Hindustantimes Brunch 11th March 2012

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, MARCH 11, 2012 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

THE

OTHER VOICES From politics to Bollywood, here are the virtual movers and shakers who wield the maximum online clout

“I couldn’t walk” But masterchef Vikas Khanna learnt how to run

indulge

VIR SANGHVI

Dim sum rage

RAJIV MAKHNI

New series!

Author Judy Balan on being a single parent AND trying to find The One

Play it again, man

Gaming can fetch you big bucks

MWC’s hottest phones

SANJOY NARAYAN

Frank Zappa magic

SEEMA GOSWAMI Time to rush

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W AT C H O U T F O R

inbox LETTER OF THE WEEK! Laughter award!

WHEN I first saw the cover story (Sari, Sindoor & Glycerine awards, March 4), I was disappointed with the subject. I am sick of awards being handed out as toffees these days! But your awards left me laughing. Especially the Please Break Up award. “Their chemistry is like shampoo and toothbrush!” Great job, Brunch team! You made my Sunday!

— SUMISHA, via email Sumisha wins a shopping voucher worth `2,500! Congrats

11.03.2012 LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch Swati Chaudhuri I don’t understand why you guys needed that lengthy disclaimer about how you never watch TV, how it was 100 hours of torture and so on (Sari, Sindoor & Glycerine awards, March 4). We get it – you guys are so above it all. Why not give the task of writing the piece to someone who actually connects with the medium? Or will they take away your coolness card if you admit to watching Hindi TV (which you obviously do.

Random TV viewing will not result in such details).

Ashish Kulkarni Thanks, Download Central, for once again hooking me to a new band, Fanfarlo. I read this column even before I read the headlines in HT. Jai Singh I don’t agree that Bombay restaurants outshine Delhi’s (Rude Food, March 4). Bombay may have niche restaurants but Delhi has versatility and variety.

TWEET YOUR HEART OUT twitter.com/HTBrunch @sweetest_sonam Finally read today’s Brunch! Awesome cover story, guys. Keep up the good work!

Well done!

YOUR COVER story (Sari, Sindoor & Glycerine awards, March 4) made for an entertaining read. Your analysis was spot-on when it came to the characters in the soaps. Currently, TV channels hand out awards to actors from shows running on their own channels, but there is nothing as impartial and complete as the analysis by Brunch. In fact, I think Brunch is now ready to host and judge the ‘Indian Grammies’!

– CHITRA , via email

Inspired

VEENU SINGH’S article about Raageshwari (Problems Are Like Stepping Stones, March 4) made me feel like a winner too. I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy in 2009. By surfing the internet, I learnt that the singer too has suffered from facial nerve paralysis. I second Raageshwari’s thought that “problems are like stepping stones” and feel like a winner out of a bad bout of this unusual disease.

– VARSHA BHAGNANI, via email

Gear up, for every week the best letter will get a SHOPPING voucher worth

R2,500!!

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Tewari, Yashica Dutt, Pranav Dixit, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor Design), Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Singh, Saket Misra, Suhas Kale, Shailendra Mirgal, Monica Gupta

Write to

brunchletters@hindustantimes.com or to 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001

MARCH 11, 2012

@TheShivaniRawat Oh man! What a cover story! Hilarious read. Superbly superb! @Ajaythetwit Thanks for inviting Rashmi Bansal to let us know the secrets of success so simply. @Dxdevilx I Love Brunch. And the new logo is so cool. @mi_rashmi Brunch completes my Sunday.

BRUNCH ON THE WEB hindustantimes.com/brunch

Mujra through the ages There’s something about mujras that set them apart from regular Bollywood numbers. While Rekha, Meena Kumari and Madhuri Dixit are the established mujra queens, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor and Malaika Arora Khan redefined the genre. Log on to look at shots of iconic mujra songs over the years.

Split-Screen on the field Not really. True glory on the field has not quite inspired Hindi cinema enough. Read award-winning writer/filmmaker Gautam Chintamani’s latest post on ‘Sports in Hindi cinema.’ Read Split-Screen every Friday online!

new!

The Brunch Blogs

This week, read Of Caking Up And No Cakes by Veenu Singh. A glowing mix of wellness and beauty.

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Cover Story

From politics to Bollywood, here are the movers and shakers of social media

Wellness

Last of our series on celebs who’ve beaten health disorders: New York chef Vikas Khanna

Variety

Pets today are akin to their owners’ children

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14 RUDE FOOD Indians are finally recognising quality dim sum 16 TECHILICIOUS Hot new smartphones from the Mobile World Congress 2012 18 SPECTATOR It takes the blink of an eye for us to lose interest online and in life 19 DOWNLOAD CENTRAL Frank Zappa’s Philly ‘76, released in 2009 is different from his other albums Cover: MALAY KARMAKAR

The HT Brunch Totally Twisted, Ultra-Difficult Weekly Twitter Quiz!

Cycle 4: Technology Boy, do we love quizzing! That’s why we can’t wait for it to be 2 pm everyday and test your wits! And this week we’d like to challenge your knowledge on Technology. The utterly cool, mind-bending questions go beyond what the average search engine can easily find.

So, grab your gadgets and their manuals already!

One LUCKY winner from the Indian Mythology week will be announced on Twitter tomorrow!

The lucky winner gets a SHOPPING voucher worth

R3,000!!

Have you seen our Brunch Quarterly photoshoot with Vidya Balan yet? Log on now!

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T H E W AY W E A R E

T h e P r o b l e m w i t h S i n g l e Pa r e n t i n g – A t h r e e - p a r t s e r i e s PART 1

Turning Into Scary Landlady Are you a thirty-plus single woman who is still waiting for The One?

by Judy Balan

T

HIS WHOLE Scary Cat Lady reference is very un-Indian. In India, the worry is never about not getting married. We attach such a freakish importance to marital status that our young people usually have to put up a fight to stay single just a little bit longer. So this idea that there are ageing spinsters tucked away in every other apartment complex – knitting and talking to cats, too afraid to step out of the house because children would throw little stones at them – is totally foreign to us.

I mean, if you’re a thirty-plus single woman in India who is still waiting for The One – you should be more afraid of turning into Scary Landlady. You know? That fat, angry married woman with a moustache who tells you things like “no bringing baais (boys for the uninitiated) into the house, wokay?”, “no drinking alcohol, playing loud English songs and all that dirty business” and my favourite “cook only vegetarian food” (so random!) before renting out her apartment to you. The reason I say this is

because The Scary Landlady unlike the Cat Lady, is married and still frustrated – probably because she settled for some man who was available but not right for her because she was too afraid of being alone and didn’t have age on her side. And now she deals with her frustration by growing a moustache and torturing young single women because she secretly wants their life.

That’s why it’s kind of amazing (and scary) that I’m still looking for The One though I have all the odds stacked up against me – I’m thirty and I’m a single parent and there is aforementioned Landlady situation that keeps popping up in my head every time my eyes wander off after a Mister Why-not.

But see, when you’ve crossed thirty, you have to make your peace with the fact that your days of waiting for Mister Right are long gone.

They are taken by twenty-somethings and that’s that. But the problem is, they’re even fresh out of Mister Maybes – he’s not perfect, but you can live with that. Except, now it looks like he can do better than you. Who’d have thought.

So that’s how you end up with Mister Why-not. You know? He’s

In India, if you’re divorced, people think twice about investing in you.

The chances of finding a single guy – even if he's a Mister Why-not – are pretty darn slim Illustration: MALAY KARMAKAR

MARCH 11, 2012

kind of cute from a certain angle, kind of funny after a few drinks, kind of smart if you can talk about World War II and bullets for the rest of your life? He’s a bit of an acquired taste but hey, you’re thirty plus and gravity is catching up with you. Compromise is the way to go.

On the flip side, you could settle for this guy and realise that he bores the hell out of you, kills your fire and makes you complacent about facial hair. Eeps.

This is still better than the options available for a thirty-year old single parent like me. You see, in India, if you’re divorced, you’re like a second-hand phone. No, make that second-hand Nokia phone. People think twice about investing in you and the chances of finding a single guy – even if he’s a Mister Why-not – are pretty darn slim. In fact, you have well-meaning aunties often telling you things like “if you look really hard you might find a good divorced man willing to marry you.”

Oh. It’s like I’m at the bottom of the single-and-looking food chain and my perennial fear is that very soon even the Mister Why-nots will be in demand and I’ll be stuck with a Mister How-come. He gets his name from the first reaction you get from people upon introducing him as your beau – ‘Umm, he seems nice, just you know, not your type. So, umm, how come?’

What do you tell them? These are people who know you and know he’s not your type. And you know they’re only buffering it with the ‘he seems nice’ remark – because the truth is, Mister How-come is just Mister Wrong without the alphamaleness. This is even worse than what The Landlady got!

At least when you were with Mister Wrong, people pitied you in a very he’s-going-to-break-her-heart kind of way. Now, they’re going to look at you like the poor girl who settled because she couldn’t do any better. Horrors.

I did not see this coming and I’m totally unprepared for this future.

My idea of the future always involved The One. But what if I’m stuck with Mister How-come and end up unhappy and bitter?

I don’t even have an apartment to let out.

Judy Balan is the best-selling author of Two Fates – The Story Of My Divorce

STYLE FILE

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twitter.com/HTBrunch

What The Tux Is It?

You’re not the only one who had that thought. Presenting the ultimate male fantasy: looking good in a tuxedo

by Yashica Dutt A LITTLE NIP AND TUCK

George Clooney’s Oscar look was slammed by the style police

RED CARPET SAFE

Brad Pitt in a classic black and white combo at the Oscars

Too-tight jacket

Photos: WIREIMAGE

HOW NOT TO LOOK LIKE A WAITER Avoid ties: There is a reason the code is bow-tie, so stick to it.

Don’t go for a notch lapel: (The kind that’s there on a business suit).

It’s either peak or shawl.

Don’t experiment with colour: A matching cummerbund (thin blood red) with a bright bow-tie is truly the worst of the ’80s.

Keep your shirt white: Whatever colour you choose, it’s that shade which will get you to sartorial heights.

Balance your weight with your lapels: Thin lapels on a big man don’t even sound correct, let alone look correct.

