Brunch 10 11 2013 by Hindustan Times

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 10, 2013 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

indulge

VIR SANGHVI

Acquire Ac a new taste

RAJIV RAJI MAKHNI

The Th Apple-Google wars

SEEMA SEEM GOSWAMI

A walk wa in the park

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

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Wishful Thinking Brunch Opinion

by Aasheesh Sharma

CLUB & CLASS

Getting access to the Paddock Club is a matter of a few lakhs. But getting inside the team paddock and meeting Formula One drivers is a money-can’t-buy experience. That’s why this week’s Brunch cover story, which promised me access to both, was special. Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One management and the Vienna-based hospitality group Do & Co go the extra yard to make guests feel special. But a greater high than copious quantities of Mumm champagne was getting to interact with Lewis Hamilton. Simply put, the former boyfriend of the one-time Pussycat Dolls singer and present-day X-Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger is F1’s equivalent of Eminem. The only Black F1 world champion didn’t turn coy when asked whether racism was an issue in racing. And Hamilton confessed he still listens to several of Nicole’s unrecorded songs on loop. Hugging the curves is second nature to him. And the racy lyrics of Jai Ho (the Nicole Scherzinger version, not the popular Rahman composition) are inspired by the racer. Whatever he does, he stays interesting. This is one lap Seb Vettel can’t beat him to.

The challenges of everyday life frequently make us wish that we had superpowers When we feel like Bizarro on Earth. Completely out of place and at odds with everything ‘nice’ and ‘normal’

by Shantanu Argal

On those tortured and boozy Sunday afternoons, when we think about loss, we channel the spirit of Batman

The writer at the Paddock Club terrace on race-day weekend

On The Brunch Radar

by Shreya Sethuraman

LOVE IT

■ Mithai overdose. There’s only so much of

■ Indian classical dance recitals. Odissi, Kathak, Bharatanatyam, it’s a

wonderful world to get transported to.

■ Downloading apps. Some remind you to drink eight glasses of water

and some goad you to submit your work within a deadline. Whoa! ■ Planning solo holidays. There’s nothing better than going for a homestay in the backwaters, catching fresh fish and making a meal of it! ■ Watching Tamil films. No, not the ridiculous dubbed ones. The originals. They’re lyrical and lovely. Watch them with subtitles, if you please. ■ Winter has officially arrived. Switch on the geyser, take out the quilts, and walk around in sexy boots and dishy jackets!

ghee that your body can take. ■ Backbiting. Don’t forget, Karma is a b***h and you never know when you’ll get bitten! ■ Managing multiple phone calls for stories. Your poor ears need some rest! ■ Dry elbows, dry skin, dry knees – the hazards of the dry weather are many! ■ When great ideas get stolen. It’s heartbreaking, but they say it’s the circle of life. Meh.

SHOVE IT

Rules of The Game

by Parul Khanna

REASONS THE (NOSE) RING IS HOT

And when innocent women and children are trafﬁcked, it’s difﬁcult not to want to imbibe the spirit of the Punisher

When politicians get away scot-free, we want to be an incarnation of V

(And we don’t mean the Jodha Akbar kind!)

1. Because if our Bollywood sundaris are endorsing it in the movies, we have the ultimate stamp of approval. Check out Deepika Padukone’s nose in Chennai Express and Ramleela. Also, Sonakshi Sinha’s nose ring in Lootera.

2. Piercing spells quirky. Too many piercings however, spell cuckoo! But nose piercings spell just enough quirk. It says you have layers to you. Like there’s something more to you than just pretty earrings. You get the drift?

Cover image: SHUTTERSTOCK Cover design: MONICA GUPTA

3. It’s managed to interest those across saat samundars – the nath is now international. The French Riviera (at Cannes 2013) was going ‘nose ring’, thanks to Vidya Balan’s appearance in one of her nun-like garments (designer Sabyasachi ensured every part of the actress’ voluptuous body was covered in traditional Indian fabrics), and the dependable Sonam Kapoor’s kundan-studded outing.

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

4. You could pass off as a traditional fashionista. 5. Men dig chicks with a ring (the tiny, delicate ones). Sure, it’s got a bit of eroticism to it. But a little kinkiness doesn’t hurt. Also, we hear many men have a nose fetish!

DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Swati Chakrabarti, Payal Dighe Karkhanis, Rakesh Kumar, Ajay Aggarwal

Drop us a line at: brunchletters@hindustantimes. com or to 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001

Rare moments of clarity, when our powers of deduction are at their best. The Chacha Chaudhary activate mode – jab dimaag computer se bhi tez chalta hai And when we’re super pissed off, we become Sabu Someand think of times we also jwalamukhis wish for the company of erupting on superheroes. The Power Girl Jupiter comes to mind

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WELLNESS

MIND BODY SOUL 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

1. Dear Doctor, in the last 6 months I have consumed 2 emergency contraceptive pills. My question is that will I be able to conceive normally in future or will have to undergo treatment? I am worried about my situation. Please guide me. Many people believe that by taking emergency contraceptive pills, the fertility gets affected in future. This is not true. Emergency contraceptive pills, when taken once in a while, are safe and have been proven not to have any long term effects. However, we must advise that you use regular contraceptive methods such as IUD, regular contraceptive pills or condoms, as a long term option. Emergency contraceptive pills, as the name suggests, must only be used only in case of emergency when your regular contraception has failed. 2. Dear doctor, I am married from the last 2 years and both my husband and I are 26 years old. We do not wish to have kids for at least another 3 years due to personal commitments. We always have intercourse without any protection and nothing happened to us until now. But this month my periods are delayed for 3 days. I always have a regular cycle. Please suggest me what I should do. If you are planning not to have kids for 3 years then not using contraception was very risky. Many women feel that they will not become pregnant if they avoid the fertile days of their cycle. However, this is not true and there are instances where

pregnancies have occurred during the so-called least fertile days. The prime reason for this is that at times there are some minor undetectable fluctuations in our body which result in an early or late ovulation. Hence, using proper family planning methods is absolutely necessary if you are not planning a baby. We suggest you wait until 10 days have passed from your expected period date. If your periods do not start by then, please conduct a pregnancy test to check if you have conceived and consult your gynaecologist for further advice. 3. Dear Doctor, what are the chances that an emergency contraceptive pill would fail? I had consumed one last month and this month my periods are delayed for over 8 days. I am really worried. Please tell me what I should do. The efficacy of an emergency contraceptive pill depends upon the time it was consumed after having unprotected sex. It is more than 95% effective when taken within 24 hours, 85% effective between 24- 48 hours and 58% effective if taken between 48 - 72 hours after unprotected sex. If you have consumed within the 72 hour time limit, then chances of p r e g n a n c y w o u l d b e l o w. However, it is better you wait for couple of more days for your periods and then conduct a pregnancy test in the case your period is delayed over 10 days from expected date.

SHIKHA SHARMA

NEED A POSTDIWALI DETOX? Binged on sweets and savouries this festive season? Feeling out of shape and bloated? Just detoxify your system. Here’s how

OST PEOPLE tend to overeat during Diwali and feel unhealthy after the festive high wears off. What your body needs is a thorough internal cleansing to feel fit again. Start with a ginger-honey decoction. Ginger has many healing and cleansing properties. It controls and subdues flatulence and cleans the liver as well. When you add honey, it makes ginger even more effective because honey is an efficient transporter of essential elements. To make this decoction, take a centimetre of ginger root Aloe vera juice is and crush it. Add also a powerful this to two glasses detoxifier. Take of water and bring two tablespoons of it to the boil. Reduce aloe vera juice, mix HEALING TOUCH to half. Add half a it with a cup of water Ginger controls and teaspoon of honey. and drink it twice a subdues flatulence and Remember, never boil day. Your body will cleans the liver honey or add it to thank you. boiling hot water, as it EAT RIGHT can become toxic. Always add The day you decide to detoxify honey to warm or lukewarm your body, do not consume any water. aerated drinks, fried foods or Another easy way to demilk products. Avoid chutneys, toxify your body is by drinking a ketchup and salty foods as well. glass of warm water with half a Eat lots of fresh fruit like lemon squeezed in it. Lime juice apples, oranges and papayas. is a great detoxifier. Just make You can end your day with a sure you don’t add salt or sugar. teaspoon of isabgol and wheat The next in line is triphala. bran. This will add fibre to your Just take half a teaspoon of diet and cleanse your intestriphala and add to lukewarm tines. Wheat bran and triphala water. Stir it well till it partially combine to provide soft and dissolves in the water. Pass the hard fibre, which is extremely decoction through a important when you detoxify. strainer and Detoxification is a must drink the after Diwali. Perform this ritual liquid. one a month and you can be assured of a happy, GET FRESH healthy body. Eat lots of fruit like oranges on the day you decide to detox your body

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:

ask@drshikha. com Photos: THINKSTOCK

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch NOVEMBER 10, 2013

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STYLE FILE

BRIGHT, SHINY, HAPPY MEN M Scared of a little colour? Be a man and slip into ultra brights this season. Dapper dressers and designers are on your side by Yashica Dutt

EN AND colour have always had a tricky relationship. The same pink, which now stands for the female breast- and cervicalcancer movement, and which has coloured the sickly-sweet dreams of girly girls around the world forever, was once a very manly colour. In fact, in the early 20th century, pink was the colour assigned to little boys, since it was a ‘more decided and stronger

colour’ and blue was for little girls, being ‘more delicate and dainty’. The fact is noted in various texts including Michael Kimmel’s Manhood in America: A Cultural History and America’s legendary women’s magazine, The Ladies Home Journal. But the tables have since turned and today most men wouldn’t want to be caught dead in something pink (expect for the fashionable ones, more power to

SHOCKING FUCHSIA

ur long-standing love affair with this particularly bright shade of pink is well documented. It’s been called the ‘navy blue of India’ (former Harper’s Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland said so because we love it almost as much as the West loves their navy blue). Indian royalty has always incorporated fuchsia in their outﬁts as accents – turbans, shawls and cummerbunds. The same colour rules can apply to modernday dressing too. But since strong colours can dominate a look and your personality if worn in excess, it’s best to restrict them to small doses. “This colour looks great as

stripes on shirts or as the inner lining for Nehru jackets and blazers, where only a part of it is visible,” says Gaurav Jagtiani, one half of the designer duo Gaurav & Ritika. “The lining can work for casual suits of neutral colours too.” Weddings and festivals are the best occasions to begin your experiments with this colour. Like freelance stylist Rin Jajo points out, “Velvet pink bandhgalas look regal. The texture of velvet absorbs the shock of the colour, it also makes you stand out among a sea of blacks and browns.” Gaurav also suggests wearing kurtas in the same colour – without matching pyjamas of course!

