Brunch 13 10 2013 by Hindustan Times

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 13, 2013 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

A stellar debut, a string of forgettable films and suddenly, three back-toback superhits. Deepika Padukone has stepped up her game, leaving Bollywood, critics (and all of us) reeling

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by Yashica Dutt

Rules Of The Game

HALLOWEEN COSTUMES WE’RE TIRED OF SEEING AT PARTIES

Facebook is the new playground. It documents our lives, loves, career changes, existential crises and much, much more. This has led to a constant state of broadcasting. Does everyone really NEED to know that we NEED to take a dump? We went through our friends lists and interesting patterns emerged. Everybody who wants attention can be broadly classified under these heads. You know which shoe fits you

SEXY ANGEL: Like there can be any other kind? We get it. You are sexy, you know it and you even want to show it. But does it have to be a slapdash job of sticking a furry halo and cheap wings over the dress you didn’t bother to change from your lunch date? Again? ALTERNATE COSTUME: Dressing as any of the Disney princesses will allow you to wear less/no clothes (Ariel’s bra is made of sea shells!) while retaining some degree of innovation.

JACK SPARROW OR ANY KIND OF PIRATE: Last heard, even Johnny Depp was tired of playing the rum-drinking scallywag and he at least gets paid for it. So, as far as costumes go, this ship sailed a long time ago. ALTERNATE COSTUME: Johnny Depp has worn possibly the greatest costumes in movies. Try Edward Scissorhands in Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Benjamin Barker in Sweeney Todd. WITCH/VAMPIRE: What are you, 12? (If you are, what are you doing at booze-ridden parties anyway?) Please don’t show up in a sorry excuse for a pointy hat or a red-line cape. It is not convincing anyone that you are a witch/vampire. ALTERNATE COSTUME: The Twilight series has one benefit: they make for the best Halloween costumes. So if you insist on blood-sucking, at least be contemporary. Girls, don’t look further than Morticia Addams from The Addams Family, the coolest witch there’ll ever be. JOKER/RANDOM FACE PAINT: Why would you want to play a character that has been the centre of thousands of memes, parodies, fake ads and badly executed Halloween costumes? ALTERNATE COSTUME: Wanna be bad? Go as Bane, a more current Batman villain or as Walter White. (Watch Breaking Bad, if you still haven’t) EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman

OCTOBER 13, 2013

THE SOCIAL SLUT The ‘See Friendship’ details for all friends of this person is filled up. Serial liker and commenter

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

SEXY DEVIL: Like a sexy angel, only worse. Who wants to bother with a proper tail/pitchfork, when battery-lit devil horns are being sold at traffic signals for R20? And there’s a guy’s version too, which comes with its matching set of pointy, plastic teeth. Ever tried drinking beer through that? ALTERNATE COSTUME: Guys: Go as Hellboy. Period. Girls: Go as Anna Wintour. The Devil Wears Prada, get it?

Exclusive cover photoshoot: ROHAN SHRESTHA Cover design: MONICA GUPTA

by Shantanu Argal

The 7 superstars of Facebook (are you one of them?)

THE TROLLBAIT Ready to enter any conversation thread with a controversial statement. Generally has an image or a link to back up an absurd statement

THE PRO Works in Social Media and floods your inbox with suggestions for pages/events

THE CULTURED VULTURE Periodically surfaces to put up links about literature, poetry, art, music and the finer things in life. Has many minor celebrities as friends

6 7

2 4

THE INSTAGRAMMER More than anything else, his /her wall is filled with pseudo-polaroid pics of food, flights and friends

THE MINOR CELEBRITY Musicians, artists, writers, photogs. The individual has enough traction to have reached 5,000 friends (the limit) but not enough to warrant opening a dedicated page

THE ACTIVIST The saffron brigade supporting NaMo; Eco-freaks looking out for Nyamgiri tribals; LGBTQ groups clamouring for equality

Front Row

by Shreya Sethuraman

The Fifth Estate - read up before you watch it Directed by Bill Condon; Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange; Daniel Brühl as Daniel Domscheit-Berg

The Best Part: The end credits, which show Assange (now seeking asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy) scoffing the idea of any movie being made about him! The Not-So-Good: You have to know the entire Wikileaks saga, otherwise, the film is going to fly over your head. But the thing is, if you’re a Cumberbitch (as we are), you’re going to fall in love with the movie anyway.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the ‘tell all’ Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the man who unearthed many, many skeletons. You will also meet some of his own skeletons buried deep inside.

by Saudamini Jain

Said The Men In White Coats

On The Brunch Radar

24 *jaw drop* so slick! Research based on literature (apparently, the Vikings weren’t just savages, but pretty social too) ■ This idiom: Mad as a cut snake ■ The slow fade: the new way to break up, just stop texting ■ The possible papas of Ronan Farrow. Mia Farrow says it may not have been Woody Allen, but could be Frank Sinatra, Robert Redford, Mario Puzo, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Gere… ■

■

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

Drop us a line at:

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

Miley Cyrus (We love Sinéad O’Connor, even though she’s ‘mad as a cut snake’) ■ When Sarah Jane and Lakme CC cream get together ■ Old classmates getting promoted ■ The Mahabharat on Star Plus ■ ‘Besharam’ Ranbir (No!) ■

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C O U C H P O TAT O

“I’m Busy Having Fun”

CHECK HIM UP. CHECK HIM OUT

Kaling’s character can choose between Dr Danny Castellano or Dr Jeremy Reed

Alec Baldwin the role of his lifetime. Talent is talent, and really good writers can transcend those things. As far as other stereotypes are concerned, I think I have managed to break them too. The feeling is absolutely empowering.

And Mindy Kaling deserves it. From a television writer to the star of her own show, the Indianorigin comedian is hot news

What’s the best thing about being successful, famous and Indian?

It feels fantastic! It is hard earned success. I will be modest here: it is very nice when people especially from your own country praise you saying that they never thought anyone from India could earn such a position in American sitcom. I’ve come across young women saying I’m an inspiration for them. They find my character, Mindy, very mesmerising. In terms of my Indianness or being an Indian, I try not to rely on it nor deny it.

by Rachel Lopez

ER REAL name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam. She’s half-Tamil, half-Bengali, born in the US to parents who moved from Nigeria. She’s more than a little dark. She’s more than a little chubby. She’s no Miss America 2013. Mindy Kaling could have settled into a desk job somewhere, watching Indian actors play bit parts and token brown persons in film and TV. Instead, she decided she was too awesome to go unnoticed and turned to TV comedy. As a writer on the American version of The Office (the only woman among a team of eight), she proved to be so good, they gave her an on-screen role: the gloriously ditzy Kelly Kapoor. And even before the series ended, Kaling left to create and star in The Mindy Project, making her the first Indian headliner of a US TV show. There are no Indian jokes on The Mindy Project. Her character the obstetrician/gynaecologist Dr Mindy Lahiri is not there for callcentre punchlines, head-nods or cracks about curry. Instead Lahiri is romance-obsessed, vain, shallow, klutzy, whiny, dramatic and altogether hilarious: “If my life’s gonna be a mess, it might as well be a hot mess, right?” Now in its second season in America, The Mindy Project has

Your book describes how you saw sample-sized outfits at a shoot, locked yourself in a loo to cry. How do you feel about your weight now?

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

made Kaling famous, given her an A-list life (Lena Dunham is a bestie, James Franco is a co-star, designer bags are arm candy!) and turned her supremely funny book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) into a bestseller. Is her life really sweet? We decided to find out.

Which is the harder stereotype to break, Indian, woman, comedian, chubby, boss or writer? OCTOBER 13, 2013

“It feels especially nice when people from your own country praise you” That is a very interesting question. I am in a fix now; all of these are quite strong stereotypes. The greatest challenge I personally went through is of a woman writer as most of the writing staffs on sitcoms are dominated by men. There is this unfair feeling that women can only write for women and men can only write for men. But Mike Schur created Leslie Knope [Parks And Recreation], Tina Fey created Jack Donaghy [30 Rock] and gave

As a woman, I have evolved from that instance. Size no longer bothers me; I am pretty much comfortable with myself. I believe more women could benefit from spending less time preoccupied with body transformation and more time enjoying and accepting themselves. I fall into that chubby, nebulous, quote-unquote, normal American woman size that legions of fashion stylists detest. Many stylists hate my size because I think to them it shows that I lack the discipline to be an ascetic; or the confident, sassy abandon to be a total fatty hedonist.

What’s the best thing you can say to a person to make them feel awesome about their body?

Just be yourself and stay happy. That is the best advice I could possibly give. I would like to tell all the girls out there, your body is your choice so be confident and believe in yourself, the rest will follow you. The Mindy Project airs on Comedy Central rachel.lopez@hindustantimes.com

C O U C H P O TAT O

hindustantimes.com/brunch

The Sam & Dean Effect

As Supernatural returns with a new season, lead actors Jensen and Jared talk about the cult show and its fandom by Poonam Saxena

AKE TWO good looking men. Give them company: monsters, demons, angels, vampires. Make them travel: to heaven, hell, purgatory. Ensure that their lives are riddled with deep angst, intense emotions and visceral violence. That’s the cult TV show Supernatural, and it’s back with a brand new season (nine). For those who came in late, this is a, well, supernatural-themed drama series that first premiered in September 2005. It features two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, who have a rather unusual job: hunting down and exterminating evil supernatural beings. Over the years, the show has created a vast, intricate universe peopled by the Winchesters’ family and friends, bitter other-world enemies, and recurring motifs (such as the 1967 Chevrolet Impala in which the brothers cruise the American Midwest looking for monsters). Supernatural has acquired a committed global fan base that can sometimes border on the crazy. India has not been immune to the Winchesters’ charm. The show has been a superhit for AXN, the channel on which it airs. Dean Winchester is played by

the jaw-droppingly handsome Jensen Ackles, previously seen in shows such as Smallville (based on the DC Comics character Superman). But Supernatural is what has made him a superstar. Girls have been known to hotly debate the exact colour of his eyes (green or hazel?) and go weak-kneed when he wields his demon-killing knife. Sam Winchester is played by the tall (at over six-feet-four, he towers over everyone else), floppy-haired Jared Padalecki. He’s appeared in a few horror films like House of Wax, but he too shot to fame with Supernatural, in which he plays the role of the geeky younger brother with a disturbing tendency to slide to the dark side. Brunch got a chance to do a brief telephonic interview with the two men. Excerpts:

OTHER STARS

‘Without fans, there’s no show. Their energy matters to us’

Crowley: He’s the sardonic, sadistic King of Hell, the Big Bad of Supernatural, and he’s played by the charismatic British actor, Mark Sheppard.