I

F DECADES of rom-com watching and cable TV have taught us anything, then it’s this: that wearing a tuxedo is a pretty big deal.

Why else would the loveable, not-soloaded male lead run around trying to rent (it’s supposed to be expensive, duh!) that perfect tux, which would make his lady love and soonto-be-someone-else’s bride change her mind at the altar?

But haven’t you often wondered what the eff is the big deal? A tux is after all a suit with a waistcoat and a bow tie, so why should it be so special? As Hollywood stars are branded ‘bold’, ‘vulgar’, ‘waiting staff’ and ‘quirky’by the style police, while wearing the same black suittrouser-shirt combination on the red carpet, one wonders whether Indian men would ever consider going through this ordeal. And if they do, then where would they wear it?

HOT OFF THE SHELVES

Apparently, everywhere. From a boozy night of cocktails to a prewedding ceremony, a lot of men are not only attending ‘black-tie’ events but are also keen to dress the part.

Manoj Mehraa, director of SBJ House of Luxury, says that a tuxedo has become a requisite buy for at

least one of the marriage ceremonies for the Indian groom. “Men these days are only too happy to have more choice than sherwanis, achkans and suits. Not only does a tux look distinct, but when done well, it can be a really good look.”

“Just as women are experimenting with gowns, men are inching their way into the Western formal setting. They travel, study abroad, attend events and dinners and know that they need to fit in,” says a spokesperson from Paul Smith.

Contrary to what is assumed about the normal gent’s interest in fashion, tuxedos are flying off the shelves. Says Shalini Nayar, spokesperson of lifestyle brand Giovani: “Tuxedos are the most sought after among our entire selection for men and are almost always the first item to sell out.”

And she just might be right as designer Narendra Kumar based his entire Winter-Festive 2011 Collection showcased at Lakme Fashion Week on tuxedos and Frank Sinatra’s golden hit Fly Me to the Moon. “That was one of my most popular collections till date.

Everyone today wants to wear a tuxedo, but not everyone knows how to. So it’s still in a phase of discovery,” says Kumar.

MARCH 11, 2012

This worked

PULL IT OFF

And before you go exploring on your own, here’s our rule: Keep it classic. Go black and don’t go back, unless it’s a deep midnight blue or in rare cases, white. Rin Jajo, fashion director for Man’s World, offers more advice. “A tuxedo is a version of the suit meant for formal and black-tie events and

But this really didn’t DISSED AT THE BAFTAS

Anil Kapoor turns into the Indian Pee-Wee Herman IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO PEE-WEE HERMAN IS, DON’T FRET, EVEN WE HAD TO LOOK IT UP!

Pee-Wee Herman is a comic fictional character created and portrayed by American comedian Paul Reubens. He is best known for his two television series and film series during the 1980s. The childlike Pee-Wee Herman character developed as a stage act that quickly led to an HBO special in 1981.

Source: WIKIPEDIA

is dictated by stringent specifications. In particular, the features of the lapels (only a peak lapel or shawl lapel) and trousers (usually with a band along the seam in a fabric matching the lapel on the jacket and never with an upturned cuff).

And one can never go wrong with black, single breasted, in a blended wool fabric, with a peak lapel in silk or satin and trousers in a matching fabric.”

In addition, Esquire magazine approved blog The Black Tie Guide, writes, “Jackets can be single or double-breasted. One button is traditional for single-breasted models but two buttons are becoming acceptable.” And it doesn’t skirt around the waistcoat issue. “Formal waistcoats are meant to cover as little of the shirt front as possible, so they should barely extend beyond the jacket’s lapels. Not only does this expose the maximum amount of decorated shirt bosom but it also preserves the physique-enhancing deep V created by the contrast of white shirt against the black jacket.”

And we agree. There is nothing more unsightly than an overdone satin waistcoat, nor is it acceptable to allow your shirt to peep through under the jacket.

But not everything except your collar needs to be stiff.

The lady from Paul Smith suggests that you break the monotony with a polka dotted bow-tie in monochrome or a patterned pocket square. And junk the cummerbund for a fitted waistcoat.

Experiment with fabrics like velvet or jacquard or go crazy with plain trousers, instead of seamed ones.

But whatever you do, don’t try too hard.

It’s only too easy to end up like Anil Kapoor at the Baftas. Or as The Black Tie Guide called him: The Indian Pee-Wee Herman! yashica.dutt@ hindustantimes.com

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The Other Voices L

From politics to Bollywood, here are the movers and shakers of this new, social era where your celebrity matters less than your wit (and no rules apply)

ONG, LONG ago in a year far, far away, all of India stopped everything it was doing on a Sunday morning and watched a Ramanand Sagar TV serial on Doordarshan with extremely bad special effects. And then listened to Lotika Ratnam, Komal GB Singh and Salma Sultan for relief. This was the sonic blast-off for our golden age of television.

Satellite TV then brought a second mother-in-law into each of our homes, with a level of acting that could well have counterpointed Mr Sagar’s pedestrian computer graphics. All of this was piped into our homes via cables that local mafiosi regularly fought and killed each other over – and subsequently, through little 18-inch dishes that sucked signals out of the skies. We also moved on to staring at Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami and the occasional Prannoy Roy on our small

by Mahesh Murthy

screens.

But the golden age of television, along with its attendant hero-journalists, is fast fading away.

The number of Internet users in India – estimated at around 140 million today – exceeds the number of TV sets in our homes. Facebook, with its 44 million Indian members reaches more of us than any single TV channel, Doordarshan included.

While YouTube, with over 31 million Indian viewers a month, is far and away our largest English television channel. Meanwhile Twitter and Google Plus each get to about 14 million of us in a month – a number that is twice the circulation of India’s largest newspaper.

This eclipse of what we now call traditional media has been as certain as it has been sudden.

And what is amazing is that none of these “new” media vehicles have a single journalist working for them.

It’s all social, it’s all viral – and the new age has brought with it a generation of citizen journalists who are mostly armed with nothing much more than a Net connection and a supply of wit and wisdom – and who have built substantial readerships among their countrymen.

So who are our Clark Kents for this social media age?

AGE OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Few of you may have heard of R Srivats. This IIT and IIM graduate runs a tiny firm in Bangalore that builds desktop and mobile apps for marketers. But he’s far better known to his 32,000+ fans on Twitter by his handle @RameshSrivats where he dissects

POLITICS, POLITICS ALL THE WAY IT SURPRISED us – but four of the top six social media superstars were directly involved in politics and the other two are typically seen as political figures by others around them. Our list of top Indian political figures in the blogosphere: ■ SHASHI THAROOR

The member of parliament from Thiruvananthapuram (right) is not just far ahead in the Indian-politicians-who-

Kiran Bedi

get-social sweepstakes – but also the current numero uno when it comes to social media influence of any sort across India.

Blog/Site: http://tharoor.in Twitter: @shashitharoor PII score: 80.6; Readers: 12.6 lakh ■ KIRAN BEDI About as far as you can get from The Tharoor Syndrome is the lady who calls herself Crane Bedi (left), and is playing the role of self-appointed ombudsman of India along with her colleagues in the Anna Hazare movement.

Blog/Site: http://kiran-bedi.blogspot.in Twitter: @TheKiranBedi PII score: 76.3; Readers: 3.7 lakh ■ SUBRAMANIAM SWAMY The gadfly has risen, and how. His recent airing of the 2G scam has brought him significant social currency, and he's getting bigger all the time.

Blog/Site: http://swamy39.blogspot.in Twitter: @swamy39 PII score: 72; Readers: 50,000

MARCH 11, 2012

■ NARENDRA MODI

One surely expected him to do better than his south Indian counterpart. But the CM of Gujarat rolls onward, relentless.

Blog/Site: http:// narendramodi.com Twitter: @narendramodi PII score: 71.5; Readers: 4.9 lakh ■ PRAGMATIC DESI The man whose name shall not be uttered continues his quiet, persuasive political activism. Writing under a pseudonym, he still manages to sway the many with his finelyargued points.

Blog/Site: http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in Twitter: @pragmatic_d PII score: 63.9; Readers: 14,000

Shashi Tharoor

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the day’s news in 140 side-splitting characters.

How about Tinu Cherian? This jovial gent helps edit Wikipedia entries – but has over 68,000 people following his every tweet via his @TinuCherian handle on the microblogging service.

Stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra have been quick to recognise where their audience is headed, and have moved with the trend, each now boasting of over 2 million followers and readers online.

Once upon a time, Shahrukh Khan needed Filmfare’s 30,000 readers.

Today, Filmfare needs @iamSRK’s 1.8 million readers.

SO WHO ARE THE STARS?

We set out to identify the movers and shakers of this new era. There are lists and lists of Indian bloggers. But we didn’t just want the long-form writers – we wanted those with significant day-to-day readership and influence on what Indians do.

To find out, we turned to the Pinstorm India Influencer list which measures influence of about 5,000 Indians every single day using global metrics like Klout and PeerIndex – which in turn measure a person’s activity and reach across Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. (Time for a disclosure: the author of this piece helped create the methodology – and the list, if you’d like to see it, is at Pinstorm.com/ii) We used the list as a base and then catalogued the 100 top influencers who were adept bloggers, and grouped them by what they typically talked about. Making sure that they were still blogging though – they needed to have made a post in the last three months.

What is amazing is that none of these “new” media vehicles have a single journalist working for them. It’s all social, it’s all viral

Here’s what we found.

WHERE IS ALL THIS GOING?

As television channels lose viewership and as print magazines continue to bleed readership, we are seeing a rise of a new breed of individuals who have more influence and reach than corporations and their media do.

If Gul Panag reaches almost 3 lakh people every day through her blogs and updates, and these are

upwardly mobile, urban young men and women that advertisers dream to reach out to. At that point she stops being just a pretty face in the media – and instead becomes media herself, considering she can directly reach about 20 times the number of people that most glossy luxurythemed print magazines do in India today.

And you don’t need to start as a celebrity on the ground to be one online. People like AR Karthick,

Tinu Cherian, Ramesh Srivats, Nitin Pai and even yours truly have made it to the top 100 social influencers list in India with little in the way of any prior fame or “family connections.”

Remark-worthiness is the new currency. If this is true, how rich can you be?