TAKE A HINT

Pink accents such as this bright watch from Fossil or the accents seen on Lakshaya Raj, son of the Maharana of Mewar (in pic), can be incorporated with ﬂair

you). But we urge you to do just that. Why? you ask, especially if most men around the world are slipping into steel-grey suits and solid brown jackets, thanks to The Great Gatsby, Mad Men revival of the sharply dressed man? Well, (a) because we are Indian and (b) it’s the season for celebration and parties. So here’s our extensive, colour-coded guide on how to tackle the trendy brights this season.

CANARY YELLOW

f you’re feeling rather bold (be our guest, but remember to bring along a devil-may-care attitude), then may we suggest the street-style staple and fashion blogger favourite – bright yellow pants? Though remember to always, always, always tone them down. Pair them only with breezy pastels, like light blue or neutrals like steel grey. But never with black. “Unless you want to look like a taxi, try beige shirts with yellow trousers,” says Dev of the Kolkata-based designer duo Dev r Nil. “You can even try tan or khaki with this shade.” In fact, designer Narendra Kumar goes to the extent of banning black with any of the brights we have mentioned. “It’s a very dated look, pairing red/ fuchsia, neon green or even white with black. That’s what old-school waiters used to look like. Your shoes should be in brown or tan (not black) to complement the brights.” However, if you want to be a tad safe, then Rin Jajo suggests a polo-neck T-shirt in canary yellow, while designer Varun Bahl advises

SUNSHINE MAN

Starting out with yellow? Polo shirts by Lacoste (below) are a classic choice. Wearing sunglasses in this bright shade (Vogue, above) will also let you be colourful in small doses

DON’T BE A TAXI WE LOVE OUR PINK

Indian men ﬁnd it easier to incorporate pink in traditional outﬁts because of our huge tradition of colour

Black shouldn’t be worn with yellow, unless you are trying to look like a cab. Black with other brights is also a very outdated look

Photos: GETTY IMAGES

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

Photo: THINKSTOCK

pairing canary yellow with white. “Wear a white shirt that has a yellow collar and yellow cuffs with pants in lighter shades of brown. Even plain blue jeans would do.”

STYLE FILE

NEON GREEN

his is one bright with a very bad name, mainly thanks to the neon see-through ganjis that ruled the streets, worn by men who clearly didn’t know better. But this tricky shade can be tackled, if one proceeds with caution. “It’s best to keep neon for plastic accessories,” says designer Gaurav Jagtiani. “Toy watches in this colour make a great accompaniment when you are attending a music festival or for an evening with friends. It works wonders as piping on blazers too, similar to the ones from Zara.” But neon can be deployed wonderfully to a neglected aspect

ELECTRIC BLUE

of dressing as well: active wear and gym wear. “Running shoes and laces already have accents of neon in them, but even T-shirts and shorts in this colour can look trendy,” says stylist Rin Jajo.

TAKE IT TO THE GYM

Neon green works nicely in active wear and is the go-to shade for sports shoes (above; Adidas) and shoelaces GET GREEN

Also experiment with gym accessories in this shade, otherwise considered frumpy in regular clothing

PURPLE

t’s essential to remember the rules of ratio and proportion while dabbling with all brights. Blue is already a popular colour in most men’s wardrobes, but electric blue requires careful handling. If you’re looking at a solid block of colour, like a shirt or trousers, steer clear of this shade. Instead, stick with something like cobalt blue, says designer Rahul Khanna. “You can also try the combination of a darker navy shirt worn with rust orange trousers,” he says. Electric blue is a colour that looks particularly charged in accessories, especially leather. “Marc Jacobs has a wallet in this colour that looks great,” says designer Gaurav Jagtiani. “Belts or a blue watch strap are very trendy, currently. As are pocket squares or cravats with a dark jacket.” Menswear designer Narendra Kumar offers the brilliant solution of wearing a monochromatic look of blue shades that comple-

ment each other. “Wear blue and teal or sky blue instead of pairing it with an equally strong colour like red.”

WORKS EITHER WAY

Electric blue is great as pocket squares (Karl Lagerfeld jacket, below) and works well in traditional options too (Ravi Bajaj lungi, right)

his shade, also a favourite of royalty, works with almost any Indian ensemble. Many designers, such as Manish Malhotra, have made it trendy with kurtas and Nehru jackets in jewel tones of purple. You can do that or, as Rin Jajo recommends, you can wear a purple T-shirt underneath a dark blazer and grey trousers. “Purple is one of the few colours which looks very chic in polka dots, especially when complemented against grey,” says Gaurav Jagtiani. “This combination can work as a tie or a whole shirt too.” Purple looks very good with most Indian skin tones, so a bright purple shirt could be paired very well with charcoal grey pants even in a regular setting,” says Jagtiani

HEY, GOOD LOOKING!

Purple goes very well with Indian skin tones. Wear it as a tie or Nehru jacket (Abraham & Thakore)

NOW YOU’LL NEVER GO WRONG WITH COLOUR ■ Never wear a colour just because it’s trendy. Try it on and see how it makes you feel and whether it matches your personality or not. Go ahead only if you are conﬁdent. ■ Restrict

the colour to just one area, either the top half or the bottom half. ■ When

wearing bright accessories, always wear neutral shades. Yashica.dutt@hindustantimes.com Follow @YashicaDutt on Twitter

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

■ If you are just starting out, take baby steps. Don’t wear a chunk of colour, but introduce tiny but noticeable accents ﬁrst. ■ Don’t

pair two strong colours together. Focus on one bright colour at a time.

COVER STORY

The most candid F1 driver on the grid, former world champion Lewis Hamilton on life, love, Senna and sensibilities by Aasheesh Sharma THERE’S A musician lurking inside Lewis Hamilton. Not dating former Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger any longer, the ﬁrst black F1 world champion shifted gears to tracks of another kind when he wrote love songs in a reported bid to win her back. Hamilton even cut some tracks at a Los Angeles recording studio. Sure, he is much better at pit stops than hip hop, but last week, Hamilton’s movie star looks and the interest in his personal life unleashed the kind of frenzy among Formula One fanatics at Greater Noida’s Buddh International Circuit, usually reserved for Bollywood stars and cricketers. Sitting in the pit area of the Mercedes AMG Petronas team at the 2013 Indian Grand Prix, after interacting with winners of Airtel’s ‘Join our crew contest’, Hamilton, 28, declared that India was one of his favourite venues in the world. What does he like the most about coming here? “The people. The weather is great and the track awesome. I haven’t really seen a lot of the country. But the people are always smiling and very down to earth. I love the way they fold their hands together and say

‘Namaste’. I love the warmth of the culture.” With Sebastian Vettel’s victory at the Indian Grand Prix and coronation as World Champion, Hamilton didn’t live up to expectations of a podium ﬁnish. Wasn’t old ﬂame Nicole’s version of Jai Ho, inspired by him, meant to motivate Hamilton to victory at Greater Noida? “That was cool. When Nicole wrote that and she was performing Jai Ho and pointed me out in the audience. But I also like coming here since I love Indian food. Growing up, when I hadn’t even imagined coming to the country, my family used to have Indian takeaway on a weekly basis. It’s funny, but when we were actually watching Grand Prix on the weekend, the only food we would have was canned Indian delicacies. And after every race here, I look forward to having a good curry.” Now before you dismiss Hamilton as just another curry Westerner, let’s get a few facts clear about the F1 champ rightaway. Racing legend Niki Lauda, on whose rivalry with James Hunt

He’s Got A Fast Car: Know The Champ

In the 2013 Formula One standings, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, 28, is currently fourth behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen. His best years were during his debut season in 2007 and 2008, when at only 23, he became the youngest world champion in F1 history. His record was broken by current champion Vettel in 2010. NOVEMBER 10, 2013

Photo: VIPIN KUMAR

COVER STORY Ron Howard’s biographical sports drama Rush is based, described Hamilton’s victory at 2013’s Hungarian Grand Prix as the best ever he had seen. In 2008, before F1 settled into the predictable good-Vettel-best routine, Hamilton became the youngest Formula One champion in history. Suddenly, at the age of 23, the Briton’s emotions hurtled from dismay to delirium. Hamilton says that looking back, in case he became world champion again, he’d relish it more than the first time. “When I first won the world championship, I did not enjoy it as much. The previous year I had lost and the next year I had it. And then I didn’t and then I did. By that time, my emotions were destroyed. And then I won, with so many cameras around, it wasn’t so much fun.” At that time, Hamilton did not realise the import of being the youngest Formula One champion in the universe. “I didn’t care that it came at a young age. I was proud to have finally realised my dream. Just to get to F1 was an incredible achievement for my family and me. After some weeks, it really started kicking in and then it was nicer.”

crash, albeit on the race track. “I would feel really honoured if I am mentioned in the same sentence that Senna’s name is mentioned. He was a legend. You hope that you win championships and one day you can look back and people say you are a legend. You never know if such a thing ever happens, but I am working towards it. It is not just about winning. It is also about winning the love of fans who’ve helped you along,” he says. Is it true that as a teenager growing up in England, young Lewis was fascinated by Senna’s personality? “Yeah, I mean, I was more fascinated with girls. But I admired Senna as a driver. I loved his style, his charisma and the fact that he was massively into reading. I loved reading books about Senna, watching his videos and taking notes. Watching his videos

is like reading a book. He was an aggressive driver and he influenced me in a huge manner.” For the uninitiated, Ayrton Senna’s biggest rival on the Formula One race track was Alain ‘The Professor’ Prost, the French champion whose scholarly approach towards the sport was in contrast to the Brazilian’s flamboyant, tearaway penchant for burning rubber on the track. Hamilton says Greater Noida’s Buddh International venue is a great circuit to drive on. “When I first came here, it had just been completed. Sometimes I feel we should open it to the people. In India, people know a little about F1 but don’t know enough. The entire perspective changes if you go to one race. If it was my track, I would open up the gates and get as many people as possible. I re-

ally like the Buddh International Circuit since it has good opportunities to overtake.” You read right, Hamilton loves to overtake. That’s how he emerged triumphant at the Hungarian Grand Prix earlier this year. That would make him ‘apna banda’ with most Delhi drivers who fancy themselves as Vettel’s long-lost cousins. “I like overtaking, yeah. I like it when carefully calculated situations come true.” So, here is another Formula One champion who gets a kick out of routine manoeuvres. Which part of F1 racing does Hamilton enjoy the most? “Everything. In the garage when they stuff the car up. When the engineers take the tires off the blanket. I love the sound, the noise, upshift, gears. No one can ever see it, but when I ﬁrst pull away, I have the biggest grin on my face.”