Were you aware that your show has a huge fan following in India?

Jared: I was surprised, I didn’t even know the show was airing in India till very recently and I had no idea it was so popular. I’m so happy to be talking to someone from India. Jensen: I didn’t know either. We both found out together.

Castiel: The unsmiling, lovable angel in a trenchcoat, who’s been a friend of the Winchesters (especially Dean), then a foe, and then friend again. He’s played by actor Misha Collins.

OCTOBER 13, 2013

Are you surprised that the show resonates in a country like India?

Jared: The show is not just about two Americans, it’s about two brothers, it’s about loss, family, hardships, it’s about how they fight the bad guys. All human beings have the same emotions, and that’s why people from all over connect with the show.

Both of you have been on the show from season one. Have you, in some ways, become Dean and Sam?

Jared: We both grew up during the show, I was 22 when I started, now I’m 31. I met my wife on the show. As an actor, you do try and find similarities in your life to your character. Jensen: For me it’s the opposite of that. The longer we become these characters, go through so many experiences both on and off the screen, we learn about ourselves. There is greater clarity about who Dean is and who I am. We both look alike that’s for sure! (Laughs)

Dean and Sam have gone through so much tragedy… don’t you think the show can get too bleak?

Jensen: I guess the whole world can relate to the fact that they lose family, friends. They go through

Bobby Singer: The gruff but loving surrogate father to Sam and Dean. He was killed off in season seven, but no one in the show is ever really dead.

Death: Yes, Death is a character on the show – a gaunt man in a black suit, carrying a steel-tipped cane. He’s played by the impressive British actor, Julian Richings.

SMOKING HOT

Sam, played by Jared Padalecki (left) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) are the tough monster-hunting brothers loss and sadness and you wonder whether that will take over or will they get up and fight back. Jared: That’s why we have episodes like Changing Channels, The French Mistake, Yellow Fever [primarily comedy episodes]. The show is bleak and dark, so it’s good to make fun of ourselves from time to time. It’s necessary to have funny episodes. Jensen: You need to have that [the dark aspects] to bring out the drama, to bring good stories to life, to look at the tragedies and the triumphs. But I will convey what you said to the producers.

Your fans include armies of Dean girls and Sam girls...

Jared: Sam fangirls are smart, Dean fangirls have vision problems! Jensen: Yes, his fangirls are all from his family! (Both laugh)

The Supernatural fandom also has something of a cult status now...

Jensen: Without fans, there’s no show. They are the ones who keep it going, their energy matters to us. We need that to continue. Jared: That’s part of the reason you get into acting, that you can make the greatest impact on so many people.

When are you coming to India?

Jensen: We’re dying to come to India. It would be amazing. Jared: We would love to. Supernatural airs on AXN poonamsaxena@hindustantimes.com

WELLNESS

MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA

For any worries related to unplanned pregnancy: Write to us at consumercare@piramal.com or call us at 1800-22-0502 (toll free) or sms ICAN to 56070 Website: www.i-canhelp.in

1. Hello Doctor, what is the difference between the morning-after pill and emergency contraceptive pill and how do they work? The morning-after pill is also called as emergency contraceptive pill. These pills contain hormones like progestin that prevents pregnancy by delaying ovulation or preventing migration of sperms in the vagina and uterus. These pills are only effective if taken within the 72 hour period after unprotected sex. 2. Dear Doctor, this month my periods are delayed by a week. Last month we were involved in intercourse, but he did not finish inside me, therefore I did not take any emergency contraception. Please tell me what should be my next step. I am really worried. Many women have a notion that they will not conceive if their male partner ejaculates outside, or uses the withdrawal method. Please note that the fluid released before ejaculation can also contain sperms. Withdrawal method is not 100% fool-proof method of avoiding conception and you must use some form of regular contraception. Various effective methods like condoms or regular birth control pills after consulting a Gynaecologist can be used to avoid unplanned pregnancy.

3. Dear Doctor, we are recently married and my wife refuses to take any contraceptive pills. She wants me to use condom every time, but I am not comfortable with it. I read on the internet that intra-uterine devices are used only after first delivery. Is it true? What contraception do you suggest for us? We are not planning for kids at least for 2 years. Condoms are an effective method of contraception and there are a lot of variants & choices within it. However, you still have an array of other contraception methods options available other than condom and birth control pills. Intra-uterine device are preferred to be inserted after the first delivery, as before the first delivery, the vaginal laxity is less and the insertion is difficult, and hence it has to be done under anaesthesia. There are also various options available in the market, such as spermicidal gels, creams along with a cervical cap or any other available options. Regular contraception injection is another method of avoiding pregnancy which should be used under the guidance of a Gynaecologist. It would be good to take your wife and speak to your Gynaecologist and get more information on various contraception options that would suit you both.

Yo u should now test for pregnancy with a home pregnancy testing kit and consult a Gynaecologist immediately in case it is positive for further advice. Queries answered by Dr Nirmala Rao MBBS, MD, DPM; a well known psychiatrist who heads Mumbai based Aavishkar - a multifaceted team of expert doctors and health professionals. Aavishkar has a comprehensive approach to mental and physical health, with an emphasis scan this QR code to visit website on counselling and psychotherapy. Supported by:

Packaged, Preserved and Deadly Salt, oil and sugar are the worst offenders among everyday foods

HE ROOT of most lifestyle-related health problems boils down to three major ingredients of our everyday food: Salt, sugar and processed oils. The quantities of each of these are rising alarmingly in our diets, particularly in the food of those living in big cities. Rich gravies with a layer of floating tadka, salt-laden snacks and sugary condiments. A samosa here, a fried-starter there, a double the food which is processed and dose of chocolate some other time. packaged has little or no taste left in We call it normal, but we don’t know it. Without the extra sugar, salt and how abnormal our normal diets have oil, packaged food would be tastebecome. less. Sugar, salt and oil also act as So, how much sugar, salt or oil is preservatives, allowing foods to have normal for us? a longer (therefore more profitable) While salt in very small quanshelf life. So, it becomes a nectities is important for us, essarily evil. excess salt is harmful. Our body requires only PRESERVE AT YOUR 3.75gm of salt per day. OWN PERIL That amounts to even less than a teaspoon, beThe only way to increase cause even a full teaspoon the shelf-life of some foods of salt is 5gm. This amount is to either add a lot of SAUCE, THE BAD BOSS includes the salt which is salt (such as bacon, Ketchups are loaded inherently present in food. with salt and sugar to cured meats, pickles), In the process of cooking, improve taste or laden it with sugar we add more salt to (marmalade, fruit jams), flavour the food. In addition to this, or simply fry it (all Indian sweets we also consume sauces, ketchups such as mathhi, namkeens etc.). and pickles that are really heavy on Even fast foods are not far behind in salt and oil. A lot of packaged foods loading the foods with an overdose that people normally tend to eat are of sugar, salt or unhealthy oil. the worst offenders as they have high levels of salt. CAUSE AND EFFECT Table salt is white because of proClearly, the amount of excess salt cessing. Other salts look and taste that we normally eat in this so-called different due to the presence of oth‘normal’ diet is five-10 times more er minerals. Sea salt, kosher than we require! salt, iodised salt, rock This excess salt gives rise to salt (typically used in health complications such as chaats), saindha namak water retention, excess load (pink salt, used at on the kidneys, skin deNavratri), pickling salts generation, hair fall and (for German Sauerkraut) hardening of the arterand dairy salt (for makies, which may ultiing cheese) are commonmately lead to high blood ly used. pressure, heart disease and Many people wonder damaged blood vessels. why the food processing So watch what you’re TOO SWEET FOR YOU and packaging industry Over-sugared jams can eating, especially if it’s add so much extra sugar, high on the three evils. salt or oil to their offerings. cause harm if consumed too often ask@drshikha.com The simple answer is that Photos: THINKSTOCK

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OCTOBER 13, 2013

COVER STORY

Once dismissed as ‘ordinary,’ Deepika Padukone has blossomed into a beautiful, talented, super successful star. But her middle-class upbringing ensures that she remains almost unnervingly grounded by Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi; photo by Rohan Shrestha

Deepika is at her most relaxed when she’s not “dressed up”. We caught her exactly like that for an exclusive photo shoot

hindustantimes.com/brunch

SHE LEANS on the pillar and gazes dreamily out of the window at the Arabian Sea, looking every bit the glamorous film star she is. She catches my eye as I walk in, and says a quick, “Hi, we have time, right?” I wave back and tell her we still have 15 minutes to go before our scheduled time for the interview. She nods and continues with the photoshoot she’s doing, pouting, winking, laughing. Pictures done, she checks the images on the laptop. It’s a wrap. “Give me five,” she tells me, scrubbing her face free of make-up before going into her suite at Mumbai’s ITC Grand Central, where she’s camping for the day. As I wait, I look out of the same French window and contemplate the charmed life of Deepika Padukone. Daughter of a sports legend, a sexy star with men vying for her attention, surrounded by media frenzy, and now of course, super successful, as Cocktail, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Chennai Express break box office records. Life couldn’t be better. From the shy Shanti Priya of Om Shanti Om to the feisty Veronica of Cocktail, from the spunky Meenamma of Chennai Express to the sexy, fiery Indianised Juliet in the upcoming Ram Leela, Deepika has had quite a journey as an actress. In spite of a hit debut film, she was dismissed by critics and filmmakers as “a pretty face but an ordinary actress”. But in true “sportsperson style”, she used the criticism to improve herself. “Post Om Shanti Om, a lot of stuff got written about me. All of it wasn’t always nice,” recalls Deepika. “In fact, there was this critic who loves pulling people down. And she wrote very critically about all of us who had made a debut that year. But I didn’t let it upset me. I cut that column out, highlighted what she had said about me and looked at it every day. I used negativity to work harder and improve whatever I could.” It worked.

Dressed casually in an off-white top and beige leggings, sans makeup, her non ‘diva’-ish character is striking. Deepika’s aura is old world, an absolute rarity today. In fact, it is this old-world charm that had director Farah Khan hooked. “Deepika exudes grace like no one else. And Shanti Priya, my heroine in Om Shanti Om, needed that innate grace,” says Khan, who launched her in Om Shanti

Om in 2007. Deepika credits it to her genes. “It’s all my mum in me. Even in the colours that I wear – whites, beiges, pastels,” she says pointing to her attire. And her attitude? Shy, self-conscious, almost withdrawn… where does that come from? Her father? “A bit of both I guess. My parents are a complete no show-off couple. Dad was a huge name in the sports world. But at home, he was a regular father. In fact, I realised much later (when I ﬁnally understood what an autograph was) what all that signing of papers that dad did when we went out was. Mum too made sure we didn’t gloat in his reﬂected glory,” says Deepika. So, for the shy and socially awkward Deepika, it almost felt like battling a multiple-personality syndrome when she decided to face the camera full time. But somehow, that was always the career she had in mind. “See, I told you, I am a good actress,” she says laughing as she puts up her feet on the table.

