbed area of Manipur, the lack of training resources, the paucity of support for her chosen career. But not only did Kom triumph, she also made a comeback to boxing after having twins, shutting up all those who had written her off.
SANIA MIRZA
Her achievements in tennis are there for everyone to see, but what I admire most about Mirza is the way she has chosen to live her life completely on her own terms. She wore short skirts on the tennis court despite the attacks by Muslim conservatives. She stood firm by Shoaib Malik, the Pakistani cricketer she fell in love with, marrying him amidst a swirl of controversy. And she showed both grace and courage, standing up to the bullies who would deny her Indian identity post her marriage.
MADONNA
What an absolute trouper she is! She took a tumble down the stage at the recent Brit awards, landing on her head and shoulders with an almighty thwack. Lesser beings would have been rushed straight to hospital after that. But not Madonna: she stood up, shook off the dust, and carried on with her act as if nothing had happened. No wonder the Material Girl has been a star longer than most pop stars of today have been alive!
FARAH KHAN
Say what you will about Farah Khan’s school of filmmaking (yes, it’s full on escapist masala fare, but so what?) but there is no denying that she is one of the most bankable names in the movie business now. Her last release, Happy New Year, was one of the biggest grossers of 2014, raking in a recordbreaking `350 crores. And with it, Khan proved that while it may be hard to gain entry into the Big Boys Club that is Bollywood, it is not impossible to beat them at their own game.
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A New Recipe FoR SucceSS T A stellar meal in Bombay can come out of a Library or a Canteen, as long as the people behind it are devoted to rethinking and redefining Indian food
WO TRIPS to Bombay in one week. Hectic, but worth it. Both involved superior gastronomic experiences. And both had to do with individuals who have done a great deal for Indian food. The first was for a party at Masala Library honouring Jiggs Kalra. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people who know Jiggs: foodies, journos and his pals from the old days, and now, a new generation that recognises him because Jiggs has become a brand thanks to the success of Made in Punjab and Masala Library, both of which use his name. My generation remembers the old Jiggs. He left Mayo a year or so before I joined but in my senior years at school, we were repeatedly informed by our teachers that the Jay Inder Singh Kalra who was the star writer at Khushwant Singh’s Illustrated Weekly (then India’s bestselling magazine) was a Mayo old boy. So, by the time I finally met Jiggs, many years after I left school and started doing a bit of writing myself, he was already a legend in my own mind.
Vir Sanghvi
rude food PINK REVOLUTION
Jiggs Kalra had the bright idea of making a fish tikka with salmon, which now appears on menus around the world
In those days, Jiggs was hard to pin down. He was Khushwant Singh’s star protégé but he was also a budding food writer. In the Seventies, nobody wrote about food except for Behram Contractor and Jiggs, both of whom discovered interesting places for The Evening News (a Times publication, like the Weekly, now also deceased). But because food was a side-line, Jiggs was despatched by Khushwant to do special assignments. In 1975/6 (the dark years of Emergency) when Khushwant transformed himself into a Sanjay Gandhi acolyte, Jiggs was packed off to Delhi from Bombay to help Maneka Gandhi run Surya, a glossy magazine she had started under Khushwant’s watchful eye. Jiggs liked Maneka but hated Delhi (“wretched city”). Nevertheless it was to become his home as he later moved from Surya to the HT where he worked for The Evening News (no relation to the Bombay paper except that it is now also defunct). At The Evening News, he started a restaurant column called Platter Chatter, which was probably the only such column in the capital.