In 2008, Hamilton shifted base from England and now lives in Monaco. He likes the idea of living by the sea and taking his dogs for a walk. “Monaco is a beautiful place. You can do water sports like ride a jet ski and do the kind of stuff that I love to do. You can do that by the lake. That was really the reason I wanted to go. But also I know people there. Nico [Rosberg, his Mercedes teammate] stays in my building. Eddie Jordan is in my building, Mika Hakkinen and all those people. So, I am not so lonely out there,” he says.

In 1993, as an eight-year-old, Hamilton began karting at the Rye House Kart Circuit in Hertfordshire, UK. By the age of 10, he was British champion and after collecting his award, he famously approached McLaren team boss Ron Dennis and told him: “I will race for you one day.” Dennis reportedly wrote in the young Lewis’s autograph book that he should call him after nine years. Less than three years later, he had signed Hamilton up for the McLaren Mercedes Young Driver Support Programme. “I came home from school and dad said Ron’s ofﬁce had called and they wanted me to test. I just went upstairs to do my homework. And then, during the entire process of studying with them, I realised what a huge opportunity it was to begin living my dream.” In 2008, Hamilton went on to become world champion in his second year on the circuit and subsequently, after a long association with McLaren, went on to race for Mercedes. During his golden run, he drew comparisons with cult racing icon Ayrton Senna, a James Dean-like glam ﬁgure, who, like Dean, died young in a car

Niki Lauda called Hamilton’s victory at the Hungarian GP the best ever

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

The tag of being the ﬁrst black world champion appears to sit lightly on Hamilton. After all, wasn’t he the victim of racial abuse in Barcelona in 2008, an incident that threatened to snowball into a diplomatic row? How does he respond to detractors who say being the ﬁrst non-white world champion is no big deal? “I am a little bit surprised when they say race has nothing to do with the sport. Formula One is a whitedominated sport. You haven’t seen any black athletes till now, have you? I mean there have been a couple of Indians who have come and broken that barrier, and now in every sport throughout the world, that’s how it has been. Tiger [Woods] came in and broke that barrier and now you have people from different cultures who are getting into golf, and the same is the case with karting and racing; and that is great I think.”

COVER STORY

Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

In India, too, home-bred racers such as Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok struggled to ﬁnd international backers for years. Is it tougher for a non-white driver to break through the Formula One barrier? “I think it was deﬁnitely the case. My dad used to go and meet potential sponsors when I was younger and ask whether they would like to back a non-white driver and they used to laugh at him. Now that attitude has changed. I hope there will be many more non-white drivers on the grid now, including those from India.”

Hamilton likes the idea of blending anonymously with the crowd when he travels to the United States. On certain days, does he feel the public obsession with the private lives of celebrities is a little too much? “It isn’t more than any other athlete or movie star. But if you are in London, there are cameras everywhere. Sometimes it is horrible. You want to walk the nicer streets of London, but it is not possible. But the United States is like the best of both worlds. Even here in India, I can walk around and not get mobbed.” Although he has shifted base from the UK, Silverstone remains his favourite Grand Prix venue. “Winning the home GP in 2008 was

special. That is why it was particularly disappointing in 2013. I have great fans in the UK and I started in pole position. While turning away on the eighth lap, the tyre burst at 200 kph. So, it was really disappointing,” he says. Formula One has come a long way in improving driver safety, says Hamilton. But you cannot still rule out mishaps on the track. “When you are out there and you have a head-on collision at 180mph, it is really terrible. You are likely to damage something. Fortunately we haven’t had those big, big crashes for some time since Montreal in 2008. But the biggest risk in these Formula One cars is concussion and fortunately, no one has had it for some time,” he says. Hamilton’s childhood hero Senna died in a horriﬁc car crash while racing in Italy in 1994. Does the thought of death cross his mind? “No, I mean really. [There are] two good ways to go. One is doing something you love, that is racing, and the other would be in bed with your wife,” he says and lets out a cackle. The gruelling nature of Formula One puts enormous demands on a driver’s body. Exposure to G forces and temperatures can make race drivers lose up to 5kg in a race. As they zoom out of corners, they experience tremendous G

Hamilton signs autographs at the Buddh International Circuit in Noida NOVEMBER 10, 2013

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Hamilton still listens to songs by Nicole Scherzinger (right)

forces that exert pressure on their neck muscles, says Hamilton. “The neck takes a lot of brunt, particularly when you take a break over winter and come back. To strengthen my neck muscles, I wear a helmet with a few kilos of weights on top. What I do is sit on the edge of the bed or a bench just holding my neck up,” he reveals.

Lewis Hamilton’s website and Facebook page are teeming with dog photos. “I love all animals, not just dogs, but I am allergic to horses. I wish I could buy a horse but I can’t. Since I was born, I’ve always had a dog. My mom has four, my dad has one. At the moment I have two British bulldogs: Roscoe and Coco. They are the best things in my life,” he says. “If I was fortunate enough to win this weekend, I would dedicate it to my dogs,” he had said before the race. Really? After a ﬁve-year-long courtship made in tabloid heaven with onetime Pussycat Dolls lead vocalist Nicole Scherzinger, Hamilton says his relationship status is back to being ‘single’. Lewis and Nicole were believed to have been discussing marriage just before the break-up, but reportedly went their separate ways because of clashing work schedules that made it tough to see

each other. Still, it seems, he keeps her memories close to his heart. “I have loads of songs of Nicole’s that have never been released on my phone. I listen to them on shuffle. She has even recorded a song for me. Now and then it pops up and reminds me of those times.” Apart from songs by his former girlfriend, Hamilton has a few other favourites. “I listen to Drake, a lot of Bob Marley, Frank Ocean, Rick Ross, Tupac Shakur and Frank Sinatra. A lot of stuff that I listen to would be R&B or hip hop,” he says. Even the body art Hamilton flaunts – tattoos he’s got done in Los Angeles and Hong Kong – are an extension of his love for music. Lewis’ tattoos include a crucifix; the words Still I Rise (the title of a 1978 poem by Maya Angelou that inspired his favourite rap artist Tupac Shakur); Michelangelo’s Pietà, and, not surprisingly, musical notes on his right wrist. At one point, says Hamilton, owing to endorsement commitments, he was trapped into wearing Hugo Boss suits. “So I really worked hard to get the best ones they had. Given a choice, I’d be in track suit bottoms and a hoodie,” he says with a grin. F1’s own Eminem, did someone say? aasheesh.sharma@hindustantimes.com Follow @aasheesh74 on Twitter.

Now that the dust has settled on the Indian GP, we get you a behind-thescenes report from F1’s most exclusive party zone

Photo: AASHEESH SHARMA

COVER STORY

by Aasheesh Sharma THE ‘ICEMAN’ melted. “Can I keep it?” Kimi Raikkonen asked me, referring to a magazine with him on the cover. This was the most animated F1’s bad boy got during our rendezvous at the Lotus pit walk, facilitated by Unilever, at the Airtel Indian GP. The Finnish champ, known for his monosyllabic responses and bordering-on-boorish behaviour towards the press, acquiesced to a one-on-one since it was a privilege reserved for members of the paddock club. The F1 paddock club is a hallowed zone indeed. It is where business honchos, politicians and celebs behave like star-struck fans, as they get to live their fantasy of getting up, close and ‘selﬁe’ with their favourite F1 speed demons. Ask Pushkar Chauhan. The 39-year-old senior manager with a leading bank says he loved chilling with Marussia F1 team driver Max Chilton. “I actually got to discuss race strategy with an F1 driver!” he exclaims.

To most of the world, the Paddock Club is that rareﬁed, uber-cool precinct, where, for slightly less than 5,500 dollars for a weekend ticket, guests are plied with the best food money can buy, as well as copious amounts of GH Mumm champagne. Wearing the club pass around your neck, which makes the turnstiles open with a beep, gives you a power rush like no other. The Club is a zone where the money-can-buy and money-can’tbuy racing experiences co-exist, says F1 racer Karun Chandhok. “Within the F1 inner circle, there are two clearly delineated spaces.

Guests watch Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull on a giant screen at the Global Partner lounge of the Paddock Club (above); a sponsor’s table at the Club Suite Photo: SATBIR SINGH

The paddock is where the teams are based, where you can only get in if you are invited. But anybody with money can go on the Internet and buy a pass to the paddock club,” adds Chandok. For lovers of motorsport, this is where they get to be one of the boys. Consider self-proclaimed petrolhead Gautam Singhania. A regular face at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, the Raymond Limited chairman can be seen driving around the Buddh International Circuit in his customised Ferrari 458 Italia off-season. “I use the club not just for meetings, but to interact with the drivers,” says Singhania. Keeping up with the demands of high-proﬁle clients, marketing wizards leverage their brands by

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

creating ‘experiences’. “It could be as simple as helping them listen to a radio conversation between a driver and engineers,” says Olivier Gillet, head of marketing, Renault Sport F1. The ambience provides a great backdrop for networking, while experiencing the thrill of races from a vantage point and interactions with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team drivers, says Diageo India marketing director Bhavesh Somaya.

