Hindustantimes Brunch 8th-January-2012

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, JANUARY 8, 2012 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

Pinky Ardahun Passkh, co-owner of Yeti The Himalayan Kitchen, in Delhi, which serves Tibetan, Nepalese and Bhutanese food

1, 2012 , JANUARY Times WEEKLY MAGAZINE copy of Hindustan

Free with your

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INDULGE

What’s Cooking?

A new breed of restaurateurs. An eclectic lot who have nothing to do with food or the business of food. They left their day jobs, took bank loans and are now giving people something different to munch on! Read about the new breed of restaurateurs!

EAT

facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch Pratiq Kore Brunch is my fav magazine. My sunday is just incomplete without it..luv 2 read personal agenda,interviews with actors & tech.

Could food shows be the light programming of the 21st century?

PLAY

Turn It On – It’s About To Change Everything!

The idiot box is getting idiot proofed!

It will now do unimaginable things LIVE

No Offence

The new India doesn’t care about those who take pot-shots at her

TRAVEL

LISTEN

Call Of The Wild

The Deep Three

African jungles are famous for their wildlife. But what were veteran cricketers doing there? Flip inside to find out more!

The three albums I heard in the new year were all by English women singers WELLNESS

Fit For Friendship

Manika Shrivastava All the sections of today magazine was really good . It was worth reading made my sunday of new year.

Don’t just sit there while your pals pack on the pounds.

Help them (and you’ll help yourself)

Manjiree Jaitly Happy New Year to Team HT Brunch! How about adding a one pager on cars? Would love to see that in my favourite sunday read!

PERSONAL AGENDA

Vijayalakshmi Narayanan Dear HT Brunch team, wish you a very happy and prosperous new year, 2012. May this new year bring you happiness, good luck and prosperity.

Calling All Tweeple twitter.com/HTBrunch @Jyotijk2002 Easy and gr8tips for good health,follow8out of10 by shikha sharma.. @Pooja_Gupta Interesting roundup of devices by @rajivmakhni in his Brunch article. Some of these devices need to be explored.. :).

hindustantimes.com/brunch

BRUNCH ON THE WEB REALITY OF THE MATTER

E X C L U S IV E S L ID E S H O W

MASTER STROKE !

Television reality shows are all about Bollywood stars these days.

While Aamir Khan is set to make a foray in TV, Madhuri Dixit has launched a channel. Log on to our website for more on the hottest TV shows in the coming year.

@justakash_s @RajivMakhni happy new yr to u too sir... ur 2day’s column was fantastic as usual... it makes d most intrestin part of Brunch :) @Mittermaniac And now the Sunday morning feels complete after I’ve read Brunch. Fine issue to start the year! @Priyanka_46 Wish You A Great, Prosperous, Blissful, Healthy, Terrific & Extremely HAPPY NEW YEAR

Write to brunchletters@hindustantimes.com For marketing and ad-related queries, contact suresh.tripathi@hindustantimes.com

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Madhuri Dixit

The stunning actress and mother of two reveals her most clichéd answer in an interview and her love for jeans!

Vibhor Gulati Can you include a section where top technocrats or a group of students talk about innovation, and new things that can be invented?

FEED BACK

Dishing It Out On TV

PHOTO: JASJIT PLAHA

We’re Logged On

I S S U E

Read our only-for-web story!

Put on your sunglasses the next time you go for a movie.

The handpainted Bollywood poster is back! You might soon see your favourite stars in all their handpainted glory. And where else to read about it than your favourite Brunch on the web? Log on and get all the dope on this upcoming trend!

Have you seen our Brunch Quarterly photoshoot with Vidya Balan yet? Log on for this and an all-access pass to your favourite stories from this and previous Brunch Quarterly issues.

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

Queen indeed

THIS REFERS to your cover story about Vidya Balan (Why Vidya Rules, December 18). I believe that it’s her face and smile that make her attractive and sexy instead of her cleavage show or body exposure. In my opinion, sexuality lies in an attractive face alone. Body parts like cleavage and thunder thighs are sexy if they are beautiful and shapely but they also remain so only for a short span of time.

Unfortunately, people, especially those in Bollywood, cannot see beyond that.

Recently Vidya Balan said at a press conference,“Of course, single women are sexier. Look at me.”

And then she added, “Playing sexy is much easier.” I couldn’t agree more, good acting is much more difficult than just looking sexy on screen and essaying the role of a mute doll!

— MAHESH KUMAR, via email THIS REFERS to your cover story on Vidya Balan – Why Vidya Rules.

We tend to only see the final result or outcome of a product, but we don’t realise the amount of hard work and struggle that has gone behind what a person has achieved.

Credit must given to Vidya Balan for not giving up despite being termed a jinx in her initial days. And we should remember that it is all the more challenging to essay nonconventional roles. I think there won’t be many actresses who would opt for playing the roles Vidya did in Ishqiya or The Dirty Picture. It indeed requires a steely resolve to take as huge a risk as she did, which thankfully for her, paid off well. Though it would be foolish to compare her with the late Smita Patil or Shabana Azmi as of now, at least she is on the right track.

— BAL GOVIND, Noida

Double dose

I REALLY enjoyed reading Vir Sanghvi’s column on Dubai (Rude Food, November 27). I recently visited the place and he described exactly the way I felt.

— DHRUTI, via email

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

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

what will Who and nd the rock arou year clock this

Cover design: Ashish Singh Cover photo: Jasjeet Plaha

Wellness

MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA

Don’t just sit there while your pals pack on the pounds. Help them (and you’ll help yourself)

by Kavita Devgan

Stop the sabotage A

fter the year-end binge, chances are you’d like to knock off the excess baggage you’ve collected. But when do you plan to begin? Watch out for these thinking processes that do nothing but sabotage your own self.

Fit for friendship I F YOU are fit and healthy, that’s great news. But if you have a friend whose flab looks positively unhealthy, then perhaps you shouldn’t just let things be. A little encouragement from you could really make the difference. The best way to lose weight is to combine diet modification, exercise and behaviour therapy. It’s all do-able, but some people could do with support. And helping your pal will have a positive effect on you too – it’ll keep you firmly on track as well.

EDUCATE THEM

Make your pal understand that: 1: Our bodies don’t just define the way we look. They also clearly dictate the state of our health. And 2: Excess weight can have far-reaching medical implications that could, at some time, truly hurt. The fact is that nobody can lose weight for anyone else. So the only thing you can do is be the motivator.

REASON IT OUT

Two heads are better than one when it comes to pinpointing the reason for a gain in weight.

Low physical activity, social eating, bad food habits, a hyper-response to the taste, appearance and smell of food rather than actual hunger are the usual triggers. Help your friend figure out her or his problem areas, then work together to chalk out a strategy that will effectively deal with them.

