WEEKLY WEEKLY MAGAZINE, MAGAZINE, JUNE JULY 20, 22, 2014 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
English ing e r o m r re there a they’re gathe : r e t t e b d er been ver before, an d – and why v e n s a e than ppene sofa h a n e h o h i t s s i i h v m t how w fro n tele The vie aying on India s. We tell you l n shows p f passionate fa o legions
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Wishful Thinking
by Aparna Sunderesan
The Five Stages Of Reading Fan Fiction
Curiosity: Well, I did always wonder what would happen if Hazel became pregnant with Gus’ child halfway through The Fault in Our Stars. I’ll just read a page. Or two. Or just skim through it all. Acceptance: Harry Styles of One Direction is a vampire and Rose Hathaway of Vampire Academy falls for him? Yes. Yes. Possible. Harry Styles is a werewolf and he and Bella Swan are child-
Biting The Bullet: If We Could Zoom Fast
50 years ago, Japan got itself the world’s first high-speed ‘Bullet’ train, the Shinkansen. Five years later, we got ourselves the Rajdhani. Over the decades, we’ve heard the words “Bullet train” uttered here and there by authorities. And now finally, by 2022 (or later depending on the number and the sheer variety of delays) we’ll have the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet train. You knew that. You also heard all about the `60,000 crore cost, the investors and all. We’re in daydream mode now. What if, and this is just food for thought, we have Bullet trains crisscrossing through all major Indian cities? We calculated just how long it will take to travel from Delhi to other metros.
The young-adult reading experience is incomplete until you’ve read (and maybe tried writing) fan fiction. Fan fiction exists in that weird part of the internet, where content ranges from the banal to outright bizarre. No wonder it induces a roller coaster of emotions
Denial: Why would anyone make Harry and Ron a gay couple living in Manhattan with an adopted African baby?! I hate fan fiction. Wasn’t Fifty Shades of Grey punishment enough?
by Abhilasha Gupta
hood friends? Totally legit. Harry Styles is the secret doorkeeper to Narnia? So much Harry Styles, so little time!
From Delhi to...
Fascination: Oh my god, yes! Katniss as the new bachelorette with 25 guys to choose from! In the middle of the 75th Hunger Games! Peeta can go back to baking bread. Gale can go club a moose. As for me, I’ll grab the popcorn.
(average travel time)
AHMEDABAD
929km
13 hours 45 minutes
1 hour 20 minutes
2.9 hours
CHENNAI
2162km
28 hours 15 minutes
2 hours 40 minutes
6.7 hours
BENGALURU
2123km
33 hours 30 minutes
2 hours 45 minutes
6.6 hours
1534km
22 hours
2 hours
4.7 hours
KOLKATA
1461km
17 hours
2 hours 10 minutes
4.6 hours
MUMBAI
1400km
15 hours 57 minutes
1 hours 55 minutes
4.4 hours
Watch out for the 20’s Forever series in Brunch over the coming weeks – Your key to tight & bright skin
by Indra Shekhar Singh
55 Years Later: A Look Back At Apollo 11
Photo: NEW YORK TIMES
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Cover people (L-R): Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory), Harvey Specter (Suits), Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones), Walter White (Breaking Bad) and Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock) Cover design: MONICA GUPTA
come there are no stars in the moon photos? And the final part of the conspiracy theory: how did the Eagle (a lunar module) manage to escape the moon’s gravity? Did it have enough fuel? And where was the blast crater on the moon after the lift-off?? Like we said, it’s a loony affair.
EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Veenu Singh, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Satarupa Paul, Saudamini Jain, Asad Ali, Atisha Jain
On The Brunch Radar
LOVE IT
DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Swati Chakrabarti, Payal Dighe Karkhanis, Ajay Aggarwal
JULY 20, 2014
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by Saudamini Jain
The “scientific” claims that readers are the best people to fall in love with. Er, no. We’re just great to date n Bedtime procrastination n Rewriting history. It’s a whole new twist to the phrase “making history” n Non vegetarian: new cause for rape. What if it’s chicken chowmein? n Ads by medical companies. Informational should not mean ugly! n
Marvel’s Thor is now a woman n Professional storytellers n The trailer of Mardaani. It feels like a feminist retelling of Sarfarosh n 25 Strangers Undressing Each Other: the beautiful new video by the makers of the viral video 20 Strangers Kissing for the First Time n Switching sides during the FIFA World Cup finals n
Neil Armstrong, Bu zz Aldrin and Michae l Collins filled out a Customs and Immi gra form when they arr tion ive Honolulu from the d at Mo They declared the on. ir ca too: Moon rock an rgo d moon dust sample s
Okay, y’all, let’s not let the baker praise his bread. A whole lot of folks don’t believe man ever reached the moon – unless it’s in some studio somewhere in the States. According to our secret sources (well, the Internet), 20 per cent of America calls the whole thing a hoax. Their reasons? Our moon, for starters has no wind, so you’ve got to be on drugs to believe the American flag is waving. Also, how
Time taken by imaginary when we went to press) Bullet Train Time taken by flight (fastest flight
(The average speed taken for estimating the time taken to travel by bullet trains is 320km/h, the average of most of the bullet trains in the world. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad one is expected to be as fast as 350km/h. And the world’s fastest, China’s Shanghai Maglev, has a maximum operational speed of 430km/h)
Once In A Blue Moon
nce upon a time, we had a lunatic dream: a journey to the moon. We were told life descended from the heavens and on 20 July 1969, we dared to reach out to them. The obsession of countless millions over the ages led to this moment. The landing of The Eagle consummated this dream. Apollo 11 redefined us as a race. It made us dream higher and made the sacrifices of unknown thousands bear fruit. Fifty five years after the first lunar landing, we still have many more frontiers to explore and conquer.