According to Petra Gold, head of marketing, DO & CO, the Viennabased company that handled the catering at the Indian Grand Prix, between 180 litres and 2,000 litres of champagne are consumed over a typical F1 weekend. “At the

Indian Grand Prix this year, we served 4,500 guests,” she says. The menu on qualifying and race days at the Buddh International Circuit included grilled prawn salad or a salmon and pineapple tartare for starters; there was rack of spring lamb, wild salmon and red snapper for the main courses (with vegetarian options of mushroom linguine and penne thrown in). To tickle the desi palate, there was black pepper Chettinad chicken and biryani.

Over three years, the Indian GP has acquired a cache with the well-heeled. It is not uncommon to hear people discussing the merits of yachts they’ve bought, or who stays on the higher floor in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. One can spot Force India Team principal Dr Vijay Mallya walk in with ‘Saharasri’ Subrata Roy and bump into HRD minister Shashi Tharoor and his wife Sunanda on the terrace. But more than anything else, the club has become a great place for teams to find sponsors, says Chandok. Till the mid-2000s, teams were funded by either tobacco or car makers. But the days of big business putting up millions just for stickers on cars are gone. Now, potential sponsors are convinced about shelling out a few billions for a vacant F1 berth at the Club, says Satbir Singh, chief creative officer of advertising firm Havas Worldwide India. “It signifies performance and high living,” he adds. – With inputs by Veenu Singh

WELLNESS

hindustantimes.com/brunch Photos: IMAGESBAZAAR, THINKSTOCK

The Safe Zone

Being diagnosed with diabetes isn’t the end of the world. These foods are just as delicious as they are safe by Kavita Devgan

HETHER YOU’RE diabetic or prediabetic, healthy eating means more than just avoiding sugar. Revamp your grocery list to include more of these foods and managing sugar will feel less bitter.

WONDERFUL WALNUTS

Not just great brain food but a good friend of diabetics too. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that those who eat walnuts show greater reduction in fasting

Olive oil stops plaque from depositing on the walls of your arteries

insulin levels. “The polyunsaturated fats in walnuts help lower ‘bad’ cholesterol and raise levels of HDL (good cholesterol),” states Dr AK Jhingan, chairman, Delhi Diabetes Research Centre, New Delhi. Include 30gm of walnuts in your daily diet.

AMAZING ALMONDS

“Almonds stabilise blood sugar levels,” says Dr Richa Chaturvedi, diabetic endocrinologist, PSRI

EATING RIGHT Eat small meals frequently, say

after every 2-3 hours. Include fibre in your diet like salads and green vegetables. If you eat a lot of rice, ensure that you supplement your diet with fibre. Use healthier cooking methods like broiling, baking, grilling and roasting. Avoid fried foods. Avoid excess use of artificial

Hospital, Delhi. They are a low Glycemic Index (GI) food so they keep a check on after-meal spikes in insulin. Foods with low GI are absorbed slower. Almonds are also loaded with ‘good’ fats that help reduce insulin resistance and make blood sugar easier to control. Munch on 5-6 almonds daily.

sweeteners as they can cause headaches, lack of sleep and pain in abdomen. Choose lean protein sources like chicken without skin, ﬁsh, low-fat dairy, legumes and sprouts. – Dr Richa Chaturvedi and Dr AK Jhingan

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

SAY YES TO APPLES

Apples are beneﬁcial for diabetics. “Its phytochemicals, particularly the ﬂavonoid quercetin, helps mop up free radicals, which can lead to elevated blood sugar levels,” points out nutritionist Neelanjana Singh of Heinz Nutri Life Clinic, Delhi. Apples also delay diabetes-related damage to eyes, kidneys and nerves.

BROWN SUPREMACY

“Foods with GI lower than 55 are good for diabetics. Brown rice has a GI of 49.8. It helps increase insulin sensitivity, and reduces hunger,” explains Ritika Samaddar, chief nutritionist, Max Hospital, Saket, Delhi.

GO FOR OATS

“Eat oats early in the morning to keep blood sugar levels under control for the rest of the day. In addition, oats offer satiety for

SNACK SMART It is important to snack smart. A snack is a bridge between meals; it helps to take the edge of hunger and also helps keep dangerous starvation at bay. These foods make for healthy snacks, regardless of your blood sugar level: Fruits like apples, guavas, pears, oranges or 10-12 small pieces of ripe papaya. Roasted chana. Marie biscuits with green tea. Mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds). Idlis (fermented food is good) with light mint chutney. Brown bread sandwich with cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce. Sweet potato chaat sprinkled with lots of spices and lemon juice. Pan-fried sprouts tikki (made with kala chana sprouts and besan). Spicy popcorn without any butter. – Neelanjana Singh and Dr Richa Chaturvedi

several hours and are perfect to control weight,” says Dr Chaturvedi.

OIL FOR HEALTH

“Replace saturated fat with sources of mono unsaturated fats (MUFA) as it helps cut insulin resistance,” states Dr Jhingan. “Olive oil is a good choice as it also stops heart-threatening plaque from depositing on artery walls. It helps cut the heart disease risk tremendously,” he adds.

WHOLE BENEFIT

Don’t abandon carbohydrates; just choose the right kind and portion. “Going whole is the right way to go. Whole grains contain all three parts of the grain (bran, germ and endosperm), making them more complex to break down,” says Singh. “That is why wholegrain pasta is an excellent choice for a diabetic. Just keep portions small.” brunchletters@hindustantimes.com

MORE ON THE WEB To read our other health stories, log on to hindustantimes. com/brunch

WELLNESS

Photos: THINKSTOCK

DON’T BECOME A SUGAR ADDICT!

Johnny, Johnny! Yes, papa Eating sugar? No, papa Telling lies? No, papa Open your mouth! Ha! Ha! Ha!

1. Be aware of your cravings. “When you crave sugar, don’t just run to get it. Stop and think why you need it: because you are depressed and unhappy? Bored? Hungry? Sugar creates that happy feeling in your brain, and you could be craving sugar for a number of reasons,” says Dr Sehgal.

HAT WAS when you were just a baby. And since then, the sugar fetish has just grown, hasn’t it? So what is it now? Chocolates, brownies, gulab jamuns and rasmalais? Or several cups of tea and coffee with lots of white sugar? Or perhaps just two glasses of fresh fruit juice? Or just breads, pastas and other everyday regulars... Many of us indulge our sweet tooth often, if not every day. And of course it makes us happy. But the truth is pretty bitter. Dr Rekha Sharma, president, Indian Dietetic Association, claims there’s no need for extra sugar in anyone’s diet. “The truth is that we can survive on a sugar-free diet because all the sugar that our bodies need is present in the carbs and the natural sweets we eat every day,” says Dr Sharma. But what about our energy requirements? After all, doesn’t the body need glucose to keep running at its energetic best? “Sure it does. And that’s where good sugar and bad sugar or natural and added sugar, enter the picture,” explains Sharma. “The problem is that we love sweets too much and end up stuffing ourselves with bad sugar.” Experts say that the three essentials to our diet – sugar, starch and fibre – are all basically sugar. During digestion, complex sugars such as starch and fibre take longer to digest and enter the bloodstream, but the simple sugars gain quick access, cause a spike in blood sugar, and have harmful effects (such as weight gain and liver problems), if taken in excess. While doctors claim that all bad sugar is simple sugar (such as your white table sugar), they clarify that not all simple sugar is bad (sugar

2. Do you feel low without sugar? Try dark chocolate or fruit instead. Lay your hands on alternatives that aren’t as bad for you or don’t get your blood glucose to spike.

My Sweet Tooth

Can’t do without sweets? Maybe it’s time to stop giving in to your sugar craving by Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi present in fruits and vegetables, for example). “It actually depends on the source. Most naturally found simple sugars are not bad. However, added sugar can create havoc in the system,” says Dr Mahindra Sehgal, senior diabetologist in Mumbai. So what are natural sugars?

of sugar is added to foods during processing, cooking or at the table, the calories consumed are without any nutrients or ﬁbre. This added sugar is bad sugar.” An excess of bad sugar over time can lead to sugar addiction, say experts.

NATURAL v/s ADDED

“Well, it may not be as bad as drug addiction, but in the long run it can have adverse effects on one’s health,” says Dr Sharma. Dr Sehgal agrees. He says that we are genetically not designed to consume the amount of sugar that we currently eat. “And this excess sugar is what gives us that ‘happy feeling’ or as we call it, sugar rush,” he says. Experts insist that the average intake of sugar should not be more

Natural sugar in whole foods like fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and whole grains is simple and good sugar. These foods also contain vitamins, minerals, protein, phytochemicals and fibre.“The presence of fibre in any food item makes a significant difference as it slows down the absorption of sugar, which in turn moderates the impact on blood sugar,” says Dr Sehgal. “However, when any type

SUGAR ADDICTION

These foods are naturally sweet...

NATURAL SIMPLE SUGARS

3. Scale it down, slowly. It doesn’t matter if you take a long time to kick the sugar habit. “If you are thinking about sugar, get up and do something; distract your brain in another direction (other than the sugar you are craving),” says Dr Sharma.

Apples Crunching on one before bedtime or during mild activity will keep your blood sugar from dropping. Banana This on-the-go fruit is a good source of ﬁbre, potassium and vitamin C. Also, it has a medium range on the glycemic index. Pineapple A small serving of juicy pineapple packs a lot of sugar in small amounts. Go for it when you crave

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

something sweet. Prunes This chewy snack gets its ‘super fruit’ nickname because it’s a great source of antioxidants as well as potassium. Carrots Boiled or fresh, carrots pack in a lot of good sugar. Beetroot Easy to prepare, beetroot is sweet and very healthy. Helps maintain your blood sugar levels.

