WEEKLY MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 17, 2013 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
indulge
VIR SANGHVI
A batter argument
SANJOY NARAYAN
New, from Nick Cave
RAJIV MAKHNI
SEEMA GOSWAMI
BlackBerry, back with a bang The time is now, always
B R E A K FA S T O F C H A M P I O N S by Aasheesh Sharma
Is Delhi the new Paris?
T
Photo: JASJEET PLAHA
he cultural district of the city has moved out of stodgy Mandi House. The new city connoisseur is not averse to boarding the Metro to listen to West African musicians at Zorba, near Gurgaon. Or, for that matter, enjoying jazz at Nehru Park. In Lado Sarai, Delhi has discovered its own Art Mile. So voracious is the capital’s appetite for the printed word that the World Book Fair has increased its frequency to once a year. So, when veteran painter Anjolie Ela Menon said the city reminded her of Paris, it set us thinking. Choosing the 11 people who are driving Delhi’s cultural revolution involved numerous discussions with Brunch editor Poonam Saxena. The result Mahakumbh of Culture: A is a cover story on the Delhi’s changing cultural landscape. visitor at the Art Fair, 2013 And a never-before photo shoot at the Purana Qila. Enjoy!
Idiot Box
Musical Notes
The Grammys Agree With Download Central
by Yashica Dutt
We love award shows, as you can probably guess from our posts on Twitter (follow @HTBrunch). But the Grammys, presented last Sunday, were a little more special. Even though The Hindustan Times editor-in-chief and Download Central (DC) colum-
Tech That
by Veenu Singh
Actress Kalki Koechlin lists her favourite phone applications ■ Flyte: Flipkart’s online digital music store allows you to listen to and download your favourite tracks ■ Instagram: This photo app lets you experiment with your camera and the way pictures look ■ Habit List: This app keeps a tab
on your good and bad habits. You can overcome the bad ones too! ■ New York Times App: This is a great app to get news updates at your fingertips.
Apps the way I like it
BRUNCH ON THE WEB Photo: AFP
Brunch Opinion
hindustantimes.com/brunch
by Shreya Sethuraman
Gong! Let The Food Fight Begin...
With legs that ought to be insured, she’s the go-to girl if you want an ‘item number’ to rock the music charts. Malaika Arora Khan is the Dancing Queen incarnate. The original ‘yummy mummy’ tells us who features on her list of sexy: ■ Jennifer Lopez ■ Deepika Padukone ■ Sharon Stone ■ The original diva – Helen... ■ ...and Kareena Kapoor
Come Dine With Me (BBC Entertainment) is a show that gets together four strangers, who will host dinners at their homes, and provide entertainment, all to score the most points. Our version, Welcome: Baazi Mehmaan Nawazi Ki (LifeOK) tries its best to ‘emulate’ the original, but fails. Here’s why...
Come Dine With Me
What’s cooking?
Welcome...
BBC Entertainment
Channel
LifeOK
Mostly yes. And it shows exactly what the host is cooking and how, including the slip-ups.
Is it about food?
No. It’s just exaggerated reality. And we don’t know how they manage to cook anything!
Those looking for something genuine and warm.
Made-toorder for Sense of humour
Voyeurs. Or those weaning off Bigg Boss.
The interaction seems staged at times, but things never turn ugly.
Getting along
Bonhomie gone sour. Everybody only wants to cry. Keep napkins handy!
Dave Lamb’s hilarious voiceover will have you rolling with laughter.
Whose voice is it anyway?
Welcome’s voiceover tries its best to match up to Lamb, but is no match.
The show’s format is such Host-ing goodness that it doesn’t merit a host. It’s quite lovely the way it is!
Popular TV actor Ram Kapoor performs an unnecessary post-mortem at the end of every week.
It’s as English as can be. Deadpan and sarcastic.
On The Brunch Radar
by Saudamini Jain
LOVE IT
Cover Design: MONICA GUPTA
nist, Sanjoy Narayan, didn’t give an official Grammy prediction list, the winners almost seemed handpicked from his columns! The Black Keys, which usually feature every couple of weeks, won the Best Rock Album for El Camino. Mumford & Sons, another favourite, took the biggest honour of the night, Album of the Year, for Babel. Sanjoy had also written about Frank Ocean, who won the Best Urban Contemporary Album for Channel Orange. Even Esperanza Spalding and Gotye, who found favourable mentions in DC, won big that night. So we thought we’d just indulge in a little self-loving and take time to say, “We Told You So”! #immodestyrules
A perfect Valentine’s ■ Wedding cards ■ Calling John Mayer a jerk ■ “25 ways to blow his mind” ■ Waiting for pizza
SHOVE IT
Photos: THINKSTOCK
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Tumble down to us
DC Grammy list
Black Keys won the Best Rock Al bum Photo: AFP
EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Rachel Lopez, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman, Manit Moorjani
FEBRUARY 17, 2013
Read all about Bollywood’s most enduring siren, who’s still got it all 14 years after her first item number, only on www.hindustantimes.com/brunch
We read, we eat and we go for gigs. Oh and we love gossip too! Find reviews, gossip, quotes, random musings, only on htbrunch.tumblr.com
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Sand castles ■ Item songs ■ Napping at work ■ Planning Aamir in a trip with friends a skirt ■
Humour? Sorry, we only love drama!
won Album of Mumford & Sons l be Ba for ar Ye e th
Photo: AVINASH GOWARIKER
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Read all previous Download Central columns featuring the latest Grammy winners on our website! You know the link (see below). Just log on, now!
www.hindustantimes.com/brunch
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VA R I E T Y
facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch POOF GOES THE FAME
From Batman to Bond, Hitler to Osama – spoofs can poke fun at all sorts of icons and also manage to deliver a message
THE RISE OF THE
B
ATMAN, SUPERMAN or The Hulk are arguably some of the most memorable superheroes of all time. But what if Batman became Baatmaan (check it out on YouTube!), another sort-of superhero who has just one special power – gullibility? Add to that a dollop of naivete, and you have a character that travels in a bus wearing his Bat Suit, visits an auto dealer to find a replacement for his missing Batmobile and gets duped by The Joker quite easily. Go online and you’ll even find a post-metamorphosis Spiderman. Only here his name is Makkad Man and the Municipal Corporation is after him for leaving webs all over the city! From the Mahabharat scene in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro to Amul topicals every week; from Saturday Night Live to movies such as Scary Movie and Tere Bin Laden; from newspaper strip cartoons to cola wars, we are being inundated with spoofs. Online videos such as Baatmaan and Rowdies, which went viral with thousands of views are only making the lampoon genre more popular. Plus, thousands of spoofy images are posted on Facebook every hour, mocking a football, cricket or an examination paper. Nothing. it seems is sacred, it’s all fodder for parody now!
very funny. A good spoof has shock value,” he adds.