Time taken by the Rajdhani
by Google Maps)
HYDERABAD
Obsession: The Sorting Hat shows up in Middle Earth and sorts Frodo into Hufflepuff? Frodo Baggins and the Misplaced Harry Potter Crossover… why isn’t this a movie?!
Distance by road (calculated
Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK
The Book Club
Stuff That Happened Last ast Sunday featured – because we ing on Twitter Twitter. And because, nd tre e er w e W rs on use we’re 140 characte our favourite Khan trolls. But also beca lR u! aa yo m k Ka an well, @ are you. So th fabulous, as
SHOVE IT
Lyricist Mayur offered to reco Puri m a shrink for Br mend unch’s Yashica Dutt be she failed to cause re the profound cognise poetry th is Sari Ka Fall at Amazin
g cover ectors/acof Gauti (Gau story Like authors/dir le, never tam op Ga pe s m ou bhir) tors and fam – @SharrmaS ... e when riv ar uld wo y ha lini thought a da ts would be the Twitter accoun s! for the edition to rie waiting was God like sto Looks r ve co mak it rain! – @Sid_love9 come to make – @pari_d Everybody was just so pleased with Vir Sangh vi’s advice on Rude Food: Boycott restaurants that do not respect their customers. Our inbox is overflowing with all kinds of advice and phone numbers of reader-advisors
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COVER STORY
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ET’S BEGIN with a question. Which among these takes your fancy: fire-breathing dragons, yellow-eyed demons or telepathic fairies? How about a cannibalistic psychiatrist? Or a socially inept physicist and his geeky friends? Welcome to the richly colourful world of English television that has rescued us from the eons-long saas-bahu sagas and highly repetitive reality shows that Indian TV has been dishing up for years. In a 2011 Brunch cover story on English TV entertainment, we had wondered if it was set to explode in the coming years. Three years on, our predictions seem to have come true: there are more international series and sitcoms on English channels in India than ever before, the viewership has increased by leaps and bounds, and the channels are leaving no stone unturned to bring the most popular shows to India within days of their premieres abroad. But what has led to this boom in English entertainment in India?
Saurabh Yagnik, executive vice president and business head of AXN, says that dedicated Englishlanguage programming has been around for more than a generation, but “started to pick up in a really big way in the last 18-24 months”. For instance, in the last couple of years, a growing tribe of passionate fans of the hit series Supernatural has been tweeting incessantly to get the show’s cast to India, while Kolkata fans of the British crime drama Sherlock have inundated the channel with mails asking for a Sherlock Con (on the lines of Comic Con) there. Kevin Vaz, general manager of Star India’s division that handles Star World, Star World Premiere, FX and Fox Crime, has seen the change too. “We used to reach out to 1.3 crore viewers quarterly in 2012. Now the figure has grown to 1.7 crore,” he says. Star World’s Facebook fans grew from 4 lakh to 23 lakh in the last two years, while
their Twitter following has gone from a mere 3,000 to 1.17 lakh. Monica Tata, managing director of HBO India, attributes this surge in interest in English content to two factors: growing familiarity with the language, and exposure to technology and social media. “India is one of the largest countries in the world outside the US and UK where English is widely spoken, and this is one of the reasons audiences are gravitating towards English content. And now with technology and social media, viewers have access to fabulous content being created around the world,” she says. For viewers, however, the main reason for the growing inclination towards English shows has to do with the state of local television in India. “I think we have long crossed the threshold of tolerance for Hindi serials that go on for years,” says Shivani Gupta, a 32-year-old architect. “Surf through the Hindi channels on TV and all you can find are the same sob stories with the same plots and
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the same direction and production techniques. Hell, they even look similar with larger-than-life sets and gaudy costumes and makeup. We, the tech-savvy, upwardly mobile generation, cannot relate to them at all.” The younger generation of TV viewers is fragmented, looking for content that fits their possibly niche interests. “Hindi serials are relevant to a certain audience set and hence do well with them,” explains Yagnik. “At the same time, there’s another rapidly growing audience, which is looking for choices and differentiated content.” This is where international content comes in play, he says, as they cater to different genres and multiple mindsets.
In the early ’90s America, shows like F.R.I.E.N.D.S, The Bold and the Beautiful, South Park, The Young and the Restless already had substantial fan followings. But the true revolution of American television was still a few years away and it
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only took off with shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Entourage and Rome. “(These shows) have raised the creative bar for all forms of popular entertainment, showing that television at its best can equal the artistic merit of the greatest movies and works of literature,” said a 2009 story in the UK newspaper, The Telegraph. And the revolution has grown. Imagine a fantasy drama with dragons and direwolves, giants and mammoths, fire-worshipping priestesses, ice zombies and seven kingdoms plotting, murdering and warring for the Iron Throne. This is Game of Thrones – an HBO show that has converted even self-proclaimed TV haters to TV addicts. May we dare call it the Lord of the Rings of TV? On a superficial level, yes. Deeper, it is so much more. A review of the series in The New Yorker called it “a sophisticated cable drama about a patriarchal
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For the past three weeks, we asked you, Brunch readers, to vote for your favourite English TV shows. Here are the ten best series and sitcoms from our poll:
subculture ... a sprawling, multicharacter exploration of a close, often violent hierarchical system.” Or take the case of the 10-time Primetime Emmy Award-winning series Breaking Bad, a drama about a middle-class chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with cancer, becomes a meth kingpin. On the surface, it is a tried and tested formula of good guy turning bad for the good of his family. But as a Harvard Crimson review pointed out, “... to view Breaking Bad as a mere character study in morality would be to overlook what makes it such a paradigm-changing show”, full of symbolism, brilliant production values and an expert narrative that tries to answer the central question, What makes a man bad? Two different shows in two different genres. Yet with one thing in common with each other, and other successful shows today: millions of fans around the world, including lakhs in India, who become so deeply entrenched in the story, that when a series ends, they go through withdrawal symptoms and ask, “What now?”