4. Exercise! Sugar raises serotonin and dopamine levels, which satisfy cravings, say experts. Exercise does the same thing! Try exercising when you have sugar cravings… get that rush safely. 5. Have it close to your workout. “There is a better chance of burning carbs as energy if consumed close to your workout sessions and have it stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver rather than as fat!” says Dr Sharma

than 10 per cent of our daily calorie consumption. “Anything above this is unnecessary,” he adds. Doctors say one should consume natural sugar as far as possible. “Trade brown for white, whole fruits for juices, stop adding sugar to tea or coffee and of course stop bingeing on cakes, pastries or sweets,” says Dr Sharma. “Have one if you wish, but then turn away. If you want more than one, bite into sweets made with fructose or natural fruit sweeteners.” tavishi.rastogi@hindustantimes.com

...and so are these Yoghurt The healthy beneﬁts of this calcium and probiotic-rich food make it a good source of sugar. Whole wheat breads Carbohydrates play an active role in balancing blood sugar levels. Opt for stone-ground whole wheat bread over the moreprocessed ﬁne-ground

wheat or white bread. “Roti, paratha, pasta all get converted into sugar and fulﬁl the body’s sweet need,” says Dr Sehgal. Dark chocolate With cocoa content above 70 per cent, you still get to feed your sweet tooth. But the sugar content is minimal as compared to milk chocolate.

indulge

Photos: THINKSTOCK

PRIVATE MOMENT Lovers position themselves strategically behind bushes or tree trunks looking to create a moment of intimacy for themselves

A WALK IN THE PARK Seema Goswami

spectator Sometimes, that’s the best way to see what life is all about…

OMETIMES LIFE is just a walk in park. And sometimes a walk in the park can show you what life is all about. I came to this realisation late because until recently I would always walk with an iPod clipped to my pocket, its loud music drowning out every thought, blanking out the rest of the world. But one day, entirely by accident, I left my iPod behind and had to make do with listening to birdsong instead, and taking in the life that was unfolding around me. And you know what? It was a darn sight better entertainment than the loud rock and cheesy pop that I had been listening to until then. The ﬁrst thing I noticed were the many different species of walkers that exist in this world. Those most in evidence, of course, were the speedsters who sped past the dawdlers on the jogging track, looking faintly exasperated at the existence of such laggards in the world. They wore top-to-toe Lycra to indicate just how seriously they take their running. There was a pedometer in place to record their daily achievements as well. And of course, a lot of sweat, which they sprinkled liberally on those they powered past, almost as if it were fairy dust. Charming! Then, there were the rest: ofﬁce workers who had stopped by after a quick change of shoes to put in their mandatory 45 minutes of exercise; young mothers pushing prams and enjoying the respite from being stuck at home with the baby; middle-aged ladies in salwar kameezes who seemed to regard gossiping as another aerobic exercise. There were the budding sports stars who get their heart rate up with a bit of jogging and then contort themselves into all sorts of impossible positions on the grass, all in the name of toning up; young children who have the good sense to eschew a brisk walk for a spot of volleyball, cricket, football, or even hide and seek; old white-haired gentlemen who end each perambulation by settling down on the park benches to reminisce about the old days.

But what I enjoyed most, as I veered off the jogging track to ramble aimlessly around the park, were those vignettes of urban life that exist all around us if only we ever bother to look. There’s the old grandmother, recovering from an injury perhaps, dragging herself along on a walker. She’s accompanied by a young maid, who keeps a wary eye on her, just in case she were to take another spill. The two of them walk along in silence, together and yet apart. The image tells the story of a family, doesn’t it? The high-achieving couple who are too busy to supervise the rehabilitation of an ageing parent themselves. So, they outsource it to paid staff, telling themselves that it is all for the best. The ageing parent who knows that her kids are doing their bit to look after her, but is beset by loneliness nonetheless. And then, there’s the other story; of the other family. Of the maid, who has left her own parents behind in some village in Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh, to come to the big city and look after strangers, in exchange for a small wage, regular meals and a roof over her head. Oblivious to all this human drama being played out around them are the assorted pairs of young lovers, looking to create a moment of intimacy for themselves in the most public of places. They position themselves strategically behind bushes or tree trunks, turn their backs on the watching world, and whisper sweet nothings to one another. The bolder among them go a bit further, until their furtive gropings attract the unwelcome attention of passers-by. One couple doesn’t seem to care who’s watching, though. They sprawl on the dewy grass, the man resting his head on the woman’s lap. Her hair brushes his cheek as she leans forward to say something to him. They giggle, dissolving into one another. And for that moment, the park – indeed, the world – ceases to exist for them. Young love. And then, their little bubble is shattered as a terrifyingly large Labrador comes crashing down upon them, his owner in hot pursuit. The woman screams, the man starts shouting at the dog owner for letting his pet off his leash. And in the time-honoured tradition of all dog owners, the Labrador’s master announces loftily that they have nothing to fear from the animal; he’s harmless, yes, he really is. What is it with dog owners anyway? Why don’t they realise that while they may regard their pets as overgrown babies, they seem like large, dangerous creatures to the rest of us? I walk on briskly, trying to put as much distance between me and the frisky Labrador as I can. And as I amble to the exit, I am kept entertained by the snatches of conversation that waft past me. The two young ladies out on a power walk, weights attached to their ankles and wrists, fantasising about the ﬁrst ‘carb’ they would eat once they hit their target weight. A couple in their 70s (he with a walking stick, she with a knee brace) gently bickering about what to get their grandkids for Diwali. A harried woman in her 40s barking instructions to her ofﬁce about some papers that must be mailed tonight. You know what, I think I’ll leave the headphones off the next time as well. Much more fun, this way.

What I enjoyed the most were the vignettes of urban life that exist all around us

ON THE LEASH PLEASE Why don’t dog owners realise that while they may regard their pets as overgrown babies, they seem like large, dangerous creatures to the rest of us? 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

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

indulge

Photos: THINKSTOCK

ALL IN GOOD TASTE

After centuries, we have broken with the eating habits of our ancestors and embraced the ﬁfth basic taste. Now, it is our subliminal discovery of umami that’s getting the Indian palate going Vir Sanghvi

rude food W

MEAT OF THE MATTER

To understand what a shot of umami ﬂavour feels like, think of a large spoonful of consommé that ﬁlls your mouth with a taste that can only be described as meaty

HY DO INDIANS like a certain kind of Chinese food? Why do we prefer Italian food to French? One answer is that we like cuisines that are carbohydrate-heavy. When we order a Chinese meal at a restaurant, we always order rice and many of us order both rice and noodles. For most Indians, Italian food does not mean ossobuco or even veal scallopini. It means pasta and pizza. But I’m beginning to wonder if there is another answer to this question. Scientists now tell us that there are five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter (chilli-hot is classed, slightly bizarrely, in this category), and umami. Of these, umami is the most recent entrant to the list. For decades, the Japanese have believed that umami was a key taste but the West kept disagreeing till, in 2000, scientists found umami receptors on our tongues. Because it is a relatively unfamiliar term, let me try and explain what umami is. Most food writers will use such terms as “savoury, meaty, brothy” etc. None of them seems to me to capture the essence of umami. Which is not odd, I guess. You try and explain what “sweet” is to a man with no sense of taste and you’ll see the problem. Explaining taste is like explaining colour. How do you describe yellow, for instance? Most of us, asked to explain yellow, would use analogy. We would say it is the colour of the yolk of an egg, of a sunflower and of the sun itself. So umami, for me, at least, is the taste of dried black mushrooms, of soya sauce, of chicken consommé and of parmesan cheese. It is a taste you find in tomatoes, though it is most concentrated in tomato ketchup. Far Eastern cookery works on the basis that many – if not nearly all – dishes improve with a dash of umami. The Japanese will brag about the freshness of the fish they use for sushi. But they’ll add a dash of soya to the sushi for the umami heft. The Chinese will use 12 different kinds of soya sauce ranging from very light to dark and sweet, but the

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

purpose is the same: they like the umami flavour it imparts to all foods. To understand what a shot of umami flavour feels like, think of a large spoonful of consommé. When the broth hits your palate, if fills your mouth with a taste that can only be described as meaty – so meaty, in fact, that it almost makes your mouth tingle. Or think of a mouthful of flavour-filled tomatoes or – if you can take it neat – a spoon of tomato ketchup. There may be a certain sweetness to the ketchup (they add sugar) but the basic taste is umami. Umami-rich foods have a tendency to increase their umami content as they get older or more concentrated. A fresh shitake mushroom is a little umami. A dried (and then rehydrated) black mushroom is full of umami. A tomato has some umami. Ketchup has lots of it. Young parmesan is vaguely umami. Aged parmesan (of the kind they shave on your plate in Italian restaurants) is packed with umami flavour. The Japanese were the first to isolate the umami flavour from seaweed and in no time at all, they began producing a packaged umami additive under the brand name Ajinomoto. The more they used Ajinomoto, they discovered something unexpected. Because umami flavours coat your entire mouth, they also change the way in which you taste other foods. So all tastes become sharper and more distinct. (And sometimes, more meaty.) In recent years, food scientists have proved that this is why soya sauce or ketchup or Parmesan have the ability to completely alter the taste experience. Though the Japanese isolated the umami additive, it was the umami-craving Chinese who really took it to heart. Over the last century, every restaurant in China (and most homes) have become converts to monosodium glutamate (MSG), the chemical name for the umami additive. Now, you’ll find umami used all over the Far East, including Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. In the ’70s, MSG began to get a bad rap when American doctors reported cases of ‘Chinese restaurant syndrome’: patients who responded to MSG-filled foods with tingling sensations, headaches and the like. The Ajinomoto company has spent millions of dollars on research trying to prove that glutamates occur naturally in the body (mother’s milk is full of them) and therefore, cannot cause allergies.