“

Why can’t I be like any other 27-year-old? I can go out for coffee, movie or even ask a friend to pick me up and drop me. Is that a big deal?

(Left to right) With her mother Ujjala, father Prakash and sister Anisha A national-level badminton player, Deepika was sure, even as a child, that the “family sport” wasn’t her calling in life. By the time she passed her class 10 Board exams from Sophia High School in Bangalore, her priorities had changed to modelling and ﬁlms.

She was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, but Deepika’s father, ace badminton player Prakash Padukone moved back to Bangalore with his wife Ujjala when Deepika was just a year old. Playing badminton was one of the ﬁrst things she learnt. “I’d wake up at about ﬁve in the morning, go for training, go to school, return and go to play again. I was a very out-

I don’t regret moving out of home at a young age. The only thing I feel I really missed out on were my little sister’s growing up years

door person, but I didn’t have a big circle of friends. Life was pretty simple,” Deepika says. “Well, borderline boring,” she laughs. The culture at home reﬂected a disciplined sportsman’s nature. Late-night parties or typical ‘teenage’ behaviour were not appreciated. “Dad didn’t understand why a party needed to start so late at night – the time one should go to bed! Dad would come to pick me sharp at 10, my deadline, if at all he allowed me to go anywhere!” So, even though they grew up as Prakash Padukone’s daughters, Deepika and her younger sister Anisha (now a national-level golf player) had completely ‘normal’ childhoods. “There were no unnecessary indulgences. Getting `5 as pocket money on a Wednesday and eating ice-cream or dosa in school with that money was a big deal.” It was the same discipline that Deepika followed when she travelled for her badminton matches. No air tickets. Often, not even a train berth. She slept on the ﬂoor with her teammates if last-minute reservations were made. But she doesn’t grudge any of it. “I had to be a team player. I couldn’t expect to be treated as Ms Padukone,” she says. “And I wasn’t a rebel. Honestly, I wasn’t uncomfortable with any of it.” In hindsight, she feels her patience and lack of rebellion helped her win the bigger battle, to quit studies and badminton and do movies. “Guess I had given enough reason to my conservative parents to have faith in me,” she smiles. For Prakash Padukone, it was his daughter’s passion for cinema that clinched the matter. “I gave up my studies to play badminton at 17. That was back in the ’70s. And my own dad backed me all the way. Had he insisted I become a doctor or an engineer then, I would have been nothing but a loser in life. So how could I let my own daughter down when all she needed of me was to have faith in her passion and capability?” he says.

Decision taken, Deepika’s ﬁrst stop was family friend and Bangalorebased model coordinator Anila Anand’s home. “Deepika had the ‘X’ factor that is needed to be successful in the glamour industry. So when she came to me, I was glad to be of help,” says Anila. Her ﬁrst task was to ask Deepika to lose the weight that she’d put on while on a holiday to Europe after her Board exams. That wasn’t a tough task for the sporty girl.

COVER STORY Then followed the drill of creating a portfolio and sending it to ad agencies. Around the same time, Deepika finished junior college. Offers for print ads started coming in. It was after one such assignment that ad guru and now filmmaker R Balki spotted her face on a billboard in Chennai. He tracked her down, called her for an audition and selected her to be the next Liril girl. “I was asked to fly down to Mumbai for an immediate audition and the very next day I was selected. Suddenly I was the face of this big brand.” Around the same time, Deepika made her ramp debut. Soon she moved to Mumbai. She was enjoying her work and new found independence when composer Himesh Reshammiya offered to cast her in his music video Naam Hai Tera Tera. Initially, she was sceptical. “I didn’t want to do a music video. Not my style,” says Deepika. But she went ahead because she loved the song. Today, she’s glad she did it. “It was here that Farah saw me and decided to give me the mega launch opposite Shah Rukh in Om Shanti Om. My dream of being in the movies was finally coming true,” says Deepika. So, unlike most Bollywood stories, Deepika’s doesn’t have any ‘struggle.’ Not even any momentous beauty pageant wins! She came into movies at 17 without any stories of hardship or any lifechanging events. “It was all a bit of luck and sheer good timing,” she acknowledges. “Although there were a lot of rough edges that needed to be worked on,” recalls Farah Khan. From diction and classical dance to basic acting skills, they worked on everything. “But I was sure she could be Shanti Priya, the star. I went with my instinct!” says Farah. Farah’s instincts were right. Om Shanti Om went on to become a hit. But the ‘X’ factor that had worked in the modelling arena

Rekindling her romance with King Khan in Chennai Express

“

Whatever be our relationship status, Ranbir and I are in the best phase right now. He still is and will always remain my 3am friend

Shah Rukh always treated me like a star, never a newcomer. And with time, his humility, tenderness, friendship and protectiveness has only increased

Living it up as Naina in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (left) and Veronica in Cocktail (right) wasn’t enough for screen. Most ﬁlms that Deepika did post Om Shanti Om, however different they may have been, didn’t work (Karthik Calling Karthik, Aarakshan, Bachna Ae Haseeno or Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey).

”

Till 2012, when director Homi Adajania’s Cocktail happened. In fact, Deepika’s career graph can be divided into pre and post Cocktail phases. After labelling her “thanda,” suddenly critics, friends, foes, audiences sat up and wondered what had hit them. “When I was hired to direct Cocktail, Deepika was already on board. I hadn’t seen any of her work but promised her that people would come out of Cocktail and say that she wasn’t just a pretty face but a damn good actor! At that point, I don’t think even she believed me,” says Homi. “That’s true, I didn’t,” agrees Deepika. “But it was also because I was nothing like Veronica (her character in Cocktail). Her mindset, thought process, lifestyle, everything was alien to me. And I didn’t know how to bridge the gap,” says Deepika. “Till Homi told me to loosen up and made me ‘feel’ Veronica, who was uninhibited and fearless. And Homi turned me into that.” She remembers all the nights that Homi spent taking her out, getting her to experience London’s nightlife and its people. But director Imtiaz Ali (he wrote Cocktail and suggested Deepika play ‘bad girl’ Veronica instead of plain Jane Meera) insists that Deepika has a wild streak deep inside, which ﬂashes to the surface only occasionally. “The idea is to catch that moment of wildness and make it into a story. While shooting Love Aaj Kal, in the middle of a serious shot, she wanted to communicate something to me. She was at a distance, so to attract my attention, she started jumping up and down like a child. I was stunned at the otherwise propah Deepika. So much so that I tried to catch that playful mood in a few scenes in the ﬁlm!” says Imtiaz.

Director Ayan Mukherjee who cast her in the year’s big hit, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, sees Deepika as a strange mix of calm and storm. “She can be all mature and quiet one minute and go ahead and sky dive on an impulse the next, even as the rest of us are sh****** bricks!” he adds. It is perhaps this balance that has stood Deepika in good stead. Leading a life where every minute can become the subject of headlines, it is tough to maintain your dignity, especially if you aren’t thick-skinned. “And I am not,” says Deepika. “So I’ll be lying if I say that all the talk about anything and everything, didn’t bother me. Looks, clothes... ﬁne, I am an actress so people are bound to watch and comment, but on the personal front, I still don’t understand why I can’t be treated like a normal 27-year-old. I can go out for coffee or a ﬁlm or even ask a friend to drop me back. Is that such a big deal? When I was truly in love and the relationship was paramount to me, I talked about it. But after that, I haven’t, because maybe I don’t feel as strongly about any other relationship. Over time though, I have learnt to handle the scrutiny.”

With two back-to-back releases, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Chennai Express breaking box office records, and two big soonto-be-released films, Ram Leela and Happy New Year, Deepika has finally found her groove and is emerging as an “actress” in her own right. Ayan Mukherjee insists it has a lot to do with her confidence and skills – she can hold her own against bigger stars like Ranbir or even Shah Rukh. “She isn’t just an accessory in her films,” he says. For Deepika, this is her first experience of being a key player. And she’s decided to play the game of life in the right spirit. “Learn to let go. And after every fall, get up, dust yourself and go for the next shot,” she smiles, flashing her famous dimples. tavishi.rastogi@hindustantimes.com

VA R I E T Y

The New World Of Fruit Wines There are plums, peaches, mangoes and lychees in your wine bottles now. And you thought fruit was only meant to be eaten

Photo:JASJEET PLAHA; Location courtesy: SHANGRI-LA’S EROS

by Veenu Singh

HE NEXT time you go to a party, don’t be surprised if someone asks you what the flavour of your wine is. Before you dismiss the person as a novice, think again. You might turn out to be the real greenhorn. Everyone knows that wine is made from the fermented juice of grapes, but today, a range of other fruits have come into the picture – right from apple (cider wine is one of the oldest wines) to plum, peach, pineapple, strawberry and kiwi. “Unlike grape wine, fruit wines leave you with the flavour of the fruit they are made of,” says Bangalore-based wine critic Alok Chandra. “Wines made from grapes of course, always taste and remind one of a range of fruits, vegetables, flowers and what-have-you. Still, according to EU norms, only wine made of grapes can be called wine.” Another differentiator between grape wines and other fruit wines is turnover time. “Fruit wines take a much shorter time to stabilise and mature. This means they can come into the market

faster than grape wines,” says Dhananjay Datar, chief executive officer of the Indian Grape Processing Board (IGPB).

A LEAP FORWARD

Fruit wines have been around for many years, but mostly for personal consumption. “The only place where you could have found fruit wines easily was Himachal Pradesh, but those wines weren’t being sold anywhere else,” points out Chandra. But the market dynamics are changing dramatically. The production of fruit wines is rising, with several private players entering the fray. “One big reason is that Indian fruits, which are tropical in nature, lend themselves excellently to being processed into wines,” says Datar. That’s why, apart from the usual apple, plum and peach, you can now sip Luca wines made of mango and lychee, produced at Nirvana

Unlike grape wine, fruit wines leave you with the flavour of the fruit they are made of

MANGO WINE

■ This is a bright yellow, full-bodied, offdry wine that has a refreshing taste of the tropical mango with a tinge of honey. ■ It has an alcohol content of 12.5 per cent, the same as in a grape wine. ■ Serve it chilled. Once opened, refrigerate and consume soon. ■ The wine has a shelf life of about two years when unopened. ■ Totapari mangoes are currently used.