If you’ve entered the party late and are anxious that you might have missed the best English
1. SHERLOCK (16%): A British crime drama that portrays Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes in a modern avatar. Follow the adventures of the eccentric master of deduction as he battles the world of crime and his arch enemy Moriarty in present-day UK UK. 2. THE BIG BANG THEORY (14%): A sitcom about a group of geeks and an aspiring actress, who discover science, life and love in their apartment. 3. GAME OF THRONES (11%): This fantasy show takes us to the fictional continent of Westeros, where the war for power, money and control is waged by seven kingdoms. It’s the real world draped in medieval costumes, swords, dragons, ice zombies, digital armies, teenage queens and a whole lot of sex and violence. 4. SUITS (8%): A legal drama set in New York, involving Harvey Specter, an ace lawyer at an ace firm who hires boy genius Mike Ross despite his lack of a law degree. Indians love hot adalat dramas, hot clothes and hot people. Suits has the right mix of all three. 5. BREAKING BAD (7%): A drama about a dying chemistry teacher who, to secure his family’s future, starts to cook high-quality crystal meth using his Nobel-worthy skills in chemistry. Eventually, everybody gets involved in the meth mess, one way or another. 6. HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (7%): This sitcom follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and
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his group of friends in Manhattan, where the events lead up to Ted meeting the mother of his children. It has captured the imagination of a whole generation and is considered as legen-wait-for-it-dary as F.R.I.E.N.D.S. 7. TWO AND A HALF MEN (6%): A rich, single, lubricious jingle-writer, Charlie, lives the Californian dream with his wimpy chiropractor brother, Alan, and his couch-potato son, Jake. On Charlie’s death, Walden (Ashton Kutcher), a dot-com billionaire takes over his house and his brother, and dulls the show in the new seasons. We wish Charlie would rise up from his grave and redeem it. 8. HOUSE OF CARDS (5%): A political drama about a fictional US senator Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey). Ruthless pragmatism, manipulation, power and doing bad things for the greater good – who wouldn’t love that? 9. HOMELAND (4%): A political thriller, featuring a CIA officer with a bipolar disorder and a war hero-turned-double agent, who is a threat to US security. Love, betrayal, suspicion, confusion in the time of terrorism. 10. SUPERNATURAL (4%): Two very attractive brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings, building up a complex story involving travels to hell and back. There’s classic rock music and a car involved too. - Indra Shekhar Singh
COVER STORY
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Will this mean that fans will now stop downloading content from the Internet altogether? In a social media survey we recently conducted called the #BrunchTVShowPoll, 60 per cent of Brunch readers who voted said they still prefer downloading English TV shows from the Internet. “Downloading torrents gives me total control of what I want to watch when I want to watch it,” says 30-year-old Suddha Prasad Bagchi, a statistical modeller. He also points out the fact that by downloadin ing torrents of old s ue lly-pla ctua uffaws en e l l shows, e g t t in g n i an plit eet de-s s m ss, si k ee aitre w ab
In the ninth floor apartment of one of Gurgaon’s many high rises, 28-year-old Abhinav Garg, a business analyst by profession, readies his living room for the long night ahead. He dusts cigarette
ash off the sofa, casually tosses a few cushions on the rug and places a large crate of beer on the low coffee table. “We have been doing this quite frequently lately. A few weeks ago, it was for Game of Thrones. Last week, it was for Hannibal.” He switches on their 52-inch LED TV, checks the recordings on their set top box and says, “We record all the episodes when they air on the channels and then watch them in one sitting. Binge watching English TV shows over beer has become a ritual now.” His flatmate and fellow analyst Rohit Verma, 27, says, “There was a time, even just a year or so ago, when we had to wait for months to watch the latest season of a show on TV. We would download and watch them from the Web before people in another part of the world could reveal spoilers on social media. But now, we only have to wait a week for the India premieres.” English channels in India are not oblivious to the fact that fans now want to watch the latest seasons along with the rest of the world. Star World, the first English channel to launch in India in the early ’90s, also became the first to start the trend of airing shows along with their US release dates recently with their premium channel, Star World Premiere. Vaz calls his new demographic the global Indians. “They are viewers who are welltravelled, well-connected and who know what is happening around the world, whether it’s the latest fashion, cars, technology or entertainment,” he says. However, other channels do
not believe that their viewers should necessarily pay more for premium programming. “The consumption of international content is coming of age,” says Yagnik. “Increased awareness of international shows means people want to watch them closer to when they are aired in the US.” AXN India has managed to air popular shows like Sherlock, Hannibal and Supernatural within a couple of weeks of their UK or UK releases without asking viewers to subscribe to a more expensive channel. “If you’re able to view it on the Internet or download it at the click of a button, then it makes no business sense to wait for weeks and months before we get the content to India,” says Tata. This is why HBO India will soon reduce the one-week gap between US and India air dates for popular content like Game of Thrones to 24 hours.