BE THE REMINDER

Constant reminders about sticking to the regime from a friend (rather than family members or a significant other) do not hurt.

Pave the way

Help your friends set realistic weight loss targets.

■ Tempt them with stylish clothes (one size smaller).

■ Give them a gift for every kilo lost.

■ Give them information on healthy eating from magazines and good websites.

■ Teach them cues – such as associating nausea with fried foods and fat.

■ Coach them on boosting the fibre content in their diets.

■ Encourage them to maintain a detailed record of their eating habits and weight fluctuations.

■ If stress is the weight gain culprit, help them combat it. Introduce them to yoga or reiki or simply be a good listener and let them unburden their problems to you.

■

Make sure you are tactful though. For example when you see your pal eying an ice-cream sundae at a restaurant, offer to fetch it for him or her and return instead with a fruit salad with a small scoop of ice-cream. (But make sure that you’re having the same.)

BE THERE FOR THEM

A morning run or swim together, a partner workout at the gym, a game of tennis – these will help your pal get through the weight loss regime. And it’ll all help you as well.

Remember: what works for your pal works for you too. It’s what’s called a win-win situation.

brunchletters@hindustantimes.com

PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK

WHEN TO START SABOTAGING BELIEF SYSTEM: The toughest part of any weight loss plan is the inertia in initiating it. We often tell ourselves that: ■ I will begin after a friend’s birthday.

■ I will begin after my child’s winter vacation.

■ I will begin after my cook returns from his holiday.

■ I will begin from Monday (next Monday, that is.).

The sabotaging belief system underlying this thought is that a weight loss plan should be followed perfectly and therefore, “I will only begin when the environment is more conducive to supporting my weight loss regime.”

MAKE THE CHANGE

Being a perfectionist can be self-damaging. A better belief system is this: “I will give it my best and do things with sincerity.”

Unhealthy food is an intrinsic part of our environment and the only way you can follow a health plan is by realising that minor indiscretions will happen and make those part of the plan.

NO TIME TO EXERCISE SABOTAGING BELIEF SYSTEM: “I need a minimum of a one-hour intense workout to get results, or else there is no point doing it.”

MAKE THE CHANGE

For years we have heard that we should work out for an hour daily. How we perceive it is, if we don’t work out properly for an hour, there is no point doing anything at all. But the reality is that every little action counts. Every small positive thing we do in our life is like lifting weights – begin small and keep increasing the load. Initially we need to do this consciously but later, it becomes effortless and very enjoyable.

LOSE FIVE KILOS IN ONE MONTH SABOTAGING BELIEF SYSTEMS: You believe: 1. That a weight loss regime is unpleasant.

2. You can change the state of your health fast.

MAKE THE CHANGE

There is no instant gratification with health. It must be made a habit. Plus, working out actually makes people feel good. ask@drshikha.com PHOTOS: MCT

What’s

Move over, food and hospitality professionals. Amateurs from other backgrounds are diving into India’s culinary scene – and giving us one pioneering eatery after another

by Parul Khanna Tewari

COOKING? F

PHOTO: JASJEET PLAHA

ASHION DESIGNER Puja Sahu, a Delhiite from Bihar, often visits her hometown to catch up with friends and relatives. But the trip she made in early 2011 with her friend, journalist Viveta Relan, had a different purpose. Puja went home specifically to get her grandmother’s book of home recipes. This would be the basis of a restaurant she and Viveta were planning to start. A small place in Delhi’s Shahpur Jat, serving authentic Bihari cuisine.

Seven months later, Puja and Viveta’s venture, Potbelly, is up, running, and popular. And the two young women, designer and journalist respectively, can now add one more label to their professional identities. It’s a word many people dream of adding after their names.

The word is ‘restaurateur.’

WORTH THE RISK

“If you ask 10 people what is their secret desire, at least six would say they would love to open a restaurant,” says Ritu Dalmia, chef-owner of Delhi’s Diva restaurant. “Food, music and books are wonderful products, and most of us have dreamt or dream of doing something with them.”

You’d imagine that people who set up restaurants would either be professional chefs or trained in hospitality management. You could imagine great home cooks deciding to take their talent further even without experience of the business.

You’d be right. All that is happening, all over the country.

But there’s also a new kind of

Thadi (café) Owners: Left to right: Bhupender Singh, Deepender Verma, Puneet Jain and Sanchit Oberoi Previous Jobs: All are engineers The edge: Serves only coffee and Maggi noodles. Lets you laze restaurateur on the culinary scene today. These people are not chefs or even cooks. They have no training in hospitality. And often, they have little or no experience of establishing a business. But that hasn’t stopped

IF YOU WANT TO OPEN A RESTAURANT, MAKE SURE YOU...

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Are creative: Have an identifiable USP. You need to offer people something unique (but not weird). Everyone’s opening up to newer experiences. Cash in on the trend. For instance, an eatery specialising in healthy fast food or tea from around the world would work great

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Authors come in and work on their books for hours, bands jam at their leisure. They gaze at the lake and keep ordering tea/coffee – BHUPENDER

them from doing more than just toying with the idea of opening an eatery. Rather, they aim to put their money where your mouth is.

“These days, people with little monetary backing, who have nothing to do with the food industry, are opening eateries just because they love to eat or entertain,” says Manu Mohinder, managing director, Under One Roof Hotel Consultants, Delhi. “In the last three years we have seen more and more professionals – IIT graduates, MBAs –

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

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opening restaurants with their own savings, with the aid of bank loans or by mortgaging their property.”

And this seems to be happening countrywide. In 2009, Mumbaibased Mishali Sanghani who worked in her family’s export business and Suren Joshi, car stylist and enthusiast, decided to open a restaurant and by mid-2010, Pali Village Café had arrived. In Delhi, engineers Bhupender, Sanchit, Deepender and Sumit opened Thadi in September, a recreation of

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PHOTO: PUNEET CHANDOK; LOCATION: SANCHO’S

Select your customer base: And keep pricing reasonable. There are too many fancy restaurants with inflated rates around. Eating at home is becoming expensive too. That’s why the concept of good, interesting food at reasonable rates really works

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Sancho’s

When you go to a restaurant, you go for the food, but also for the overall experience

Owners: Raman Macker (right) and Gaurav Batra (left) Previous jobs: Online B-2-B finance websites The edge: Neighbourhood family Tex-mex restaurant. Sancho’s is one of Dish Hospitality’s many restaurants

– RAMAN

Yeti Owners: Pinky Ardahun Passkh (in the picture) and Tenzing Sonam Previous jobs: Pinky was a student and Tenzing worked in his family business The edge: Serves Tibetan, Nepalese and Bhuatanese food

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the tea stall outside their college in Jaipur. Before Thadi opened, travel writer and photographer Ajay Jain opened Kunzum Café in Delhi’s trendy Hauz Khas Village.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, Sunil and Seema Mattoo, both from the entertainment industry, had set up KongPoush, specialising in Kashmiri cuisine in 2008. And way back in 2001, business and finance professionals Raman Macker and Gaurav Batra opened Juhu’s first contemporary European fine dining restaurant, Rain, and now are the proud directors of Dish Hospitality, owners of Sancho’s and Aurus among other restaurants.