(Mahesh Murthy is a marketer and investor with Pinstorm and Seedfund. He tweets as @maheshmurthy. The views expressed by the author are personal)

THE BADSHAHS OF ENTERTAINMENT FROM THE sublime to the ridiculous, though we’re not sure which is which, we’ll head to our favourite passion, Bollywood.

Here, like the new hits of today, are surprises galore. Most of the reigning royalty have actually stopped blogging, and moved on to just tweeting. One supposes this suits their time, or lack thereof, as well as the content of their updates – it’s better to say “Hi, I’m going to the gym” in 140 characters than ■ SHREYA GHOSHAL

The songbird (right) still updates her site, but it’s obvious she doesn’t care much for it, given its spectacularly ugly design and AdSense ads strewn about. Go over to see videos of her perform obscure songs at even more obscure live shows.

Blog/Site: http://Singer-

in 140 words – and it suits the IQ of some stars. In other words, there’s far less material where Shahid Kapoor will mangle the spellings.

If you’re wondering if 21st century social maven Gul Panag is going to be on this list, she’s actually graduated elsewhere, as you’ll see later. That said, there are still the entertainers who blog, and those who blog about entertainment. Our top five here are: ShreyaGhoshal.com Twitter: @ShreyaGhoshal PII score: 65.6; Readers: 7.9 lakh ■ TARAN ADARSH Going by current gossip, the recent passing of a film critic made it harder for film producers as it leaves just one person who gives their movies the star-ratings they like – no matter how crappy the movie. This is that person.

Blog/Site: http://bollywoodhungama.com Twitter: @Taran_Adarsh PII score: 62.7; Readers: 1.3 lakh ■ SHEKHAR KAPUR The man (left) who has been threatening to make a movie for well over a decade keeps somewhat better time online with his regularly updated blog on his thoughts, his movies, his thoughts and, well, his thoughts.

Blog/Site: http://ShekharKapur.com Twitter: @ShekharKapur PII score: 61.8; Readers: 1.6 lakh

Shekhar Kapur

■ CHINMAYI Chinmayi who, you’ll ask, and Chinmayi Sripada would be the equally puzzling answer. This babe from south of the Vindhyas is less known for her playback singing and more for her meticulously updated online diary of every single thought she’s ever had.

Blog/Site: http://ChinmayiSripada.com

Shreya Ghoshal Twitter: @Chinmayi PII score: 59; Readers: 58,000 ■ RAJAN RADHAMANALAN The wonders of the blogworld throw up interesting cases now and then, and this certainly is one. RajanLeaks, as the gent calls himself says he’s proud to “piss off” the entire Tamil film industry. He does so apparently by disclosing stories and secrets of films under production – and he does so in Tamil – in itself a rarity among bloggers.

Blog/Site: http://RajanLeaks.com Twitter: @RajanLeaks PII score: 58.3; Readers: 3,500

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hindustantimes.com/brunch BE A SPORT OUR MAIN drivers, as even a wet-behind-theears MBA-turned-analyst will tell you, are Bollywood and cricket. And we do have some shining examples of bloggers from our sports fields.

But, then again, not the usual ones. Sachin, as one would expect of God, does not have time to blog. But, strangely, neither does Harsha Bhogle.

Here are some who do: ■ SANJAY MANJREKAR

Yes, the man who managed to make his way from the 22yard strip to the commentator box by making a little more sense than Ravi Shastri and using fewer clichés – while also, admittedly missing out on several equine-looking women along the way – writes.

Blog/Site: http://ESPNcricinfo.com Twitter: @SanjayManjrekar PII score: 66.5; Readers: 59,000

■ KARTIK MURALI

Or is it Murali Kartik (right)? The confusion over what his name actually is aside, this all-rounder extends his talents to be genuinely friendly on Facebook and other social networks. Will it help him get back into the Indian team?

You’ll have to get N Srinivasan on there first, we guess.

Blog/Site: http://facebook.com/muralikartik Twitter: @KartikMurali PII score: 60.2; Readers: 84,000 ■ AAKASH CHOPRA Where do ex-opening batsmen go after they retire? Some become selectors, like Srikkanth.

And some writers, like the man who terms himself CricketAakash. Mr Chopra does well with on-the-front-foot writing, and his fans agree.

Blog/Site: http://cricketnext.in.com Twitter: @CricketAakash PII score: 59.8 ; Readers: 73,000 ■ VENKAT ANANTH The enfant terrible of Indian cricket

Karun Chandhok

writing goes from strength to strength – and he’s not yet 25. Venkat writes for Yahoo Cricket – and is a bit of a phenomenon online, doing, by one calculation, a sustained Murali Kartik average of over 100 updates a day on social media Blog/Site: http://cricket.yahoo.com/blogs Twitter: @VenkatAnanth PII score: 59; Readers: 9,500 ■ KARUN CHANDHOK A welcome break from our cricket madness is in the form of one of our racing wunderkinds.

Karun Chandhok (left), or KC, as he likes calling himself, takes his sport seriously, but doesn’t luckily take himself too seriously. Given our recent showing on the cricket fields, it’s perhaps time for us to follow someone other than just cricketers.

Blog/Site: http://KarunChandhok.com Twitter: @KarunChandhok PII score: 53.7; Readers: 76,000

OTHER LISTS

OLD MEDIA HANDS SO WHERE is the traditional media world through all of this? Not everybody, a la Murdoch, is wringing their hands wondering how to compete with Google and Facebook.

Many, at least in their personal capacities, have dived into digital waters, and are doing pretty well actually. The queen ■ RAJDEEP SARDESAI

Mr Suave (below) stays relatively out of trouble compared to his compatriot Ms Dutt on the rival channel. But he does blog on the company’s website, and expresses himself clearly. A relief, if seen in contrast to the super-loudmouth Arnab Goswami.

Blog/Site: http://ibnlive.in. com/blogs Twitter: @SardesaiRajdeep PII score: 72.5; Readers: 4 lakh

Rajdeep Sardesai

of the scene, in some ways, is Barkha Dutt. But while Barkha is as loud-mouthed on Twitter as she is on TV, she has a blog that strangely is closed to the public and open only to the chosen few. That disqualifies her from this list.

But her counterparts do well.

■ SAGARIKA GHOSE

In perhaps the only showing of its kind for a couple in this list, Mr Sardesai’s better half (right) expresses her somewhat-less respected views on the company blog too – and continues to infuriate people through her status updates the rest of the time. Of course it remains to be seen how the duo fare after the Mukesh Ambani takeover.

Blog/Site: http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs Twitter: @SagarikaGhose PII score: 58; Readers: 65,000 ■ SMITA PRAKASH This editor of Asian News International has muscled her way into the online bloggerati elite via her own site and tens of thousands of updates over the last few years.

Blog/Site: http://www.SmitaPrakash.com Twitter: @SmitaPrakash PII score: 55.5; Readers: 21,000 ■ SHAILI CHOPRA While one can imagine her colleague

Sagarika Ghose Arnab’s blog – if it existed – would have all text in screaming red, bold 72-point letters repeating themselves ad nauseum while not making much sense, Shaili does better.

Blog/Site: http://blog.economictimes.indiatimes.com/businessbirdie Twitter: @ShailiChopra PII score: 55.3; Readers: 3,000 ■ NIKHIL WAGLE The lone representative from nonEnglish media on this list, the editor of IBN-Lokmat makes his mark as an aggressive persuader online too.

Blog/Site: http://ibnlokmat.tv Twitter: @WagleNikhil PII score: 54.3; Readers: 15,000

BUSINESS AND MARKETING ■ ALOK KEJRIWAL

Blog/Site: http://RodinHood.com Twitter: @RodinHood PII score: 59.6; Readers: 2,500 ■ KARTHIK SRINIVASAN Blog/Site: http://itwofs/beastoftraal Twitter: @BeastOfTraal PII score: 58.8; Readers: 7,000 ■ YOGESH M.A. Blog/Site: http://Yogeshma.co.in Twitter: @GlocalSources PII score: 58.8; Readers: 800

TECHNOLOGY ■ RAJU PP

Blog/Site: http://TechPP.com Twitter: @RajuPP PII score: 57.8; Readers: 6,500 ■ MAHENDRA PALSULE Blog/Site: http://scepticgeek.com Twitter: @ScepticGeek PII score: 56; Readers: 6,500 ■ ATUL CHITNIS Blog/Site: http://AtulChitnis.net Twitter: @AtulChitnis PII score: 55.6; Readers: 6,500

“I hear YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are merging to form a super Social Media site – YouTwitFace” – Conan O’Brien on The Tonight Show MARCH 11, 2012

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DIM SUM’S DAY OUT

LOCAL TASTES

We just don’t call them dim sum in India – we prefer to use the term momo Photos: THINKSTOCK

Vir Sanghvi

The success of the Royal Chinas and Yauatchas suggests that Indians are finally recognising quality dim sum

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SUCCESS MANTRA

rude food

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AY BACK in the early Eighties, when the Taj Group was planning its second hotel in New Delhi, it faced the dilemma of what kind of Oriental restaurant to open. The Taj already ran the massively successful House Of Ming at the Taj Mahal. How could it open a second restaurant without stealing business from its front-runner?

Camellia Panjabi, the then Taj’s executive director offered a solution. Suppose the hotel eschewed the Sichuan route and went in a different direction? The Taj could open a dim sum place. It would be a teahouse that would serve dumplings all day and guests could drop in whenever they liked and eat as much as they wanted.

The Tea House Of The August Moon opened at the Taj Palace soon after the hotel was launched in 1982.

The dim sum menu was interesting but it rapidly became clear that the restaurant was ahead of its time. Delhi was only just getting used to real Chinese food (The House Of Ming had opened in 1978) and nobody had the patience to develop a taste for dim sum. Though the restaurant continued to serve dim sum for some years it became – bit by bit – a House Of Ming clone in terms of its menu, at least.

Looking back, I think Camellia was being too ambitious. In the early Eighties, it was rare to find a dim sum restaurant outside of mainland China or the overseas Chinese enclaves (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc.) Even New York and London had yet to discover the joys of dim sum.

To expect Delhi’s Punjabis to forsake their Chicken Hong Kong and other House of Ming favourites for some delicate dumplings was probably unreasonable.