Wine producer: Luca Wines

PINEAPPLE WINE

■ A light-bodied wine

with a strong pineapple bouquet. ■ The alcohol content is between 11-12 per cent. ■ Serve it chilled. ■ As pineapple contains beta carotene, it aids in digestion too. ■ The shelf life is about two years when unopened and stored properly. ■ Fine quality pineapples from Karnataka are best for this wine. Wine producer: Rhythm Wines

Photos:THINKSTOCK

OCTOBER 13, 2013

NEW ENTRANTS

Mango and lychee wines are among the newest offerings Biosys, north India’s first winery, or pineapple and strawberry wines, made in Pune by Hill Crest. In fact, the commercial success of fruit wines made Pune-based Akalpit Prabhune give up a 10-yearcareer in IT to set up Hill Crest, a relatively new wine company that went commercial with pineapple wine about two years ago. The product, branded Rhythm, has been well received in Pune and Prabhune has recently launched a strawberry wine under the LYCHEE same label. “I WINE

PLUM WINE

■ This wine has a sweet fruity

flavour and ends on a strong punchy note. ■ It has an alcohol content of nearly 12 per cent. ■ Serve it chilled. ■The wine has a shelf life of about six months when unopened and stored at a proper temperature. ■ Quality plums from Himachal Pradesh are used. Wine producer: HPMC

was deeply impressed by the fact that many people abroad make their own wine from a variety of fruits. And India produces very good quality fruits which are perfect for producing fruit wines. For instance, the pineapple that I use for the wine comes from Karnataka and is of the finest quality. Similarly, the strawberries are bought from Panchgani,” explains Prabhune. These are light-bodied wines that go much better with Indian food than grape wines which tend to get overpowered by the spicy food.

■ This wine

is aromatic, has a nice balance of flavours and a slightly dry taste. ■ Alcohol content is 12.5 per cent. ■ Serve it chilled. ■ The wine has a shelf life of about two years when unopened. ■ Works well for beginners as well as light drinkers. ■ Lychees are sourced from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. Wine producer: Luca Wines

SWEET SUCCESS

While experiments to make mango wine

STRAWBERRY WINE ■ A fruity wine with a delightful

aroma of strawberries. ■ It has an alcohol content between 11-12 per cent. ■ Serve it chilled. ■ The wine has a refreshing sweet taste. ■ The shelf life is about two years when unopened and stored properly. ■ The strawberries used are sourced from Panchgani in Maharashtra.

Wine producer: Rhythm Wines

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Fruit wines paired with Indian food ■ Mango wine pairs well with spicy Asian cuisine and red meat. This makes it more acceptable to the Indian palate. ■ Lychee wine works well with greens, salads and even fish. ■ Pineapple wine goes with light chicken dishes like malai tikka kebab and paneer kebabs. ■ Strawberry wine suits fish, chicken and paneer dishes. ■ Plum wine goes well with spicy food and red meat.

have been going on for quite a few years, the breakthrough happened recently. “Making wine from mango is definitely not easy as the thick pulp needs to be filtered extensively to get the correct formulation,” explains M K Rustagi, joint managing director of Nirvana Biosys. “And choosing the right variety of mangoes is important to get the best taste and colour, plus get a stable wine that can be retained for some time.” Experiments were done with varieties like totapari, duseri, Alphonso and even langra. The totapari mango was found to be the most suitable as it had good sugar content. “The Alphonso is unsuitable due to its high acidic content,” reveals winemaker and chief production officer at Nirvana Biosys, Phillipe Nicolas Grand, responsible for wine production and bottling. To make wine, the mango pulp has a gestation period of twofour months, while fermentation takes threefour weeks. “The fermentation is done between 18-25 degrees Celsius and then the wine needs some time to stabilise after fermentation,” says Nicolas Grand, revealing that he ferments the wine below 6 degrees Celsius to give it a no-sugar taste. Commenting on the lychee and mango variants from the Luca stable, sommelier Magandeep Singh says, “Fruit wines are always, well, secondary to grape-based wines. That said, the lychee wine has been a crowd-pleaser, the mango, not so much. What I liked was the fact that in spite of an aromatic nose and a sweet start, the wine finishes dry, and that is commendable.” According to wine expert Alok Chandra, “Their Lychee wine is aromatic, has a nice balance of flavours and an off-dry taste. It is a misconception that lychee wines are supposed to be sweet.”

BOOM TIME?

Incidentally, it was Himachal Pradesh that started the trend of fruit wines nearly 15 years ago. Today, other states have joined in and there are wines from every fruit you can think of – right from apple, peach, pear, apricot, kiwi, strawberry, plum to pineapple, orange and even rhododendron. “Even though it was the government-owned HPMC (Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation) which started the trend of making fruit wines called Kalpa Wines in Himachal Pradesh, now several entrepreneurs are moving in,” says Jagdish Sharma, managing director, HPMC. As far as marketing and pricing of these fruit wines is concerned, they are affordably priced (`150300) per bottle. But Luca wines are even more expensive than most grape wines (`700-800 per bottle). Luca’s Rustagi says this is because the other fruit wines are not produced as wines. “While we go through the whole process in our winery, most of the other fruit wines do not go through a similarly stringent process, making their shelf life very limited.” His claim is corroborated by Subhash Arora, president of the Indian Wine Academy and founder of the Delhi Wine Club: “The other fruit wines are good but they are not authentic.” While most good hotels are selective about the wines they serve, they are open to experimentation. “I haven’t tasted the mango and lychee wines but I’ve heard about them and think it would be a great idea to introduce them as dessert wines,” says Vasul Chouhan, general manager, Smoke House Group. So, what’s your favourite flavour now! veenus@hindustantimes.com

The trend of fruit wines started nearly 15 years ago in Himachal Pradesh

OCTOBER 13, 2013

CURTAIN RAISER

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FIRST CUT, PRIYANKA PATHAK

fter graduating in Science from Delhi University’s Maitreyi College, Delhi girl Priyanka Pathak studied Theatre Technique and Design at the National School of Drama (NSD). While at NSD, she designed and directed Oh Shit, a public performance on sewage in urban spaces. In May 2013, Pathak designed and executed scene work in an NSD adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love In The Time of Cholera. “I see Arth as a complex plot which beautifully portrays a woman’s insecurity of being dependent on others. I really like the way the movie ends and would like to see it going a little further in the theatre production.”

Arth’s New Hues Mahesh Bhatt’s 1982 classic on extra-marital relationships, Arth, will now be adapted for stage

THE CURTAIN RISES

Director Priyanka Pathak (above); Imran Zahid, who will essay the role that Kulbhushan Kharbanda played

by Aasheesh Sharma

RTH MEANS different movies to different people. To my adolescent heart, when I ﬁrst watched it on Doordarshan, it spelt tender, candle-lit romance. Rekhaon se maat kha rahe ho... Strumming a ghazal about his friend’s helplessness against the quirks of fate, Raj Kiran serenades a wronged but strong Shabana Azmi with Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho, that Jagjit Singh masterpiece. Even today, when a radio jockey wants to convey the fragility of man-woman relationships, Arth’s mellow ghazals ﬁnd their way into the playlist. Now, Priyanka Pathak, 27, a

FLASHBACK Inder, a brilliant but headstrong director, has an affair with an actress. After a messy divorce, Inder’s wife Pooja, an orphan who was ﬁnancially and emotionally dependent on him, refuses to take him back. She bounces back with the support of a silent admirer, the poetsinger Raj. But she turns down Raj too, saying she has found new meaning in life.

director from Delhi’s National School of Drama, is interpreting Mahesh Bhatt’s celebrated 1982 tale about love and adultery. Bhatt was supportive when Delhi-based stage actor and his protégé Imran Zahid approached him with a request to make a play based on Arth. “Its relevance is timeless because a man-woman relationship is an area of mystery and conﬂict that will always be explored by ﬁlmmakers, playwrights and writers,” says Bhatt.

WHAT WOMEN WANT

For seasoned actress Shabana Azmi, who played a woman who rejects her straying husband when he returns to her, Arth marked the beginning of her involvement with women’s issues. “It continues to overwhelm me that women are so deeply impacted by the ﬁlm 30 years later,” says Azmi. When Pathak, chosen by Bhatt to helm the play, watched the ﬁlm, she was most struck by the scene

OCTOBER 13, 2013

Photo: RAJ K RAJ

where Shabana’s character decides against taking her husband back. “That is when she breaks through the web of socio- economic dependence woven around sexuality,” says Pathak. Even three decades after the ﬁlm was made, the situation of women in urban India hasn’t radically improved, says Pathak. “Today, as the graph of crime against women rises, the time is right to produce something like this on stage,” she adds.

BREAKING NEW GROUND

Formidable stage actor-turnedBollywood thespian Kulbhushan Kharbanda, who played the male lead in Arth, says he welcomes new experiments in storytelling. “I would love to see how they create the cinematic feeling on the stage. It might be difﬁcult to accomplish its tight framing and intimate feel,” he says. How did Kharbanda relate to the role of a movie director who cheats on his wife and then repents? “I was a bachelor at the time when I played the role. But as a professional actor, I took it as just another character that the director wanted me to essay.”