Not one of these people knew anything about food or the business of it before they started. All they had was a thought – and the determination to see it through. “We just wanted a place in Bandra where we could see ourselves hanging out regularly,” says Mishali Sanghani, partner at Pali Village Café, while for Viveta, a restaurant was the perfect escape from the stresses of daily work. “I had had enough of working in an online portal for a big firm where every idea had to go

through myriad processes,” she says. “So I wanted to do something that gave me creative control.”

And for Ajay of Kunzum Cafe, opening a café was the most natural way to expand his business interests.

“By having people here, I am interacting every day with like-minded people who are getting to know of the travel website I run,” he explains.

BE DIFFERENT

An idea is one thing, but then come the financials. And then comes the learning and then comes the slog.

Before all that happens, however, the idea must be refined. “Restaurants have limited shelf-lives, shrinking with our attention spans,” says Raman Macker of Dish Hospitality.

“So it’s challenging to be innovative.”

The most basic thing to work on, however is the food. “People are looking for newer experiences and are also developing experimental palates,” says Manu Mohinder. So food that is out of the ordinary grabs attention. That explains the success of Delhi’s Yeti, The Himalayan Kitchen, which specialises in Tibetan, Nepalese and Bhutanese food. Yeti’s owners,

PHOTO: JASJEET PLAHA

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– PINKY

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PHOTO: JASJEET PLAHA

We introduced items we loved to eat and hired a cook from Darjeeling to execute the menu. Now people come here for authentic, unfamiliar food

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

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PHOTO: HEMANT PADALKAR

Pali Village Cafe

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Owners: Suren Joshi (left) and Mishali Sanghani (right) Previous jobs: Suren was a car stylist and Mishali worked in her family business The edge: European café feel Pinky Ardahun Passkh from Meghalaya and Tenzing Sonam, who is half Nepali, half Tibetan – introduced items they loved to eat.

Now it’s a wildly popular restaurant, packed with people looking for authentic, unfamiliar food.

In Mumbai, where Kashmiri cuisine is not so well known, KongPoush was very popular. “We were a novelty, the only restaurant that specialised in Kashmiri cuisine,” says Seema Mattoo. “And we made sure that we maintained the authenticity of our food.”

However, as many amateur restaurateurs find, even novel, exciting food isn’t enough. There needs to be a mood among potential customers to accept something differ-

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The idea was to open a restaurant that was like a house party every night. A place in Bandra where we could see ourselves hanging out – MISHALI ent. For instance, from 2010 onwards, with food-related TV shows like MasterChef catching viewers’ imaginations, different and unfamiliar became catchwords. But in 2001 when Raman Macker and Gaurav Batra set up Rain in Juhu, Mumbai, the restaurant was empty for months – because the food was so unfamiliar. “Juhu was a very different place then,” says Raman. “Olive had just opened doors, and people were still grappling with the concept of subtle flavours and authentic European cuisine. We actually had customers complain to the staff that there was no roti-sabzi!”

It always helps, though, if the food is good and affordable. Which is why some of the proprietors of

Get a good location: It can make or break you. To attract the kind of crowd you are targeting, you need to base yourself in a certain kind of neighbourhood.

Do your research and then go scouting for a place with reasonable rent (if something like that exists)

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these restaurants offer something that few other eateries do – home food. The kind of food that was usually seen as too unsophisticated to put on commercial menus, but which is delicious, authentic and reasonably priced.

This is a trend that big restaurant chains are moving to as well, says Rohit Aggarwal, managing director, Lite Bite Foods, owners of the Zambar, Asia 7 and Fresco chains. “When our chef left Zambar suddenly, we met Arun Kumar, a filmmaker passionate about food, who believes in cooking food the way it is cooked at home,” says Aggarwal. “This concept has taken the restaurant to a new level.”

GRAB ATTENTION

Once the food is sorted, positioning and marketing comes into play.

“When you go to a restaurant, you go for the food, but also for the overall experience,” says Raman. “It’s essential to create a position for your

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

restaurant, where the customer knows what to expect and gets that.”

So unique concepts and experiences must be thought out. When Ajay Jain started Kunzum Café, for instance, he didn’t charge for the coffee it served. Instead, it was left to the customer to decide how much it was worth. Curious customers arrived in droves. “They can walk in at 11 and sit here till 7 and do whatever they feel like in between,” says Ajay.

Similarly, Thadi positions itself as a place where you can put up your feet and lounge. “Authors come in and work on their books for hours,” says Bhupender Singh, one of Thadi’s four partners. “We also have bands come and jam. Thadi is like a college canteen.”

It all sounds like great fun, but the practicalities of commerce can be heart-breaking. It means learning on the job. And it means learning that location is everything. “Everything else can be learnt, but not this,” says Mishali of Pali Village Café.

Delhi seems to have it easier for now – artsy Hauz Khas Village and craftsy Shahpur Jat that already attract a well-travelled, open-minded crowd are perfect places for small eclectic restaurants. And though rents are climbing, they’re still affordable – just.

But in Mumbai, where real estate

PHOTO: JASJEET PLAHA

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Spend smart: Do not pay lakhs for the decor or to fly in chefs from abroad. Just come up with a contemporary concept, give it an edgy twist and then offer people good food, an amiable ambience and great service. Then prepare for success

costs are some of the highest in the world, if you don’t have the money, you don’t have the restaurant.

Though the Pali Village Café partners struck lucky with location, the Mattoos of KongPoush had to close their flourishing restaurant in 2011 and shift it to Goa. Their location in the suburb of Goregaon didn’t work for them, and the rent was too high.

And then there are all the fiddling details of putting the restaurant in operation. With no experience of how these things are done, things can go crazy.

“The first few weeks after opening, we were just panicked,” recalls Bhupender of Thadi. And sometimes Viveta feels that way too. “For us, unlike a really professional place, every day means new learning, new challenges,” she says. “We don’t have a foolproof method of functioning yet. Just after we opened, our cook had to go to Bihar for Chhat Puja and everything fell apart – the quality of food, the service… We had customers, but not much to serve.”

And while Suren and Mishali of Pali Village Café credit their chef, Conrad, with the success of the kitchen management, they admit that even now, more than a year after their restaurant opened, they

haven’t quite cracked service.

“Besides a few old hands, the servers keep changing as happens often in this industry,” says Mishali. “At the end of the day, we might brief everybody but they have their own style when interacting with people.”