Wh en
shows of the past few years, worry not. Apart from the latest shows, Indian channels have been regularly airing reruns of English language hit shows from the last two or more decades. Evergreen hit sitcoms like F.R.I.E.N.D.S and M*A*S*H; beloved comedy-dramas like Sex and the City; pathbreaking sci-fi shows like The X-Files; and medical dramas like Grey’s Anatomy, today most classics are just a click of your remote away. “Reruns do really well in India because one, people like to revisit shows that they had watched and loved before, and two, new viewers like to acquaint themselves with old hits that they may have missed,” says Vaz. Comedy Central, which as its name suggests airs only comedies, launched two years ago with an offering of old shows like Seinfeld, That 70s Show, The Kumars at No. 42 and others. “Reruns work better in comedy than in other genres because in drama you know what the end is and you wouldn’t really want to watch it again,” says Ferzad Palis, senior vice president and general manager of English entertainment at Viacom 18 Media. “But worldwide research tells us that comedy is actually best received by the audience on the second or third viewing. Comedy as a genre is designed for reruns.”
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Social media is the first choice of expression for fans. The How I Met Your Mother India page on Facebook has 21,000 fans and still attracts regular posts even though the sitcom has ended. A Game of Thrones fan forum on India-forums.com has a 150 page-long thread where fans passionately debate episodes and characters, while YouTube often throws up parodies and spoofs of popular shows in their Indian avatars. But fans are now finding new ways to advertise their love for English shows. Fans are now wearing their favourites on their sleeves, literally. “We started making T-shirt designs based on famous dialogues from popular shows,” says Mubaid Syed, founder of the web business LazyNinja, which
he can watch them long after they have been taken off air. “I have rediscovered the genius of American comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld’s writing recently, thanks to the torrents that I downloaded, and have been watching the Seinfeld episodes all over again,” he says. Understandably, the English TV networks in India are wary of the role that the Internet has to play in moving a substantial chunk of fans away from their channels and are openly reproachful. “There’s a huge difference between watching shows on your laptop by downloading or streaming at slow speeds and watching
id to show it? u’re not afra lture and yo forward cu r om la nd pu fa po ur y to take yo n of Western pp fa a ha o re to u’ ly yo So are on businesses Several new launched last year. “Initially we printed around 1,000 tees, which were all sold out in 20 minutes of our launching!” LazyNinja’s Facebook page now has over two lakh fans and it sells T-shirts, badges, coffee mugs and laptop sleeves printed with popular lines like, “I’m not insane. My mother had me tested” (The Big Bang Theory), “I am the Danger” (Breaking Bad), “I am Sherlocked” (Sherlock) and other references only a fan of the show would get. Another online store, Bombay Trooper, which also makes T-shirts featuring categories like movies, gaming and music, draws one-third of its income from designs that reference TV. Their designs are minimal, like an illustration from the show with an interesting or funny caption. Jugal Mistry, the site’s
it on television,” says Vaz. Yagnik adds, “Illegal downloads are a dampener to the sustainability of the business.” But they are not dismissive of the positive roles of the Internet and social media either. Comedy Central, for instance, has seen a “fantastic two years” so far and Palia attributes its success partly to the Internet. “It has helped us in the last two years by popularising international content.” He adds that a section of people still prefer to download shows as “that is the only option for those who want unedited and uncensored content.”
Try watching the troublesome foursome of Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda in Sex and the City (on AXN) as they go about their sexual adventures in New York City and you will notice the incessant beeps, jump shots and abrupt cuts. Nudity, sex, violence and swearing are a strict no-no on Indian TV. “In a show like Game of Thrones, where violence and nudity abound, and are in some cases integral to the plot,
founder and CEO, says that do their best to avoid long dialogues. “Because if you are walking past me and it takes me more than two seconds to read what’s on your T-shirt, I will have to chase you and that would be a really creepy thing to do, no?” - Satarupa Paul
censorship takes away a lot,” says Bagchi. “That is also why I prefer downloading torrents, so I can watch the uncensored version.” However, HBO India, which airs the series in India, say that applying censorship guidelines does not take much away from the storyline. “We are a very self-conscious and regulated broadcaster and follow the laws of the land,” says Tata. “We do edit content according to Indian sensibilities and do end up editing a lot of the sex and violence, which some of the HBO Originals are known for. But we take utmost effort in making sure that the storyline doesn’t get botched and the flow is seamless.” But ardent fans still remain dissatisfied with English shows as shown on the channels in India. “True, the number of English entertainment channels in India has increased. True, the number of shows on such channels has gone up exponentially. And true also that now you can watch them in HD quality and close to their releases elsewhere,” says Gupta. “But because of censorship, English shows as shown on Indian channels cannot match the feel of the actual content.” So the tug of war between TV and the Internet continues. Whichever way it goes, we are happy with the outcome already. satarupa.paul@hindustantimes.com Follow @satarupapaul on Twitter
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WELLNESS
MIND BODY SOUL
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SHIKHA SHARMA
CAN MILK BE BAD FOR YOU? It can cause problems if you can’t easily digest lactose in milk and dairy products
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F YOU feel nauseated or gassy and bloated after eating a dairy product, chances are you have lactose intolerance. This means your body cannot easily digest lactose, a type of natural sugar found in milk and dairy products, because your small intestine does not make enough of an enzyme called lactase to break down, or digest, lactose. Most people with lactose intolerance can eat or drink some amount of dairy without digestive trouble. But the amount of lactose that can be tolerated varies from individual to individual.
ant, eat calcium-rich foods or take a calcium supplement so your body still gets the nutrient. A shortage of calcium in children and adults may lead to bones that are less dense and can easily fracture later in life, a condition called osteoporosis.