hindustantimes.com/brunch

IT’S A DOUBLE TAKE

CARB CRAVINGS

The Indian-Italian food is a way of combining two umami ﬂavours – tomato and cheese – in different ways. A pizza has both

Indians like cuisines that are carbohydrate-heavy. When we order a Chinese meal at a restaurant, many of us order both rice and noodles

Some years ago, I toured Ajinomoto’s labs in Japan to try and understand the research. Broadly, they are right: glutamates do not cause the body’s immune system to respond with a full-on attack, so allergies are unlikely. But that’s not the whole truth. Some people have MSG intolerance (an intolerance such as, say, lactose intolerance, is not an allergy but presents very real symptoms anyway) which leads to ‘Chinese restaurant syndrome’. But experience suggests that this only kicks in when MSG is used in huge quantities. Most of us eat MSG all the time though we do not realise it. It is added routinely at all Chinese and Thai restaurants no matter what they tell you. Even if the chef does not deliberately add MSG, it will be present in the packaged masalas, pastas and sauces he uses. Or it will turn up in the kitchen under a different name: Gourmet Powder, Chicken Powder, Tasty Sauce, or whatever. Unless the kitchen uses too much, we rarely experience symptoms. What does all this have to do with the popularity of Chinese or Italian food in India? Well, here’s my theory: The umami taste is rarely found in Indian cooking. We don’t use aged cheese, black mushrooms, soya sauce or any umami-rich ingredient. Even when we do use tomatoes in dishes, we usually combine them with so many other ﬂavours that the umami taste is killed off and the tomatoes are used only for colour. But, or so I believe, over the last four decades, we have discovered and fallen in love with the taste of umami at some subconscious level. Let’s take the most basic kind of Indian Chinese, the sort made by a thelawallah, when he churns out noodles, fried rice or sweet-and-sour chicken. Forget about the chilli he adds because that’s just misdirection. His food is based on three ingredients: soya sauce, tomato ketchup and Ajinomoto. All three are packed with umami. Think now of Indian Chinese restaurants. Show me a Sino-Ludhianvi chef who says he does not use Ajinomoto and I’ll show you a liar. And even without the MSG, the basis of the cuisine is soya sauce. As if that is not enough, the restaurant will put more soya on the table and encourage us to use it. What, for instance, is the taste proﬁle of chicken sweet corn soup: a can of sweet corn plus stock (umami) plus MSG (umami) plus the soya (umami) you add at the table. The real reason Indians like Chinese food of all kinds

is because, without actually realising it, we have become umami junkies. Consider the sushi boom. Do you know a single person who eats his sushi without a generous quantity of soya? Or consider Indian-Italian food. Essentially it is a way of combining two umami flavours – tomato and cheese – in different ways. A pizza has both. And when we eat pasta, we ask for a red tomato-based sauce or a hit of cheese. (Not many takers for pesto or herb sauces, you will note.) Or consider the popularity of Indian food cooked by traditional Muslim chefs at restaurants at all levels, from Dum Pukht downwards. The basic difference between their recipes and those preferred by Hindu cooks or catering collegetypes is the liberal use of stock. And what is stock? Pure umami. The food business seems to have realised this. When I visited Ajinomoto’s headquarters in Japan all those years ago, they fumed about some Indian multinationals that wrote ‘No added MSG’ on their packets of ready-to-eat noodles. On yes, they said, there may be no MSG in the noodles, but these guys buy tonnes of the stuff from us. They put it in all their Indian packaged foods. Nobody expects those to contain MSG so they don’t look for it in the list of ingredients. (In any case, there are now a dozen euphemisms for MSG so you will rarely find it described as that even when a product is packed with MSG.) Because we are all junkies for umami flavours, manufacturers of packaged foods are relying more and more on MSG to boost the taste profile of their offerings. Even standalone Indian restaurants are adding MSG to curries and the like. But MSG is not the point. Umami flavours are. Even if you were to ban the use of MSG, Indians would still drift towards umami-rich foods. After centuries of being denied the full range of umami flavours, we have broken with the eating habits of our ancestors and embraced the fifth basic taste. It just shows how difficult it is to predict food trends. Over the last 30 years, restaurateurs have believed that Mexican and Thai will be the cuisines that will flourish in India because we like chilli-hot flavours. Well, yes, we do. But here’s the thing: it is our subliminal discovery of umami that really gets the Indian palate going. Give us soya sauce. Give us tomato sauce. And we will eat it, any way you serve it: as Chinese food, as Japanese sushi or as red-sauce Italian.

There may be a certain sweetness to the ketchup (they add sugar) but the basic taste is umami

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

TASTES LIKE...

Umami, for me, is the taste of dried black mushrooms (above), of soya sauce, of chicken consommé and of parmesan cheese (below)

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indulge

A TALE OF TWO PRICES

The AppleGoogle war goes far beyond the price game

HE JOKES about the iPhone 5S India pricing have been relentless. You can buy a motorcycle and a cycle for that much money; a small country could get rid of poverty and hunger if they invested that much cash; and of course, the infamous one about how many kilos of onions you could buy instead!

PHONECONOMICS

At a price of `71,500 for the top-of-the-line all-new iPhone, all barriers have been broken. From the other side comes a phone that gets everything right and yet has priced itself incredibly well at about `28,000. The Google Nexus 5 has been greeted as the ‘perfect sweet spot for India’ and a phone that teaches all other companies a lesson in ‘phoneconomics’. This is a contrasting tale of two companies that goes beyond just a price game, as the entire ecosystem of smartphones may well depend on which strategy will succeed.

Rajiv Makhni

techilicious LESSONS IN APPLEISM

THE PRICE IS RIGHT?

With a iPhone 5S at over 70k, Apple has thrown out the idea that India is a price-conscious market

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About three years ago, the line of control for an ‘expensive’ top-of-the-line smartphone in India was about `30,000. No company had the guts to jump that barrier. Apple, with its iPhone 4S, tore down that barrier with splendid disregard for consequences. The new barrier moved to `40,000 and then to a staggering `50,000. Today, almost all companies seem to think that pricing themselves below 50K is equivalent to accepting that their phone is of poor quality. The new mantra for every company is to announce a phone at a price of around 50K, a street or market price that is much lower, and then have that price drop drastically every few weeks. Once again, the only company that doesn’t follow that diktat is our old friend Apple. Prices remain steady as long as that product remains the ﬂagship offering. That changed last year when Apple came up with some aggressive ‘smartphone exchange’, ‘EMI schemes’ and other mechanisms camouﬂaged to not look like discounting.

PAYING EVEN MORE FOR A FREE PHONE?

This time with the iPhone 5S, the idea that India is a price -conscious market has been thrown out of the window, with the price barrier moving up to a painful `70,000. And with this has come the two-sided duel on justifying and trashing this price point. On one side are the ‘Why’d you think it’d be lower, look at the dollar rate’, mixed with typical Apple Army fanboyism of ‘No other company can give you half as much even at twice the price’. The naysayers have a lot of missiles in their arsenal this time. They compare the prices of the iPhone 5S in Hong Kong, UAE and Malaysia with India, do the math (including dollar rates) and ﬁnd India’s are

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

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15-20 per cent higher. The next argument is the muchhyped Reliance scheme, in which the phone is given away ‘free’ with a two-year contract. (This is nothing more than a glorified 24-month EMI scheme with some data and voice call subsidisation; something I had predicted a while ago). Most anti-Apple arguments use this to prove that the entire contract business would never have come into play if Apple was confident of its prices. The conspiracy theorists further state that prices were inflated only to accommodate the ‘free iPhone on contract’ subsidy that every operator would offer on the new iPhone 5S and C as soon as the Reliance-Apple exclusive partnership ran out.

A GOOD BUY

Google’s Nexus 5 has everything right and has also priced itself incredibly well

THE GOOGLE GAUNTLET

Enter Google, a company that never plays by the rules either. The Nexus tablets and phones have had a unique business model. These devices are made by some other company (in this case, LG), the features are top-of-the-line, the hardware inside and out is cutting-edge, the form factor is just about adequate, the stock Android OS inside is the latest and is guaranteed updates ﬁrst, and the price point is so aggressive that most dismiss it as an ill-timed April Fool’s joke every single time. The Nexus 5 takes that legacy forward with more aggression on price and device. This is a super-thin bezel phone that is much slimmer and lighter than its predecessor, has a 4.95-inch full HD Gorilla Glass 3 display with a fantastic PPI of 445, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor mated with a Adreno 330 graphic processor, an 8.0-megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation, and Photo Sphere for panorama 360-degree shots plus HDR+ mode. It also has the latest version of the Android OS, 4.4 KitKat, an all-new smart dialler, Google caller ID (like TruCaller), and enhanced voice controls using the term ‘OK Google’. The 16GB version costs about `28,000.

NOT ALL GOOD

Google’s greatest problem worldwide, especially in India, is distribution, its mainly online-only sales model and lack of advertising and publicity. I would go as far as to say that most people don’t even know that a Nexus smartphone exists. With the Nexus 5, that may change with great campaigns, hyper publicity, retail availability and more.

WHO WINS; YOUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT

Thus starts a new chapter in the Indian smartphone chronicles. A war of equals played out on different price platforms. One bandying a premium device and not willing to let go of that tag despite seeking a bigger share of the market (and resorting to almost any trick in the book for it). The other already owning the Indian market (its OS has captured more than 92 per cent), yet has almost no share in selling its own hardware. A runaway success from either will shape the way we perceive our smartphones. A smartphone for you will either be a `70K product given to you free, except when you get your monthly bill shock, or you’ll think of it just like you did three years ago, when 30K was a line that was not supposed to be crossed. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3

THE WAY WE ARE

Do Good-Looking People Have A Better Life?