It takes time for a new restaurant to settle down, so marketing is important. Social networking can bring in customers; the Potbelly girls sent out free samples of their food to other store owners in Shahpur Jat; and in-restaurant events also help.

But most important is the food, says Manu Mohinder. If that makes sense to customers, word will just spread on its own.

It isn’t hard to keep a restaurant going, says Ritu Dalmia. “People are earning more these days, so taking the financial step of opening a restaurant is easier than it was,” she says, while Manu adds that he foresees the birth of many more small restaurants and cafés serving unconventional food. “The food business isn’t rocket science. If you look at the front operations as well as the back operations, you will be a success.”

parul.khanna@hindustantimes.com (With inputs from Sharanya Misra Sharma, Pankti Mehta and Panna Saroopa in Mumbai)

Kunzum Café Owner: Ajay Jain Previous job: Travel writer and photographer The edge: Serves free coffee and cookies. Customers decide how much to pay (or not)

Potbelly

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In the cafe, I interact with like-minded people who get to know of my travel website – AJAY

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Owners: Viveta Relan (right) and Puja Sahu (left) Previous jobs: Viveta was a journalist and Puja, a fashion designer The edge: Serves Bihari food

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PHOTO: JASJEET PLAHA

Why would anyone climb up three storeys to eat butter chicken? You need to lure people with something interesting and filling – VIVETA

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

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indulge eat

Dishing It Out On TV

rude food

Vir Sanghvi

ON SITE Ruchira Hoon, an ex-colleague of mine at the HT and an avid amateur cook, was one of the contestants in MasterChef India

| play | live | listen

If Foodistan is a hit like MasterChef India, it may serve notice to other television channels that food shows are the light programming of the 21st century

I

DON’T KNOW if you saw the final of MasterChef India (Season 2) but I certainly missed it. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see that Shipra Khanna, the pretty, single mother from Shimla whose heartwarming back story was shamelessly milked in the first episode, won. She seemed like a nice girl and something about her suggested to me that she was a winner right from her very first appearance.

I am not sure what the ratings say but my hunch is that this season of MasterChef India has had more of an impact than the first one because they have downplayed the Bollywood content (i.e. no Akshay Kumar as host) and increased the emphasis on food.

MasterChef is now a global phenomenon. I used to watch the British version with Chef John Torode (and a fat guy called, I think, Greg Wallace or something like that) which was a civilised, well-mannered affair. Then the Americans got in on the act and went big-budget with the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay as host (it’s just concluded on Star World in India) and the show changed its essential character. But then American shows tend to be more in-your-face.

Though the British version (and its spin off Celebrity MasterChef) remains my favourite, I’ve been intrigued by MasterChef Australia which I had never heard of till it became such a huge hit in India.

The Aussie version has the big budgets and gloss of the US avatar but it lacks the aggression embodied by Gordon Ramsay and the other US hosts.

Oddly enough, I think the lack of hostility and abuse is one reason why the Australian version has so many fans in India. We see reality shows/talent contests as ways of empowering people and are not pleased when judges humiliate contestants. That is one reason why the numerous Pop Idol/X Factor spin-offs and rip-offs in India rarely feature judges who are as rude as Simon Cowell. We prefer a more well-mannered approach and like our judges to be encouraging rather than offensive.

I wasn’t able to catch many episodes of MasterChef India but Ruchira Hoon, an ex-colleague of mine at the HT and an avid amateur cook, was one of the contestants. I asked Ruchira what she thought of the experience and she said she enjoyed it. She liked the judges who, she said, mixed readily with the contestants and were easy and affable. (I liked the judges too and Vikas Khanna, as a Michelin-starred chef from New York, doesn’t really need the success but he worked hard at downplaying his own stature anyway. I thought Kunal Kapoor was the real star. He has a great future in TV should he want it.)

As for the cooking experience itself, Ruchira said it was genuine and intense.

What you saw on TV was pretty much what happened on the set. If she had any criticisms it was restricted to the demands that the television medium places on all cooking shows.

For instance, when MasterChef’s pro14

SEE HER VICTORIOUS Shipra Khanna is the pretty, single mother from Shimla, who won this season’s MasterChef India

ducers filmed the contestants’ back stories, they were consciously looking for tales of woe and hardship. It was almost as though they wanted MasterChef India to be – like the last season of KBC – a show that takes somebody who has had a rough life and elevates him or her to great success.

Ruchira thought some of the cooking dramas (when somebody’s food caught fire etc.) had an element of theatricality about them.

And she wasn’t sure she could comment on the fairness of the judging because contestants did not actually taste each others’ food. So they had to go by what the judges said because they had no way of knowing which dish was genuinely the best. If, as some people have suggested, the judges tended to like the food of those contestants who made for better television, then Ruchira explained, she had no way of confirming this.

I can understand why Ruchira feels the way she does because cooking shows can be hell to pull off in the studio. I don’t know what the exact budget of MasterChef India was but even though the show clearly lacked the visual sophistication of the foreign versions, it certainly looked massive and large VERY BLUNT Americans got the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay as host and Master-Chef changed its essential character PHOTO: REUTERS

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

indulge

DECIDING FACTORS Vikas Khanna (left), one of the judges in MasterChef India 2 worked hard at downplaying his own stature. I thought Kunal Kapoor (right) was the real star

scale and that alone can cost a lot of money. (I am told that each episode cost over R1 crore but this is only an unofficial estimate.)

One of the advantages with Hindi TV in this country is that channels can afford these vast budgets because of the millions of viewers such shows attract. You would expect a version of MasterChef to be on an English language channel in India (say Star World which has had much success with the foreign versions) because then, you can appeal to a more sophisticated audience (at least in culinary terms) but the truth is that the big money is in Hindi TV. And that dictates the tone that the Indian MasterChef and any other food show must follow.

NDTV Good Times is betting that even English language TV can afford to take risks with food shows. Foodistan, which goes on the air on January 23, is easily the most expensive food show any Englishlanguage TV channel has ever made. It is also – by a long way – the

THE AUSSIE VERSION OF MASTERCHEF HAS THE

GLOSS OF THE US AVATAR BUT IT LACKS THE AGGRESSION HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE

JANUARY 8, 2012

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PHOTO: CC/ BRIAN MINKOFF

GENTLEMEN JUDGES The British version of MasterChef with Chef John Torode (left) and a fat guy called, I think, Greg Wallace or something like that, was a civilised, well-mannered affair

PHOTO: REUTERS

IT’S HUGE! Foodistan, which goes on the air on January 23, is the most expensive food show any English-language Indian TV channel has ever made

most expensive show of any kind that NDTV Good Times has ever made. (My guess is that it is the most expensive English-language TV programme ever made in India.)

The idea is to move away from empowering enthusiastic amateurs and to focus on a battle between top professional chefs. (In that sense, it is more Top Chef or Iron Chef than MasterChef.) Plus the show has the irresistible power of an India-Pakistan conflict.