MARCH 8, 2015
THE LEGEND LIVES ON
At Masala Library (above), Zorawar Kalra (right, in black) hosted a party for his father Jiggs. Nearly every foodie and restaurateur of consequence in Bombay turned up to honour him It soon became clear though that ordinary journalism had begun to bore him and that food exerted a powerful fascination. He took to travelling around the country and discovering new chefs and little-known restaurants. That launched him into food consultancy and he worked with several hotel groups and chefs. He collaborated extensively with the Taj’s great Arvind Saraswat and some of the results of that collaboration appear in the cookbook, Prasad. He worked with the Delhi Hyatt at a time when imported ingredients had just begun to arrive in India and had the bright idea of making a fish tikka with imported salmon. In the process, he created a standard that now appears on many menus around the world. His most memorable contributions came during his stint with ITC. At that stage, the Maurya already ran a very good Indian restaurant called Mayur, with Imtiaz Qureshi as chef. But Mayur lacked the glamour of say, the Taj’s Haveli and Handi, and Imtiaz was unknown outside of the ITC kitchen. ITC hired Jiggs to help with a new Indian restaurant, which ended up being called Dum Pukht. Success has many fathers so I will not adjudicate between various claims as to the ownership of Dum Pukht’s innovations. I will only tell you when the restaurant first opened, it was Jiggs who took me there and claimed that Dum Pukht was a lost Avadhi cuisine rediscovered by ITC. Most people swallowed this claim. In fact, steam-cooking and slow simmering were also the themes behind Handi, next door at the Taj Palace. But Jiggs sold the myth of Dum Pukht cuisine so successfully, that decades later, the brand endures while Handi is dead and forgotten. It was Jiggs who persuaded ITC to put Imtiaz in the ads and turned him into India’s first celebrity chef. You don’t hear much about Jiggs in the context of Dum Pukht or any of the other success stories he was associated with largely because Jiggs had a way of falling out with chefs. He never claimed to be a chef himself but eventually the chefs began feeling that he was getting too much credit for their work. And yes, Jiggs can be a difficult man to deal with when he is in one of his dark moods.
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Photo: SANJAY SOLANKI
But I think the basic problem was that Indian chefs had not come of age then. Nobody had ever written about them before and in the first flush of glory, they began to resent Jiggs whose role they saw (unfairly) as parasitic. The idea of a food consultant who imagined dishes and suggested new directions had never been taught to the chefs at Pusa Road or Cadell Road and the more fame they got, the more they resented Jiggs. Why did they need him? They were the stars, not him! Jiggs fell ill over a decade ago and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. That should have been the end of the story. Except that his son, Zorawar, has now turned into one of India’s most innovative restaurateurs and has faithfully named all his restaurants after his father (as in Jiggs Kalra’s Made In Punjab) even when they have little to do with Jiggs’ legacy. In the process, Jiggs has become a brand and found the kind of fame and financial security he never saw in his heyday. It was Zorawar who hosted a party at Masala Library for his father and nearly every foodie and restaurateur of consequence in Bombay turned up to honour him. Masala Library did the food, lots of champagne was consumed and Jiggs was in such sparkling form that you forgot he was still wheelchairbound. My other Bombay trip involved a chef I’ve never met, but whose food I’ve always admired. Floyd Cardoz sprang to fame in New York in the late Nineties as the chef at Tabla, a modern Indian restaurant owned by Danny Meyer who was then and is still the city’s top restaurateur. Indians reacted badly to Tabla because it did not serve standard Indian food. Nor did it use many of the tricks pioneered by London’s Indian chefs: cook a lamb shank, put a rogan josh gravy below it, dress up the plate and make it all look French, for instance. But I loved it. I thought it took classic Indian flavours and recast them in a new setting. The Bread Bar downstairs, which was more casual, did food that was more conventionally Indian. In New York terms, Tabla was way ahead of its time and when it eventually closed, Floyd did a variety of other things including winning Top Chef Masters with a dish that included upma. When I heard he was culinary director of the company that was opening The Bombay Canteen in Parel, I was excited but also, it must be said, a little sceptical. By now, anything that references Bombay merely does a variation on paani puri or vada pao using newer cooking
THERE AND BACK AGAIN
Bandra-born Floyd Cardoz (left), the culinary director of the company behind The Bombay Canteen (above), is a chef I’ve never met, but whose food I’ve always admired. He sprang to fame in New York in the late Nineties as the chef at Tabla techniques and then claims to be an exemplar of modern Indian cuisine. I was relieved to find that The Bombay Canteen aims to reflect the cosmopolitan ethos of the city rather than merely reinvent street food with spherification and liquid nitrogen. The menu is pan-Indian and genuinely creative. The tacos use a vindaloo-inspired filling but their greatest feature is the Gujarati methi theplas that form the base. Bunny Chow is a staple of Durban’s Indian community, but in Floyd’s hands it becomes a glorious celebration of Indian, African and Portuguese influences with a delicious Goa sausage filling. There are many north Indian and south Indian dishes too and the cooking and the ingredients are all first rate. I was particularly taken with eggs, perfectly fried with golden yolks that turn up as toppings in such dishes as the Kheema Bheja Ghotala. I also liked the ambience. Sameer Seth, CEO of the company that owns The Bombay Canteen, says that they thought of an old Bombay bungalow when they designed the restaurant, with a seating area for proper meals and two verandahs where you can snack and drink all day. What it comes off as is an informal, happy space where you will be greeted with the same warmth whether you order 15 dishes, as I did while checking out the menu, and pay nearly `6,000 (service included) or just have the Eggs Kejriwal (the restaurant’s signature dish, I think) and a Thums Up for `350 or so. The restaurant is already hot and hip so my guess is that Floyd and Sameer should be planning on opening in Delhi next. They would destroy all the competition in Khan Market with this level of food and service, if they opened there.