ROLE PLAY

The rest of the cast (other than Zahid, who will reprise Kharbanda’s role), hasn’t been ﬁnalised yet, says ﬁlmmaker and theatreperson, Sandeep Kapoor, co-producer of the play, along with Bhatt. “The actors who play Shabana or Smita should have a deep understanding of the emotional layers of urban Indian women. Both characters were undergoing multi-layered oppression,” says Pathak. The play, which will be staged in December, will be set in an Indian metropolis of 2013. “We won’t digress from the original much. The plot will be the same but the situations and storytelling may be different,” elaborates Zahid. Zahid, who won critical acclaim playing Muntadhar al-Zaidi in Mahesh Bhatt’s play The Last Salute, about the journalist who threw a shoe at former American president George W Bush, was the right choice for the role that

Kharbanda played in the original, says Bhatt. “Although I will okay most decisions, I am not a creative dictator. Arth will entirely be Imran’s interpretation,” says Bhatt. “He needs to unshackle himself from my work and find his own fingerprint. I will leave it to Priyanka and Imran to interpret it according to their fertile imagination. That is the role of a good gardener.” The characters may hold lifesize photo frames as props on the stage to recreate the emotions of nostalgia, loss and longing, says Pathak. If all else fails, the director can always fall back on that unforgettable soundtrack, says Kharbanda. No wonder Bhatt has sought the music company’s permission to use the original songs. “The passion with which Jagjit and Chitra composed the music and Kaifi saheb penned those stirring words, is impossible to replicate,” says Kharbanda. aasheesh.sharma@hindustantimes.com

THE ORIGINALS “I was a bachelor at the time when I played a married man torn between his wife and his lover. But the challenge did not daunt me” KULBHUSHAN KHARBANDA played the ﬁlm director who strays and wants to come back

“Arth was a watershed event in Mahesh and my life. It marked the beginning of my involvement with women’s issues” SHABANA AZMI, who played the lead role in the ﬁlm

“Arth remains the most deﬁning Hindi ﬁlm about women’s emancipation” MAHESH BHATT, director and screenplay writer

GUEST COLUMN

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The Fading Tiara

We refuse to go beyond our stereotypical notions of uppermiddle class beauty

Beauty pageants are outdated and meaningless, but they won’t go away. Can they at least be used to re-examine our narrow vision of beauty? by Ira Trivedi

LOSE TO a decade ago, I was a ﬁnalist in a beauty pageant. At the time of my participation, I was a college student in the US, studying Economics, with no previous modelling or acting experience. I was young and naive, and I participated in this pageant because I idealistically thought that a beauty queen was a philanthropic do-gooder whose mission was to save the world and help humanity. Unfortunately my experience in the pageant proved me wrong, and instead of winning a crown, I ended up writing a book which, much to my surprise, became a national best-seller (aptly titled What Would You do to Save the World?). Beauty pageants in India have a long history. They have become an inherent part of Indian culture, as much as fairness creams and hair oil. Indian communities across the globe, from Zambia to the island of Mauritius, have emulated their homeland’s obsession with beauty pageants and set up their own local beauty pageants. In India too, an entire beauty pageant industry has spawned, and beyond the pageants for young, unmarried Indian women, we have pageants for beautiful babies, handsome men

and married women. But what does this deluge of pageants mean for the industry? The reality is that the beauty pageant industry in India has lost its past glory. As I discovered through my own experiences, and through conversation with organisers, judges, and participants of a number of beauty pageants, there are a few different reasons for this.

irstly, there are too many pageants ﬂoating around, diluting the prestige factor associated with beauty pageants. Every town, city and jewellery company organises its own beauty pageant. From the “Indian Princess” to the “Desi Diva” contests, malls across India advertise various renditions of the beauty contest. Even the heavyweight national-level beauty pageants have come up with new versions. For example, recently exMiss Universe Sushmita Sen started her own beauty pageant, the “I am She” pageant which sent its winners to the ofﬁcial Miss Universe pageant organised by Donald Trump. Unable to produce a winner over the past three years, the rights of the Miss Universe title are no longer with ‘I am She.’ Secondly, the identity of the pageant is somewhat confused.

Today the beauty pageant is not the only route to enter Bollywood

OCTOBER 13, 2013

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

What does the contest set out to do, and who exactly is the winner? Is she the hottest girl? (But then, how did the contest become any different than a model hunt?) Is she the most intelligent? Or the one most likely to be a Bollywood star? As I rudely discovered from my own experiences for most participants, the pageant is a ticket to Bollywood. As recently as a decade ago, beauty pageants were one of the only few legitimate ways to rise to Bollywood stardom, and many actresses, including Persis Khambatta, Juhi Chawla, and Aishwarya Rai rose to stardom after winning the crown. Today however there are numerous avenues for starlets to get a start in the industry. These include model hunts, reality TV shows and a slew of international and national talent and model management agencies. So what need then of beauty pageants? Shreya, a leggy, attractive model in her twenties, who has been on the cover of leading fashion magazines, tells me that she and many of her model colleagues believe that beauty pageants are now a defunct entity. Shreya is being managed by an international talent management agency, and feels that this is a more professional way to manage her career then relying on a beauty pageant for a brief moment of glory. She tells me of about a friend of hers who spent years preparing for the

pageant, only to lose in the ﬁrst round. She was a successful model before the pageant, but after her loss, she lost all brand value. “Beauty pageants are so 1984. They are an outdated concept. If you want to be a professional model or actress, you would not take that route. Unless you live in a small town and have no other option. Plus we haven’t won an international title in a decade, so what’s the point?” says Shreya.

ut beauty pageants are here to stay whether we like it or not. What we need to do is to re-examine our vision of beauty, because beauty is often in the mind than in our eyes. We refuse to go beyond our stereotypical notions of upper-middle class beauty, and rarely do we find dark-skinned girls (if girls are indeed dark, they are made to look fair) or Northeastern beauties, or non-English speakers, winning the pageant. An erstwhile judge, a well-known personality who chooses to remain anonymous, told me that before they started the judging process, they were told the most important factors for international success by the organisers, based on previous winners. These criteria included height – tall, weight – thin, and skin – fair. And she must be able to answer questions in fluent English. It is also time that we redefine the identity and role of a beauty queen. Who is she? A Bollywood starlet? A model? Or something beyond? At times I tend to return to that idealistic 18-year-old self of mine who thought a beauty queen was a larger-than-life figure who did her bit in saving the world. Sometimes our younger selves are more revealing than we give them credit for, and maybe a healthy dose of idealism would be a good thing for our beauty pageant industry. Ira Trivedi’s first book What Would You Do to Save the World? was based on her experiences in the Miss India pageant. She can be found on twitter @iratrivedi

indulge

Photo:THINKSTOCK

WHAT DOES YOUR GUT SAY? Vir Sanghvi

rude health

Doctors are still uncomfortable with the millions of bacteria that live inside our stomachs as they have very little idea of what these bacteria actually do

DECADE OR so ago, I went to see a trendy doctor in Harley Street, the traditional heart of British medicine. (Private British medicine, at any rate.) The doctor gave me a thorough examination, took blood samples and then proceeded to elucidate his own philosophy of medicine. “All diseases,” he said forcefully, “begin in the gut. Cure the gut and you will cure everything.” I am an arts student who used to faint when we were asked to conduct dissections in biology class in middle school, so I make no claims to medical expertise. But even to my layman’s ears, this did not sound right. A brain tumour began in the gut? A lung infection was the consequence of a digestive dysfunction? Ingrown toenail could be cured by treating the gut? None of this sounded at all possible. And indeed, as the doctor, who I will not name but will call Dr Quack Quack, went on, even I realised that he was a master of oversimpliﬁcation. He tested my blood for proof of intolerances. (“Grapefruit, that’s what your system cannot take.” Just as well because I never eat it.) He recommended colonic irrigation, made famous by Princess Diana. I was to take

OCTOBER 13, 2013

lots of enzymes. And how many probiotic tablets did I think I needed? I pointed out that I already took some. But he was clear that I needed many, many more. Over the years, I’ve grown increasingly sceptical of people like Dr Quack Quack who specialise in diagnoses that normal doctors do not recognise – just as they do not recognise the value of his so-called blood test for food intolerance. But, because I suffer from an annoying digestive condition, I’ve begun to follow advances in the field that Dr Quack Quack claimed to specialise in. It turns out that, as I suspected, much of what he said was sheer tosh. Some diseases do begin in the gut. But only an idiot or a faddist would claim that digestive relief is the answer to all our problems. On the other hand, there is one aspect of gut medicine that normal doctors do not pay enough attention to. And that’s the subject of the veritable zoo that we carry around with us, everywhere we go. We were taught at school that the human body is composed of millions of tiny cells. This is true. But what they did not tell us is that our bodies contain many more bacteria than we have cells. The latest estimates say that for every cell in the human body, there are nine bacteria living in our system. In other words, we are not just people. We are also the host environments for billions of living organisms. Hence,the parallel with the zoo. Medicine has always been unwilling to take bacteria seriously. For entire generations, the sum total of medical knowledge amounted to zero because doctors had not worked out that bacteria cause disease. Even when this became clear, it took a long time before medicine realised that good bacteria could fight bad bacteria: penicillin, antibiotics, etc. And even now, doctors are still uncomfortable with the millions of bacteria that live inside our stomachs. They know that the bacteria are a part of the digestive process, but your average GP has very little idea of what they actually do. The classic example is the case of ulcers which were thought to be caused only by stress or hot food (“curry, worry, and hurry” as doctors in the Punjab used to put it). It is only relatively recently that scientists have isolated the bacterium responsible for many ulcers and have prescribed the correct treatment for it. (This treatment consists of antibiotics, which is of course, a way of using one bacterium to fight another.) Recent research suggests that medicine – even fad medicine of the sort that Dr Quack Quack practised – does not understand the importance of gut bacteria. Take, for instance, the idea that if you have the wrong sort of bacteria in your gut, all you need is a colonic wash of some kind to get rid of the bad guys. Then, you pop some probiotic pills full of good bacteria and – hey, Presto! – you will be cured. We know now that this is nonsense. Bacteria are like fingerprints. Once you are born with them, they never change. Around 80 per cent of the bacteria in your gut were transmitted from your mother during birth. The bacteria in your system today are roughly the same composition as the bacteria that lived there when you were an infant. Colonic irrigation makes no difference at all, even in the medium term. As Mary Roach points out in Gulp, her bestselling book on the alimentary canal (from which all my new

It is only recently that scientists have isolated the bacterium responsible for many ulcers

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ONE CAUSE

Photos: GETTY IMAGES

Mary Roach (left) points out in Gulp, that alimentary canal bacteria may be responsible for all kinds of things, including even, why we are fat or thin

information on bacteria is derived), bacteria may be responsible for all kinds of things, including even, why we are fat or thin. Some of us have bacterial populations in the gut that make us eat different kinds of diet or store energy differently. We believe that we have some control over what we eat and where the food goes. But actually, it’s the bacteria that are making the decisions. (Perhaps the old ayurvedic classifications of rajsik, tamsik and sattvik came out of an understanding of bacteria!) Roach explains that even the distinction between good and bad bacteria can be misleading. It is the circumstances that decide whether bacteria will have positive or negative effects or even, no effect at all. Take for instance, C. difficile (or C. dif), the bacteria that doctors warn you can cause diverticulitis. Thirty to 50 per cent of infants are colonised with C.dif and suffer no ill effects. But certain conditions in the adult colon may make it easier for C.dif to infect grown-ups. (Among these conditions is an overdose of antibiotics.) And then, the bad consequences kick in. Or, take E. coli, the disease bacteria that doctors routinely blame for colitis. But most strains of E. coli cause no symptoms inside the colon and are easily handled by our immune systems. But, if the same strains get to the urethra or the bladder, they are perceived as invaders and our immune systems create the symptoms – inflammation, pain, etc. One theory is that many inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohn’s Disease, IBS, or ulcerative colitis) are merely inappropriate immune system responses to normal bacteria. Because the immune system misunderstands the nature of the threat, it responds with inflammations. If bacteria are actually the key to understanding gut function then can we use them for our benefit? Over the last two decades, people like Dr Quack Quack have been telling us that good bacteria or probiotics are silver bullets. Flood your system with acidophilus or any of the probiotics available on the shelves of your local fad chemist and suddenly, the bad bacteria will be neutralised. Most people with digestive problems have fallen for this propaganda. Take my own example. Though probiotics have made little difference, I still take them occasionally on the grounds that, well, who knows?