So you can see why Good Times felt confident enough to gamble crores on the show.

Also, it is produced by Siddhartha Basu, my very first producer (A Question of Answers in a prehistoric era when Star Plus ran English shows!), who knows how to make any show look like a million bucks on the screen – witness KBC and the other shows he has produced. So Foodistan is easily the best-looking food show ever made on Indian TV. (Better looking than MasterChef India certainly.)

My role in Foodistan is relatively modest.

It is an hour-long show and the chefs are the real stars. I am just one of the three judges (one Indian, one Pakistani and one representing the country that split India into two and created Pakistan) but we have the tough job of telling top chefs who have been cooking all their lives why we don’t like their food.

As was probably inevitable, the chefs didn’t really think much of us or of our opinions. NDTV Good Times shot various ‘reality’ segments with the contestants that the judges were not allowed to see.

But I gather that a lot of time went into dissing our judgments and telling the cameras what ignorant morons we really were. (Not the sort of thing that happens on MasterChef where the amateurs are always in awe of the judges.)

I won’t give away too much of what happens in the show because I don’t want to spoil your fun. The whole series is already shot so I know who wins but all of us, judges and chefs, have signed confidentiality agreements.

But I can tell you how frayed tempers got on the set. One of the less illustrious Indian chefs harangued the producers early in the competition because he thought the rules were unfair. (They weren’t.

He just wasn’t very good.) One Pakistani chef walked out halfway through because he felt that we did not fully appreciate the true flavours of Pakistan. (I won’t tell you who he is but as the show develops you will be able to tell which one of the chefs is most likely to storm off.) Another Pakistani chef won over the entire unit by singing Hindi film songs while he was cooking. One well-known and high-powered Indian chef cracked under pressure in the kitchen and more or less spontaneously combusted on camera.

But that’s all you’ll get out of me. I’m certainly not going to tell you whether an Indian or a Pakistani won the high-pressure final.

All I can say is that there was no match-fixing. (Or spot fixing for that matter.)

But if Foodistan is a hit (and of course I pray it will be a success because otherwise there will be no increments at NDTV Good Times for three years, given how much they have spent on the show), then it may serve notice to other channels – along with the success of MasterChef India – that food shows are the light programming of the 21st century.

NO HOSTILITY In India, Pop Idol/X Factor spin-offs and rip-offs rarely feature judges who are as rude as Simon Cowell

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It’s About To Change Everything!

The idiot box is getting idiot-proofed – not only will it look super slick, it will also do unimaginable things

techilicious

Rajiv Makhni

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ECHNOLOGY CATEGORY revolutions take place every few years. The PC went from a huge klunky dump on our table to a sleek and portable laptop machine we could carry with us and with that our lives changed forever. Phones morphed from being wired fixed-line albatrosses chained to our homes and offices to revolutionising every aspect of our daily lives! These were game changers – that literally transformed the world as we know it. Your humble television is about to go through a complete change too – and that change is going to change everything else around it.

THE ZAPPER GETS ZAPPED

The television has gone though many changes, yet the remote control has remained the same for the last 50 years. A bewildering array of buttons on a standard plasticky wand-like form factor. The reason is pretty obvious – there has been no compelling financial reason to change it. Nobody buys a TV based on its remote! At the shop you check out specs, screen, features and looks – never the remote.

Plus there hasn’t been a reason to innovate around MAGIC WAND the remote as TV functionLogitech Harmony 1100 is a touchscreen ality has remained very statremote control ic. From here – it all changes dramatically. Voice, Gesture and Touch will become huge. Siri on the iPhone has excited people a lot. Microsoft Kinect is a great example of body gesture control. And touchscreens have now become second nature. You’ll hold a remote to your mouth – speak into it and change a channel. You’ll wave your hands and control the volume and you’ll touch a screen that dynamically changes control buttons according to what you’re watching.

END OF PRIME TIME

This has been spoken about many times but it’s only now that it’s really happening. Real high speed broadband, video on demand right from your set top box, show downloads straight from the Net, mobile phones SIZE ZERO that can stream HD video instantly, Tablets that 2012 should give you a near TV experience and content that is now see the available when you want it, where you want it. Why release of the would you waste time hurrying back home to catch super thin your favourite show at a specific time on a specific day?

OLED TV That is so 2011! Lots of innovation is happening in this space too with shorter versions of shows called ‘appisodes’, fast packaging so that you can consume more in those five-minute breaks, different shoot formats and larger text and labelling to make sure you’re not squinting at your small little screen. Prime time broadcast – your end is near!

THROW OUT YOUR BRAND NEW 1080P HD TV

Well, don’t throw it out just yet –but it is on its way out. Yes, just when you saved up enough and bought your dream large screen TV with ‘full’ HD – here I am telling you exactly how redundant it is. And before you shoot the messenger – do remember I don’t invent the stuff – I just report it. Yes, the next big thing in TV technology is the 4K standard that has a mind-boggling resolution of 4096 x 2048. And it has a pretty mind bending name too – Ultra Definition TV. Just how much of a difference does this make? To put things in perspective – a normal DVD has just four per cent of the resolution this has, or if you really like your stats – 4K TVs will give you around 9,830,400 pixels – which makes the picture unreal in clarity and smoothness. 4K TVs and home theatre projectors are already SECOND SCREEN appearing and the tipping point will be Here’s another revolution in the when there is source content that is also making. A lot of people watch television 4K. Like I said, don’t throw your current with their smartphone or Tablet cradled state-of-the-art TV out – but do start lookin their lap. They use social networks to ing for burial space.

VIRTUALLY YOURS chat about what they’re watching, they Other innovations are around the Gesture control is your last chance to feel like Tom Cruise in fire up Google to get details of something corner. OLED TVs have been the dream Minority Report (above) they saw, they order food online and make the LCD/Plasma/LED trio after seeing a pizza commercial. literally pale in comparison. Till Thus you’re watching TV but today OLED production has been consuming it with two screens – tough and even the small ones cost but with your own efforts. That’s big. But 55 inch OLED TVs are now about to change to automated mode. Imagine an at prototype stage and 2012 should see app that ‘hears’ what you’re watching – analyses it commercial release. Naked eye no-glasses-needed and keeps throwing up relevant information on mul3D is almost perfected and this may well be the final tiple windows. It shows you what Facebook and momentum that 3D content needs. Also look out Twitter is saying about it, it opens up a fan page of for Google and Apple to make a bid for your TV the anchor, the restaurant that he is talking about, wall space with the perfect integration of the Net a travel agency booking page for the city he’s in, and TV. Don’t look now – your TV is changing – alternate TV shows that are similar, plus reams of and it’s going to change everything else around it. information and advertising that is cleanly focussed Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV and on what you’re watching. The second screen is about the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3. Follow to explode right beside your TV in 2012.

Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com/RajivMakhni

MICROSOFT KINECT IS A

TALK TO YOUR TV Siri is all set to jump out of your phone and into your TV

GREAT EXAMPLE OF BODY GESTURE CONTROL

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

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No Offence

The new, resurgent India is confident enough not to care about those who take pot-shots at her

spectator

Seema Goswami

TAKE IT EASY There was a relaxed attitude to Anil Kapoor’s minuscule role in MI – Ghost Protocol

CREATING A CONTROVERSY Jeremy Clarkson’s (right) special episode of Top Gear took pot-shots at India and its slum-dwellers

Y

INSENSITIVE PORTRAYAL Louis Malle’s (left) documentary was banned by the government of India in 1968

OU MAY not have noticed but apparently Jeremy Clarkson was in India a few months ago to shoot a special episode of Top Gear. The show aired recently and in keeping with the general tone of fatuous school-boy humour, laced with generous lashings of the casual racism our Jeremy is so brilliant at, it took a few pot-shots at India, its slum-dwellers, the general lack of sanitation, etc. etc.

So you had Jeremy driving around in a Jaguar fitted out with a toilet in the boot because as he described so elegantly on the show, “Everyone who comes to India gets the trots.” (That’s posh speak for what we call “getting the runs.”) In one memorable bit, Jeremy stripped down to his underpants to explain to his bemused Indian guests how to use a trouser press – because, of course, savages that we are, we couldn’t possibly know how to iron the creases out of our clothes. So far, so very predictable.

But what wasn’t so predictable was what followed. Nothing. Yes, I mean just that: nothing.

Nobody in India got their knickers in a twist (as Jeremy would no doubt have put it), none of the political parties held press conferences to vent about how India’s honour had been outraged, there were no processions by people upset at having their lack of indoor sanitation mocked at, and there were certainly no calls for BBC to be banned in India.

Sure, there was the odd article in the newspapers and the obligatory outraging on Twitter for a day.

And then, everybody forgot about Top Gear and that naughty Jeremy Clarkson and got on with their lives (with or without perfectly-pressed trousers). If anything, the episode got much more play in the British press – where the knives are always out for Jeremy – than it did in India.

So why did India not explode into rage at this insult to our great nation (the oldest civilisation in the world, now that you ask)? Why did nobody call for Jeremy’s head on a silver thali? Why were there no demands for the BBC to apologise? Or even calls to shut down the channel as punishment for Jeremy’s sins?

Was it just that Top Gear has no real traction in India? That nobody knew or cared very much who Jeremy Clarkson was – and thus couldn’t be bothered that his luxury car was fitted with a toilet in the boot?

Or was there something more to this? Could it possibly be that we in India have finally grown up? That we now have the confidence in ourselves to not care about what other people say about us – even if it is on international TV? Though there is probably some merit in the first position, I’m inclining towards the latter. Yes, Jeremy

Clarkson is hardly a household name in India, but that can’t be the entire story. In the past, we have displayed an incredible gift for getting annoyed/insulted/mortally offended for things that didn’t have the slightest bearing on our lives.

In 1968, French filmmaker Louis Malle visited India to make a sevenpart documentary series, L’Inde Fantome and a documentary film, Calcutta. Malle thought his was a sensitive, moving portrait of India; the government of India thought he was needlessly focussing on poverty and portraying the country in a negative manner. Malle’s documentaries were duly banned and it was several years before the BBC got permission to shoot in India again.

Around the same time, a Hollywood film called The Party – in which Peter Sellers plays a bumbling young Indian actor called Hrundi (yes, seriously!) V Bakshi, who mistakenly gets invited to a posh party and proceeds to trash it – was released. Instead of recognising it for the comedic cult film it would turn out to be, the Shiv Sena picketed the cinemas in which it was released and succeeded in getting it banned.

Contrast this with our much more relaxed attitude to the comedic turn that was Anil Kapoor’s minuscule role in Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Here too was an Indian character in a Hollywood movie being played for laughs (among Kapoor’s many cringe-worthy lines, this one is a classic: “Indian mens are hots”).

And no, we were not laughing along with him as much as laughing at him.

Did anybody in India mind? Not particularly. There were a few jokey comments about Kapoor in the newspaper and TV reviews, social media duly piped in with its two-bits, and that, pretty much, was that.

Kapoor may have played the Indian millionaire as a fool, working the teeny-tiny part for a few laughs, but we didn’t see any reason to treat it as an indictment of every Indian. We were mature enough, and rational enough, to see it for what it was: a comedy cameo in an international movie.

It is this relaxed attitude that has made films like Slumdog Millionaire possible now. There was a time when one scene alone – where the boy hero wades through excrement to reach his idol – would have been enough for various ‘nationalist’ groups in India to get their dhotis in a twist (no, dear Jeremy hasn’t said that yet, but give him time). But in the new, resurgent India, nobody complained about the title, about the portrayal of grinding poverty, or about the besmirching of the image of India.

We may not be like that only. But thankfully, we no longer care very much if you think so.

PETER SELLERS PLAYS A BUMBLING INDIAN ACTOR IN THE PARTY

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami

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Sanjoy Narayan

Unwittingly, the three albums I heard in the new year were all by English women singers. But they share much more than their gender and nationality

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E’RE ALMOST into the second week of the New Year but I’m still exploring a bunch of albums that came out last year, many of which I hadn’t had the time to listen to. Actually January is a good time to carry forward some of the music of the previous year because it is rare for too many new albums to be released during the first month of any year. People – everyone, from critics, bloggers, bands, record companies to fans – are too busy recovering from the holidays to do anything else.

So, here’s what I did for the past few days. I took three albums from the bunch that I didn’t quite get the time to listen to carefully and put them all into a playlist, sampling them whenever I could get time.

Unwittingly, the three albums I chose are all by women singers. And, as you’ll soon discover, they share much more than their gender.

English singer, songwriter and musician Polly Jean Harvey, 42, has many fans, including an unlikely one in one of my colleagues.

The man, whose work-station is adorned with posters of bands such as Nirvana and Rancid, and one of Jameson Irish Whiskey, has also stuck a picture of the petite PJ Harvey in a see-through pink top.

Harvey’s poster at his desk is at eyelevel when he sits at his laptop to whack out his rigorously researched, deeply commentative pieces, so I guess there is some kind of special place she occupies in his scheme of things.

Anyway, he and I have discussed Harvey’s music off and on, especially her 2009 collaboration with the guitarist John Parish on the album, A Woman A Man Walked By, which I initially found a difficult album to get into because of the range of emotions they covered but then became very fond of because of exactly that. On that album, Harvey and Parish treat us to songs that are so different from each other (do check out two: Black Hearted Love and Pig Will Not, for instance) that that itself makes it an appealing piece of work.