Research seems to say so. But in a world where beauty (for men and women) seems to matter more than ever, what can someone not-so-good-looking do? by Parul Khanna

E CAN’T escape it, this obsession with being beautiful. And so we try to embrace it, by being part of the clique of pretty people. Since we were children, we have seen pretty babies getting more attention. In school, the pretty students always had more friends, while the rest had to work hard to get noticed. The grown-up world is no different. Especially if these statistics are to be believed: A study by the University of Messina, Italy, titled Searching for a Job is a Beauty Contest, cited in The Independent this year claims that attractive people are more likely to be recommended for a job, considered more qualified for a job, and more likely to succeed at work. Daniel Hamermesh, author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful and an economics professor at the University of Texas, USA, wrote an article, On the Job, Beauty Is More Than Skin-Deep in The Wall Street Journal in 2011, where he said said that the bias doesn’t stop once you have been hired. Attractive people are also more likely to be paid more for a job, and less likely to be fired. Author of Survival of the Prettiest and practising psychologist Nancy Etcoff goes to the extent of saying that physically attractive defendants are less likely to be perceived as guilty when they’ve been charged with a crime. You’ll have to admit that there’s some truth to all this. “If you’re not defined by your good

looks, you are more likely – at ﬁrst – to be ignored in a room,” says fashion guru Prasad Bidapa, who has groomed many models to become stars. As Nancy Etcoff adds, “To tell people not to take pleasure in beauty is like telling them to stop enjoying food or sex or novelty or love.’’ She says that her argument is not new and her book cites studies which reveal startling facts. For instance, infants will stare longer at faces deemed by adults to be attractive. It’s a harsh world. Goodlooking people are taken more seriously, at least initially. That’s why ‘beautiful’ people are everywhere, selling everything. Popular culture reinforces this ‘truth’. It seems to be telling us: you are not good looking? You just got served a raw hand by God. But here’s the real tragedy: in the process, we aren’t laying enough emphasis on developing other aspects of our personalities. Fashion and popular culture writer Shefalee Vasudev says that along with the pressure to look good and be well-groomed at all times, there’s an additional pressure to be ‘with it’. “There’s this accent on visibility, on being ‘amazing’ and ‘happening’. On the one hand, the coded message in popular culture is ‘look good’, and on the other hand, it says ‘be smart’ (or appear smart). In the process, we are not giving intelligence, kindness, ﬂexibility, sensitivity or empathy a place in the popular narrative,” she points out.

Embellish your personality. Be smart, be intelligent, be informed, be funny

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

PRETTY UNIVERSAL Women considered attractive across the world have these features in common: 1. Symmetrical face: The distance between the eyes, nose, lips are in sync. 2. Classic hour-glass ﬁgure: Buxom. The waist is only 70 per cent of the width of the hips. 3. Features: Big eyes, full lips, small nose and chin. 4. Hair: Long and vivid coloured hair, preferably till the hips. Eyes should be in a vivid colour too. 5. Face shape: Oval, round. 6. Skin: Clear, healthy skin.

Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe’s beauty is universal

FIRST, ARE YOU A LOOKER?

Doesn’t beauty lie in the eyes of the beholder? Social commentators say that on the contrary, beauty is actually quite universal. Of course, the definition keeps shifting – from region to region, culture to culture and country to country. But research has shown that there are people who would be considered attractive anywhere, and others who would be considered plain anywhere. Think of Aishwarya Rai or Angelina Jolie or Marilyn Monroe or Madhubala. Celebrity advertising guru and social commentator Prahlad Kakkar says of Rai, “Her appeal is universal. It transcends decades, as well as geographical borders. She’s scientifically established as a classic beauty – her face is heart-shaped, her torso-to-legs ratio is perfect and she has an aquiline nose.” Good for her, but not everyone is born with those near-perfect statistics. This universal definition is fed to us by the media and the movies. And it’s often blamed for being an incorrect representation of larger reality. Arun Nair, national creative director at Lowe Lintas, points that images of beautiful people are as unreal as the glossy hair in shampoo ads. “I have never seen anyone having such glossy hair outside the studio where the commercials are shot,” he says. Bidapa adds that the kind of good looks we see are a myth. “Today, Deepika Padukone is a stunner, but she wasn’t always so. People may spot her at the airport and find her plain. She has been extensively groomed.”

LIFE BEYOND IT

So if you’re not lucky enough to be good looking (and let’s face it, most people aren’t), what do you do? For starters, make the best use of what you have. Aim for optimum maintenance of what you have (proudly). Embellish your personality. “Be smart, intelligent, informed, funny, interesting and emphatic. These are qualities that are not easily available and will give you a lead,” says Vasudev. In short, work on the inside so it shines through. Adds Bidapa, “When I groom girls, I teach them how to carry off the features they have, move themselves, tilt their neck and head. Create a vibe. I believe it’s basically a vibe that translates into evoking and inspiring devotion, rather than beauty. Be smart and

Photos: CORBIS

know what you can polish and what you cannot.”

REPLICATE THE BENEFIT

Hollywood actor Cary Grant would be considered good looking anywhere in the world

HANDSOME TO ALL Subconsciously, the parametres that make a man universally attractive indicate his virility (for a woman, they indicate her fertility):

1. Rugged looks: Someone who looks masculine and has a square jaw. 2. Skin: Surprisingly, a man with clear and healthy skin is considered handsome. It shows that he is healthy enough to procreate. 3. Hair: Vivid coloured hair. 4. Physique: A V-shaped body, wide shoulders and strong arms. 5. Adonis ratio: The shoulders should be a little more than double the waist, eg: if the waist is 28 inches, the shoulders should be 45.3 inches.

Being beautiful gives you an edge, but what exactly is it? What do good-looking people have that the ‘not-so-good-looking’ people don’t? Daniel Hamermesh says that being pretty creates a boost in self-esteem and confidence. Confidence translates into more productivity. So how do you get that confidence? Communications consultant Dilip Cherian says ‘content’ is the key. “Content translates into confidence. If you have content, looks can be polished. There’s an incorrect fixation that by enhancing looks, your content is enhanced too,” he points out. In other words, confidence is self-belief. It can be built by working very hard, and aiming to be best at what you do. “And do it again and again, and there you have it.” “If your self-belief is punctured, you won’t have confidence. Look around you,” says Vasudev. “You need to have belief in your abilities and knowledge of what you are good at. It could be your ability to work hard, persevere or be emphatic. Even our popular-culture icons are not the most good-looking people; they are people who have the right amount of belief in themselves.” Life coach Priya Kumar says that the one way to assess if you have self-confidence or not is to ask yourself, “Can I do it again? If anything gets wiped out from my life, do I have to ability to create it again? Then how much can someone take away from you?” Self-belief is doing what you do ‘damn well’, continually growing and continually being able to “do it again.” Nancy Etcoff says that people who focus on their looks as a major source of their self-esteem tend to be less happy than people who focus on, say, their social life. Why? “In general we’re social animals, so people without good relationships tend to be less happy; the same is true if you’re not doing activities that bring out your strengths. Those are the sources of real happiness,” she writes. So, don’t fret. Restore what you think needs work, get your confidence going. As Bidapa says, “It’s all about the vibe”. parul.khanna@hindustantimes.com Follow @ParulKhannaa on Twitter

VARIETY

Photo: CHA BAR

It’s

DESI DUO

Masala chai is a good match with spicy fried pakoras

Time, Folks!

Tea readies and refreshes the palate to savour the next course in your meal

Forget wine. Try pairing your food with tea now! by Veenu Singh HE NEXT time you are invited to attend a food pairing session, be warned. It may not be about how you should match your whisky or wine with food; there’s a good chance the session will be all about pairing food with tea. Since when did plain old chai become so fancy? “We have tea and biscuits or tea and pakoras,” says tea sommelier Neetu Sarin. “But we never think about whether it tastes good with ‘a particular’ kind of food, perhaps because we didn’t have too many varieties of tea. But today, there’s a wide range to choose from [masala chai, green tea, Arabic tea and even white].”

Tea pairing more or less follows the same principle as wine pairing, so lighter teas like green tea

EASY ON THE PALATE

Photo: CHA BAR

Lighter teas like green tea work better with lighter foods like salads

A SWEET MATCH

Light teas like jasmine and chamomile go with most chocolate ﬂavours Photo: RADISSON BLU MBD, NOIDA

THE SCIENCE

work better with lighter foods like salads, while the stronger black tea pairs best with more stronglyflavoured and spicy foods. Many tea brands now suggest specific foods you can eat with their teas. They’re also roping in chefs to create special menus that showcase the versatility of the beverage. Tea brand Typhoo got chef Vicky Ratnani to create a distinct menu that could be offered with different teas. “Not everyone drinks alcohol or wine,” says Ratnani. “And flavoured tea offers a variety of taste and enriches the accompanying food too. Tea is like any small mid-course palate cleanser, a great flavour bridge from one course to the next.” It refreshes and readies the palate to savour the next course and is a healthier accompaniment to food than wine.

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

PAIRING TRICKS

Ratnani pairs Moroccan spiced cottage cheese or chicken with mint tea. “Moroccans use a lot of mint in their food, so I thought mint tea would go well with this cuisine. Similarly, something like Oolong tea would go nicely with grilled Oriental food, and jasmine tea with, say, grilled chicken,” he explains. Cha Bar, the tea café chain, also pairs their wide in-house variety of teas with different kinds of food. “Whenever we have a cup of tea, we like to have something with it whether it’s a cookie, a toast or our favourite pakoras,” says Priti Paul, owner of Cha Bar and a passionate tea aﬁcionado herself. “So after talking to various tea drinkers, we decided to work out the combinations so that the next time you want to have chai with something, you know exactly what to ask for. So, while our masala chai or the chai Hindustani works with pakoras, the breakfast teas work Photo: TYPHOO

best with patties or tea cakes, the Arabic tea goes well with kebab wraps and hummus and organic tea with basil pesto and vegetable panini.” Similarly, Typhoo, which also has a wide range of flavours, offers interesting suggestions about what to pair your favourite tea with. Says the brand’s spokesperson, Renu Kakkar, “Typhoo Darjeeling goes excellently with creamy desserts, while Typhoo Classic Assam is perfect with rich red meats, pastas and samosas. You can sip the English Breakfast with your egg bhurji and aloo paratha while the Earl Grey is good with mild English cheeses, lemon-flavoured cakes and desserts, like rabdi, falooda and kulfi.”