According to Mary Roach, however, scientists are sceptical about the efficacy of probiotics. The bacterial content of most over-the-counter probiotics is disputed. And scientists say that culturing, processing and shipping bacteria in an oxygen-free environment is complex and expensive. One expert told Roach that 95 per cent of commercially available probiotics “have never been tested in a human and should not be called probiotic”. I am not sure if this applies to dahi which we regard as the ultimate Indian probiotic. But there is one approach that has been proven to work. Unfortunately, it is a very yucky one. Doctors have extracted bacteria from the colon of one living person and implanted it into the colon of another. These bacterial transplants nearly always seem to work. Patients with pain, diarrhoea, and other digestive complaints have reported immediate improvements. The yuck factor comes from the methodology. The anaerobic bacteria that are transplanted have a limited lifespan. So, the only way that the process can work is if doctors perform a colonoscopy on a donor, harvest his good bacteria and then thrust them into the colon of the recipient. Hence, the rather unappetising name for the process: fecal transplant. According to Roach, people will get over the yuck factor eventually because of the strongest argument in favour of the procedure: its efficacy. Success rates hover at around 93 per cent. And there is no other treatment that works. And indeed, last week’s papers carried news of product launches that depend on fecal bacteria. I am not sure that this approach could ever work for me. My yuck reaction is just too strong. But what these advances tell us is that medicine has ignored digestive bacteria for too long. Because real scientists have been too busy researching other illnesses, the field has been left clear for the likes of Dr Quack Quack and his fad remedies. But there is a real problem here. And medicine needs to find the solutions. Not just for each of us. But for the millions of other beings we carry around with us.

Most strains of E. coli cause no symptoms inside the colon and are easily handled by our immune systems

FIT FOR A PRINCESS

I was recommended colonic irrigation, made famous by Princess Diana

CURD IS THE WORD

The bacterial content of most over-the-counter probiotics is disputed. I’m not sure if this applies to dahi which we regard as the ultimate Indian probiotic

more on the web For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch Photo:THINKSTOCK

OCTOBER 13, 2013

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FESTIVE SMARTPHONE SHOPPING GUIDE I PART I

In the ﬁrst of a twopart series, pick the smartest new smartphone

T SEEMS like Christmas in the smartphone world, as within a week we’ve seen eight ﬂagship phones launch. Usually it takes a whole year for so many top-of-the-line phones to be introduced but this isn’t the spirit of Santa Claus entering into the mobile brands’ soul – it’s plain business! Just before festival season, almost every company will introduce a serious contender to make sure that the money you plonk down on the counter goes into their treasure chest. But with such an incredible lineup, you also have an incredible line-up of confusion. Thus, to make this a little easier, here’s my version of your Festive Smartphone Shopping Guide.

Rajiv Makhni

techilicious

SAMSUNG NOTE 3

This phone is not for you if you make fun of people sticking big phones to their ear and talking

MORE ON THE WEB For previous columns by Rajiv Makhni, log on to hindustantimes. com/brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at Twitter.com/ RajivMakhni

THE BIG BOMB – SAMSUNG NOTE 3 A massive 5.7-inch super AMOLED 1080p display yet doesn’t feel big, powered by a Snapdragon 800 SoC, a 13-megapixel camera capable of recording video in 4K, less plasticky looking as it’s covered with ﬁnely stitched leather, the S Pen gets more intelligent as Air Command becomes truly usable, the multi-windows feature for opening different apps is now customisable. It comes for about `45,000 at street level. MADE FOR: Great for business users, excellent for power users, fantastic if you need high-quality video and the payoff is awesome if you can spend time learning the capabilities of the S Pen and Air Command. Not for you if you make fun of people sticking big phones to their ear, not at all if your jeans are the painted-on-super-tight kind, not for you if you have small hands (it doesn’t matter if you are male or female, if you have dainty little hands, scratch this off your list), not for you if you don’t enjoy learning new features, which have a bit of learning curve on your phone. THE SEDUCTIVE FIRECRACKER – SONY XPERIA Z1 Close to being the best-looking in this line-up, aluminium and glass build, fantastic engineering and build quality, super thin and very sleek, feels fantastic in the hand, a souped-up quad-core processor, SONY XPERIA Z1 16GB on-board storage out of the box with A serious looker, extra points for the expandable memory this phone is for option of up to 64GB, a 5-inch full-1080p those whose display with Triluminos technology for phones are a better sharpness and contrast, an astound- statement ing 20.7-megapixel camera, almost waterproof and truly dust-resistant. It doesn’t even have annoying ﬂaps to close and a street price of about `39,000. MADE FOR: Perfect for those whose phones are a statement and an extension of their personality as this is a serious looker, awesome for those who use their cameraphone a lot, also good for those

OCTOBER 13, 2013

who need to wash their phones under LG G2 a tap to get rid of all the icky stuff If you shoot accumulated through the day. Buy it pictures that if you watch a lot of movies on your are fuzz due to phone as it’s about the only one here shaky hands, that can use an extended memory this phone’s slot for all your ‘downloaded’ movies. for you Not for you if you keep your phone unprotected in a bag or your pocket as the glass at the back scratches easily, not for you if you like your phones super clean as this is a prime example of a ﬁngerprint magnet. Rules of ‘don’t buy it if you can’t handle a big-screen phone’ apply here too. THE NEW AGE ROCKET – LG G2 This is LG getting its groove back and making sure that it’s taken as a serious contender after a debacle in the smartphone market. The G2 sheds its sub-branding in the Optimus range (a strange decision), has a 5.2-inch full-HD display, an innovative ‘back of the phone’ power and control button layout, thus leading to an almost non-existent bezel and clean sides. It also has a fantastic camera with optical stabilisation that is rock solid, a quad-core processor that ﬂies and the 16GB version comes for about `40,000. MADE FOR: If you like your phone to do a lot more than have a ‘Plain Jane’ Android build, if you like a phone with clean sides and no buttons sticking out, if you shoot pictures that are usually fuzzy because of your hand shaking, if you like a phone with a truckload of new features not offered by others – the G2 is for you. If you are averse to learning a new way to control your phone, if you want your phone to have a striking design and hate plasticky looks, if you hate it when companies add on an overblown Android skin and many new features that seem gimmicky – then the G2 is not for you. THE INNOVATIVE SPARKLER – NOKIA LUMIA 1020 The phone that shocked the world with a 41-megapixel camera reinvents the zoom as well as photography, truly stunning images and some great tricks within the camera app, great design and beautiful colours, comes with an add-on accessory that converts it into a real camera body, buttersmooth Windows OS performance, and did I mention that the 41megapixel camera is really an outstanding piece of optical engineering that gives you photographs and videos that were in the realm of dreams just two years ago? It’s priced at `47,000. MADE FOR: Everyone who now NOKIA LUMIA 1020 uses their phone as their only The 41-megapixel camera camera, all of you who are seri- is an outstanding piece of ous about creative photography optical engineering without wanting to wade through the drudgery of learning DSLR methodology, all those who think Windows on a phone is easily the most overlooked OS and all those who love Nokia for what it stands for, can apply here. But if you hardly ever use your phone for more than a random ‘birthday cake being cut’ shots, if you’re still a Windows hater and crib about ‘no apps’ on the OS, if you feel Microsoft played a dirty game with Nokia, then you should cleanly walk away. That’s half the roster on the festival shopping guide covered. The next four in my Diwali basket will have some Apple phuljaris, two shockingly great Chinese anaars and maybe even one more surprise pataka. Get ready for some serious tech celebrations this Diwali. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3

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THE CLOCK IS TICKING… Will Anil Kapoor’s 24 change the landscape of Indian television?

IKE MUCH of the world, I was addicted to 24. And like any fully paid-up addict, I would stock up on the good stuff, shut the door on the rest of the world, and mainline. Because I came to it rather late, I could swallow seasons one, two and three in one greedy gulp. Staying up till four in the morning, trying to squeeze just one more episode in before the rising sun shamed me into going to bed, became a regular feature. And when my stock of old episodes ended and I had to wait for the new season, I suffered serious withdrawal symptoms.

Seema Goswami

REAL HERO In the American 24, Kiefer Sutherland played the main character, Jack Bauer, who got to the bottom of a diabolical terrorist plot

spectator Yes, as you’ve probably gathered by now, 24 was addictive. The central conceit of the series was that it chronicled 24 hours of a national security crisis in real time. Kiefer Sutherland played the main character, Jack Bauer, as a superhero without the cape (and no visible underwear either, thank God!) maiming, torturing, blowing things up, and then torturing some more, to get to the bottom of some diabolical terrorist plot. The storyline tested the limits of our credulity, the stunts were sometimes plain unbelievable, and the twists and turns of the plot often bordered on the ludicrous. But the series was tightly scripted, fast paced, and things went by in such a blur that you didn’t even notice the glaring holes in the plot – until much later, in bed, when you were running through the best moments in your head. Looking back now, 24 was prescient in many ways. In giving us a black candidate in the guise of the future President David Palmer in 2001, it eerily foreshadowed the election of Barack Obama in 2009. Its brutal rendering of the torture of terror suspects was an early hint of the Abu Ghraib-style security scandals to come. And who knows, the female US President Allison Taylor who premiered in 24 Redemption in 2008 and then starred in seasons seven and eight, may well be a nod to the election of Hillary Clinton (the Democratic frontrunner for the 2016 polls) as the ﬁrst woman President of the United States.