PJ Harvey has a voice that may belie what you see in that pinktopped poster that my colleague has pinned to his softboard: it’s angry and gravelly; her lyrics aren’t cooingly sweet and are often laced BEST OF BOTH WORLDS with deep, dark humour. There’s Kate Bush’s albums are often rawness about her music too, parclassified as ‘art rock’ ticularly the guitar, and all of that

BLACK VELVET PJ Harvey writes lyrics that aren’t cooingly sweet and are often laced with deep, dark humour

makes the entire PJ Harvey experience well worth it. After listening to her collaboration with Parish, I went back in time and explored many of Harvey’s older albums – Dry, Rid of Me, White Chalk, and so on. It’s not as if I became an instant fan but her music and her unsettling lyrics made me occasionally get into one or other of her albums.

So, last year, when Let England Shake came out, I went out and acquired it but heard it only in the first week of the New Year. It’s an album that is ostensibly meant to be love songs to one’s country but in reality turns out to be a subversive take on it – replete with ambiguity, Let England Shake is irony in melody, with songs that talk about loss and death and war. It’s an album that came out very early in 2011 and I’m a bit ashamed that I have heard it seriously only now. But it’s going to remain on my playlist for a while.

It’s just a coincidence that the second singer on my leftover-from2011 playlist is also English. But she’s also a legend. Kate Bush, 53, released 50 Words for Snow, a winter-themed album that is about abominable snowmen, snowflakes, ill-fated romance and more and it’s an album for solitary listening, preferably on a very chilly day.

Bush’s first album was released in THOUGHTFUL & THEATRICAL the late Seventies and her distincFlorence Welch fronts a London tive vocals – she has a very sensual band, Florence + the Machine yet versatile voice – and complex songs have led critics to classify her music as art rock. Indeed, 50 Words can seem like a shimmering work of art, ethereal, haunting, happy and sad.

Now I swear this is a coincidence because the third artist on my playlist is also from England and it’s a she again. Florence Welch fronts the London band Florence + the Machine, and their new album, Ceremonials, has been compared to Kate Bush’s music. But Welch has a style that blends pop and soul and art rock in the manner of other contemporaries with whom critics like to club her – Adele, Lily Allen and the late Amy Winehouse. But unlike the first two, I find Welch’s songs more literate and thoughtful and her music more theatrical. I’d heard the band’s 2009 album Lungs and liked it. Last year’s Ceremonials is even better.

So that’s it then. I began this year in the company of three women. Not too shabby a start that, is it?

IT IS RARE FOR TOO MANY NEW

ALBUMS TO BE RELEASED DURING THE FIRST MONTH OF ANY YEAR

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

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19

Travel

African jungles are famous for their wildlife. But what were veteran cricketers doing there? text and photos by Amrah Ashraf

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HEN LORD Byron wrote ‘There is pleasure in the pathless woods…’ the verse was just a bunch of words for me, but the moment I set foot in the wilderness of South Africa, I realised their true essence. The pleasure of being amidst the uninhibited beauty of the forest and the creatures that live within the deeps of it.

Of course, I wasn’t there to start a spiritual revolution within myself, nor was I tramping it Jack Kerouac style. I was there for more contemporary reasons. I had to cover a cricket match in the wild.

Yes, you read that right. A cricket match between Indian and South African veterans within the deeps of the African jungle. And who would be our spectators? Cheetahs and lions, of course!

In all my excitement I forgot one basic piece of information – I am petrified of flying and for a paranoid flyer, 9 hours from Dubai to Durban seem like a lifetime, each second ticking away like a death knell. Fingers crossed the entire way (I am not kidding), I decided to leave it to fate and surprisingly, fate did not turn its back on me. The moment I landed at the King Shaka International Airport at Durban, my paranoia mysteri-

ously transformed into a sudden burst of exuberance which caught even me off guard. Maybe it was the fresh air of Durban (which is now extinct in Mumbai) or the excitement of having survived the ordeal, but I was ready for the many adventures in store for me.

Now, cricket and South Africa go back a long way but the thought of playing it in the wilderness seemed a little bizarre.

Where on earth would they find a natural

CALL OF THE WILD

clearing and a playable cricket pitch?

How would they ward off the predators on the prowl? But our hosts and the event’s organisers, Jaideep and Nupur Sinh Parmar of Beyond Boundaries, ensured that everything went off smoothly. After all, Beyond Boundaries had managed to pull off a cricket match in the Swiss mountains a few years ago. So while we sat and soaked in our surroundings, they were always on their toes making sure that the game went off without a glitch.

CAST AWAY

A three-hour scenic drive from Durban international airport took us to Phinda Private Game Reserve which is located approximately 350 kilometres away. Yes, they drive really really fast. Former cricketer Sandeep Patil and his wife Geeta Patil, who were also travelling with us, looked rather nervous when the driver decided to do some impressive yet dangerous manoeuvers. But driving down the N2 highway with its neatly manicured landscapes, we witnessed the beauty of nature in all its glory.

Phinda Private Game Reserve Lesotho

SOUTH AFRICA

Durban

CAPE TOWN

CENTRE OF ATTENTION Main picture: The cheetah enjoyed being photographed. Insets: Nyala (top left), lion (middle), elephant (bottom)

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

Phinda Private Game Reserve, located in the middle of nowhere, is an ideal getaway for people looking to cut off from the world. But you need a lot of cash in your kitty to afford this secluded seven star wonder. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to dig into our depleting bank accounts; we were there on journalism duty. Which sometimes was hard to remember: the resort’s staff make sure that once you’re there, you disconnect from the world, cold turkey! Forget high speed wifi connections, there is no Internet at all (I heard loud gasps and sighs from guests and some even wanted to pack their bags and scoot). Thankfully, there is limited phone connectivity, just in case you come face-to-face with a leopard and need to make that one last phone call (this is a true story).

Being plucked out of maddening city life and put in a secluded mountain lodge overlooking the valley did come as a shock, but a pleasant one. Each room – designed aesthetically in African colours complete with a bar – was as comfortable as it was lavish. Things that caught my attention were the custom made toiletries and the open shower. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a warthog family chilling by our plunge pool. Now this is truly living it up in the wild.

FROZEN IN TIME These mighty mammals don’t like moving much

FACT FILE GETTING THERE : Fly Emirates from Mumbai or New Delhi to Dubai and take a connecting Emirates flight to Durban.

Once there, you can take a cab from the airport to Phinda Private Game Reserve.

Convert your currency to rands at Durban airport itself. The exchange rate becomes much higher in interior towns.

MUST DO: Do not miss the game rides for anything. They happen once in the morning and once in the evening. Make sure you slap on enough sun block because the sun is harsh. Also, spend your evening sitting by the pool and read a good book.