Are spoofs the next big wave of online entertainment? What makes them work? by Manit Moorjani one whose visiting card spoofs his own life. Instead of an office address, it has a car and a flight number. He’s travelling most of the time, you see! “We do it on an everyday basis, when we mock someone or a stereotype concerning Punjabis, Tamils, Gujaratis and others. Spoofs just do it more professionally,” he explains. The main objective of a spoof is to elicit laughter for the moment. And it works because people want to see the funny side of their heroes. “If an important guy slips on a banana peel, everyone will laugh,” Paul says. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it’s funny. If just anybody slips on the peel, it isn’t as funny. That’s why many movies show bloopers as the credits roll.” When it comes to parody, there is a clear difference between what works and what doesn’t. Prashant Raj, co-director with The Viral Fever, a Mumbai-based spoof-video house, says that something like Shah Rukh slapping a guard can turn out to be a very funny spoof. “So, we take people like Shah Rukh, Salman or Raghu Ram and make a spoof around their eccentricities. What can also be spoofed well are events around them.” Raj should know. The Viral Fever’s popularity began with a show called Rowdies, which poked fun at the original Roadies. Certain things are still off-limits. “Unlike the US,
now e r ns a g up to f a i d In rmin fun o wa king lves ma emse th
CRACKING THE SPOOF CODE
So what makes a spoof so appealing? “It is a natural human feeling to want to see someone getting screwed,” says ad man Josy Paul, the man behind BlackBerry’s recent ‘Action Starts Here’ campaign, and
in India nobody spoofs politics as it is very risky,” he says. “It is only now that Indians are warming up – a little bit – to making fun of themselves. Spoofs are another indication of this new sensibility.”
RIDING ON POP CULTURE
Most spoofs take off from where a popular story or film or animation series ends. Whether it is Rowdies and Baatmaan in the Indian online space, the How It Should Have Ended series worldwide, or even Supermen of Malegaon, all these have been inspired by a popular movie or TV series, says documentary filmmaker Nitin Sukhija, best known for his satirical portrayal of the Malegaon film industry. “Shah Rukh is always the good guy with his arms wide open. Now if I see the villain beating him instead, or if he suddenly becomes grumpy, it can be
manit.moorjani@hindustantimes.com
BETTER SPOOF THAN GOOF
HIS NAME is Shafiq Bachchan, though his real name is Shafiq Ansari. And he can get into any Amitabh Bachchan role without breaking into a sweat. And why shouldn’t he? Ansari has reprised Big B in every movie that the Malegaon parallel film industry has churned out. The same goes for Irfan Ilyas, their very own Gabbar. From being a R50,000 venture with a cassette video recorder, the Malegaon industry has gone on to become a lucrative spoof factory. “The people of Malegaon spoof out of necessity. They have no other option,” says Nitin Sukhija, who went there as a journalist to write about
“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game” – Vladimir Nabokov FEBRUARY 17, 2013
FOOD FOR LAUGHS
A good parody should make you laugh, but it’s only an excellent one that can also make you think. A Guide To Smoking, a 5-minute spoof film, for instance, mocks the unhealthy habit. “With spoofs, people hit out at established ideas,” says Gaurav Raturi, part of the Filmbooth group that hosted Spoofhmania, a six-day spoof-film and video festival in Delhi some time ago. Subhashini Dewada, one half of the duo Subhashani-Vinimay, which won the Best Short Film Award at the festival for Creamerica, which takes potshots at both James Bond and CID, says that even someone not into serious cinema is attracted to a spoof, “as it is wrapped up in comedy and still raises the issue.” Spoofs of such iconic lines as “mere paas maa hai” and “kitne aadmi they?” in ads have, perhaps, contributed to their longer shelf life. Those who wrote these lines might have never imagined the cult status they’d attain!
the industry, but stayed back and made a documentary about it. “From where do we get a train for the robbery sequence in Sholay?” asks Ilyas. “So we use the best deluxe bus available in the town. For the horses, we have no option but to use cycles!” The local Malegaon touch to Sholay: When Thakur gets hurt, he isn’t taken to a hospital, but to the Wadia Dava Khana, a local clinic, instead!
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C OV E R STO RY
How a city of refugees, bureaucrats and property dealers became the heart of everything that’s art, music, dance, theatre, books and culture by Aasheesh Sharma
FEBRUARY 17, 2013
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Y
OU DON’T really need Google Earth to tell you this. Delhi is India’s new cultural capital. In the last week of January, more than 90,000 people thronged the India Art Fair, the second most attended art event in the world after Arco, Madrid. Culture collided with commerce in cavernous tents as connoisseurs and commoners gawked at 3,500 works created by 1,100 artists from 24 nationalities. Over the next few days, close to seven lakh bibliophiles visited the World Book Fair and on any given weekend, hundreds of Delhiites frequent the more than 200 galleries and numerous concert venues across the national capital region. Whether it is rock, Indian classical, jazz, metal or World Music, people have an eclectic menu of genres to choose from. With more than 100 productions staged every month, the theatregoer in Delhi couldn’t have asked for more. Historically, Mumbai was the more Photo: RAJ K RAJ
important art market. But in the last five years, recognising Delhi’s potential, global auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s have increased the number of representatives in the city. And then, Krishen Khanna and SH Raza, the two most prominent members of the Bombay Progressive Artists Group, also stay here. Of course, Delhi’s 200 galleries outnumber the 80-odd galleries Mumbai has. Mumbai-based artist Akbar Padamsee, considered one of the giants of modern Indian painting along with Raza, FN Souza and MF Husain, says Delhi is the place to show at. “The Bombay market has been washed out. It is nowhere on the scene when compared to Delhi,” says Padamsee. Art historian Seema Bawa echoes Padamsee’s sentiment. “Every artist wants to exhibit here. The stamp of recognition that they get from showing at Delhi’s leading galleries – a Vadehra, an Espace or the Lado Sarai ones –
announces to the world that they’ve arrived,” adds Bawa.
concerts to show off their earrings.’ Aghast, I resolved to take the performing arts to the city’s middle class,” says the organiser of Bhakti Utsav, the Delhi Jazz Festival and the Ananya festival of classical dance, held at Purana Qila. Delhi has come a long way since, says Bhargava. “Now, when 10,000 people relish New Orleans blues at the Delhi Jazz Festival sitting on Nehru Park’s grass dunes, I am reminded of how misplaced Panditji’s remark would have sounded in 2013.” Celebrated Dhrupad singer Wasifuddin Dagar says few cities in the world can match the historical venues for performing arts that Delhi offers. “It is the oldest living Capital. Where else can you enjoy aalaps in the shadow of the Qutub?” he asks. The cultural landscape of the city has changed dramatically from the early 1990s when his group performed at ‘rock shows’ in Delhi University colleges for a princely
A NEW SENSIBILITY
For decades, perhaps because of its perception as a city of bureaucrats, refugees and property dealers, we tended to underestimate Delhi’s appetite for art. When he stayed in the Delhi of the 1970s, says Akbar Padamsee, the city had the aesthetic sensibility of an overgrown village. “Today, when I come here, I can’t believe my eyes.” Earlier, cynics said Delhiwallahs didn’t have the finesse to appreciate the nuances of high art or culture. Seher founder Sanjeev Bhargava, the impresario behind such successful concepts as Music in the Park, remembers that time. “During a 1994 concert in the Vasantotsava series, Bhimsen Joshi remarked: ‘Dilli mein perform karne ka anand hi nahin hai. People applaud at the wrong places. It seems they come to
Delhi’s culturati at Purana Qila
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1. M Venkatesh and Swati Roy
Mediapersons and friends who organise Bookaroo, a festival woven around children’s literature, which has become a permanent fixture on Delhi’s cultural calendar
2. Geeta Chandran
Dancer and teacher, founder of Natya Vriksha, an organisation devoted to promoting Bharatanatyam in the city
3. Ustad Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar
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Bhakti Utsav, the South Asian Bands festival and the Delhi Jazz Festival. Popularised the Music in the Park concept.