You’ll be greeted with the same warmth, whether you order 15 dishes or just Eggs Kejriwal
MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch The views expressed by the columnist are personal
MARCH 8, 2015
GOA, GUJARAT AND GENIUS
The tacos use a vindalooinspired filling, but their greatest feature is the Gujarati methi theplas at the base
CANTEEN SPECIALS
Cardoz gives Durban dish Bunny Chow Indian, African and Portuguese influences with a Goa sausage filling (top). Perfectly fried eggs turn up as a topping for a Kheema Bheja Ghotala (bottom)
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#BRUNCHBOOKCHALLENGE
Two books that are so brilliant, we can’t stop talking about them. Read about some Biharis and a crumbling marriage by Saudamini Jain The Patna Manual of Style by Siddharth
Chowdhury
S
iddharth Chowdhury... has published a novel that no one has actually read. Not to mention an earlier collection of short stories which sank like the proverbial stone. These are his words, not mine. We, at Brunch, like his books very much. You have probably not heard of him. (It is entirely his fault. He doesn’t write very often. This is his fourth book in 13 years.) Chowdhury is the Anurag Kashyap of Indian writing in English. But not yet famous. You know how Kashyap made Paharganj sexy and Wasseypur exotic? Chowdhury does that for Patna – and Biharis. He’s brilliant
Us by David Nicholls
U
s is the story of millions of marriages that have outlived their expiry date. It is the story of what happens when a family begins to fester – for no particular reason. Douglas and Connie have been married for 20 years. They are the unlikeliest of couples, you are told. (But it will seem familiar, there’s something so Indian about this). Doug, the fastidious biochemist. Connie, the flamboyant artist. She was his first real relationship. He was her first stable boyfriend. It was love. It was dizzying, really, to be in love at last. Because this was the first time, I knew that now. Everything else had been a misdiagnosis – infatuation, obsession perhaps, but an entirely different condition to this. This was bliss; this was transformative.”
and kind of obscure. His work has character. He’s got swag. The Patna Manual of Style consists of nine interwoven stories, most set in Delhi. There is the 20-something Patna boy Hriday Thakur trying to make it as a writer in New Delhi – “Connaught Place in December is like Paris in the springtime. You can’t be unhappy there.” And other Biharis. In one, his acquaintance Jishnu da has become an “importer of blondes”. There are women: Charulata, the love of his life “to keep writing I needed Charulata and to keep Charulata I had to keep writing”, his wife Chitrangada who starts to “worry when Hriday Thakur stops drinking.” And one little story about Siddharth Chowdhury who “fancies himself as a novelist”. I cannot recommend it enough.
At the very beginning, Connie tells him she wants to leave him after their son Albie leaves for college in a few months. The three of them go on a “Grand Tour” of Europe anyway. It is supposed to be, Connie decides, a coming-of-age trip for Albie. It is, Doug decides, how he will win his family back. Douglas, the narrator, takes you through their holiday across Europe. And through their life – how they met and how it came to this – back and forth. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize last year – an unusual choice. But it is a brilliant, if quiet, portrayal of modern living. You may remember his last, the bestselling One Day (2009), which was made into a film of the same name starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Us will make for a much better film.