MANAGE IT Gradually introduce small amounts of milk or milk products in your diet to help you adapt to them. ■ Have milk or milk products with meals, such as milk with cereal. ■ Chances are, you can tolerate dahi better than milk. ■ Lactose-free SYMPTOMS Reactions can and lactoseoccur 30 minutes reduced milk to two hours after and milk products consuming milk or milk are widely available and TURN TO FISH Tuna is a good products and can range identical nutritionally. source of calcium ■ Get your from mild to severe. Symptoms include: dose of cal■ Abdominal bloating or pain cium from salmon, ■ Diarrhoea tuna, spinach and ■ Gas broccoli. ■ Drink soy milk, ■ Nausea, vomiting rice milk, almond milk, coconut milk, HEALTH CONSEQUENCES oat milk or peanut If you avoid dairy products milk instead. because you are lactose intoler■
Avoid high-lactose foods such as milk, ice cream and cheese. ■ Avoid bread and baked goods, cereals, salad dressings, candies, and snacks with lactose.
There is lactose in medications such as birth control pill, and tablets for stomach acid and gas. So let your doctor know you’re lactose intolerant. ■
ask@drshikha.com
MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch JULY 20, 2014
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Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKSTOCK
IF YOU ARE LACTOSE INTOLERANT... ■
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Fad Or Fact? S There are so many theories about food, health and dieting. But how many of these theories have any scientific foundation?
O, WILL red wine make you live longer? Will olive oil make you thin? Is honey excreted undigested from your system? Is the best way of dieting as simple as eating a small portion of food every two hours? I have heard so many theories about food, health and dieting over the last couple of years that I decided to do some digging to try and find out how many of these theories have any scientific foundation. I looked far and wide but the best single source of accurate information was Dr Michael Mosley, author of the Fast Diet books. You might want to look him up.
MYTH: BREAKFAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY
Well, yes and no. It’s good to eat breakfast but there is little evidence for the claim that you need a good breakfast to get your metabolism going or that people who eat breakfast are slimmer and healthier.
Vir Sanghvi
rude food One recent study took 300 overweight volunteers and asked those who always ate breakfast to try skipping it. Those who never ate breakfast were asked to eat something every morning. At the end of four months, they weighed both sets of volunteers. People who had never before eaten breakfast but had now started had lost 0.76kg over four months. But regular breakfast eaters who had now begun skipping it had also lost 0.71kg. The researchers concluded that whether or not you eat breakfast makes no difference to your weight.
MYTH: CHOCOLATE MAKES YOU HAPPY MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, log on to hindustantimes. com/brunch The views expressed by the columnist are personal
This myth has been assiduously promoted by chocolate companies who now ascribe all kinds of health benefits to chocolate. Often, these claims are substantiated by references to ‘scientific’ research that has been sponsored by the chocolate companies themselves. The truth is that chocolate does contain tiny quantities of substances that can elevate your mood. So far so good. But many other foods contain much larger
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quantities of these substances: salami, for instance. And yet, I have never read an article that says “Want to feel happy and romantic? Eat lots of garlic salami!” One reason why people often feel a degree of elation after eating chocolate is because chocolate usually contains sugar and they get what is known as a sugar rush. The problem is that cheap chocolate usually contains the most sugar. But the claims are made most often for very expensive, low-sugar dark chocolate.
MYTH: OLIVE OIL WILL NOT MAKE YOU FAT
I have done a whole article on the olive oil propaganda blitz before so we won’t cover the same ground. But two things need to be remembered. One, there are many cheaper oils with the same health benefits as olive oil. So, if you are using it on grounds of health alone, then make sure you consider the alternatives. And two, the whole point of olive oil is that it is an oil. In other words, it is fat. It will affect your body weight in exactly the same way as all other kinds of fat. It is worth making the point that recent research suggests that butter and ghee are not as unhealthy as doctors used to claim. Eating anything to excess is bad but there is no case for eliminating butter and ghee entirely from your diet.
MYTH: HONEY WILL MAKE YOU THIN
If I had a penny for every time somebody told me to give up stevia or splenda on health grounds and to switch to honey or agave syrup instead, I would be a millionaire. Scientists are almost uniformly agreed that we eat too much white sugar or (in processed foods) corn syrup.
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first group ate at regular intervals while the other group ate six small meals in the course of the day. It turned out that the people who ate regular meals lost an average of 1.4kgs more than the group that ate several small meals. More significantly perhaps, they also lost about 1.5 inches more from around their waists. The people who kept eating small meals not only lost less weight but were also highly dissatisfied and hungry throughout the day. Scientists are sceptical of exercise instructors and dieticians who suddenly decide that they understand the complicated business of metabolism. And so should you be.
Photo: NEW YORK TIMES
MYTH: DRINK WATER TO LOSE WEIGHT
So yes, there is a very strong case for cutting down on refined sugar and sugary products. But the view that both honey and agave syrup are as calorie free as, say, stevia is bogus. Honey has many wonderful properties, but in calorific terms, it affects your body in much the same way as sugar. Agave syrup is even sweeter than refined sugar. So, if you want to cut down on sugar for health reasons then this makes a lot of sense. But switching to honey or agave syrup may not be the best alternatives.