UNUSUAL MATCHES

Interestingly, the brew that most of India has with biscuits is also a good match with a variety of chocolates. According to Rajesh Variyath, corporate chef, Radisson Blu MBD, Noida, most heavy, rich chocolates go well with light teas. “You can pair an orange truffle chocolate with honey-ginger tea,” he says. “In case you are trying a dark chocolate then go for strong black tea like Oolong, or Earl Grey with more fruity fillings. Light teas like jasmine and chamomile also go with most chocolate flavours.” However, don’t go by the book. “In the end you should just go by what suits your own palate,” says tea sommelier Anamika Singh. veenus@hindustantimes.com

EXOTIC COMBO

Moroccon mint green tea works very well with couscous and veggies

PEOPLE

“I Refuse To Dumb Down Content For TV” Director Abhinay Deo says 24 is just the begining of a new generation of TV shows by Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi

Films may be bigger and grander, but TV is far more gruelling

V SERIALS in India are made keeping in mind the lowest common denominator. That’s why television programming is what it is today,” says ﬁlmmaker Abhinay Deo. But that’s not his biggest grouse: “What really gets my goat is that we do nothing to raise the bar. We refuse to challenge audiences, we don’t want to make them aspire to anything better.” That’s exactly what he set out to do with the pathbreaking TV series 24.

A NEW COURSE

Son of veteran film and television actors Ramesh and Seema Deo, Abhinay began his professional life as an ad filmmaker. Even there, he thought differently; he created the award-winning Nike ad where people play cricket on top of buses. Then he surprised audiences by directing the ‘risky’ comedy Delhi Belly. “I don’t believe in box office

numbers or TRP ratings,” he says. “If I did, I would have never made a ﬁlm like Delhi Belly.” That’s the belief that guided him when he turned to TV. Two years ago, actor Anil Kapoor approached him to direct an Indian adaptation of the American series 24. The show follows 24 hours in the life of the chief of an anti-terrorism unit and his attempts to foil an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister-inwaiting and save his own family which has been abducted. Not quite your domestic drama about saris, sindoor, glycerine and petty dynamics. With it, Deo saw an opportunity to take Indian TV miles ahead in one giant leap. The only challenge was possible interference by the TV channel that would back the project. “I had to make sure that the channel didn’t expect us to follow the TRP route.” It took endless meetings with various channels, Anil Kapoor and Fox (makers of the original American 24) to ﬁnally reach an understanding with Colors that 24 would be nothing like anything on TV.

“I am playing an interesting character”

HE CASTING of 24 is one of the most attractive aspects of the show. There’s Anil Kapoor of course in the title role; but there’s also Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Tisca Chopra, Mandira Bedi. And there’s Anita Raaj, a popular heroine of the ’80s, who quit at the peak of her career when she married director Sunil Hingorani. She’s back in the role of the ambitious, calculating Naina Singhania, mother to the Prime Minister-in-waiting. Excerpts from a chat with Anita Raaj:

Your comeback seems perfectly timed with 24...

It was pure luck. Anil [Kapoor] and I have worked

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

together earlier. It was in one of those random conversations where I mentioned to him that I would be happy to work again. He was pleasantly surprised and asked if I would work on 24. A few days later, I got a call from the production house. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it. I just had to take up the offer.

Were you apprehensive about TV?

No. I had done a serial called Eena Meena Dika in 2000. It worked very well, but somehow the timings and the chaos didn’t suit me at the time. My son was still young. But now things are changing fast. Also, 24 as a production is very meticulous and organised. There is nothing like it on Indian TV. The deal clincher though was my

role. Naina Singhania is shrewd and has shades of grey. It’s a very interesting character with several layers. It’s a challenge.

Are you open to ﬁlms again?

Absolutely. And with Hindi cinema becoming so exciting in terms of genres and stories, it would be foolish not to be a part of this brandnew creative world.

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LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

Abhinay Deo directs actress Shabana Azmi on the sets of 24

CLIMAX CLINCHER

As Deo says, “I refused to dumb down the content and presentation to suit anybody’s sensibilities. I have been a big fan of the original 24 and one thing was very clear: If I had to make an Indian adaptation, it had to be as close to the original as possible. In look, feel and storytelling.” And that meant no melodrama, no climax that went on for seven episodes. 24 was to be racy, gripping, full of twists and turns, with a climax in every episode. The show offers no breathing time. Blink and you miss a crucial clue. Viewers don’t even have time for a toilet break! “Yes, that’s quite true,” laughs Deo. “24 is a series where, if you miss even ﬁve minutes, you will miss an entire thread of a parallel story line.” But wasn’t that playing havoc with the audience’s sensibilities? “Who decides what is someone’s capability or comprehension ability?” he asks. “My agenda is to generate new and different content and present it to viewers. Let them try it and see them ask for more. Why do we believe that viewers are duffers?” he asks.

dents and males,” he says. “Now it’s just about getting used to the incredibly fast pace.” But doesn’t he run the risk of outrunning his audience? “That’s the challenge. That is the aspiration that I want the lowest common denominator to have. To catch up with this pace,” says Deo, who firmly believes that 24 will be the next generation of TV programming. With this show, Deo has brought TV and films closer – right from the casting and crew to the look and feel of the show. But though films may be bigger and grander, TV is far more gruelling, says Deo. “Technically, a film is just 120 minutes of edited footage. But TV is nearly 18-20 hours of edited footage. You can wrap up a film in a few months. We have been working for over two years on 24. It takes us 20 days to shoot and edit just one episode,” he says. But the bigger challenge is to keep turning out content that will keep viewers hooked week after week. “After all, you are just a click away from moving on to the next channel. You haven’t really bought a ticket to see the programme, right?” he points out.

MATCHING THE PACE

24 WITH A TWIST

The ofﬁcial ratings of 24 suggest the show has made an impact in metros like Delhi and Mumbai but not so much in the other parts of the country. But for Deo, it’s only a matter of adjusting to something new. “When you get something dramatically different from your regular meal, you do take time to develop a taste for it. But eventually, you will,” he says. The only thing that’s necessary, says Deo, is that the show has to be interesting enough. And 24 has caught everybody’s attention. “Not just that, it has got back viewers who had more or less stopped watching Indian TV – urban resi-

NOVEMER 10, 2013

Deo has added plenty of elements to keep you glued, even if you’ve watched the US version. He features a political family uncannily similar to the Gandhis on the show, and has thrown unexpected twists into the storyline “While the main story is the same as the American 24, there are differences. From the seventh episode on, the story will take turns that are not there in the original. One thing will lead to another and you will see a brand new end. And thankfully, you won’t have to wait years to see that end. It’ll be over in 24 episodes,” Deo says, smiling. tavishi.rastogi@hindustantimes.com

PERSONAL AGENDA

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Fashion Designer

Wendell Rodricks BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN PLACE OF BIRTH HOMETOWN May 28

Gemini

Mumbai

Colvale, Goa

SCHOOL/COLLEGE FIRST BREAK CURRENTLY...

St Michael’s High School, When I became the I have launched the Ruparel College, Mumbai chief designer at couture spa bathing bar for Fiama Di Wills Garden Vareli

HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE I am too positive a person to dwell on the negatives

If you weren’t a designer you would have been… A Jesuit priest. I find the men serving in this order to be closest to compassion. Bollywood’s most stylish person is... Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma and Sonam Kapoor. I also admire Rekha’s and Malaika Arora Khan’s style. Rahul Khanna is the most stylish man. Whose sense of style do you admire? My partner, Jerome’s. He can take an Indian garment and give it the classic French flair. What inspired you to become a fashion designer? for men or women? I admired style, aesthetics and Definitely men. They want wanted to contribute to the slight changes from season to industry. That is why I season. And getting gave India minimalism that variation right is a A DESSERT and resort wear. huge challenge. THAT BEST Your favourite decade in Do you feel that DESCRIBES YOU. Indian men are fashion fashion. Now! In fashion, you conscious? always live in the Increasingly so. Look present. at the number of As a child, what would shops and beauty you consider your first salons frequented by design? men. The designs I did for If you were the editor of my cousins. a magazine for a day, Your favourite international who would you put on the cover? designer. Coco Chanel. She De Definitely not a changed the way po politician or a women dress. Bollywood A fashion trend you’d like star. Ideally, to revive. I’d like to put fa Headwear. When I fashion’s see Rajasthani men in ne newest face turbans, I realise what Indian dian or tthe season’s nce. I best c men lost after Independence. clothing on the also like hats. They can make a cover. simple yet dramatic statement. A gadget you love to flaunt. One Indian fabric you love to work I am not a gadget fan. In fact, I with. am a tech idiot. Cotton. Five musts in a man’s wardrobe. Which is more complicated, designing White and black kurta shirts,

Gulab jamun. Under that dark exterior lies a soft interior

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

beach pyjamas, comfortable footwear, a Nehru jacket and Terre d’Hermès eau de toilette. Your idea of a great weekend. Spending it with my partner and my pets at home. If you could ask for any talent or skill, what would it be? To ﬂy like a bird and see the world. Your favourite junk food.

THE FILM YOU HAVE SEEN MORE THAN 5 TIMES.

Dr Zhivago

my movies

I live a high every day

Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

THE MOST OVERRATED FILM.

Probably the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey

Goan crispy onion and green chilli bhajias. Your ﬁtness fundas. Walk, climb and breathe yogic. Your dream destination. Goa! You destress with… Music, art, books, walks in the hills in my village. — Interviewed by Veenu Singh

THE MOST PAISA VASOOL FILM.

Indiana Jones and Pulp Fiction are classics A MOVIE THAT WAS A PART OF YOUR CHILDHOOD.

The Sound of Music

THE FIRST MOVIE YOU SAW ON THE BIG SCREEN.

Laurel and Hardy, in the school auditorium