MARCH 8, 2015
WELLNESS
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MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA
THE RICE DILEMMA
For any worries related to unplanned pregnancy: Write to us at consumercare@piramal.com or call us at 1800-22-0502 (toll free) or sms ICAN to 56070 Website: www.i-canhelp.in
A
LL OVER Asia, rice is a staple grain. But in the last few years, its effect on weight and health has been questioned. But are these effects simply the result of eating rice, or are there other factors to consider? BENEFITS OF NATURAL RICE Natural rice is not the sparkly white we’re used to, but it’s light brown in colour. This outer coating of the grain is what makes rice healthy. It contains important nutrients. RICE FIBRE: The natural fibre of rice cleanses the intestine of toxic components, and soothes the intestinal lining. This helps reduce the risk of cancers, as cancer cells are more likely to proliferate in an acidic and inflamed intestine. B VITAMINS: Good for the nerves and helps prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. SELENIUM: This mineral in whole grain rice helps maintain fertility. IRON: Whole rice is a good source of iron. RICE IN AYURVEDA Rice is a cooling food for the stomach and intestine, and highly recommended for condiA GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKSTOCK
If you want to sleep better, have rice for dinner
tions described as ‘pitta’ (hot) in ayurveda. These conditions are: inflamed stomach lining, gastrointestinal ulcers, gall bladder or kidney stones, amoebiasis (a type of gastroenteritis) and liver disorders. Here are some recommendations for common complaints: LOOSE MOTIONS AND STOMACH INFECTIONS: Rice water with a pinch of salt. AMOEBIASIS: Rice and mung khichri with turmeric (turmeric is anti-inflammatory). LIVER DISORDERS: Rice khichri, rice water, rice idli and rice with vegetables. WEIGHT AND WATCH In the last few years, it has been suggested that eating rice leads to weight gain. But in reality, most rice-eating nations do not suffer from weight or blood-pressure issues. Here are some ways to eat rice while keeping the kilos in check: 1. Do not combine rice and dairy. For example, avoid curdrice and kheer. Dairy is more responsible for weight gain than rice. 2. If you eat rice, keep your wheat intake to the minimum. Avoid bread and cookies. 3. Avoid eating fried rice and rice with deep-fried foods. 4 Have your rice at lunch if you want to work it off. 5. Washing rice to remove starch also removes vitamins, but if you must eat rice with dal or chicken, remove the starch. ask@drshikha.com
MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch MARCH 8, 2015
1. Dear Doctor, I had purchased an emergency contraceptive pill and due to some reason I had kept it exposed to air for about 5 hours before consuming. I want to know whether that pill will be effective or it lost its medicinal value. Please help me, should I take another pill to be safe? Normally, any medicine must be consumed immediately after taking it off the pack. Exposing the pill to air for a short while may not disturb the efficacy of the pill. Hence do not panic and consume another pill. Please remember to read the instructions on the pack before consuming any medicine. 2. Dear Doctor, we got married a year back and we both are a working couple. We h a v e n ’ t u s e d a n y protection as such for a y e a r, y e t I h a v e n o t conceived. Does it mean I have some problems conceiving? Is it a sign to worry? Should we consult a gynaecologist although we are not planning pregnancy? Ideally it takes 6-12 months for any healthy couple to conceive once they decide to
start a family. Kindly do not worry if you have not conceived, even accidently, in this one year. Once you decide to start a family you can consult a gynaecologist and discuss about a healthy and safe pregnancy. 3. Dear Doctor, I took an emergency contraceptive pill 2 hours after unprotected intercourse and then again took one more pill after 3 days just to be sure. Am I safe? Or is there still any chance of pregnancy? The first pill which you took within 2 hours was sufficient to avoid an unintended pregnancy. Taking the second pill was unnecessary and the usage is not as per directions. Emergency Contraceptive Pills as the name suggests should only be consumed in case of an emergency and should not be consumed casually. Also, please understand that misuse of emergency contraceptive pill or any medication can lead to complications. Any medicine must only be consumed strictly as per the directions given on pack.
Queries answered by Dr Nirmala Rao MBBS, MD, DPM; a well known psychiatrist who heads Mumbai based Aavishkar - a multifaceted team of expert doctors and health professionals. Aavishkar has a comprehensive approach to mental and physical health, with an emphasis scan this QR code to visit website on counselling and psychotherapy. Supported by:
MediaMedic ICH/Q&A/0302
Is the grain good to eat or not? Here’s the lowdown
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HIGH NOTES
twitter.com/HTBrunch
Don’t Have A Plan B …is the best advice Lego House singer Ed Sheeran has for every musician by Aastha Atray Banan
S
INGER-SONGWRITER Ed Sheeran remembers playing a sold-out show in London in 2011, after which he had “no phone battery, no money, no friends and nowhere to go. So I was doing well in a sense, but not so much,” he says. “I could have asked myself: should I continue doing this or get a normal job and live like a normal person? But I continued, and the next month, everything took off.” It took off spectacularly. Sheeran has since then had massive hits across the world with his albums + and X (Multiply), which was nominated for a Grammy for Album Of The Year (for 2015) and won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year 2015. His songs Lego House and Thinking Out Loud have become love anthems for pining teenagers across the world.