6. Arvind Gaur
Founder of Asmita, he is a leading practitioner of street theatre in the city and one of Delhi’s best known directors
7. Subir Malik
Founder and keyboardist of Parikrama, one of the longest running rock bands in the city
8. Jatin Varma
Vocalist, the 20th generation in a family of acclaimed Dhrupad singers based in Delhi
Marketing wizard, founder of annual comics convention Comic Con held at Dilli Haat
4. Anjolie Ela Menon
9. Bhavna Kakar
One of India’s best known contemporary artists based in Delhi, Menon has her studio at Nizamuddin Basti
Art historian, director of Gallery Latitude 28 at Lado Sarai; editor of the magazine TAKE on Art
5. Sanjeev Bhargava
Founder of the India Art Fair, the largest and most successful international art fair in the country
Impresario, organiser of the Ananya festival of classical dance, FEBRUARY 17, 2013
10. Neha Kirpal
C OV E R STO RY
hindustantimes.com/brunch
Thanks to the expat community, Delhi has greater exposure to international art than Mumbai –S Kalidas, art historian and critic
Quintessential Delhi The Ananya Dance Festival takes performing arts to Delhi’s Purana QIla
Photo: AJAY LAL
Ode to the city Paresh Maity at the India Art Fair with his work Delhi 7
Photo: DIBAKAR DUTTA
Photo: JASJEET PLAHA
More than one lakh people visited the World Book Fair on the final day itself. M A Sikandar, director, National Book Trust
Photo: RAJ K RAJ
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Reading in the age of Kindle: The World Book Fair in Delhi has become an annual feature now
R2,000, says Parikrama lead singer Subir Malik. Apart from getting many more venues and more money – established groups such as Malik’s now earn anywhere between R3lakh and R5lakh for sponsored shows – audience tastes, too, have evolved. City-grown labels like Amarrass Records are helping popularise World Music by introducing audiences to newer genres and artistes like Madou Sidiki Diabate, the 71st generation in a family that plays the kora, a West African harp and Malian icon Vieux Farka Touré, who performed at the World Cup Football opening ceremony in 2011. “Earlier, apart from Sufi or classical, most acts in Delhi catered to people aged below 25. But Delhi has a large population of well-travelled mid-level professionals willing to experiment with something they haven’t heard of,” says Ashutosh Sharma, director with Amarrass Records. The urge to experiment hasn’t prevented theatre and dance – two art forms conventionally close to the Delhiite’s heart – from thriving. With
the emergence of newer venues, the city’s performing arts scene is democratised, says celebrated Bharatnatyam exponent and dance teacher Geeta Chandran. “When we perform at Connaught Place’s Central Park, the audience finds it less intimidating than an auditorium at Mandi House.” Smaller, more affordable rehearsal venues like the Mukt Dhara auditorium in Gole Market have brought in work for the city’s theatre practitioners, says Arvind Gaur of Asmita. “What is heartening is the revival of campus theatre, a throwback to the days when Frank Thakurdas inspired Amitabh Bachchan to join dramatics and Barry John directed Shah Rukh.”
BRAVE NEW PATRONS
Delhi’s new culture revolution is being driven by young professionals who are no longer content attending art workshops at the India International Centre. A typical day out for the modern-day city aficionado usually entails lunch at Hauz Khas Village, followed by an evening looking at art at the Lado Sarai Opening
Desert storm Turkish psychedelic band BaBA ZuLa perform at Zorba
People are opening up to genres like indie, jazz, World Music, metal and Sufi Subir Malik, founder and keyboardist, Parikrama
Nights (nine galleries have buried business rivalries and synchronised their art openings!) and finally, attending a concert al fresco at one of the many green spaces that Delhi has. (Think Zorba, an amphitheatre in a farmhouse with an intimate, cozy feel on the Mehrauli Gurgaon Road that hosts alternative musical acts, or the enormous Garden of Five Senses which often plays host to the best of Sufi musicians). “In the US and UK, most of the great shows and festivals are held outdoors. But in India such venues were few. That got me thinking about converting my farmhouse into a platform for music with a relentless focus on outdoor entertainment,” says Ranjan Chopra, owner of Zorba and the co-host of the Just Jazz music festival that brought in bands from New Orleans in October 2012. Footfalls indicate Dilliwallahs are devouring cultural events with a renewed frenzy. The Ananya classical dance festival saw the number of guests rise from 600 to 3000 over the last decade. Even Comic Con India, a
niche comic books convention, saw the number of visitors rise from 15,000 in 2011 to 50,000 in 2013, says its founder Jatin Varma. Choreographer Vidyun Singh, director programmes at Habitat World, says Delhi is witnessing the emergence of a brave new breed of art patrons. “They’ve been educated in and have had exposure to rich cultural options in cities around the world. They are seeking out similar options not just as audience, but also organising cutting edge events that enhance the robustness and range of culture in the city.” Chiki Sarkar, publisher, Penguin Books India, agrees. “If you are a brilliant young lawyer, NGO worker, journalist, or in the government, you probably want to be in Delhi,” she says.
FRENCH CONNECTION
At the India Art Fair, as onlookers milled around the Madonna of Merriweather Road, admiring Anjolie Ela Menon’s portrait of a hippie woman done in the ’70s, the seasoned artist drew a Parisian parallel to
“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life” – Pablo Picasso FEBRUARY 17, 2013
C OV E R STO RY
Photo: JASJEET PLAHA
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With the emergence of newer venues, the city’s performing arts scene has been democratised
“Delhi has many welltravelled people willing to experiment”
Geeta Chandran, dancer and teacher All that jazz Venues such as Nehru Park have drawn in larger audiences
On the lighter side People dress up like pop culture characters at Comic Con India 2013
Not only are Delhiites aware of international art trends, they are not shy of spending on them
ASHUTOSH SHARMA, director, Amarrass Records, a Delhi-based label that promotes World Music
Jatin Varma, founder, Comic Con India Photo: AJAY LAL The curtain rises... A play at Akshara Theatre’s Festival of Four Languages
What is heartening is the revival of theatre in the colleges of Delhi Arvind Gaur, Asmita Theatre
explain why the Capital has become a cradle of creativity. “More affordable than Mumbai, Delhi today is like Paris after the first World War. It was an era when Picasso, Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald deserted the expensive Montmarte district and settled in the less expensive but creatively stimulating Montparnasse.” The maverick painter wasn’t the only one invoking the avant garde spirit at the art mahakumbh. A few metres away from the Delhi Art Gallery tent where Menon’s paintings were on show, the paintings display at Manu Dosaj’s Gallerie Alternatives, one of the first art spaces in in Gurgaon, was drawing buyers to the works of Sayed Haider Raza, another master who wouldn’t have felt out of sorts on the ChampsElysées. “I settled in Delhi two years ago after having lived in Paris for sixty years,” says Raza, whose next solo opens at Vadehra Art Gallery next week. “So much takes place in the city in dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, literature and poetry that I feel the vibrant and dynamic plurality of India’s contemporary creativity is on its best display here.”
CULTURE REVOLUTION
So, how has Delhi managed to overrun every other Indian metropolis in cultural buzz, energy and spending power in the last few years? “The national capital region has the world’s best MNCs with highly paid employees and the expat community,” says Neha Kirpal. “Delhiites have second homes they want to decorate with the best architecture and art,” she adds. The awareness for the arts is growing outside commercial spaces, too. In the Kiran Nadar Museum and the non-profit Devi Art Foundation, the Capital has two of the best private art museums in the country. “I believe every city with a vibrant art scene needs to make space for an assortment of ideas to get root,” says Devi Art Foundation founder Anupam Poddar. Sadia Dehlvi, the author of Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi, says the time is just right for the city to soak in culture. “After Partition, culture took a backseat as the refugees busied themselves making a new life. Now that a large population of the city is doing well financially, the cultural aspects of city live have resurfaced.” The audience for culture in the city is getting younger, says Bhavna Kakar of Latitude 28, a gallery that derives its nomenclature from the geographical location of New Delhi. Experts estimate transactions at the India Art Fair this year exceeded R100 crore. But senior artist Sidharth, who exhibited solo at the fair, strikes a note of caution. The sales bubble could have been fuelled by speculation, he says. “A few collectors made Delhi’s nouveau rich believe their investment would multiply irrespective of artistic value. We’ll have to see if the renewed activity is for real.”