OCTOBER 13, 2013

hindustantimes.com/brunch

But watching all those endless episodes, perched at the edge of my seat, I was never prescient enough to think that I would soon see an Indian version of the series. No, not even when an Indian actor, Anil Kapoor, played an important role in the last and final season as the ill-fated President Omar Hassan of the fictional Islamic Republic of Kamistan (modeled on Iran) who is assassinated by the bad guys – but not before putting in some good old-fashioned action hero stuff in the company of Bauer. His messy end in the series notwithstanding, Anil Kapoor knew that he was on to a good thing. And after endless negotiations he bought the rights to make the Indian version of the show, with Kapoor himself playing the Jack Bauer role. In some ways, of course, Kapoor is uniquely qualified to play the superhero, or more accurately, the super anti-hero. His Mr India, released in 1987, brought the legend of the Invisible Superhero to us a full decade before J K Rowling wrote about the Invisibility Cloak in the first Harry Potter book in 1997. (Yes, yes, I know, H G Wells wrote The Invisible Man a century ago in 1897; we can play this game endlessly.) As of this writing, the first two episodes of the Indian 24 have been aired on Colors. And I have to admit that my initial reservations about how this would work have been belied. The storyline is strong, the characters are well defined, the pace is fast, the action well choreographed, and bar a few, the performances are strong. Even the so-called Indianisation works. Instead of Presidential hopeful David Palmer, we have a putative Prime Minister from a political dynasty that appears to be loosely based on the Gandhis. So, will 24 be a game-changer as far as Indian television is concerned? Will our TV production companies finally move away from their saas-bahu sagas and their mangalsutra melodramas, and give us quality television of the like that the West enjoys? Well, frankly, it is too early to tell if there will be a substantive change in the Indian television landscape. Shows like 24 cost money, they need good writers, talented directors, committed producers, and a top-quality star cast to work. And so far, at least, Indian TV shows no signs of being able afford any of the above. So, I don’t really see things changing very much in the short term. What will change, I think, is Bollywood’s attitude to television. Until now, Indian film stars have treated television fiction shows with a certain disdain. Everyone from Amitabh Bachchan to Salman Khan to Shah Rukh Khan is happy to play quizmaster to the nation. Stars like Madhuri Dixit, Hrithik Roshan are happy to turn up to judge singing and dancing competitions. And the likes of Karan Johar delight in hosting their own talk shows. But TV series? That seems to be strict no-no (unless, of course, if you are a no-hoper like Vinod Khanna). This is in sharp contrast to the West where everyone from Glenn Close (Damages) to Martin Sheen (The West Wing) to Kate Winslet (Mildred Pierce) is happy to transition from movies to TV (and back again). But rare is the film star in India who is willing to play a role in a TV drama. That may well be changing though. Even before 24 aired, Amitabh Bachchan announced that he would be starring in a TV series directed by Anurag Kashyap on Sony. And where the great man goes, the rest are sure to follow.

MORE ON THE WEB For more SPECTATOR columns by Seema Goswami, log on to hindustantimes.com/Brunch. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami. Write to her at seema_ ht@rediffmail.com

FINE PRINT

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

How Can You Read More? More than how much you’re reading now, that is. We asked experts and avid readers, tried their tricks. Here are the ones that worked by Saudamini Jain

T’S A WET Sunday afternoon. The pitter-patter of tiny droplets has turned into a downpour. I’m in bed listening to the rhythm of falling rain. It’s the perfect day to curl up with a book. I make myself a steaming mug of tea, play some music and reach out for my copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah. But there’s also a half-read copy of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland on my Kindle, so I switch, determined to ﬁnish reading all the books I’d previously abandoned. The phone beeps. “I watched Bridesmaids again. I laughed so hard! Then I missed you like mad,” reads a message from my long-distance best friend. So I’m now re-watching Kristen Wiig and a very unattractive Jon Hamm (pre-Don Draper days) have animalistic sex. There goes the book. Again. Reading is a drug, you can never get enough. But if your pile of unread books is growing faster than you’re able to handle, if you lug around the same book around wherever you go for weeks but don’t end up ﬁnishing it, if you spend more time downloading ebooks than reading them, you’re

really not reading enough... Welcome to the club. We hounded booklovers and shrinks to ﬁgure out just how you can get back on track and read more. These little tricks work.

TIP #1

Read the ﬁrst 40 pages

Some books grip you from the ﬁrst sentence, some from the introductory character, some protagonists have you wrapped around the

OCTOBER 13, 2013

spine of the book. But sometimes, you struggle to get through that one painful book recommended by so many others, and you get stuck. Don’t be. If it doesn’t weave it’s magic fast enough, dump it. That’s what publishing houses do. Random House India receives around 50 manuscript submissions every day. The drill is simple. If the editors don’t like the ﬁrst few pages, it lands bottom ﬁrst on the rejection pile. Milee Ashwarya,

THE MANY FABULOUS THINGS BOOKS CAN DO FOR YOUR BRAIN

editorial director, Ebury Press and Random House Business, says that’s the best strategy when you’re reading for pleasure too. Pick up a book, “read it if you like it. If the ﬁrst 20-30-40 pages don’t work for you, then stop.” And move on to the next.

Read TIP #2 Busy? short ﬁction

nd we don’t mean dense academic writing here. Last year, neurobiologists at Stanford asked subjects to read passages from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park while inside MRI machines, and examined the blood flow in their brains. The findings were amazing. The world is round, pigs cannot fly, your schoolteachers were right. As was Austen, who in the same novel wrote, “A fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself.” The study found that any sort of reading, even if it is just fiction, is good for your brain. Leisure reading also increased the blood flow to the brain. When they were

Trishna, 24, an MPhil student at Delhi University, started reading

asked to read the book critically (like you would for an exam), the blood ﬂow increased beyond executive function regions (the parts of the brain responsible for problem-solving.) It’s because reading, as it turns out, is like workout for the brain. “Both regions of the brain, left and right, are involved while you’re reading. When such a wide network is involved, it requires work for the brain. And the brain is like a muscle, the more you use it, the better it is,” says Nandini Chatterjee Singh, additional professor at the National Brain Research Centre. “If you reduce reading, the connectivity reduces.

hindustantimes.com/brunch She was. But she If it’s a did didn’t care because she really was engrossed in a copy Geo RR Martin’s A Orhan Pamuk’s gripping of George Gam of Thrones, sipping a Game My Name Is Red, book, pull half-drunk half-d cup of coffee. “I a few years ago. It’s an excellent book. carry a book with me everyan allShe was thoroughly wher I go,” she says. “Even where nighter, if I’m going to the nightclub. enjoying it, “but something came up It’s the only way to keep readread till ing. and I had to stop T This way, you’re never you can’t waiting reading it for a few waitin and you’re never days,” she says. bored. keep your bored.” She never got back She always reading two She’s eyes open or three books of different to it. “Which is a pity because I a the same time. “I pick at a second upgenres think it was gowhiche whichever kind of book I’m ing to be a really l feeling like that day. Always longer good read, but one kind of chick lit or fantasy, I lost track of what was happening.” So now, during the academic year, she reads mostly short stories and poetry and leaves longer ﬁction for when she has time on her hands. “Of course, I feel horrible about this happening. Once in a while I pick up something I really want to read and read it rapidly,” she adds. So for some books, make that exception. If it really is gripping, if it makes your heart skip a beat, let it. Pull an all-nighter, read till you can’t keep your eyes open a second longer. Some books are worth it.

TIP #3

Take a book everywhere

A few weeks ago, I was late for brunch with my friend Saudamini Singh Bagai. “I’ll take another 15 minutes,” I apologised profusely on the phone. “Take your time,” she was so zen, it made me suspicious. She’s probably not there either, I told myself indignantly.

If you don’t use it, you lose it,” she adds. Interestingly, another study at Carnegie Mellon University found that reading training to children who were poor readers physically rewired their brains. It increased the volume of white matter, which improves communication within the brain. And for those who are not much of readers, there’s also research to show that listening to audiobooks can light up your brain. Listening, some argue, is linked to the emotional centres of the brain. The language processing parts of your brain gets activated and the experiential parts of your brain come alive.

something easy to read.” Get a Kindle (look right for more on those, by the way). I’ve been reading twice as much ever since it’s become a permanent ﬁxture in my bag.

TIP #4 Romanticise reading

You know, wrapped in a fluffy blanket, or in a café that smells of coffee, or while sipping beer under the sun. The only thing you need to make sure is that it is at a designated reading time. So don’t read with the TV blaring on one side or the family arguing on another, don’t read when you know you’ll be interrupted for dinner. Pick a free time, your favourite spot and a book. Lifestyle management expert Rachna K Singh says you should “create an environment which would be conducive to your discipline. Read when you’ve finished your work and your mind is at rest. Pick a book and curl up with it.” But, she warns, “Don’t get involved in concentration building exercises to read, reading is a pleasure activity.” But you already knew that – it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures! So this Sunday, we suggest, don’t be lazy. Just pick a book, any book, and devour it. The film/TV adaptation can wait. Skip the friends, meet some characters. And if you’ve been feeling lonesome lately, remember what F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” We couldn’t agree more. Hmm, perhaps I will revisit The Great Gatsby today. Tell us is any of this worked for you! Email saudamini.jain@hindustantimes.com Follow @SaudaminiJain on Twitter

The Evolution Of The Kindle It’s been six years since Amazon released its ﬁrst Kindle and nearly a month since the latest version came out (the new Kindle Paperwhite, unfortunately not available in India). We bring you our favourite e-reader through the ages by Pranav Dixit

1. KINDLE (2007) The ﬁrst Kindle was a wedgeshaped clunker of a device that looked like it was built in 1982. It had had a grainy blackand-white E-Ink display that looks pretty washed out right now but was revolutionary then; and it also had an oddly split keyboard with weird diagonal keys. Though it retailed for a wallet-busting $399, people fell over themselves to order – it was out of stock for ﬁve, long months.

3. KINDLE DX (2009) The Kindle DX was released at almost the same time as the Kindle 2 and featured a giant 9.7inch display and the same design as the Kindle 2. This was the only Kindle that could sense when the user changed orientation and adjust the text to ﬂow in landscape or portrait mode accordingly. Sadly, the Kindle DX had barely been on the market for a year before Apple’s mighty iPad came along and crushed it to pieces.

5. KINDLE 4 (2011) The Kindle 4 was the device that firmly put the Kindle in the impulse purchase category: it started at only $79 (for the US-only version with ads, $109 everywhere else). This was the first Kindle to sport a touchscreen, which meant that the unsightly keyboard finally went away. Other than that, this one was kind of ugly, in our opinion. A slightly faster version with a black bezel instead of grey was released in 2012.

7. KINDLE PAPERWHITE (2013) The same gorgeous screen, just lit more evenly and faster page turns: the 2013 Paperwhite improved ever so slightly on an already perfect product. Same price, of course.

2. KINDLE 2 (2009) Ama Amazon got rid of the weird wedge, thank God, and actually managed to streamline the Kindle’s design. The new Kindle was slightly lighter than the ﬁrst one. Slimmer too. Unlike the original Kindle which could hold about 200 books, the new Kindle could hold about 1,500. And as a part of the promotion drive, Amazon permanently dropped the price fr from $359 to $259 and Stephen Kin King wrote the cringe-worthy UR, a Kindle-exclusive novella that K featured – go ﬁgure – a haunted Kindle.