He has also written hits for One Direction and Taylor Swift. Sheeran’s popularity was evident as he played as part of The Fly Festival in Mumbai last week. The venue was flooded with teenage girls in their best “music fest” outfits – flowers in their hair and crop tops on their backs. He took
to the stage in a blue kurta. “This is my first time in India, ever,” he told the crowd. “I know nothing about how well you know my songs. So if you know the words, sing along.” They didn’t just sing, they screamed out loud. In person, Sheeran appears older, more sorted, than his 24 Photo: RIDHIIN PANCCHMATIA
“There are too many sad songs out there. I’ve written half of them”
years. For the son of a professor and jewellery designer, it’s been a long ride from being homeless in Los Angeles in 2010 (he just crashed at flats of various friends), to touring as Taylor Swift’s opening act all over the US. He doesn’t believe is settling for less than his dream. “Never give yourself a Plan B, because if you have no back up, there is no possible way you can fail. You’ll just go at it till it works,” he says. “It’s darkest before the dawn.” With dawn has come a great deal of fame, fans and fortune. “Everything I believed in and wanted to do, I have done, however mental it may be,” Sheeran says. “Two years ago, I said I want to play at Wembley Stadium in London. This year, I am doing it three times. It’s when you say it out loud, people think you are crazy. But you can’t care. The worst thing you can do is get halfway to that and then leave,” he says. Right now though, he is riding high on the success of Thinking Out Loud, which he describes as the non-cheesy love song. “Someone once told me if you can write a happy song and not make it sound cheesy, everyone will love it. There are too many sad songs out there, and I have written half of them. It was time for some fun.” aastha.banan@hindustantimes.com Follow @aastha82 on Twitter
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CULTURE CURRY
Artists tend to attract other artists. Imagine having two equally powerful creative forces living under the same roof. Get to know Pooja and GR Iranna in PART TWO of the HT BRUNCH FOUR-PART SERIES ON ARTIST POWER COUPLES
Claim To Frame
They are dissimilar but driven – meet the non-conformist Delhi artist couple whose work speaks louder than their words
by Amisha Chowbey
A
N EXTROVERT with a subtle sense of humor, painter GR Iranna’s candour and honesty towards art extend to everyday life. While we are waiting for him to return from his studio for the photo shoot, we require an easel as a prop. When his wife, sculptor and installation artist Pooja Iranna, calls to ask him to get one, he says he has never used one. Iranna works by laying out a canvas horizontally on a table, a style of working increasingly becoming popular with artists. Born in a family of farmers in rural Karnataka, GR Iranna didn’t have any artists to look up to. Still, he aspired to be an art teacher. When he came to study at Delhi’s College of Art for his Master’s degree in painting, the boy from Sindagi Village made the adjustments required to survive in a metropolis – he adapted to the big city’s language, food and lifestyle. But if it was art that brought him to Delhi, it was love
YIN AND YANG What he loves about her “She’s very caring as a person but more than that, I love her anger. It keeps me secure that I can still bother her.” What she loves about him “His absolutely true and generous nature, and that he never has hang-ups about anything.” Their well-kept secrets When Iranna’s parents visit, it’s vacation time for the family even though Pooja cannot talk to them (because of language differences). So she displays her affection with traditional food.
that made him stay in the Capital. One of GR Iranna’s most popular series of paintings depicts the lives of monks. Painted on tarpaulin, he breaks away from conformity. He believes a person has an innate sense of aesthetics, even before people put the label of an artist on him or her. As a child, for instance, he used to help his grandmother make toys using clay, and helped in farming, which he describes as a “precise canvas of land that we used to decorate”. This helped develop his sensibilities as an artist. Today his works are part of prestigious collections in the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and the Singapore Art Museum. He is a favourite with art connoisseurs such as David Roberts in London and Kiran Nadar closer home. When you first meet his wife Pooja Iranna, you go in expecting to meet an opinionated artist, since her sculptures and paintings make statements through the use of stark colours and lines. But unlike her art, Pooja the person surprises you with her gentle demeanour.
A LINEAGE IN ART
Pooja’s mother Shobha Broota is an eminent artist herself. Her father Rameshwar Broota hails from a generation of artists that experimented with the freedom of personal language. But her impressive legacy has never cramped Puja’s individual style. Pooja’s works have symmetry; abstract images that fall in sync with each other. Before she joined the College of Art in Delhi, Pooja really aspired to be an architect. It comes as no surprise then that certain concepts of architecture still find resonance in her installations and sculptures.