Still, M Venkatesh of the Bookaroo Trust, which hosts the eponymous children’s literature festival, says the change is here to stay. “In the Republic Day parade this year, the Delhi tableau showcased the city’s ‘cultural’ establishment. The cultural upsurge of the city hasn’t dwindled because the number of supporters in the government, private enterprise, foreign missions and arts councils is rising.”
THE NEXT WORLD CITY?
Art historian and critic S Kalidas says bringing about any cultural revolution needs the participation of the commoner as well as the cognoscenti. “The initiated connoisseur will always be in smaller numbers. But you need the larger numbers to fulfil the needs of the market as well as the connoisseurs to educate that market. And Delhi has the space for both.” Penguin’s Sarkar reckons Delhi is slowly becoming a world city. “The Delhiite is becoming interested in all the pleasures a big city has to offer whether it is good eating, culture, entertainment or sport,” she adds. Venkatesh of Bookaroo says Delhi might still not be the ‘undisputed’ hub of culture but it is sure leading the way. “It is no longer just about theatre and dance, there are so many things happening for various niches.” But the bigger picture is not all rose tinted. Just last fortnight, a gallery was attacked for holding an exhibition of nudes. Also, concerns on safety of women in the city continue. Intolerance and a sense of insecurity could be the biggest hurdles before Mega City Delhi as it hurtles forward on the international cultural highway and takes its rightful place as a world city. aasheesh.sharma @hindustantimes.com with inputs from Manit Moorjani
“Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better” – Samuel Beckett FEBRUARY 17, 2013
Photo: SIDDHARTH DHANWANT SHANGVI
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“Delhi has become the city bright young folk of India are flocking to” CHIKI SARKAR, Publisher, Penguin Books India
“The vibrant plurality of India’s contemporary creativity is at its best in Delhi” SAYED HAIDER RAZA, senior artist
MORE ON THE WEB Don’t just read about it, feel the city’s culture on your fingertips. We bring larger-than-life photo galleries from art exhibits around Delhi, live videos of performances delivered in the Capital’s sprawling open spaces and a handy list of what you can go and see. Log on to hindustantimes/brunch.com for all this and more
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LIFE IS TOO SHORT...
Photos: THINKSTOCK
Seema Goswami
DO IT NOW
Don’t postpone that family holiday to next year because of being overworked at office
So, be sure to make the most of every moment you are granted
DO THE NEEDFUL
Don’t put off writing your will, feeling that it is tempting fate BE EMOTIONAL
Kiss your spouse goodbye every morning when you leave the house
spectator
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IFE IS too short. Life can be fragile. It can end in an instant. Live each moment as if it were the last, because it might well be. We hear these phrases so often that it becomes easy to dismiss them as clichés. And we trot them out ourselves often enough without ever pausing to consider what they really mean. And then comes a moment when we come face to face with the reality of how short life really is, and how quickly it can end. And in that instant, we realise just how badly we have failed to make the most of it before it ended. The transience of life was brought home to me last week when I attended the memorial service of a friend’s father, who had passed away suddenly in his late 60s, despite being in perfect health. And as I heard the moving tributes paid to him by his friends and family, I couldn’t help but think how much we take life for granted – right until the moment when it is rudely snatched away from us. It is never easy to lose a parent. But that blow falls much harder when it lands on your solar plexus completely out of the blue. I know how that feels. In my early 20s, I awoke one morning to a phone call that told me that my father had passed away. I took a flight back home catatonic with shock. It had never occurred to me that my last conversation with him would, in fact, be my last conversation with him. How I wished then, clutching my grief to myself, that it had not been quite so banal. How I berated myself for not saying all the things that I would never again get to say. That’s the thing with sudden loss. You never really get a chance to make peace with it. No matter how much people try to convince you that this was for the best, and that it was good that death didn’t come after a long and painful illness, it is hard to reconcile yourself to a bereavement that comes out of nowhere. However debilitating a long illness may be, and however unbearable it is to see someone you love suffer, it gives people the chance to get used to the FEBRUARY 17, 2013
idea that the end will come, sooner or later. And in some sense, the shock of loss is blunted, if only slightly. But when life ends in an instant, all that remains is regret for all the stuff that you did not get to do, the things you never got to say, the fights that remained unresolved, the anger never expressed, the love never given voice to, the hugs never exchanged. And that’s when you realise that the phrase ‘live every moment as if it might be the last’ is not a cliché. It is a truth that we should wake up to every morning and clutch to ourselves every night when we go to sleep. On a more mundane, everyday level, this means getting your affairs in order. Don’t put off writing your will because you feel that it is tempting fate, or simply because you think that you are far too young to think of stuff like that. Make sure your spouse/parent/child knows where the keys to the bank locker are and what the combination to the safe is. If you want to be an organ donor, sign up now. Don’t burden your kids with the decision of how your medical care should go; leave clear instructions while you are still in control of all your faculties. But while taking care of the practicalities, don’t let the emotional side of life slide past you. Hold your kids tight every day and tell them how much you love them. Kiss your spouse goodbye every morning when you leave the house. Don’t ever go to bed angry; always make up before your head hits the pillow. And most importantly, don’t leave anything – good, bad or ugly – unsaid. Express your anger and resentment and get it out of your system. Reconcile your differences. Share your feelings with those who matter while you can; or be racked with regret later. And while you’re at it, don’t put off anything for tomorrow that you could do today. Don’t postpone that family holiday for the following summer because you are overworked at the office. If you’re missing a friend, pick up the phone and speak to her now. Get your grandmom to tell you the stories of her childhood. Start that book you’ve been meaning to read forever. Make your own bucket list, and promise yourself you’ll tick one thing off every week. Yes, life is far too short. It can end in an instant. So, be sure to make every moment count. seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami
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BOLD, BRAVE AND GUTSY