MYTH: CRASH DIETS DO NOT WORK
Yes, a crash diet that leads you to concentrate on one particular category of food or to ignore vital nutrients may be bad for you. But all the scientific research shows that a crash diet is the most effective way of losing weight quickly. Doctors who admit this will warn you that even if you lose weight on a crash diet it will all come back very quickly. Well, perhaps not. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania compared very low calorie diets with standard diets. They found that while weight tended to come back once people stopped dieting there was no difference in the extent of weight gain between those who went on crash diets and those who followed the so-called healthy diets.
MYTH: EAT MANY SMALL MEALS A DAY
Many dieticians have made fortunes by telling us not to eat proper meals three times a day but to eat small quantities of food – a handful of nuts, an apple, etc. – every two hours or so. A recent study at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague tested this hypothesis. Two groups of testers were fed 1,700 calories a day. The
I am so fed up of beauty editors and other morons on the staffs of women’s magazines who pretend to understand how the human body works. One of their mantras is: drink lots of water. Not only will this make you thin, it will make your skin glow and – though they don’t actually say this – make you seem sophisticated when you order a glass of sparkling water rather than Diet Coke. (In the West, it also helps that the water companies are big advertisers.) The truth is that everybody needs water because we need to stay hydrated. One estimate is that our body needs two litres of fluids every 24 hours. But what beauty editors don’t tell you is that these fluids can be taken in any form. Coke, coffee, tea, etc. all count as fluids. So does the water content of many foods. There is one interesting sidelight, however. While research shows that water makes little difference to how hungry you feel, soup can make a difference. Drinking soup will make your stomach stay fuller for longer and will stave off hunger pangs. Hopefully, you will eat less as a consequence.
MYTH: FASTING IS BAD FOR YOU
This one has undergone a change in recent times. In the old days, we were told that fasting would lead to all kinds of terrible consequences for the body and especially, the stomach. Now, with the popularity of the 5:2 diet, fasting has suddenly become trendy. I even read some ‘research’ that claimed that fasting helped the body heal faster. There is, however, the widely held view that if you fast, your blood sugar levels will fall dramatically and that you may feel faint. Indians should know that this is not necessarily true for healthy individuals. We have a long tradition of fasting and our ancestors managed okay. But there is now research to back up this view. One study showed that volunteers who lived on nothing but water for 84 hours did see drops in their blood glucose levels. They fell from 4.9 mmols/1 on the first day to 3.5 mmols/1 by day four. But these levels are not unhealthy. They are not in any sense abnormally low and pose no great danger to health. And there’s a silver lining. The same study showed that as blood glucose levels diminished, the levels of fatty acid in the blood shot up. This demonstrates that fasting causes your body to switch to fat-burning mode. And so, it’s not a bad way to lose weight, after all.
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I looked far and wide but the best single source of accurate information was Dr Michael Mosley, author of the Fast Diet books
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Why you’ll Never Drive A CAr AgAiN I The dream of having driverless cars may soon become a reality. Are you game for it?
CAN YOU FACE THE FUTURE
While the driverless car could be a boon for children as well as old people, it would also have the option of ‘face your friends seat’
T WAS 7.45am. I had skipped my workout, showered, decided not to shave, worn pyjama pants, a white tee and was set for a wind-down-non-working-grunge day. That’s when I realised that I hadn’t paged my car. Punching the app button on my phone, I was told that I had missed out on my favourite car – but a smaller one would pick me up in about three minutes. Also this would be a shared ride for the first half of my journey. Quickly gathering my stuff, I pressed the ‘house shut down button’ and made my way down to the pickup pod. The pug-like car was already waiting and I was dis-
Rajiv Makhni
techilicious THE ROAD AHEAD
It is quite possible that the first driverless car may come from the tech giant Apple
MORE ON THE WEB For previous Tech columns, log on to hindustantimes.com/ brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter. com/RajivMakhni The views expressed by the columnist are personal
off and ask for another one on demand. No finding parking, no buying a car, no waste of parking space, no fighting with neighbours over wrongfully parked cars. In certain countries, 50 per cent of a city is wasted in public and private car parking. This could revolutionise the urban planning.
EFFICIENCY AND SAFETY: With no human error or ego involved, perfect use of road space, disciplined driving, an awareness of every other vehicle, pin-point accuracy with GPS, faster movement, excellent synch and coordination across the city and a major reduction in road signs, driverless cars would change the way we plan our day as well as shrink the number of roads and space required for them. CARS FOR ALL: Many people cannot drive
a car, like children, the aged, the differently abled, those too drunk to get home and those who can’t wrap their heads around negotiating a car and unruly traffic. Driverless cars are for all. This also takes care of the problem of wasted time and space.