MARCH 8, 2015
Photos: SAUMYA KHANDELWAL
Working in a diversity of media such as video, painting and installations of sculptural quality, Pooja turns everyday objects into fascinating art. In a recent series, she used staple pins to create a structure that gives a semblance of organised chaos. On the other hand, when she paints, Pooja distorts geometric structures much like illusions, to bring about fluidity in, say, a checkered board. Gaining critical acclaim when she exhibited in cities such as New
York, London, The Hague and Zurich, to name just a few, Pooja has proved to be an able ambassador of Indian art across the globe.
THE WORKING OF LOVE
When the couple started as students finding a foothold in the world of art, Pooja was trying to break free from the baggage of her lineage even as her then boyfriend was was striving to develop an expression of his own. Novices in the art fraternity, they became each
other’s strength as they matured into celebrated artists. It was a classic albeit clichéd love story: they met as students at the Master’s degree programme at the Delhi College of Art. Before they fell in love, Iranna and Pooja started off as friends: after all, she was one of the only three girls in both their batches. Today, they may claim that they were too busy finding their own language as students of art and there wasn’t any time for love,
but Iranna does admit to working afternoons at the college studio in order to spend a few extra minutes with Pooja. They’re very different from each other in their body of work. He works with figures and she dabbles with abstracts. Precariously balancing their professional and personal lives, the Irannas keep it simple on principle, restricting their work and arguments to studio spaces. While Pooja works from home, Iranna’s studio is two blocks down the road, where she seldom ventures unless invited. Says Iranna, “In art, there is no competition, only individuality that makes each artist stand apart. We make an effort to treat each other’s work as different professions, to promote healthy debates and maintain decorum.” On home turf though, it’s obviously Pooja who brings it all together. When they are not busy with shows, the Iranna couple likes to host guests in their quiet step-out terrace. “I always used to say, come what may, I will never marry an artist,” says Pooja. Yet, here they are, featuring among the prominent art couples in the country! brunchletters@hindustantimes.com
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PERSONAL AGENDA
Actor
Bipasha Basu
BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN
January 7
Capricorn
PLACE OF BIRTH
New Delhi
HOMETOWN Kolkata
SCHOOL/COLLEGE Apeejay School, Kolkata
HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE CURRENTLY I HAVE...
It is yet to come. Life has just begun
I’ve seen too many lows. It’s hard to point out one
The best thing about being a woman is… That she is an amalgamation of strength and emotions. I love being a woman. What are the biggest rewards of being fit? It gives you physical as well as mental strength. A fit woman also ensures a fit family as she makes healthy choices for her loved ones. Do fitness and self-confidence go hand in hand? With fitness, come compliments. And more the compliments, the better you feel about yourself. A fit person is surely a more confident person. Your favourite snack is… McVitie’s Digestive biscuits. That’s a healthy snacking habit I would never give up. Yoga or gym: which do you prefer? It doesn’t matter if I’m gymming, doing outdoor sports or yoga, I love all sorts of workout routines. A mix of everything keeps you energised. Gym time is quintessentially my ‘me’ time. I love weight training, cardio, Pilates, functional training and
Signed two new films
dancing. I’m getting acquainted with yoga for meditation and better flexibility. You should do whatever makes you happy. A classic Hindi film you would have loved to be a part of. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). Your motivation to stay fit is... Inspiring people, especially women, to adopt healthy habits. That’s a big motivation. The sport you love to play. I love watching sports more than playing any. But one sport that I would like to take up is football. Who is the sexiest or fittest woman in the film business? For once, I will not be modest and say Me! One food item you can’t resist bingeing on? I am a foodie to the core. I can’t resist sweets, especially redvelvet cake and laddoos. But I also go off sweets now and then to train my will power. What is your advice for people looking to lose weight? I do not believe in dieting. I always tell people to eat in moderation, make healthy food
Catwoman
Abbas-Mustan’s Ajnabee (2001), for which I won the Best Debut (Female) award
choices and exercise for 20-25 minutes daily. What is your style sense like? My style sense is very personal. It depends on my mood, the weather and the occasion. I play with colours and I love accessories. Who is your female role model? It has to be my mom. Describe yourself in three words… Fiery, fit and fun. Three skincare products you can’t do without. Lip balm, moisturiser and hand cream. Three foods you would never eat… Pork, beef and cabbage. Three qualities you want to see in today’s women? Independence, fearlessness and confidence. What helps you de-stress: food or fitness? Both food and fitness. The last line of your autobiography would read… “And the happy hippie lived happily forever”.
— Interviewed by Veenu Singh
IF YOU HAD TO PLAY A SUPERHERO, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
FIRST BREAK