neously, the camera is great without being exceptional, it latched onto my WiFi in my house even in areas where other phones give up, I haven’t dropped a call yet and the sound quality is excellent. Most importantly, all the whiz bang of Rajiv the new OS works well on this phone and I’ve never Makhni felt that the OS is overwhelming the phone and that the phone can’t keep up with anything that the OS throws at it. Which now brings me to question number two. Is the Z10 good enough to make people switch LACKBERRY MUST be a pretty happy from their Androids and iPhones? With the Z10, company right now. It was able to generThis is a very tough one to answer. While the Z10 BlackBerry ate as much hype and noise around its with its new BB10 OS is like a breath of fresh air launch as a new iPhone or a new Samsung Galaxy and has done enough to make sure that those who has bounced S phone, it had the top seven out of 10 trending are on BB may all upgrade – does it have enough back. But is topics on Twitter worldwide. Facebook was all of a compelling feature set to get people to migrate agog for three days, most reviews were very posfrom their fascination with Android and iOS? To the phone itive and initial sales have been exceptional in make this comparison easier, I’ve taken what every country it’s been launched. So, has I believe are the top five phones in the world today priced right BlackBerry pulled off the impossible? Far from and done a pure feature and specs shootout (see for the Indian it. Three big questions remain. chart below). While BB10 as a new OS seems great, how good Thus, it’s pretty clear that the Z10 can hold its market? is the Z10 phone? own in front of almost any phone out there. This is a critical question everyone is asking. I’ve BB phones prior to the Z10 had such huge gaps in spent quite a bit of time with the phone and here hardware and specs that it was impossible to even are some quick observations. Every time I’ve fished put them into a comparison chart. The Z10 stands IT’S A WAR OUT THERE out the Z10 the first reaction is “it looks like the tall here and may well be able to pull people from BlackBerry was able to new iPhone 5”. BlackBerry went with an underother domains in on the strength of its new OS. But generate as much hype stated industrial design with clean lines and none that’s a worldwide perspective. What about the Z10 around its launch as a new of the flash and colour of some of the new Android in India? That’s question three. iPhone or Samsung phone and Windows phones. It’s built like a rock and has India is a huge market for BB. Can the Z10 pull a great feel in the hand. The screen is excepbig numbers for them here? tional with fantastic colours, an eye-popping resolution and This one is pretty simple to answer. No, it won’t. I expect the price great touch response. The back cover, while thin, is solid of the Z10 in India to be around R36,000. While companies do sell and it’s nice once again to see a phone with a replaceable phones for upwards of even R45,000, exactly how many do they battery. This brings me to the battery life. sell? The critical mass for BB in India came when they brought in Most previous BB phone owners complain about battery cheaper priced phones and gained an incredible following and life as one of the major issues. On the Z10, you aren’t going to some serious numbers. While the Z10 will sell well in India, it would complain too much, or shout from the rooftops about it. It’s have been really smart of BB to have had a second phone launch just about adequate to last you through the day even on 3G, simultaneously for certain markets. which isn’t too bad considering how some of the other India and Indonesia are two of the biggest markets for BB and iconic phones have trouble achieving even that. Still, I wish they should have had a very clear blueprint with a phone launched BB had pumped in a bigger battery and made that a serifor under R20,000 just for these two countries. That would have ous USP. been a super smart strategy, hit hard, sold in huge numbers as The phone performs very well. It’s fast, hasn’t hung on me well as shown that BB can out-think and out-gun the competition. even once, can keep multiple apps running live and simultaAt the moment, they will have some good sales for the Z10 while most BB users in India SHOOTOUT IN THE MOBILE WORLD won’t be able to afford to switch at that price. By the SPECIFICATIONS BB Z10 iPHONE 5 SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 NOKIA LUMIA 920 GOOGLE NEXUS 4 time BB comes up with a sub-20K and then a subThickness .35 inches .30 inches .34 inches .42 inches .35 inches 10K BB10 phone – many Operating System BB10 iOS6 Android 4 Win Phone 8 Android 4.2 may have migrated to other platforms. Processor 1.5 GHz Dual Core 1.02 GHz A6 Dual Core 1.5 GHz Dual Core 1.5 GHz Dual Core 1.5 GHz Quad Core With BB10 and the Z10, RAM 2GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 2GB BlackBerry has bought Screen Size 4.2 inches 4 inches 4.8 inches 4.5 inches 4.7 inches itself some time. Time to do things no one else has Resolution 1280x768 1136x640 1280x720 1280x768 1280x768 thought of doing and shock Pixels Per Inch 356 326 306 331 320 the competition with some Back Camera 8.0 MP 8.0 MP 8.0 MP 8.7 MP 8.0 MP moves that are bold, ballsy and brave! It’s the least NFC Yes No Yes Yes Yes we can expect from a comBattery mAh 1800 1440 2100 2000 2100 pany that owned 86 per Expandable Storage MicroSD No MicroSD No No cent of the smartphone market a few years ago!
B
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Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com/RajivMakhni
FEBRUARY 17, 2013
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Photo: THINKSTOCK
DEEP FRIED PARADISE
Long before we put a chicken tikka into a batter, we taught the Japanese how to cook (where do you think their tempura came from?)
CRUNCHY DELIGHTS
The chicken pakora created by Kundan Lal Gujral and served at Moti Mahal Deluxe in Greater Kailash is every Punjabi’s idea of heaven and is legendary in Delhi foodie circles
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Vir Sanghvi
WAS IN Bangkok last week and sought out my favourite Thai food: chicken and rice. The dish is related to the better known Hainanese Chicken Rice, which consists of slices of poached chicken with flavourful white rice, served with clear chicken soup and condiments. This dish, though theoretically a specialty from Hainan in China, can now be found all over the world (Singapore claims it as one of its national dishes) but the Thai version, Khao Man Gai, which is lesser known, is far superior. My favourite Thai dish, however, is not Khao Man Gai but yet another variant in which the chicken is first battered and then deep fried so it looks a little like Kentucky Fried Chicken. This chicken is then cut into slices and served with rice. Contrary to the usual rule for deep-fried, battered food, the great thing about the Thai fried chicken is that though it is usually served cold (street vendors make the chicken at home in the morning before going out to set up their stalls), it still tastes delicious and retains its crispy texture in a way that most American fried chicken simply does not. Sadly, it is hard to find either Khao Man Gai or its fried variant outside of Thailand because Thai restaurants are run by chefs who think they can do better than churn out mere street food dishes. I’ve grown tired of telling the chefs at India’s Thai restaurants that if they put the fried chicken on their menus, it will become their fastest-moving item. They point to Hainanese Chicken Rice which does appear on some Chinese menus and rarely moves. But the difference, as I keep telling them, is that Hainanese Chicken is not batter-fried. It is the texture of the fried chicken that makes the dish so delicious. There is, however, an Indian version of fried chicken. When Arun Jaitley was minister for Law and Commerce in the NDA
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PERSONAL FAVOURITE
My favourite Thai dish is a variant of Khao Man Gai, in which the chicken is first battered and then deep fried, cut into slices and served with rice
government, he launched Monish Gujral’s Moti Mahal’s Tandoori Trail recipe book and said that he had been invited to the event not because he was a minister but because he was a fan of Moti Mahal and its chicken pakora in particular. Moti Mahal is famous in India (and perhaps all over the world) as the restaurant that popularised tandoori chicken, but these days the Moti Mahal name is shared by many different owners. The original Moti Mahal in Delhi’s Daryaganj is no longer run by the family of Kundan Lal Gujral who founded the restaurant. The Moti Mahal Deluxe in South Extension is owned by somebody else. And then there is Monish’s own chain, Moti Mahal
CHICKEN PAKORA AT HOME INGREDIENTS ■ Chicken, cut into 8 pcs (750 gm) ■ Lemon juice - 1tbsp / 15ml ■ Ginger-garlic paste - 1tbsp / 6gm ■ Salt to taste ■ Red chilli - 1tsp