On the other hand, were the Taj to attempt something like that today, the idea may meet with more success. Suddenly, dim sum is a global craze. London’s Yauatcha opened its Bombay branch a few months ago (see last week’s Rude Food) and there will be more Yauatchas in other cities. The assembly-line dim sum chain Ping Pong is a big hit everywhere in the West. And Taiwan’s Din Tai Fung (DTF) is expanding at a massive pace, opening branches all over the world.

In India, Royal China owes some of its success to the high quality of its dim sum.

The Delhi branch does an enormously successful dim sum brunch on Sundays and most people who go to the two Bombay Royal Chinas order the dim sum. In Delhi, one of the many attractions on the menu

Indians act as though dim sum are an unfamiliar food but the truth is that we have been eating them for many decades

MARCH 11, 2012

In India, Royal China owes some of its success to the high quality of its dim sum. The Delhi branch (above) does an enormously successful dim sum brunch

at Set’z is the cheung fan, a sort of dim sum rice crepe that is hard to find at most other restaurants.

What accounts for the sudden popularity of dim sum, a kind of food that has been around for years but has never been as highly lauded as it is today?

I may be stretching the point but my guess is that the dim sum craze is not unlike the sushi phenomenon. Young people want simple foods that can be consumed on their own. Moreover, because most dim sum are steamed, they are also – like sushi – the healthy option for those who want to steer clear of oil, grease or fried foods.

Indians always act as though dim sum are an unfamiliar food but the truth is that we have been eating them for many decades now. We just don’t call them dim sum – we prefer to use the term momo.

There is probably a book – or a TV programme at least – to be done on the spread of momo in India. But whatever position you take on the origins of the dish – is it Tibetan? Is it Nepali? etc – the reality is that in much of North and Eastern India, momos have always been popular as a cheap and easy-to-make snack food. I once wrote that the best way to eat well in the restaurants of the North East was to stick to momos – to howls of outrage from the citizens of the North East who believed that I was disparaging their local cuisines. (I wasn’t. It’s just that you don’t get their local cuisines in the restaurants of the region.)

My momo memories stretch back to the streets of Calcutta.

My dim sum memories, however, are more recent. Of course, I have always known what dim sum are but somehow I never really saw the point of fat balls of dough stuffed with minced meat of indeterminate origin.

Then, over a decade ago, I went to Taiwan. No matter what anyone may tell you, some of the best Chinese food in the world in not to be found in Shanghai or Hong Kong – you’ll find it in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. The Taiwanese are justly proud of their expertise with dim sum and my guide insisted on taking me to what he claimed was the best dim sum restaurant in the world: “Very difficult to get a table! Japanese tourists book it months in advance.”

It was a not terribly fancy place called Din Tai Fung, which I had never heard of before and the star attraction was the soup dumpling. This was a small dim sum that looked no different from anything else. But when you put it into your mouth and bit into it, hot soup gushed forth.

My guide was clearly used to taking foreigners to DTF and waited for my look of astonishment as the soup filled my mouth.

Naturally, I asked him how they managed that. “They put in the soup with a syringe,” he laughed. “No, actually, they freeze the

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Photo: CC/KAKE PUGH

DIFFERENT ORDER

TREND SETTER

Alan Yau opened Yauatcha, a restaurant dedicated primarily to dim sum and the whole of England fell in love with the concept

In Delhi, one of the many attractions on the menu at Set’z (above) is the cheung fan (right)

HOT SPOT

CHEAP AND BEST!

Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong is the cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant in the world

Photo: CC/CHIKA WATANABE

soup and then when they steam it, the soup melts.”

Later, I was to discover that it was a little more complicated than that. They turned the soup into a gelatinous substance that liquefies while the dim sum are being steamed.

There is no unanimity over the credit for discovering the soup dim sum. The Taiwanese say they invented it. Other Chinese say that the recipe has been around for years and that the Taiwanese did no more than popularise it. Either way, it is hard for me to dispute that it was that one visit to DTF that opened my eyes to the glories of dim sum. The DTF dim sum were light, the skin was translucent and the filling seemed to glow from deep inside.

Within a few years, the West began offering great dim sum. I had been to the vast dim sum restaurants of Chinatown in New York and London but though the dim sum kept coming on trolleys and in baskets, the quality was rarely memorable. That changed with the opening of the original Hakkasan in London where the dim sum lunch was not just excellent, it was also good value. Then, Alan Yau, who started Hakkasan, opened Yauatcha, a restaurant dedicated primarily to dim sum and the whole of England fell in love with the concept.

In recent years, dim sum has gone mass market with the Ping Pong chain. I have never been overly impressed by the quality of the food but you can’t quibble with the chain’s global success. As far as I can tell, the idea is to make the dim sum at a central commissary and to then send them off to restaurants all over the world. At each branch of Ping Pong, they take the refrigerated dim sum and steam it for each order. It might sound like airline food but it works. I guess we should think of it as the dim sum equivalent of conveyor belt sushi – it’s not the real thing but it is real enough and cheap enough to appeal to a young mass market.

The problem with dim sum is that unless the chef is talented, the quality of the dumplings can be dire. DTF is now a global chain (something I could hardly have dreamt of when I went to the original restaurant in Taiwan) and I am not sure that this is a good thing. I liked the branch on Singapore’s Orchard Road

The assembly-line dim sum chain Ping Pong (left) is a big hit everywhere in the West (there are now four DTF’s in Singapore) but the Bangkok branch which opened at Central World a few months ago has failed to produce dumplings of great quality. I went for lunch last week and was startled by how bad some of the fillings were and how the translucent skins of the original DTF dumplings had become thick balls of dough.

But if dim sum are done right then they can be amazingly light and delicately delicious. If you’ve seen my Asian Diary episode on rice (part of the TLC show from some years ago) then you will have caught the footage of the chef at Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong spreading rice batter on his griddle waiting for it to solidify, putting minced char siu on top and then slicing and rolling the sheets of the now solidified rice paste into porcelain-like cheung fan. We filmed at Tim Ho Wan a few weeks after the restaurant had opened. A little later the Michelin guide found it and it is now the cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant in the world.

Because the making of fragile cheung fan and of delicate dim sum is a great art, which tests the ingenuity of a chef much more than most other kinds of Chinese cooking, anyone who can produce great dim sum deserves a Michelin star, no matter how simple the restaurant.

Sadly, it works in reverse too. All too often, the dim sum we get in India – at so-called dim sum lunches and even at specialty restaurants – is mediocre, dull and heavy. Worse still, many chefs take the easy way out and simply deep fry their dim sum knowing that this is certain to appeal to a certain kind of Indian palate. (Can it be a coincidence that the deep-fried wonton is probably the most ordered dim sum at Indian Chinese restaurants?)

But perhaps things are changing.

The success of the Royal Chinas and Yauatchas suggests that Indians are finally recognising quality dim sum.

With a bit of luck, this will spell the end of all those terrible dim sum lunches at five-star hotels where the dim sum skin has the texture of old leather and the filling is made from the pulverised flesh of some animal whose identity you would rather not know about.

MARCH 11, 2012

TASTE PACKETS

The dim sum at DTF (below) were light, the skin was translucent and the filling seemed to glow from deep inside

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MWC 2012: WHERE MOBILES WERE REBORN

From quad-core processors to 41 megapixel cameras, here’s a taste of the new smartphones coming our way Samsung Note 10.1

If you blew the world to little bits with a big phone, then why not take that idea and put it in a Tablet.

The Samsung Galaxy Note is now a 10-inch Tablet and borrows liberally from its smaller brother. It has a 800x1280 pixel resolution mated with a surprisingly ordinary 3 megapixel camera at the back.

It runs on Android 4.0 OS, has a dual core 1.4 ghz processor and all the other gee whiz features you need on a slate. The cool quotient goes up as it comes with the S Pen, basically a stylus on steroids with amazing pressure sensitive magic.

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Rajiv Makhni

techilicious

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HE WORLD of tech is a pretty strange place. While many other industries have their own exhibitions and showcase events, no one can compare to a tech event. There’s a certain insanity, a deranged glint in everyone’s eyes, a wild and psychotic quest that everyone seems to be on. Bloggers, product manufacturers, geeks, techies, journalists and TV crews from across the world arrive with a hunger and demand for their minds to be blown. Almost everything is analysed, dissected and torn apart within seconds of the product being unveiled and announced. People stand in line for hours to feel that new device in their hands only to deride it for not feeling exactly like they thought it should. People who’ve never met before form discussion groups on the spot and argue about a device or new service as it their life depended on it.

Everybody is out on a hunt to find the unknown, the unannounced, the most secretive next big thing. Tech is a strange place and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, is the Mecca of strangeness.

But this time Barcelona did a one up on techies. For the first time ever, strange sights and events played out even before you got into MWC. First, a public transportation strike crippled the event (threats and bargaining got some things working, but it was never normal). Then slogan-shouting and banner-wielding protesters took over the Fira circle right outside MWC (the slogans and banners were poetic, if you like your poems with only four-letter words).

The protesters came with different agendas. Some hated mobiles as an industry, some hated companies who were job cutting and some just hated! Horse-mounted riot police did the job of greeters at MWC and most of us were shepherded in and out like we were in a war zone. And as soon as you got inside, the Chinese invasion took over.

Yup, China had literMARCH 11, 2012

ally taken MWC hostage. The biggest banners, the largest posters, the most enormous displays and halls, the huge guest and media areas, the Pegasus horse made entirely of mobile phones, the holder for your event ID card, the bag to hold all your papers were all either ZTE or Huawei. If ever the rest of the world mobile industry was made to look a bit minuscule, then MWC 2012 was it!

MWC 2012 will also be remembered for the clear directions it gave for the industry for the next five years. From companies that were born again (Sony minus Ericsson), to product maturity (quad cores, large screens, unibody designs), to the shock of the Nokia PureView with a 41 megapixel camera, to radical new innovations (a Porsche controlled by a BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet to a three-in-one device, the Asus PadFone), this was the year we’ll all look back at and say, “This is where it all started all over again.”

ASUS PADFONE

This is the device that broke all the rules. A device that rethought the dynamics of all that we carry.

Think about it. Most of us have a phone, a tablet and a laptop.