mayed to see that it had ‘face your friend’ seats, so I couldn’t avoid conversation with REDUNDANT DRIVERS: When you drop the stranger who would be my ‘friend’ for off your child to the bus stop, when the bus part of my journey. I greeted the tattooed, OUR DRIVING FORCE driver picks them all up and takes them to excited and supremely intoxicated gentle- Google’s founders said that nobody man, obviously was on his way home after would own these cars, just page one to school – you and the bus driver are actually redundant drivers adding to the number of an all-nighter at the mind-merge club. The go wherever you want to go vehicles on the road. A driverless car will car asked for a reconfirmation of my final come and take your child straight to school. destination, told me that traffic was heavy and set the time to reach drop point as 27 minutes. As the car started on its silent, RADICAL FORM FACTOR: No steering wheel, no pedal, driverless, steeringwheel-less, pedalless journey and joined its no seat for a driver, everyone in the car is a passenger, more other sensor-laden brethren on the narrow road in a train-like space, better ergonomics – a driverless car is a total reboot of formation – I looked wistfully at the random car driven by an the design and process of what a car is and how it is built. actual human being. It used to be fun to be in control of your From seating to engine to safety standards – everything will own car, that rush of blood when you put pedal to the metal, be more efficient and usable. that amazing feeling to merge man and machine – that was gone forever! Yes, traffic jams were a thing of the past, strugSAVE THE WORLD: All electric cars, reduction in the gling to find parking space had been eliminated forever, number of cars across the world by more than 50 per cent, roads had shrunk by half, getting to your destination was roads and parking space reduced by even more, drastic reductwice as fast, houses were bigger as nobody had to waste tion in pollution, fewer number of road fatalities and better space for parking private cars, vehicle accidents were use of time and resources for those in the car. What’s not to unheard of, but, maybe we had given up the passion love? for efficiency. Should I pay the super premium ‘human Actually a lot! Driverless cars open up a Pandora’s box of driver car tax’ and buy myself a real car? problems. Think of the number of people out of jobs, from bus The fantasy of driverless cars has been with us for ages. and truck drivers to taxi and scooter drivers to the workforce Movies have had them, sci-fi books have described them and in the auto industry. Think of the auto industry itself, can it various companies have given it a go. It’s only now that new sustain a 50 per cent cut in car sales? Think of security issues experiments have shown that this dream concept may soon be like a master hacker bringing an entire city’s driverless car a reality. As always, new technology throws up equal parts of fleet to a grinding halt. Think of privacy issues where your delight and despair. Here’s why driverless cars may well be the every moment is now tracked. And then think of what I think greatest boon and bane of recent times. is the most depressing thought of them all. You will never SPACE: Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page came drive a car again! That in itself, is enough for me to go hug and out with some radical new thoughts on how a driverless car kiss my ‘needs a driver’ car right now. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget would actually be used. Nobody would own one, you would Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3 just page one to pick you up wherever you were, get dropped
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hindustantimes.com/brunch
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The ReTuRn Of The MelOdic Rebel
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provocative, often ironic) – there’s a certain quirky something about listening to music by a man who’s as old as you, almost to the date! My younger Morrissey-loving friends literally worship him for his rebellious views and his ability to shock with finesse. I like those things about him but there’s also a certain P2P connect that I have that, courtesy an accident of birth, those chaps aren’t likely to get. Morrissey’s new album is a set of 12 songs beginning with the title track, World Peace Is None Of Your Business, a strongly political number that derides people who vote because they do so for a system and political processes that don’t work for them or ones that they cannot change. Morrissey nameA LIGHT THAT checks Ukraine and Egypt NEVER GOES OUT and Brazil and Bahrain and Morrissey almost Sanjoy Narayan always manages to delivers a satire that is rebe a melodic rebel, markably sweet musically. delivering a high- That’s quintessential Morpowered punch in rissey, though. He almost always manages to be a melodic the solar plexus rebel, not needing to snarl or growl and yet delivering a high-powered punch in the solar plexus. It’s like one of those thin but exceedingly sharp blades that you don’t realise you’ve been cut T HASN’T yet been a year since Morrissey’s (or, if you with till after it’s actually slashed you. would like his full name, Stephen Patrick Morrissey’s) On The Bullfighter Dies, an ode to animal rights, it’s the tome, Autobiography, was published by Penguin as a bull’s survival that is, expectedly, lauded and not the death ‘classic’ imprint – that itself created a flutter in the of its provocateur. And on I’m Not A Man, Morrissey’s oftmore uptight echelons of the book world (you know, critics revealed misanthropy surfaces again as he clobbers the and publishers and the legions of related know-it-alls) – but stereotype of the male as a jock. On World Peace, there are it’s been five years since he released his last solo album, surprise turnouts as on Neal Cassady Drops Dead. Cassady Years of Refusal. So, when I heard about his tenth solo alwas a prominent 1950s Beat generation figure and long-time bum, World Peace Is None of Your Business, I couldn’t wait lover of poet Allen Ginsberg and on the track Morrissey to grab a listen. The album was released on July 15, but days sings about Ginsberg mourning his death. Another song, before that, NPR came to the rescue, streaming it in full for Staircase At The University, points at the parental pressures a first listen. to achieve that leads a young girl to leap to her death, but Morrissey’s debut in Britain’s post-punk era was as not without some of his characteristic satire and mockery… part of the short-lived Manchester band, The Smiths. And aimed at the girl. although that band lasted from 1982 to 1987, it I like most of Morrissey’s albums and quickly spawned an ever-growing cult of folover the years, I’ve got some that are my falowers. As the band’s lead singer and lyricist, vourites: his first solo, Viva Hate (1988), of his songs and views often flirted with controcourse; but also Vauxhall and I (1994), which versy and he proudly wore his politics on his I think is his best and many Morrissey fans chest. His stance on issues such as the Britmay agree. Just listen to The More You Ignore ish monarchy, immigration, vegetarianism, Me, The Closer I Get on that album and you’ll Thatcher and Bush and Hillary Clinton has see what I’m talking about. Vauxhall and I is always managed to polarise people. Those an album of