4. KINDLE KEYBOARD KE (2010) (2 The Kindle Keyboard was the ﬁrst Kindle that you felt comfortable recommending to friends and family. It had a sleek, graphite body and used the E-Ink ‘Pearl’ display, which had a higher contrast than the previous Kindle that made text much easier on the eyes. It was tex also slightly smaller than the Kindle als and featured built-in speakers for 2a audio-book listening (you could load aud it up with music as well). And there was a dramatic price drop: the Kindle Keyboard started at $139.

6. KINDLE PAPERWHITE PA (2012) (2 Five years after releasing the ﬁrst Kindle, Amazon FINALLY managed to make the perfect e-reader. The Kindle indle Paperwhite had a gorgeous screen that was lit from “within” thanks to a unique grid-lightning technology that doesn’t shine into your eyes ey like an LCD screen. While the previous pr Kindles looked more like black text on grey backgrounds, the Paperwhite looked almost like real paper: crisp black text on a bright white background. At $119 (`10,999 in India), it was more expensive than the previous generation Kindle, but boy bo was it worth every penny.

The Kindle Paperwhite is SO perfect that we don’t really want Amazon to change anything anymore (apart from a price drop – that’s always welcome!). Now if only they make these things SMELL like old books, we would give up physical books forever.

OCTOBER 13, 2013

CULTURE CURRY

hindustantimes.com/brunch

Sufi In A Twirl

INCE 1998, when she conceptualised the genre, Manjari Chaturvedi has been propagating Sufi Kathak, a dance form that combines the gestural storytelling of Kathak with the sublime spinning meditation of Sufism. Chaturvedi, 39, grew up in Uttar Pradesh, the cradle of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. The daughter of a space scientist and homemaker mom, she has a Masters in Environmental Sciences from the University of Lucknow. On the eve of a performance at the India International Centre last week, where she whirled to the words of Bedam Shah Warsi, Chaturvedi discussed, among other subjects, why the simplicity of Sufi lyrics cannot be a justification for indiscriminate marketing. Excerpts from the interview:

how relegated to insigniﬁcance. Our foundation tries to keep these traditions alive.

Why is the popularity of classical music forms like qawwali waning?

Most classical traditions are surviving in a refurbished format today, ﬁghting for their own space in the diversity of options available as “entertainment” for the audiences. The lines between a spiritual connect with the art form and the entertainment connect are blurring and almost mingling into one another. So, most of the time, performers like me – who are part of mystical traditions – are at a loss about whether we are part of a spiritual elevation process or plain, simple entertainment.

From Suﬁ rock to Punjabi pop, why is there a profusion of genres being marketed in the name of Suﬁsm?

Tell us about Suﬁ Kathak...

In Sufi Kathak, I’ve incorporated the mystique of Sufism (the moving meditation) into Kathak, thereby blending both the Hindu and Muslim divine traditions. It is a dance form that spans the earthly romance of folk to the evolved Sufi imagery of love in Persian poetry, from a beloved in flesh and blood to the abstract presence of the Almighty, from form to formlessness. It brings out the nuances of Sufi music and poetry through the language of body, which expresses the rapturous heights of spiritual ecstasy. It takes forward the traditions of the erstwhile Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of Awadh, wherein qawwals sang in praise of Hazrat Ali as well as Krishna.

Who are the world’s favourite Suﬁ saints whose kalam continues to inspire qawwals and performers?

The best known Suﬁ poets are Hazrat Amir Khusrau and Mevlana Rumi, and I think Rumi is the

By propagating Sufi Kathak, Manjari Chaturvedi has added a mystical twist to classical dance by Aasheesh Sharma most translated poet in the world! However, there are many other exemplary saints and poets who have written on Sufi thought and are sung even today by performers. Hazrat Bedam Shah Warsi, Hazrat Shah Niyaz, Rashid Safipur, Muztar Khairabadi (Javed Akhtar’s grandfather) are some of

WHAT IS SUFI KATHAK? Chaturvedi on the differences between traditional Kathak and Suﬁ Kathak Inspiration: In Kathak, the mudra, taal and abhinaya are inspired by a deity. In Suﬁ Kathak, I reinterpret the gestures to depict a nirgun (formless) deity.

Kathak, the dancer goes into a trance-like state where she doesn’t realise how many times she is turning, which could go into hundreds.

Lyrics: In Suﬁ Kathak, the lyrics are not limited to one language. They could be in Punjabi, as penned by Bulle Shah, or even in Persian.

Costumes: Since Kathak began as storytelling in royal courts, the idea was to draw attention to the physical beauty of the dancer and to ornate costumes. Here it is just the opposite: The Suﬁ Kathak costume isn’t eye-catching and is in muted colours such as black or white.

Form: Unlike Kathak, where the dancer stops after a set number of revolutions (chakkars), in Suﬁ

OCTOBER 13, 2013

them. There are many more who have written words that continue to inspire us even today.

Why was your concert a tribute to Hazrat Bedam Shah Warsi?

It is an initiative by the Suﬁ Kathak Foundation under the 22 Khwaja Project, a series that seeks to revive the written words of lesser-known but extraordinary Suﬁ poets of Awadh or Uttar Pradesh. It brings to the foreground people who’ve written insightful poetry that is sung till today at the shrines. However, the general public is unaware of the lives and works of these marvellous poets. Warsi, for instance, wrote under the pen name of “Bedam” and his shrine is situated in the small village of Dewa of Barabanki. India is a politically volatile country, where our cultural traditions are some-

Photo courtesy: AMIT MEHRA

Art has always drawn influences from the times in which the artists and performers lived. Having said that, since the Sufi saints wrote in easy spoken language, people relate to it and try and adapt it to their own medium of expression, which is fair in creativity. But unfortunately this is leading to the usage of such terms with complete ignorance. For example, the mere use of word ‘Maula’ in a song doesn’t make the song Sufi! Whenever something succeeds, a lot of rubbish gets on the bandwagon. But time is the best judge. Only art forms with substance shall stay and the rest will wither away.

As the only practitioner of Suﬁ Kathak in India, how have you seen the genre evolve?

Poetry, music and dance have been important aspects of Sufi traditions in the Indian subcontinent. So I accept all mystical conventions and take them into the fold of Sufi Kathak, with particular influence of the Chistiya Silsila and the Mevlevi tradition. Over the years that I have been a practitioner, Sufi Kathak has evolved its own visual entity distinct from other classical dance forms, although it follows the same grammar (see box, left). The overriding thought is following the concept of the formless Almighty, the nirgun brahma. Its poetry is distinct, the use of language, the use of movements, the music, costumes and the aesthetics are all specific to Sufi Kathak. aasheesh.sharma@hindustantimes.com

PERSONAL AGENDA

twitter.com/HTBrunch

Actor

Amit Sadh

BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN June 5

Gemini

PLACE OF SCHOOL/COLLEGE La Martiniere College, BIRTH Delhi

Lucknow

HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE LOW POINT OF Riding at over 18,000ft on the YOUR LIFE

Khardung La Pass, Ladakh

FIRST BREAK

Neena Gupta’sTV series Kyun Hota Hai Pyarrr (2002)

None yet

CURRENTLY I AM…

Preparing to climb the Everest and shooting for Aditya Datt’s 10 Janpath

The biggest risk you’ve ever taken. A song you can’t stop humming. Leaving television for films. It’s Zinda from Bhaag Milkha such a different world. Bhaag (2013). One lesson you’ve learnt from life’s How do you unwind? struggles. I always fall back on yoga. Never stop, no matter what. Your dream destination. Just keep going. To be on stage at the Academy If you were in charge of the country, Awards. Imagine being close to what would you change? all those Oscars! I don’t want to be in charge of Your strategy in a crisis. the country, ever! To embrace the problem and A piece of advice you wish someone deal with the repercussions as had given you 10 years ago. they come. I wish someone would have One lie you usually get away with. told me to calm down more “It wasn’t me!” For me, it works often. every time! Your biggest critic. What did you do with your My dog. first pay cheque? The best compliment I spent it all on a FAVOURITE you’ve been paid. holiday. STREET FOOD. Someone once told If not an actor, you me that I’m full of would’ve been… imperfections. That A footballer. It’s my was wonderful. favourite sport. Your favourite memory What gives you a rush? from Kai Po Che. Sky diving. Courage Auditioning is a must for every and meeting adventure junkie. the director, How do you like to spend Abhishek your weekend? Photo: THINKSTOCK Kapoor. I like to go running on Directors you want to work the beach with my dog. with. The last time you took public Rajkumar Hirani, Anurag transport. Kashyap and Farhan I’m not all that fancy. I took an Akhtar. autorickshaw yesterday. What would we find on your A gadget you can’t live without. bed side table? None. I think I could live very The book I’m currently in well without all of them. the middle of. A political figure you admire. Narendra Modi. — Interviewed by Kasturi Gandhi

A hot dog

my movies

OCTOBER 13, 2013

THE LAST FILM THAT MADE YOU CRY.

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013)

A FILM YOU WISH YOU’D ACTED IN.

Casablanca (1942)

A FILM THAT GIVES YOU GOOSEBUMPS.

They don’t scare me, really

THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE FILM.

Point Break (1991)

A FILM TO WATCH WITH FRIENDS.

Iron Man (2008)

Forever Distinctive. Forever Original. Forever renowned. Nestled atop the majestic Banjara Hills, the landmark Taj Krishna Hyderabad welcomes world travellers with grand spaces, superb amenities and bespoke service. The hotel is celebrated for its range of rooms, Taj Club rooms and suites. A choice of restaurants includes Golden Dragon for Chinese and Firdaus for Indian. The Chambers, India’s most exclusive business club, is complemented by 35,000 square feet of conference and banquet space. This destination hotel also has an extensive shopping arcade. Discover the Taj difference at this iconic hotel. With exclusive offers such as Suite Celebrations starting at Rs. 13,000, Hotel Credits of Rs. 3,000, and a 25% discount with Stay a Bit Longer, you can indulge in all that the Taj provides and experience significant value.

Taj forever.

I N D I A • N e W Y o R K • B o S T o N • S A N F R A N C I S C o • L o N D o N • M A R R A K e C H C A p e T o W N • D u B A I • M A L D I v e S • S R I L A N K A • L A N G K AW I • B H u T A N

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Z A M B I A S Y D N e Y

Visit tajhotels.com. Call 1.800.111.825 toll free or the hotel directly, 91.40.6666.2323. Email krishna.hyderabad@tajhotels.com.