For the batter ■ Egg - 1 ■ Gram flour - 5tbsp / 50gm ■ Refined flour - 1tbsp / 15gm ■ Salt - 1tsp ■ Black pepper - 1tsp ■ Refined oil for deep frying ■ Chaat masala - ½ tsp, to sprinkle on the chicken pakora
METHOD ■ Make deep incisions into the chicken pieces ■ Marinate the chicken with lemon juice, ginger-garlic paste, salt and red chilli powder for about 30 minutes For the batter: ■ Mix all the ingredients in a blender ■ Heat oil in a wok, dip the marinated chicken in the batter and lower gently in the hot oil ■ Deep fry on medium heat till light brown ■ Remove with a slotted spoon, prick each piece with a fork and keep aside for 10 minutes ■ Fry the pieces again till golden brown ■ Remove and drain excess oil on absorbent paper towels ■ Sprinkle chaat masala before serving. Serve hot with mint chutney
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JAPANESE BHAJIYA
It has long been speculated that the Japanese learned how to make the tempura from Indian cooks. Though it is not made of besan (like the Indian pakora), a tempura is really no more than a bhajiya Tandoori Trail, which is easily the biggest of all the Moti Mahals with over 100 outlets in India and the Middle East. Monish owns the Moti Mahal Deluxe in Greater Kailash, where Arun Jaitley is a regular and serves what he says is the cuisine created by his grandfather Kundan Lal Gujral. His chicken pakora is every Punjabi’s idea of heaven so it is not surprising that it came in for so much praise from Arun Jaitley and is legendary in Delhi foodie circles. According to Monish, the chicken pakora was invented by Kundan Lal in Peshawar in the 1930s. There were no fried snacks on the menu of his Peshawar restaurant and so Kundan Lal had the idea of batter-frying a chicken, marinated in tandoori chicken spices and serving it as a chicken pakora. I’ve included Monish’s recipe here but it may be a slightly simplified version meant for the home cook. Other chicken pakoras I’ve eaten elsewhere use a partially cooked (in the tandoor) chicken tikka, which is dunked in a pakora batter and then deep fried. What you think of Kundal Lal’s invention probably depends on what you think of fried food in general. Personally I think it is delicious, but at the risk of sounding unpatriotic I have to come clean and say that the Thai Fried Chicken is subtler and better. Indians demonstrate a strange reluctance to adapt the pakora-style of cooking to meat and fish. The Moti Mahal chicken pakora is probably the only great non-vegetarian pakora in Indian cuisine, and it is a 20th century invention. I would make a claim for golden fried prawns as worthy rivals to the chicken pakora but the problem is that we regard them as a Chinese dish. In truth, of course, the notion of a prawn pakora is alien to Chinese cuisine. They do a certain amount of deep frying in Sichuan and so when the Golden Dragon opened in Bombay in 1974, India’s first Sichuan restaurant did serve Chinese-style fried prawns. But in no time at all, the dish was transformed into a pakora, leaving behind its Chinese origins and thin translucent batter. Today you find golden fried prawns done pakora style on most
Indian-Chinese menus, earning the dish the right to be hailed as yet another triumph of Indian cuisine. Other than that, we seem to have a Hindu-Muslim divide when it comes to pakoras and fried foods. If a dish came to India from the Islamic world – such as the samosa, for instance – then we have no hesitation in putting meat, chicken or whatever into it. But if a close relative (say the kachori which is not dissimilar to the samosa) is of Hindu origin then it remains resolutely vegetarian for the most part. Which, of course, leads to a bigger question: how do we distinguish deep-fried foods like the samosa, the kachori or the batata wada from pakoras and bhajiyas? One answer is that pakoras must, almost by definition, have a besan batter while samosas and the like can be made from wheat. But this is not a hard and fast rule. The batata wada or potato bonda (which is made from mashed potato) has a besan batter but is not usually regarded as a pakora or a bhajiya. The Moti Mahal chicken pakora uses a batter made from both besan and maida, but calls itself a pakora. You could say that the distinction has to do with how the flour covering is used. The samosa is made from dough (or puff pastry) while pakoras are made from liquid batter. But that still leaves the problem of the aloo bonda or the batata wada. The bonda uses a liquid batter and yet we do not normally regard it as a pakora or a bhajiya. My answer is that the distinction lies in shape. A samosa, a kachori or even a batata wada must be made in a certain shape. (If it is not a triangle, then it is not a samosa, for instance). Pakoras, on the other hand, must take on the shape of their ingredients. A mirchi bhajiya must look like a mirchi that has been lightly battered. The vegetables choose the shape: the batter is no more than a way to preserve the flavour of the vegetables. That is why the ingredients of a vegetable pakora are rarely spiced but go into the batter in their rawest and purest form. The ingredients of a samosa, kachori or a vada, on the other hand, need cooking and spicing. What then is the tempura? It has long been speculated that the Japanese learned how to make the tempura from Indian cooks. Though it is not made of besan (like the Indian pakora), a tempura is really no more than a bhajiya. It turns up in Japanese cuisine only after Westerners (chiefly the Portuguese) started visiting Japan and yet, it resembles no European (or Portuguese) dish. One explanation is that Indian cooks on Portuguese ships taught the Japanese how to make bhajiyas. We know already that Portuguese Jesuit missionaries went vegetarian on certain days of the week and that when they were in Goa and other parts of India, they ate bhajiyas because they were unspiced and suitable for their delicate palates. It is reasonable to assume that they took their food habits to Japan with them. And that their bhajiyas eventually became tempuras. So, is it too much of a stretch to see the Japanese prawn tempura as no more than the first Indian prawn pakora? As a precursor of our golden fried prawn? I think not. In fact, it is a pakora, no matter how fancy the Japanese make it sound. The tempura follows all the rules of pakora cooking: light batter, deep fried, raw vegetables and ingredients, takes on the shape of the ingredient under the batter, etc. So let’s treat it as yet another triumph for Indian cuisine. Long before we put a chicken tikka into a batter, we taught the Japanese how to cook. (Well, how to cook one dish, anyway…)
A mirchi bhajiya must look like a mirchi that has been lightly battered
FEBRUARY 17, 2013
LEGEND HAS IT
According to restaurateur Monish Gujral, the chicken pakora was invented by Kundan Lal in Peshawar in the 1930s
Photos: DINODIA
HINDU-MUSLIM DIVIDE
If a dish came to India from the Islamic world, such as the samosa, we have no hesitation in putting meat into it. But if a close relative, say the kachori, is of Hindu origin, then it remains resolutely vegetarian
FOR MORE RUDE FOOD COLUMNS BY VIR SANGHVI hindustantimes.com /brunch
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BEFORE I CAVE IN I’m going to be totally in the Nick Cave zone when his new album Push the Sky Away is out
NOT SAFE FOR WORK
Nick Cave pre-released a video of Jubilee Street last week. It’s a bit NSFW, but what a great song it is!
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THE JUKEBOX
f you missed The Black Keys’ many faceted guitarist, Dan Auerbach’s (if you remember, he produced New Orleans’ legend, Dr John’s – the recently Grammy anointed – come-back album, Locked Down, last year, besides collaborating with dozens of musicians in the last five years) solo album from 2009, Keep it Hid, I suggest you get hold of it. True, Auerbach, on his own and without the other half of his band, drummer Patrick Carney, sounds a bit like, well, The Black Keys but then who said that was a bad thing?
Photo: COURTESY FACEBOOK
Sanjoy Narayan
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YOU MEAN ME?