What if just your phone c o u l d power your tablet and that tablet could morph into a laptop. The Asus PadFone is a dumb tablet with just a screen and has a slot at the back that you slide your phone into and the phone powers it up as a tablet. Then attach it to the keyboard dock and you’ve got a laptop. This is pretty much the Swiss army knife of all phones.

SONY XPERIA S, U AND P

Free a company from the shackles of a partnership and it suddenly grows wings like never before. At CES in Vegas, Sony flaunted the Xperia S and at MWC it beat the pants off its own device and came up with the Xperia P and U. The Xperia S, P and U truly look like a band of brothers. And good looks certainly run in the family! The Xperia P comes packed in an aluminium unibody casing and a 4-inch display. It is the first handset to use Sony’s latest White Magic technology that provides superior legibility even in bright sunlight. An 8 megapixel camera at the back, dual core 1 GHz processor and 16 GB in-built memory. And

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then the most stunning phone of MWC, the Xperia U with the transparent band below the screen that you can’t help be hypnotised by. Customise it to the colour you want when you get a call. And when you are viewing any images in your phone gallery, the band changes to the most predominant colour in the photograph. Sony is finally on a roll.

NOKIA 610

It was expected to happen. But not this fast. A Windows phone at about ten thousand bucks. And the all new aggressive we-will-conquer-the-world- again.

Nokia has packed quite a punch.

Running on the same Windows Phone 7.5 OS, it has almost all the features its big brothers have. While it runs on a middling 800 MHz processor, it still works well. A 3.7-inch display, Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, a 5 megapixel camera and Zune complete the knockout punch. Take that right on your face, all you Android economy phones!

LG OPTIMUS VU

When you take on the might of the Samsung Galaxy Note, then you better have some strong arsenal of weaponry in your pocket. And this one does. It’s big, it’s bright and it has a wow screen. The LG Optimus Vu has a supremely big IPS display with a crisp 1024x768 pixel resolution. The funny part is that it has a 4:3 form factor which is very unusual. Apparently it opens Web pages perfectly and without need for scrolling and also ebooks read perfectly. It may be wide but it’s also very thin at 8.5 mm and also loaded to the brim: 32 GB internal memory, 1 GB RAM and a microSD card slot, an 8 megapixel camera that shoots videos at 1080p, 1.2GHz dual core processor and a jaw dropping 2080mAh battery. Wonder what Samsung will do now. Maybe a Galaxy Note 2?

HUAWEI ASCEND D1 QUAD

Beware all mere mortals. The almighty, the powerful, the Ascend D1 Quad has arrived. It comes in a beautiful, super-slim package too with very slick ergonomics. A 4.5-inch screen with 720x1280 resolution. Plus the mighty phone has 1 GB RAM and 8 GB ROM, Android 4.0 and an 8 megapixel camera at the back. But the reason why it is mighty and powerful? Well it’s the fastest smartphone in the world and pulls it off with H u a w e i ’s proprietary processor, a beastly 1.2 Ghz quad core. And that is not a small feat to pull off!

HTC ONE X

This was the phone that had even the competition salivating. The HTC One X is a gigantic 4.7-inch super IPS LCD display with 720x1280 pixel resolution. The superior Corning glass toughens it up to scratches while the 8 megapixel camera clicks brilliantly and as fast as five pictures a second. Powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad core 1.5 GHZ processor, this has serious horsepower. But it’s in the sound that it truly shines. With Beats Audio built in, this has a punchy bass and sounds like no other phone.

And then the thin unibody polycarbonate form factor is awesome and holds beautifully in the hand.

NOKIA PUREVIEW 808

The phone that rocked MWC and shot it to bits. 41 megapixel bits in fact. Just when we thought that the cellphone megapixel war has come to an end, Nokia blew up the competition with a camera of super-human proportions. 41 megapixels. Yes, you read that right!

FORTY ONE! Even professional DSLRS wouldn’t be able to pull that off, yet here it is in a simple phone. The real devil is in the detail and this one has an amazing amount if it. Zoom in to a photo with the usual pinching or tapping gesture and keep pinching – you can zoom in to the smallest detail. And you can print pictures even 9 metres wide. Running on Symbian Belle, it comes with a 4-inch AMOLED display. But that’s all boring stuff. The real story is the 41 megapixel camera.

Yes, FORTY ONE!

LG OPTIMUS 3D MAX

They started the whole idea of a small screen with 3D but without the headache-inspiring glasses and now they’ve bettered it. A better screen, better viewing angle, far better resolution and a picture that really does look 3D, raw and naked to the eye. Even the camera shoots photos and videos in 3D and completes the experience.

Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com/RajivMakhni

MARCH 11, 2012

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hindustantimes.com/brunch

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE That’s how long it takes for us to lose interest while surfing on the Net – and increasingly, in real life

WHAT’S THE RUSH?

Everyone is always in a hurry. In a hurry to grow up; in a hurry to hit the fast lane; in a hurry to get rich

Seema Goswami

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F YOU are as old as I am, you probably remember a time when you actually had to dial-up an Internet connection. Sometimes it took two minutes; sometimes it took ten; and sometimes it didn’t work at all. When you finally connected, every site took ages to open up, and then just as you were finally getting into it, the connection would magically disappear. So then you had to dial-up again... and again.

I remember spending entire afternoons at my desk, just waiting to first get through and then finish my research. Over time I got canny enough to arm myself with a magazine to while away the time spent waiting. Sometimes, just to mix it up, I would buff my nails; call a friend for a chat; eat a sandwich; even do my stretching exercises.

(Okay, I made up the last one; but the rest of it is true.)

In case you’re wondering why I am blubbering on about the bad old days of Internet connectivity, my nostalgia was triggered by a recent news report that said that people will visit a website less often if it is slower than its competitor by more than 250 milliseconds. What is 250 milliseconds in peoplespeak? Well, it translates as the blink of an eye.

So, if a website is slower than its rival by even a blink of an eye, we will abandon it in favour of the faster one. As Arvind Jain, the resident speed maestro at Google, says, “Subconsciously, you don’t like to wait. Every second counts.” Or, more accurately, every nano-second. Harry Shum, speed specialist at Microsoft, agrees, “250 milliseconds, either slower or faster, is close to the magic number now for competitive advantage on the web.”

And no doubt with time, we will only get more demanding. As recently as 2009, a study by Forrester Research found that online shoppers wanted pages to load in two seconds or less. The moment you hit the three second mark, a large percentage would simply abandon the site and move on. Just three years earlier, however, a similar study had found that the average expectation for page load time was four seconds or less. So, with every year, our desire for speed, well, speeds up even more.

But if you ask me, this is not simply about our impatience while surfing the Net. In a sense, this report is a metaphor for our times. We want it all, and we want it now. And by that I mean NOW, not 250 milliseconds later! Okay?

Ours is not a generation that sees any virtue in delayed gratification. And the generation after ours, which has been weaned on smartphones and grown up on iPads, is going to be even less patient. Soon the 250 millisecond mark will be whittled down to 150 milliseconds, then 50 milliseconds – until a time comes when we will want the page to load intuitively even before we have clicked on it.

We can already see the signs. Everyone is always in a hurry. In a hurry to grow up; in a hurry to hit the fast lane; in a hurry to get rich; in a hurry to get into

spectator

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Photo: THINKSTOCK

MARCH 11, 2012

shape; in a hurry to be famous; in a hurry to retire; in a hurry to... well, you get the drift.

And of course, everyone is in a hurry when on the Net. What, 250 milliseconds too slow? Bam, you’re dead.

Sadly, this impatience has percolated into every area of our lives. You see it in the professional sphere all the time. No one wants to stay in the same job for too long for fear of stagnating.

They want to move on and up – and on yet again, even if the raise offered is a few thousand rupees. The idea of staying on and working for the same firm – like the company-men of an earlier generation – is anathema to anyone under the age of 30.

Or let’s look closer home. Children, these days, seem to be in a tearing hurry to grow up. The teenage years appear to start at 10 rather than 13; they are dating at 12 rather than 16; and they seem to know more about sex at 15 than we did ten years later.

Personal gratification is another area where our expectations have speeded up. Want to lose weight? Yes. But who has the time or inclination to do the old-fashioned way: by eating less and working out more. That would just mean losing a kilo a week, duh! That’s simply not fast enough.

So bring on the fad diets, the slim cures, the week-long fasts, the plant juice detox. Instead of taking a long-term view, look for the quick fix. Check into a fat farm, a body boot camp, or a yoga retreat for a week or so. And if none of that works, well then a little bit of liposuction never hurt anyone – and you’ll be home before lunch to snack on some fast food.

Ah food! Cooking is becoming a lost art because few people have the patience to rustle up a home-made meal from scratch.

And eating out in a restaurant has become like a race against time. I want my menu now. Bring the bread to the table already.

What’s with the ten-minute delay between courses? Of course, I don’t want the soufflé; it takes 25 minutes!

You do realise that I don’t have even 250 milliseconds to spare, don’t you? seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami

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twitter.com/HTBrunch

surprise arrival in the mail, the new Cranberries album, Roses, their first in ten years. I like Dolores O’Riordan’s Celtic lilt and, during the mid and latenineties have had cassette tapes of No Need to Argue and To the Faithful Departed as permanent Sanjoy residents in my car. Yet, I have not yet heard the Narayan Cranberries new album.

Two new albums by Springsteen and the I would have heard both theirs as well as Springsteen’s new ones had I not chanced upon a Cranberries can wait for a while – I’ve just nearly 14-minute version of a Frank Zappa song, chanced upon Frank Zappa’s Advance Romance. Actually, I chanced upon a relatively recent release of a live concert by the maverick musician. Recorded way back in 1976, Philly ’76 was released by the Zappa Family Trust only in 2009, some 16 years after Zappa died prematurely at 52. Frank Zappa was a genius – not only was he an exceptionally talented electric guitarist but a composer of rock, jazz and classical music, a film-maker, producer and singersongwriter. But more on all that in just a bit.