MUST SEE: Keep your eyes peeled and catch Africa’s Big Five – lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo and rhino. If you’re lucky you might see some lion cubs and white rhino as well.

INTO THE WILD

There are some things that are synonymous with South Africa – one of them being its untamed wildlife. Phinda Private Game Reserve with its magnificent tapestry of woodland, grassland, wetland and forest, interspersed with mountain ranges, river courses and marshes, is ideal for safaris. And a safari was what we were waiting for. We’d barely slept for four hours before we sprang up like excited kids for our safari at the crack of dawn. After all, the night before, we had heard stories from Kapil Dev about how they saw a leopard kill.

Even though we didn’t witness a leopard kill, we were lucky enough to spot a lion less than 10 yards from our open jeep. He sat there, majestically lazy, playing with his mane, squatting flies with his tail, stretching and looking away. Incredibly, even when he spotted us, he stared at us for a while and then unimpressed by what he saw, yawned and looked away. I don’t know about the others but my heart leapt to my throat when we were under his unblinking gaze.

Apart from the lion, we witnessed an angry elephant pulling down trees, leopards playing with each other, graceful nyalas, goofy looking giraffes, lazy zebras, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, and Africa vultures amongst other creatures. We even caught a glimpse of the shy suni antelope, a rare sight indeed. Surprisingly, just when we thought we were headed back to our lodge, our ranger Nicholas J Marr stopped the jeep in the middle of nowhere, and whipped out a couple of beers and Amarula. We sipped our drinks, munched on sun-dried beef and watched the sun go down. Bliss!

absolutely breathtaking – a natural clearing in the African bush and a cricket ground surrounded by a vast expanse of wilderness.

Both teams, led by Kapil Dev for India and Mike Proctor for South Africa, took to the ‘veld’ on a pitch usually inhabited by rhino, buffalo, cheetah, lion and the occasional herd of elephants, sporting black armbands in the memory of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. After all, it was Tiger who initiated the concept of conservation through sports.

Kapil Dev won the toss and elected to bat. What followed may not have been high-octane cricket, but it had its moments.

Fortunately the animals didn’t venture too close to fine leg or third man during the game. After a closely contested 12-over match, South Africa won the ‘World Cricket Legend in the Wild’ match with just one ball to spare.

GAME ON Cricketers busy doing what they do best (top); Graeme Pollock and Sharmila Tagore (below)

THE ANIMALS

DIDN'T VENTURE TOO CLOSE TO FINE LEG OR THIRD MAN DURING THE GAME

BUT WHERE’S TIGER?

The morning of the cricket match was different from other mornings. The Indian players, who were usually seen playfully chatting, reminiscing about the past, eating, drinking and making merry, came out in their jerseys with their game faces on.

While everyone was busy contemplating which side was stronger and who would win, I was still wondering where we would find a flat ground and a playable pitch. A quick drive through the jungle, I suddenly saw what looked

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

Imagine being driven in the thick of darkness to a clearing illuminated by fire and moonlight, with African music thumping through the woods. A surreal thought for some, a reality for us After our eyes adjusted to the light, we saw musicians dressed in African clothing playing traditional instruments. The moonlight shone on their bare chests and they thumped away while making animal sounds. Even the most tired cricketers couldn’t stop tapping their feet and swaying to the music.

Apart from the amazing music, the assortment of cuisine needs a special mention. How about beef sausages with red wine, honey glazed chicken in African spices paired with white wine and ostrich meat salami with beer? Great food, some would say, gastronomical heaven is how I would describe it. However, my vegetarian colleagues were left high and dry.

Most of them survived on fresh fruit, bread and rice. My suggestion to them – ditch vegetarianism for three days and experience heaven. Sadly, none complied.

Stomachs full, thirst quenched and high on experiences, the barbeque in the bush was definitely a night to remember.

Pure ecstasy, eh, Lord Byron?

GO FOR IT! MUST VISIT: The tribal market near Hluhluwe and nearby beaches.

MUST EAT: Sample ostrich meat. Make sure you gorge on beef sausages and honey glazed chicken. South African fruits are gigantic and a must try. Do not waste your money on vegetarian food.

MUST BUY: If you’re in the mood for extravagance, buy an ostrich egg from the souvenir store. Also pick up animal curios, African shields, masks, drums and other knick-knacks. Remember to bargain at the tribal market and carry rands – the local currency.

They don’t accept dollars.

FACE THE MUSIC African musicians playing traditional instruments

amrah.ashraf@hindustantimes.com

(The writer’s trip was sponsored by Beyond Boundaries)

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012

21

PHOTO:RAJ K RAJ

PERSONAL AGENDA

PERSONAL AGENDA

MADHURI DIXIT Sun sign

School/ college

Occupation First break Actress

Rajshri Productions’ film Abodh in 1984

High point of your life

Low point of your life

What are you doing currently? I am playing the role

When I started working in films

I don’t usually let anything get me down

Which character from Sholay do you most resemble and why?

Basanti for sure as when I was young, I used to be a complete chatterbox like her.

If you were given a chance to remake Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, the movie, what would you do?

I don’t think there is any scope or need to remake the movie. It was an iconic film.

The last line of your autobiography would read…

I haven’t given it a thought. I prefer to live in the present rather than think about the end.

How would you explain Twitter to your grandmother?

veggies.

What is the last thing you bought for under `10?

I bought candy for my son.

If a spaceship landed in your backyard, what would you do?

I would go out and say hello.

The most clichéd answer you’ve ever given in an interview?

“I will let you know when I sign a

film.”

Your most irrational fear…

...Cockroaches. I’m sure to scream and jump the moment I see one!

The one lie you got away with?

It is just like sending out a message into the universe that several people can see.

The one place where you would never get yourself tattooed?

Where did you spend your last summer?

One song that describes your current state of mind?

This song from my debut film Abodh, Ghani Ghani Amariya.

What would we find in your fridge right now?

In Colorado.

How many pairs of blue jeans do you have?

Eight.

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever given your husband?

My second son.

Paneer, juices, eggs and lots of

PHOTO: REUTERS

22

of a sutradhar on the newly launched GEC, Life OK

When I was in school, I would lie about going for dance practice all the time to be excused for not doing my homework.

Nowhere . I am not at all fond of tattoos.

JOHNNY DEPP’S HOUSE

Mumbai

May 15

Divine Child High School/Parle College, Mumbai

IF YOU COULD PEEP INTO ANYONE’S HOUSE, WHOSE HOUSE WOULD IT BE?

Hometown

Birthday

Taurus

THE MOST OVERRATED MOVIE/BOOK?

— Interviewed by Veenu Singh

IF YOU WERE AN ICECREAM, WHAT FLAVOUR WOULD YOU BE?

I FEEL IT’S THE MOVIE THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

I WOULD LOVE TO BE CHOCOLATE

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE JANUARY 8, 2012