Mark Everett, lead singer of Eels, growls and delivers even romantic lyrics with an attitude that’s sardonic
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
listening of the band. But now, with Wonderful, Glorious, I decided to give them another shot. If the title of the album seems, well, wonderful and glorious, you’ve got to see the cover – it’s orange and it has a warplane that seems straight out of WWII dropping a few bombs. The Eels have gone through many personnel changes but frontman, main lyricist and singer Mark Everett has been constant through the years. Thank the heavens for that. Everett is sometimes known simply as E. His GOT TEASED by Nick Cave last week. A fortnight before his lyrics are gentle, thoughtful and, sometimes even wonderful. The new studio album with The Bad Seeds, titled Push the Sky songs are not. Not gentle, I mean. And thank the heavens for that Away, was to be released (it will probably be out a few hours as well. Everett growls when he sings and delivers even lyrics that after you read this), he released a video of one of the songs, Jubilee are romantic or sentimental with an attitude that can best be Street. It stars the English actor, Ray Winstone, whom you may described as being grim and sardonic. It’s difficult to describe if you have watched in many movies playing tough, gritty roles. He’s been haven’t heard E sing but I’ll try and give you an example. On Open My Present, a song towards the end of the album, the lyrics are in tons of movies but my favourite Winstone movie is Sexy Beast from 2000 where as a retired burglar and an ex-convict, he is being simple and go like this: “I wanna open my present/look at it wrapped menacingly coaxed by Ben Kingsley (who plays a forup in little big bones/back up tight just waiting for mer associate) to pull off another heist. I’ve a DVD of me/rip it open and set it free./ Relieve my state, I just Sexy Beast somewhere and sometimes while can’t wait/well, I’m a good boy, I behave myself/I’ve looking for other films, I discover it and before long been patient and waiting so long…” and so on. There’s it’s running on my TV screen. Winstone is great in nothing extraordinary there, just very simple words the movie but Kingsley as a violent sociopath is super about opening a present really. But when you hear – a far cry from his role in Gandhi! Everett sing it, it becomes a growling anthem that Jubilee Street is set in London’s East End and can rock an arena. Wonderful, Glorious’ cover pic of involves a prostitute and her john, played by Winstone. the bomb-dropping plane now makes sense. The video is a bit NSFW, but what a great song it is! Much of the new Eels album is just that. Songs Cave also released one more single in audio format WONDERFUL AND GLORIOUS with simple lyrics – some of them with even gentle from his forthcoming album – it’s called, strangely, Rock band The Eels’ new feelings. But delivered in a muscular, yes-we-willWe No Who ’U ’R. It’s mellow and beautiful and if album cover has a warplane rock-you-no-matter-what growl that makes them the two songs are an indication, I’m going to be straight out of WWII endearing. I tried Wonderful, Glorious as a soundtrack for my workout and the workout was, well, wontotally in the Nick Cave zone when Push the Sky Away is available in its entirety. Can’t wait. derful, if not glorious. More seriously, the Eels are back on my radar. So, left to a choice of devices while waiting for the full album – And, even more seriously, I think their new album is a good first (a) opt to listen to old Cave albums or (b) choose something else to act to listen to while you warm up for Cave’s new album. Wonderful, kill the time with – I chose the latter option. I gathered up a new Glorious comes in a deluxe version and, if you buy that, you get, in addition to the 13 new songs, a bonus of 13 more – many of them album, Wonderful, Glorious, the newest from the American alternative rock band, Eels. I’d been out of touch with the Eels for a long live performances by the band at gigs in the past two years. And, while. Back in 1996, from Mumbai’s then fantastic music store, all of them, wonderful and glorious. Needless to say, my wait for Rhythm House, I’d bought a cassette of their first studio album, Cave’s new album has been a breeze. Beautiful Freak, and I remember how it used to do non-stop rounds on my car’s stereo system. Novocaine for the Soul was the first song MORE ON THE WEB To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned on that album and was, at least for me, the high point of Beautiful in this column, go to http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/ Freak. In the years that followed, I’d grazed around in the Eels downloadcentral; follow argus48 on Twitter catalogue semi-seriously and not really gravitated to obsessive
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MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA
AFTER THE LOVE, THE SIDE EFFECTS Valentine’s Day is not the best occasion to choose a salad for dinner. But after that, you might need a detox
Photo: DINODIA
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’TS NOW mid-February, and with luck, you’ve managed to lose all the extra kilos you gained over the festive season. But just as you were gleefully looking forward to that new pair of skinny jeans, did the V-Day hype cause you to eat more truffles and cake than you intended? Still, it’s possible to take the pressure off your health (and conscience) by making smart decisions like these:
TAKE TRIPHALA POWDER Triphala powder is a combination of harar, behar and amla. These herbs act upon the intestine and have a mild cleansing and detoxifying effect. This means that your intestine (where all the waste and toxins end up) gets gently cleansed, helping eliminate digested food and waste products and preventing toxic buildup. And when toxins are dealt with, HERB DAY you are less likely to Triphala gain weight, retain removes water and have excess fat puffy eyes. Triphala from the also works to body, and detoxifies remove excess fat from the body and the liver balance its acid secretions, keeping the body in balance (acidic bodies tend to put on weight and have dull and puffy skin). Good news for those who overdid the cocktails: triphala also helps detoxify the liver. Take 1 tsp of triphala powder with 1 glass of lukewarm water at night.
Photos: THINKSTOCK
HAVE WHEAT BRAN MILK
Wheat bran is the outer browncoloured coating on the wheat grain, which is rich in fibre and vitamins. It’s a great aid to weight loss as it makes you feel full and it also ensures that the fat is absorbed to the wheat bran so less is absorbed by the body. Take 1 tsp of wheat GOOD COMBINATION Wheat bran and milk is a great aid to weight loss
FEBRUARY 17, 2013
WONDER FOODS Both papaya and pineapple help to break down undigested foods
bran and roast it a little on a tava. After a few minutes, while it is still warm, add it to a cup of milk, stir, let it sit for 15 minutes and sip.
HAVE PAPAYA AND PINEAPPLE Papaya is a wonder fruit, low in glycemic index, helpful for diabetics and those with arthritis and obesity. The fruit contains an enzyme called ‘papain’ which helps break down foods and get digested so they don’t turn toxic in your stomach. So by ensuring that the intestinal tract remains healthy and cleansed, it actually keeps excess weight in check. Pineapple is another fruit which helps to lose weight. The active component in the fruit ‘bromelain’ has many benefits. It aids the digestion of tough proteins, particularly meats and paneer. Usually, undigested protein is the number one reason for gas, acidity and creation of toxins in the body. Have one slice of papaya or a few slices of pineapple with warm water before any big dinner.
GREEN TEA AND HOT WATER Our bodies are composed of twothirds water, and this magical liquid helps us detoxify, cleanse the liver and also keep weight down. Green tea also contains the active compounds of catechins, polyphenols and gallates, which help the body to detoxify and reduce fat accumulation. Ideally, one should drink two glasses of hot water on waking up, and one cup of green tea with meals.
EAT MORE FRUIT It will not only avoid hunger pangs but also ensure that ALWAYS you avoid oily TEA TIME snacks before din- Green tea ner. The additional helps cleanse the benefit is that the liver and also Vitamin C will askeep weight sist the liver in didown gesting the food. Have one bowl of fruit every day. ask@drshikha.com
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WELLNESS
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Diet, But Not Before You Try It
Reacting badly to every meal plan out there? Here’s what you need to do before you jump into your next fad diet by Kasturi Gandhi
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OU’VE DECIDED to get healthy by going on a diet. But before you empty the kitchen and your fridge of all your regular foods and replace them with lowfat alternatives, here’s some advice. “Plunging headfirst into a diet isn’t a good idea,” says nutritionist Rima Rao. “You need to test the waters first.” What Rao means is that you first need to prepare your system before you change your eating habits. Suddenly switching to a liquid-only diet will never work. “If you do this, your stomach won’t feel satiated and you’ll remain hungry,” she says. But gradually including semi-solid foods in your meals will attune your body and appetite for
what is to follow. That will also clear the way for the good food and fibre. “They help to detoxify the body of accumulated food residue,” explains Rao. “This is why whole fruits are recommended over fruit juices.” So next time there’s khichdi for dinner, don’t cringe. It’s a great pre-diet meal.