Philly ’76 is a bit different from Zappa’s other albums and he has several – in his lifetime he released more than 60 albums and after his death the family trust released nearly 30 (and yet, I remember going nuts trying to score Zappa albums in the late seventies and the eighties in India; none seemed to be available readily in those prehistoric analog decades). Philly ’76 features Lady Bianca, the electric blues singer whose vocals are strikingly big and display influences of jazz, gospel and soul. I heard Advance Romance, a wryly funny Zappa song about a character called Potato-head Bobby, sung by Lady Bianca who BREAKING NEWS briefly toured with Zappa’s Many of Bruce Springsteen’s albums band in 1976, and decided are themed on major that I must get the album. issues of their times The search was not easy. You A MAN OF MANY TALENTS can order the CD or vinyl Frank Zappa was a genius – not only was he an exceptionally talented electric versions online, of course, but guitarist but a composer of rock, jazz and classical music, a filmmaker, getting hold of digital verproducer and singer-songwriter sions turned out to be a challenge.

HERE ARE two albums sitting on my desk next to the Nearly all the tracks – there are 23 – from Philly ’76 are laptop that I’m typing on and I haven’t yet heard them. previously unreleased and even though the concert goes back 36 One of them is Bruce Springsteen’s new and, as I underyears, the recording shows how much fun a Zappa concert used stand, angry album, Wrecking Ball. Serendipitously, the album to be. The spontaneity and unexpectedness of his shows is MIX AND MATCH landed just as I was thinking of Springsteen. I like Springsteen something showcased by Philly ’76. There are excellent Lady Bianca’s vocals are although I’m not as huge a fan of the sincere, honest, working-class solos – Zappa’s own as well as bandmate Ray White’s on guitar; strikingly big and display hero musician as are a couple of my colleagues. He is politically and Eddie Jobson’s on the keyboards. But what stands out is the influences of jazz, gospel outspoken and many of his albums are themed on major issues of unusual touch that Lady Bianca adds to Zappa staples – songs and soul their times – Wrecking Ball has been associated by critics with such as Dirty Love, Chrissy Puked Twice and the always-a-treatthe current financial crisis in the US. to-hear, Dina-Moe Humm. If you’re a Zappa fan and don’t have But I wasn’t thinking of Springsteen’s music when this album, get it. the CD arrived courtesy the folks at Sony Music. I had And if you’ve never heard Zappa, well what can I say except just got the February 27 issue of feel sorry for you. I could, however, direct you Bloomberg Businessweek and the to Apostrophe (‘), Sheik Yerbouti or Joe’s Garage cover had an image of Mitt Romney – all great albums to start you off. You could also with his back to the camera and one add a live album to that list – 1978’s Live in of a hand holding the cover of New York.

Springsteen’s 1984 album, Born in the USA. Meanwhile, I’m going to give Wrecking Ball and Roses a listen. At last.

Only, the magazine’s headline said Scorned in the USA. A funny and clever cover. And To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in ironic that Springsteen’s new album, which this column, go to http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/ arrived just then, was one that scathingly download-central, follow argus48 on Twitter indicts the suits on Wall Street.

I haven’t heard Wrecking Ball MORE ON THE WEB yet. Neither have I tried the other hindustantimes.com/brunch

Philly ’76

download central

TO BE FRANK...

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If you’ve never heard Zappa, well what can I say except feel sorry for you. I could, however, direct you to Apostrophe (’)

MARCH 11, 2012

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WELLNESS

F i gh t i n g F i t

Last of our series on celebs who’ve beaten health disorders

Vikas Khanna, chef

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‘I had to wear heavy, ugly wooden shoes’

He could barely walk as a child. But then, New York chef Vikas Khanna learnt to run

by Veenu Singh

HEN HE hosted the recently concluded MasterChef India (season 2) in place of Akshay Kumar, Vikas Khanna, the award-winning Michelin-starred Indian chef and restaurateur from New York, instantly became a hit with audiences. Quite apart from his culinary skills, it was his good looks, soft voice and killer smile that swept viewers off their feet, making him a star among TV audiences, from Lucknow to Ludhiana.

But Khanna’s success did not come without some hard battles.

Born in 1971 in a small hospital in Amritsar, Khanna was born with misaligned legs and feet (where the leg bones are not aligned properly at the joint and can look as if they are turned sideways). “The very first thing the doctor told my mother was that your son is born with absolutely ulta feet, and my mother refused to believe him,” recalls an emotional Khanna.

“Some 30-40 years ago, nobody would even think about discussing such issues. I’m really happy to know that now they are being seen in a different light,” adds Khanna, who had to have his legs operated on when he was barely two weeks old.

Despite the operation, the doctor informed Khanna’s mother that he would not be able to walk properly for a few years and would have to wear wooden shoes that would help the proper alignment of his legs.

“Special wooden shoes were ordered for me from China and I had to wear them all the time,” reminisces Khanna. “I hated them as they made me look so ugly and everybody laughed at me. They were also very heavy, so I would find

it difficult to walk comfortably, and they would feel rather clumsy. The only good thing about them was the fact that I could easily burst crackers (the thin red phatakas) with these shoes,” says Khanna on a lighter note, though the crack in his voice gives away the pain and suffering he underwent at that time.

A GLEAM OF HOPE

In fact, it was this pain that pushed Khanna towards his current career.

To avoid being teased, he would gravitate to the kitchen where his Biji (grandmother) cooked traditional Indian dishes using homemade spices. “By the time I was seven, I had developed a certain obsession for food. Every day I would run to the kitchen, pull up a stool and watch Biji cook amazing Punjabi dishes with some secret spices. I would ask her about the spices, the flavours and how we got the right mix and she would explain things in great detail,” explains Khanna.

“She realised that I was a loner at heart, the backbencher who would rather watch her cook than go out and play or even spend time studying,” reveals Khanna, adding that if his grandmother hadn’t encouraged him, he would have definitely turned into a recluse. “At that point, I didn’t realise what was in store for me,” says Khanna with a sense of pride.

By the age of 15, Khanna’s legs had started getting their strength back and the wooden shoes finally came off. His mother then took him to the Company Bagh garden in Amritsar and asked him to start running. She told him that she was sure that one day he would fly. “‘Tu Amritsar ka best cook banega’ is what she said with a twinkle in her eyes,” recalls Khanna. “I wasn’t sure about what I was going to do at that time, but my mother had a determined look on her face and was confident about my success. My legs felt absolutely weak after years of being in those shoes, but I ran with all my might,” explains Khanna, adding that from that day, he runs every single morning without fail.

Ask him whether he has managed to forget that pain and loneliness and Khanna just smiles back. “You know, as long as you are in pain,

My grandmother realised that I was a loner at heart, who would rather watch her cook than play

Photo courtesy: SUNANDA SATISH KARODE

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MISALIGNED FEET Many times, babies are born with feet that are turned inwards. This could be either due to some problems with the joints (it is usually rectified as they grow up) or a condition known as ‘club foot’ (when the baby is in the womb, the position of the feet is such that the toes and feet may seem out of shape).

Although a club foot can be cured just by wearing specially made shoes, in cases with severe problems, an operation is suggested.

MARCH 11, 2012

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that’s the only thing you can think of,” he explains. “But after you overcome that, you start getting comfortable with your body and have a more normal relationship with people around you. I haven’t forgotten anything, but with God’s grace, I have been able to do a lot in my life now. And I feel that I owe it to everyone who has been praying for my well-being to keep myself fit,” says Khanna who is very careful about what he eats.

SUCCESS STORY

Khanna’s interest in food soon turned into a passion and he tried his hand at all kinds of Indian cooking under the guidance of his Biji.

“By the time I turned 17, my ultimate dream was to open a chole bhature ki dukaan,” says Khanna.

To give shape to his dreams, Khanna started a banquet and catering business – Lawrence Garden Banquets – in Amritsar to cater to the kitty party crowd.

A DAY IN THE LIFE MORNING Vikas wakes up at 7 am to an alarm that buzzes to the sound of chanting from the Golden Temple.

He starts his day with a fruit, usually a banana, followed by warm water. Vikas runs for at least 30 minutes, has a breakfast of six egg whites and then leaves for his restaurant, Junoon.

EVENING At 6 pm, Vikas goes back to the restaurant for dinner service. He is at the restaurant till 11 pm, so he usually ends up eating dinner there itself.

Vikas sticks to eating just one thing for dinner – which varies between dal, fish or roasted chicken. He also swears by desi ghee. Although his restaurant closes at 11 pm, Vikas is usually there till 1 am, taking care of everything personally.

Ask him what were his thoughts at that time and Vikas says, “For someone who had no idea about what he’d do in life, this was like a new beginning altogether. Suddenly, I felt like dreaming and I recalled my mother’s words again and again.

I think that’s what a firm belief in something or someone does to you.”

In order to sharpen his culinary skills, Vikas decided to join the Welcomgroup Graduate School of

MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA

HEAL THYSELF

R

AFTERNOON At noon, Vikas takes a break with a big cappuccino and then goes back to work. Lunch generally takes place around 3 pm when Vikas eats some dal and dahi. Post lunch it’s time for various meetings; and then at 5 pm, Vikas takes a break for about 15 minutes to meditate.

EJUVENATION involves detoxifying the body to get rid of all accumulated toxins. Once the body is detoxified, the next part involves rejuvenating the body by different rasayans and procedures.

Finally, the person has to maintain his or her nutrition to keep the body rejuvenated.

Detoxification consists of the purva karmas, the pradhan karma (or panchkarmas) and the paschat karmas. The pre-procedures to panchkarma is called purva karmas. They include nutrition and certain procedures.

Hotel Administration, Manipal.

There he got the opportunity to work with well known chefs from the hospitality industry. His outlook towards life changed and the shy, reticent, lonely boy was finally able to make friends and enjoy life like any normal youngster. “College life was an eye opener for me. I realised that cooking was everything for me and also that life is beautiful,” says the 40-year-old chef.

Nutrition consists of all vegetarian foods taken in small quantities, plus internal oleation by consuming ghee (organic only). A gradual decrease in foods is advised, followed by oil massage using medicated oils, and then steam is recommended.

An oil massage helps to move toxins to the elimination passages and steam helps to increase elimination by sweating.

During this time, it is also recommended that a person begins pranayam, and performs yoga asanas and kriyas to help calm and center the mind to gradually balance the emotional toxins and blocked emotional energies.

After the purva karma, the next step is the panchkarmas, or the five procedures for deep tissue detoxifica-

In December 2000, Khanna decided to move to New York, where creating a perfect dhokla helped him bag the executive chef position at Salaam Bombay Restaurant.

That was the beginning of his success story. Today, he runs Junoon, a restaurant in New York.

But Khanna still believes in letting his work, his food do all the talking for him. veenus@hindustantimes.com

tion. These involve: NASAYAM: nasal insufflations and face massage to allow elimination through the sinuses and nasal passages.

VAMAN: a medicated emesis therapy that removes kapha toxins collected in the body and the respiratory tract.

VIRECHAN: medicated purgation therapy that removes pitta toxins accumulated in the liver and gallbladder. It completely cleanses the gastro-intestinal tract VASTI / BASTI: cleanses accumulated toxins from all the three doshas through the colon. Also, medicated oil or ghee and a herbal decoction is given as an enema to clean the colon. ask@drshikha.com Photo: THINKSTOCK

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all” – Harriet Van Horne, US newspaper columnist

VA R I E T Y Photos: THINKSTOCK

Who’s Mama’s Little Pet? (And papa’s too?)

Pet dogs and cats, of course. But today they’re akin to their owners’ (sorry, parents’) children

Photos: KALPAK PATHAK

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by Parul Khanna Tewari Have you done any of the following lately: Created a Facebook account for your dog, so he can boast about the good life he leads? (a la Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who has one for his dog, Beast).

Tweeted on behalf of your cat, making him the feline star on Twitter?

(Just like American Jason Scott – @sockington).

Included your pet in your wedding ceremony? (American Idol singer Carrie Underwood and hockey player Mike Fisher had their rat terrier, Ace, go down the aisle in a Swarovski crystal encrusted tuxedo).

PET PARENTS WISH FOR...

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Lots of air-conditioned, spacious, well-kept boarding facilities manned by people who really love animals. There are not many decent places to leave your pets when you are away.

Good training institutes that train pets. Don’t you want to sip your coffee in a café with your Badal or Bela for company?

But before that, restaurants, malls and other public places must start allowing pets. Yes, yes, we will clean the poop.

Blood banks. When pets fall ill, it is nearly impossible to save their lives because there are no blood banks.

Pet-friendly offices or crèches, so that we are not constantly worried about them while we are at work. We really do love them like our children, you know!

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HESE ARE just a few of the many ways in which pet parents (don’t ever call them owners!) have taken their love of their pets to new levels.

People have always been crazy about their pets, of course, but these days they don’t shy away from expressing their love in public.

LOVE IS ALL AROUND

One reason for this sudden surge of indulgent pet parents is that the number of animal owners has increased, explains Dr Narendra Gandhi, from Delhi-based Gandhi’s Pet Clinic. “When I started practicing in 1991, I would say five per cent of Indians, especially in the metros, had pets,” says Dr Gandhi, adding, “Now, close to 40 per cent of Indians have them.”

And becoming a pet parent means that Indians are now ‘petting’ their pets more than ever.

Delhite Archana Kumari Singh, director, Frazer & Haws, confesses that though she disciplines her children, she can’t bring herself to do the same to her two dogs Amigo and Rufus. “They have to eat everything we eat and they sleep on the bed with us. They cannot talk so why punish them?” reasons Singh.

Some couples have also satisfied MARCH 11, 2012

PIA TRIVEDI

| VJ/Model

PET: Sky or Skypoo; Breed: Cocker Spaniel Pia got him with her first pay cheque 10 years ago. She is the disciplinarian in the house. Though a little fearful of Pia, Sky also throws tantrums, especially when she is packing to travel. Quality time for them? Holidaying together.

all their parental needs via their pets. Vipasha and Viren Saxena, who live in Noida and have been married for 12 years, decided not to have children but have three dogs and two cats for company. “We love them and care for them like children,” says Viren, a statement that would have raised more than a few eyebrows some years ago.

THE WRITE WAY TO DO IT

Pet parents are also taking up their pens to declare their love. In the book How Cheeka Became A Star And Other Dog Stories, one of the contributing writers, Nafisa Ali

Sodhi, explains how she cut down on her social commitments to care for Macho, the family dog who was struck by paralysis. And last year, Habib Rehman, a well-known name in the hotel industry, came out with Home For Gori, a book that detailed his poignant relationship with his dog, Gori. Launched on Gori’s fifth death anniversary, the book had a purpose – “It will help me share my joy and sorrow of owning and loving a pet with other animal lovers,” said Rehman.

Though a nascent trend and related to the worldwide success of Marley & Me (a best-selling book by

A strong sign that people are treating pets as children is that today couples negotiate for their pet’s custody when they separate

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American journalist John Grogan that was turned into a successful film), books on pets appeal to a lot of us, say experts. “Publishers are discovering that there is a market for such stories. It is like when the book What To Expect When You’re Expecting came out, it was a sensation. There was always a demand, but nobody talked about the topic,” explains Anant Padmanabhan, vice president, sales, Penguin India.

Pet parents are also documenting their passion on social networking sites. Information that would have been of no interest to people – the pet’s eating, bathing or (forgive us), defecating habits – are now hot topics, and many pet parents do this for no other reason than ‘pure love’.

“My father would think that all this talk of pets on the Internet and books was frivolous, but these are things that occupy our minds and something we indulge in constantly,” says Padmanabhan.

PETS ARE BIG BUSINESS

Another way pet parents are expressing their love is via their wallets. From chewy toys to salon visits to pet birthdays, there are a large number of people out there willing to spend huge sums on their pet children, and a whole industry aiming to cash in on this ‘relationship’. As actress Gul Panag, a committed dog lover, says, “There’s even a pet fair and a website (petvacations.com) that gives information about hotels that allow pets so that you can travel with them.”

One such establishment is the Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai, which allows guests to stay with their pets. Once a guest is allotted a room, a sign saying ‘dog inside’ is hung up so that a dog bark so close doesn’t scare other guests. “Our philosophy is ‘Home Away From Home’, and since we have so many

Photos: PRASAD GO RI

hindustantimes.com/brunch

guests who constantly travel alone, we allow them to bring their pet for company,” explains Divya Mohan, public relations manager, Four Seasons Mumbai.

On a more sombre note, Pet Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), an NGO that works for animal welfare, inaugurated Delhi’s first crematorium for pets at Chattarpur. The facility has been opened by Dr RT Sharma and Sunil Kalra (his dog died a few years ago and he couldn’t find a decent place to bury him).

LONELY HEARTS CLUB

Perhaps the strongest sign that people are increasingly treating their pets as much-loved children is the fact that their custody is increasingly being negotiated when couples separate or divorce. According to advocate Monika Arora, a practicing lawyer in the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India, “Pet parents find that they have too many emotions associated with their pet, and it becomes difficult for them to let go. Pets also provide separated couples companionship

ANUSHKA MANCHANDA

| singer

PETS : Achilla (right) and Bella (left); Breed: Cocker Spaniels Achilla listens to Anushka the most but Bella is more pampered.

Anushka shops for both when abroad and takes them for play dates. Her father sees Bella as his daughter and her mother fusses over both of them like children.

and unconditional love.”

Thirty-two year old chartered accountant Chirag Dewan and his wife chalked out a proper custody arrangement for their dog Bosco.

Bosco stays with Chirag three days a week, and Chirag’s wife gets custody for the next three days. “Bosco has now gotten used to the routine and he loves seeing both of us,”

PHOTOS: NATASHA HEMRAJANI, COURTESY: WFA

PET ADOPTIONS: THINK BEFORE YOU LEAP NGOs who work with animals regularly put up rescued, abandoned or old pups and cats up for adoption. Here’s how how animal volunteers conduct the adoption process: A short chat helps us know why people are considering a pet.

The potential family is

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shown pictures of animals. They then visit the pup or kitten in its foster home. We then explain details such as food habits, the animal’s temperament etc.

If there are already pets in the prospective house, we guide the family through the process.

Parents need to fill a form, give their ID and address proof, and are given info about vaccines, etc.

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AVANI SHAH WITH SILKWORM Silkworm was brought to an animal welfare NGO to get treated for an eye infection. Mumbai hairstylist Avani Shah adopted the cat, who now joins her three other cats

CAPTAIN PAOROSH BULSARA WITH NHEZA Nheza, a very ill stray dog, changed several homes, before finding a home – and good health – with Paorosh, who works in the Merchant Navy

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Volunteers go on home visits to check the progress of the pet. If we suspect something out of the ordinary – if the animal is tied for long hours, aggressive behaviour or even if the animal doesn’t seem adjusted, it is brought back and is put for adoption..

Courtesy: Shruti Shetty, architect, and in-charge of cat adoptions, World For All (WFA), Mumbai

MARCH 11, 2012

explains Chirag. “He was like therapy for me. Also, both my ex-wife and I love him equally, so it wasn’t fair to him or us for Bosco to stay with just one of us.”

Many single people are also turning to pets as a substitute for complicated human relationships. “It’s nice to have some semblance of life in the house when you come back,” says 29-year-old journalist Meghna Bhatt, who has two kittens.

Similarly, actress Gul Panag got Milo, a beagle, when she was unmarried and living alone in Mumbai. Soon, Milo got adjusted to her life and would not complain even when she would wake up late and take him for a walk, explains Panag. She adds that she would take Milo when she went grocery shopping, and he would wait for her in the car. Milo has also accompanied Panag on her many trips Photo: THINKSTOCK across the country. “Jet Airways allows small dogs in the cabin. So Milo has done 40,000 miles already,” explains Panag. parul.khanna@hindustantimes.com

CITY SLICKERS

Photo: THINKSTOCK

The Big Game Plan

can always catch it online. It’s a good way to learn,” says 19-year-old gamer Siddhant Mehra.

WHO’S PLAYING?

abroad,” consider this: the seven major gaming tournaments in India offer prizes worth lakhs. Still not impressed? The upcoming Indian Gaming Carnival in April in Greater Noida has a total prize purse of R1.5 crore. Simply put, most winners can make a few lakhs in prize money.

And this isn’t a case of all play and no work. It is a lot of hard work. The gaming community stays up all night to practice online with their friends, acquaintances or complete strangers. They interact with gifted amateurs and international cyber athletes, and practice for hours (sometimes days at a stretch).