Satiate your sweet tooth on dry fruit instead of a sachertorte
NO COLD TURKEY
Smart dieters know that giving up your favourite foods never helps. Deprivation is the worst kind of meal plan, believes consultant nutritionist Niti Desai. “Skipping meals when you’re gearing up for a healthy life lowers your metabolic rate. Which means that when you eat, even healthy food will add to those kilos,” she says. So instead of looking longingly at
that pack of Lindt, focus on burning up calories. You can still indulge yourself in moderation. Switch from a whole bar of milk chocolate to a few bites of 75-80 per cent dark chocolate. And say cheers to nursing one glass of red wine instead of pints of beer. Meanwhile, include ‘good carbs’ like fruit, veggies and pulses. “When someone wants to lose weight in a month, we can’t start with basic stuff,” says Vidisha Munim, instructor with Gold’s Gym. “The diet includes protein, fibre and low carbs alongside low-intensity workouts.”
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The best diets are those that are accompanied by an exercise regime. And just as you should ease into a diet, Munim advises a smooth initiation into a workout routine too. “For those who’ve never gone jogging in their life, the first couple of weeks should include basic training – cardio, stretching and weights.” Not only does this minimise the risk of muscle strain, it gets a person adjusted to the idea of exercising before the really serious regime kicks in. Full-on exercise sessions need prep too. You need to master your breathing techniques so that you don’t start gasping for air a few seconds into the workout. Kalpesh Vinerkar, a fitness trainer who has worked with Kangna Ranaut, explains that this is where basic breathing skills work. “If the exercise involves pulling muscles, you exhale and while controlling your muscles, you inhale.” Ideally, a high-intensity workout is best done at the end of the week so you can rest your muscles. So if you’ve scheduled a workout on Saturday, spend your Sunday loung-
SPICE IT UP!
ing around doing nothing more strenuous than reading HT Brunch! Once you’ve built up muscle endurance, you can move to a higher training level.
Eating healthy can get really boring. Dietician Kinjal Shah has a few recipes that’ll give you a good break from broccoli and soup without compromising on health.
HONEY AND YOGHURT WITH FRESH FRUIT
SURFACE TENSION
Just because you’ve got your food and exercise sorted does not mean you’re completely ready. If you want to look fabulous, your skin needs to look great too. “Dieting adversely affects your skin,” says nutritionist Anjuri Khanna. “To avoid that, eat a lot of fresh fruits and salads with minimal dressing before you even start a new diet. Chomping on fruits will not only ease you into a new chapter in eating right, it will keep your skin blemish free.” Balance your exercise routine between cardio and weight loss training, and keep yourself hydrated. “That is the trick to avoid stretch marks and sagging skin once you lose weight,” says Aditi Dhumatkar, an international-level swimmer. Because she spends hours training in chlorine water daily, she needs to work on her hair and skin. “I swear by a good moisturiser and frequent oil massages.”
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BABY STEPS ON THE TREADMILL
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Treat yourself to this quickie dessert. It’s yummy and rich in calcium and protein Ingredients (makes three cups) ■ 2 cups curd (made from skim milk) ■ 2 cups curd (made from cow’s milk) ■ 2 tbsp honey ■ 1 tsp cinnamon powder ■ 1 cup freshly cut fruits Method ■ Put curd in a strainer or tie in a muslin cloth for 10 minutes. ■ Transfer into a bowl and serve with freshly cut fruits and honey.
SPRING ROLL WRAPS
Not having your favourite Chinese food for a long time can be very upsetting. Jot down this roll recipe for a high protein and fibre wrap. If you want some calcium to go with it, just add tofu. Ingredients (makes six wraps) ■ 3/4th cup cabbage (shredded) ■ ½ cup carrots (julienned)
“You don't need a silver fork to eat good food” – Paul Prudhomme
■ ½ cup French beans (sliced
diagonally) ■ 1 large onion (sliced) ■ 1/4th cup beans sprouts/tofu ■ 2 green chillies (finely chopped) ■ ½ tsp ginger (finely chopped) ■ 1 tsp garlic (finely chopped) ■ 2 Kashmiri chillies ■ 1 tsp vinegar ■ 1 tsp soy sauce ■ 1 tbsp hot and sweet sauce ■ 1 tbsp oil Method ■ Blanch carrot and French beans in boiling water for about 10 minutes. ■ Heat the oil in a pan and sauté Kashmiri chillies, garlic, ginger and green chillies. ■ Add onion, cabbage and bean sprouts and sauté for five minutes. ■ Add boiled carrots, French beans, vinegar, soy sauce and salt. Allow it to cook for few a more minutes. ■ Spread this stuffing on rotis. Serving size: 1 ½ – 2 wraps Note: Rotis from the wrap to be made from wheat flour.
PERSONAL AGENDA
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Cricketer
Unmukt Chand BIRTHDAY
March 26
PLACE OF BIRTH HOMETOWN Delhi
Uttarakhand
SCHOOL/COLLEGE
DPS Noida and Modern School, St Stephen’s, Delhi
FIRST BREAK
Got selected for the UnderI don’t believe in low points, I take Preparing for the Ranji Trophy One-Day Tournament. 16, North Zone Winning the World Cup everything as a learning experience Also the brand ambassador of HCL’s ME Tablet Team
HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE
LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE
If you weren’t a cricketer, you would have been... In all probability, I would have been a software engineer. What is the best thing about being the captain of a cricket team? At the Under-19 level it feels good to be the captain as everyone, including the coaches, look after you and your sense of responsibility increases. Also, that we have the best group among all. A cricketer who inspires you. I have always been inspired by Sachin Tendulkar. Virat Kohli’s current performance also inspires me. What’s the best thing about Delhi? Delhi is a great place for sports and one gets to meet a lot of sportsmen here. I also love the city’s wide roads. Do you enjoy playing or watching any other sport? I have been a national-level swimmer too. I also enjoy playing football. Your biggest dream? To play for the country for at least 10 more years. The one thing you would like to unlearn. I think at my age, it’s only good to learn new things. The biggest risk you have ever taken... When I bunked school for the first time in Class 9.
CURRENTLY I AM
Your dream destination? Switzerland. It’s simply breathtaking. Who is your 3am friend? My uncle, who has always guided me. The people you are closest to. My friends Utsav and Arjun. You have three minutes to pack, what do you take with you? My phone, my driver’s licence, keys and bank cards. Your favourite gadget? My U2 tablet. Your favourite cricket ground. Lords, Sydney Cricket Ground and Melbourne Cricket Ground. I also love playing in Dharamshala. What does style mean to you? It’s something that’s unique to me. I feel that life is like a ramp, so always walk in style. One song that describes your current state of mind. It’s actually the old ad jingle, Yeh Dil Maange More! Do you do anything in particular before the start of a game. I meditate for 15 minutes. Your fitness routine? I regularly hit the gym. And we also get on-field training.
Your favourite Hindi movie. Jab We Met
5
things that make you smile
My friend Arjun, since he is always playing pranks Rains in Delhi – I just love them Golgappe and butter chicken – my favourites My new iPod Swanky cars
A body part you would like to get insured. I feel that my mind is the most important body part. Your first crush. It happened when I was in Class 4. She was my classmate. Your strategy in a crisis? There is always more time than you think. Your mantra for success? Keep working hard. Three things you do before you go to sleep. Check all my messages, and reply to them, I also write down a new word that I may have encountered that day and update my diary. — Interviewed by Veenu Singh
FEBRUARY 17, 2013
Photo: JASJEET PLAHA
Photo: THINKSTOCK
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