“You just connect to the servers online and play with anyone. Plus, spectator modules let you watch the game. If you miss a tournament, you

Gaming isn’t just for those socially awkward geeks anymore. Everybody’s playing, and many for money... we’re talking a LOT of money

by Saudamini Jain

I

T’S 4 PM and 24-year-old Ben Varghese has a long to-do list.

But everything must wait. Ben has to practice for an upcoming tournament. He’s been the best assaulter in the country for nearly half a decade, now. And for the next three hours, all he can think of is killing 5,000 bots. Virtually.

But it’s not all fun and games for Ben. Gaming is a serious business, a potentially lucrative career choice.

Ben does it for a living and makes R4 lakh a year, and he gets free keyboards, consoles, headphones – the fringe benefits of being a gamer.

Don’t drop your jaw yet. Progamers abroad (North America, Europe, and especially South Korea)

BEN VARGHESE Age: 24 Location: Mumbai Game: Counterstrike (CS) Online gamer name: R4id (read: raid) Ask any gamer for the one who makes the most money, and you’ll get one answer: Ben Varghese. A full-time gamer, the B Com graduate never played computer games while growing up. He still doesn’t really like the computer. But, gaming is something else.

Ben was 17, and his friends always hung out at a gaming café in Kings Circle. “But I never really played. At most, I was a casual gamer,” he says.

One night at the café, a fight ensued. Someone mocked his gaming skills (or lack thereof), and Counterstrike became Ben’s counter strike. “I wanted to prove a point, it was all about that one game,” he says.

He started practicing every day,

are practically celebrities. They make thousands, even millions of dollars every year, playing in televised tournaments. South Korean gamer Lim Yo-Hwan (SlayerS_`BoxeR`) makes $400,000 a year. American gamer Johnathan Wendel (Fatal1ty) wins about $500,000.

And if you think this is one of those “crazy things that happen

Games are another form of entertainment and cultural expression. You can hunt down a civilisation, you can explore continents... there’s so much you can do

often for 10-15 hours. Sometimes for four-five days at a stretch, with no sleep and little food. “I practiced alone.

On an average, I’d kill 5,000 bots (characters controlled by the computer) a day. The idea was to become faster.”

And he did.

Ben started playing with others, and they formed a gaming team: ATE. They managed to find sponsors in 2007, and have remained undefeated in India since then. His five-member Counterstrike team makes about R15-20 lakh every year. It’s R3-4 lakh per person, and that’s just in cash. Every event comes with freebies and goodies.

They travel abroad for international events, watch televised tournaments online and practice often.

It was hard work, but Ben grew to love the game. “Counterstrike is the best stress reliever,” he says. “It strengthens your reflexes, increases your hand-eye coordination… and it’s the show stealer at every event.”

Gamers aren’t always socially awkward, solitary geeks, shying away from the real world. “Several American studies suggest that kids who play games are more social than those who don’t,” says gaming expert Gopal Sathe, editor of gaming blog split-screen.com.

Gamers have a life, a job, a family.

Some are married, but most are single (the average age is 14-27 years).

Some have supportive girlfriends who accompany them to events, some are “practically married to the game”. One gamer, say rumours in the circuit, even took a console along on his honeymoon. “It’s a very broad audience. There are parents who play the games they don’t let their kids play,” adds Sathe.

Some are engineers, graphic designers, post-graduates. And an increasing number of people, like Varghese, are giving up their jobs or education to game full-time.

Besides the lakhs at the aforementioned big events, there are events (offering a respectable R10,000-R20,000) in colleges and gaming cafes to get by.

“But gaming is a costly sport. It’s definitely easier to support it with a job,” says Mukul ‘terminator’ Sabhani, a hardware engineer at Dell. He was once a full-time gamer,

Photo: KALPAK PATHAK; LOCATION: PLAYFACTORY, WADALA, MUMBAI

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“Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!” – Toad in Super Mario Bros MARCH 11, 2012

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APOORVA MOHAN Age: 21 Location: Delhi Game: Call of Duty (COD) Online gamer name: Iron Babe Gaming is in her blood. Her dad games, as does her little sister. For Apoorva Mohan, it started with Mario, Contra and Bomberman, when she was three years old. As a teenager, it was Virtual Cop, Motorcross Madness, Duke Nukem and everything else she could get her hands on – including the X-rated ones.

Now, it’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Iron Babe is a girl who plays a First Person Shooter. And that by itself, ask any boy, is impressive. “I always preferred shooting games. And COD makes you feel like you’re actually fighting a war for your country. I come

but prefers having a consistent source of income. “I still attend all events, and practice as much – every night and all weekend.”

A 2011 Grant Thornton report predicts that the gaming market in the country is estimated to grow from R900 crore in 2010 to touch R2,125 crore in 2013. The urban Indian is getting hooked on to gaming like never before. “Games are another form of entertainment, a form of cultural expression – especially for the younger generation. You can hunt down a civilisation, you can explore continents... there’s so much you can do,” says Sathe.

And there’s something for

home from work at 8 and game all night, and all weekend,” says Apoorva.

She makes about R20,000 a year, and some more in goodies. But her clan, Evox, is doing well and the future looks bright. Besides, she works as a fulltime graphic designer, so money isn’t an issue. “Gaming is like my second life, so I don’t go out much.”

There are barely any female gamers in the circuit. And the boys like it that way. “It’s hard because people don’t take me seriously. It’s the Indian male mentality, many say it directly: gaming is not for girls,” says Apoorva. “It’s so much fun to beat a guy, especially an Indian guy. They go into shock.”

But Apoorva’s very clear about one thing: she’s not one of the guys. She likes pink, and she cried when Captain Price, a major character in Call of Duty 4, died at the end of the game. She’s here to play, and she’s good at it.

everyone. First-person shooters for action-lovers, real-time strategy for planners, role-playing for daydreamers, and sports games for those who love the outdoors.

Or you could be a casual gamer. It could be blowing up those nasty green pigs Manchester United centre-forward Wayne Rooney stars in (and is on the cover of) FIFA.

Photo: RAJ K RAJ; LOCATION: FEDERATION OF GAMERS, DLF PLACE, NEW DELHI

twitter.com/HTBrunch

in Angry Birds, or living the good life as an avatar in The Sims.

According to an Internet and Mobile Association of India report, 41.2 per cent of the total active Internet users in 2010 were gamers.

It’s not much, but it’s a start. The gamer is no longer the good-for-nothing bum or the weird geek, he or she could be training to be the next big cyber athlete – rich, famous and successful. saudamini.jain@ hindustantimes.com

A counter terrorist (CT) in Counterstrike.

These are the ‘good guys’ in the first-person shooter game

WHAT’S HOT FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER First-person shooters (FPS) are a type of 3D shooter games, where you see the action through the perspective of the protagonist. You are the main character you’re controlling. The gameplay centres on gun and weapon-based combat.

Popular games: Counterstrike, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Crysis REAL-TIME STRATEGY These are the strategy games played in real-time. Essentially, you control a large number of units in a tactical game scenario. You plan a city, build an army, construct a town hall… you play king, commander, God, anything.

Popular games: StarCraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires ROLE-PLAYING GAMES Role-playing games (RPGs) let you control a character, and live as this character in a fictional virtual world. These include massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where a large number of players interact with one another.

Popular games: Skyrim, Deus Ex, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft SPORT GAMES You can play a sport, virtually.

Football, cricket, golf, you name it. The video game imitates the real game, some feature real teams and players.

Popular games: FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour

A female night elf in the multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft

MARCH 11, 2012

PERSONAL AGENDA

facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch

Model/Actor/Designer

Lisa Haydon SUN SIGN

if i could...

Gemini

BIRTHDAY June 17

SCHOOL/COLLEGE FIRST BREAK

Finished high school from Australia, started modelling soon after

HOMETOWN PLACE OF BIRTH Chennai

I WOULD DESIGN ALL THE COLLECTIONS OF MY LINE, LISA LOVES SHER SINGH, FOR ONE YEAR IN A WEEK

What bliss!

I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN TEL AVIV AND BALI

Spending summers there would be fun

I WOULD GO TO SOUTH AMERICA – BRAZIL, ARGENTINA AND PERU

Look around and have fun

An Oil of Olay campaign at 19 and in the film Aisha

LOW POINT CURRENTLY HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE OF YOUR DOING LIFE Have collaborated with At 19 things started happening for me. I was earning good money

Perfume and of course, good clothes

Sexiest actors in Bollywood?

Without sounding partial to anyone, I really admire Kareena, Vidya, Hrithik and Ranbir.

Indian models who have managed to make it big internationally?

I really feel that both Laxmi Rana and Ujjwala Raut have made us proud.

Have you ever faced a wardrobe malfunction?

Fortunately, I haven’t been in an MARCH 11, 2012

When I moved back to India, I had to start from scratch

global lifestyle brand Sher Singh to design clothes, I also have two films in my kitty

If you could choose any movie as your dream debut, which one would it be?

Honestly, I am quite happy with Aisha as my debut film.

Define the styling of your label.

I believe in keeping it simple and not too over the top.

Fashion for everyone is what I believe in and that’s what my designs also stand for.

An item number you would love to do?

I would definitely love to dance on something totally Indian like Chikni Chameli.

If you could be the editor of a magazine, who would you put on the cover?

Someone doing something really worthwhile like Hillary Clinton or WHAT MAKES even Angelina Jolie.

YOU FEEL You de-stress by...

SEXY? Going to the spa and by doing something creative.

What makes your day?

Spending good times with my family and friends.

What spoils it?

My day can get spoilt by my own mood.

What do you love to gorge on after a long day at work?

Biryani and raita.

One gadget you love? embarrassing situation like this My iPad. ever.

The last time you had a bad hair day?

The last line of your autobiography There are days when my hair would read? refuses to fall the way I want it ...To be continued. to.

Three cosmetics you can’t do The last thing you bought for under without? `10?

Under eye cream, lip balm and Pinch-clips for my hair in a blush. various colours.

What do you prefer – a little black You are closest to? dress or a black saree?

My mother.

I actually love both. And the rest depends on the occasion.

— Interviewed by Veenu Singh PHOTO: JASJEET PLAHA; LOCATION COURTESY: THE LEELA PALACE, NEW DELHI

Mumbai

Photos: THINKSTOCK

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