songs with back stories and refwho love him are devout loyalists; those who erences, to films, to parodies of British TV don’t, deride him for his self-righteousness shows and so on, but delving into that is betand acute intellectual snobbery. ter left to die-hard devotees of Mozza (as he It was after The Smiths broke up (there is known to his fans; he’s also known as Moz; was controversy there as well: a falling out or, the one I like best, as the Pope of Mope!). with guitarist Johnny Marr and an acrimoGetting back to World Peace, it’s not an alnious legal wrangling with drummer Mike bum that I’d recommend to those who aren’t Joyce), that Morrissey, now 55, actually familiar with Morrissey’s music but it could came into his own – with a splendid solo ca- A CLASSIC CASE be part of a nice trifecta that you can put reer that is still in full flow. Besides enjoying Morrissey’s Autobiography together for a weekend: Viva Hate, Vauxhall Morrissey’s music – his vocal style (a bari- published as a “classic” imprint had and I and the new album. tone that transforms effortlessly into higher created a flutter in the more uptight Download Central appears pitches, falsetto even) and his lyrics (always echelons of the book world every fortnight
download central
Morrissey’s new album delivers satire that is remarkably sweet, but don’t get it till you’re familiar with his music
MORE ON THE WEB To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to blogs.hindustantimes. com/downloadcentral. Write to Sanjoy at sanjoy.narayan@ hindustantimes. com
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Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK
A Question Of Answers Why the media need to rediscover the lost art of the interview
I
CAN’T BE the only one who mourns the demise of the art of the interview when I watch what passes for one on our television channels. The questions are often longer – and frequently far more convoluted – than the answers. The interviewers tend to be so aggressive and overbearing that their subjects shut down completely rather than open up to them. Couple this with an appalling lack of research and a complete absence of curiosity and you are left with an exchange that may have a lot of sound and fury but which ultimately signifies nothing. I was reminded of this yet again as I read the British journalist and ‘celebrity interviewer’ Lynn Barber’s new book, A Curious Career. Barber has been interviewing celebrities and writing them up (and sometimes stitching them up in the process) since the late ’60s when she began working for Penthouse (yes, you read that right) magazine and af-
OVER TO YOU
An interview is always about the person being interviewed. So, keep the questions coming
Seema Goswami
spectator KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Do your research. You need to know everything about your subject
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 The views expressed by the columnist are personal
knowledge is power. Found out everything there is to know about your interviewee? Now be a dear and forget about it. Don’t bang on about the same things that have been written about the subject for years on end. Everyone knows that Shah Rukh Khan was an outsider from Delhi ter stints with the Sunday Express, Independwhen he made it big in Bollywood. Sachin ent on Sunday, Observer and Vanity Fair, now Tendulkar’s relationship with his first coach, writes for the Sunday Times. Her new book is Achrekar Sir, is now the stuff of cricket lega curious hybrid creature: part memoir, part end. Manmohan Singh…no, scratch that, he riff on journalism, interspersed with some would never ever give an interview. My point of her most famous interviews. is that there’s nothing new and interesting Half way through it, though, I began about any of this. Try and find a fresh angle to wish desperately that some of our own for your story. It is tough to do when the sub‘celebrity interviewers’, both on TV and in ject is a celebrity who has been written about CELEB INTERVIEWER print, would read it for pointers. But just in for decades. But nobody said this was going case they don’t have either the time or the in- Lynn Barber has been to be easy. clination, here are some of the golden rules of interviewing celebrities Listen. This cannot be emphasised enough. interviewing, in no particular order of impor- and writing them up since You need to listen to what your subject is saying. tance, some of them gleaned from Barber, oth- the late ’60s A good interview is akin to a freewheeling coners just plain old common sense. versation in which one party talks and the other An interview is always about the person being interwatches out for cues to take the conversation into more inviewed. It is not about the interviewer. The interviewer is teresting directions. Have a set of printed questions with only there to find out more about the interviewee, so that you by all means as some sort of security blanket. But don’t this information can then be passed on to the viewer/ just rattle them off in sequence, ignoring what the interreader. So, keep the questions coming. Keep them short and viewee is saying. Pick up on interesting bits, push further, sweet. And frame them to elicit the maximum information. tease out some more information. And you can only do that If you are speaking more than your interviewee, then you if you are listening. have failed as an interviewer. An interview is essentially an artificial construct. You It is the interviewee’s views that matter, not yours. We are not there to become best friends with the interviewee. don’t need to know what your views are on the Indian On the other hand, there is something undeniably intimate economy, the Modi victory, or even the new rape laws. If about sitting in a room with a stranger and getting to ask you want to tell us about them, write an article about it. An him/her questions about life, politics, religion, sex, marinterview is about the person sitting in front of you. Pay riage or family. But don’t fall into the trap of believing that attention to him or her. And stop banging on about yourself you have to establish some sort of personal connect with and what you believe in. the subject. Sure, go out for a drink, trawl the nightclubs, Do your research. You need to know everything there is have dinner together, if it helps you establish a rapport to know about your subject that exists in the public domain. with your subject. But never forget that this is a professionAnd it would help if you knew some stuff about him/her al engagement, and you need a story at the end of it. that is still unknown to the general public. So, talk to the And finally, a ‘celebrity interviewer’ is someone like Lynn potential interviewee’s friends, colleagues, family, neighBarber, an interviewer who talks to celebrities. In India, bours, to get a handle on their personality. Forewarned is alas, a ‘celebrity interviewer’ is an interviewer who thinks forearmed. And since we are already in cliché territory, that he/she is a celebrity.
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FINE PRINT WELLNESS
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
DRESSED TO DANCE
Mira Jacob with her husband, filmmaker Jed Rothstein
Another Jhumpa Lahiri? Not Quite
But Mira Jacob’s debut novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide To Dancing adds a whole new layer of meaning and poetry to the Indian immigrant experience
by Bron Sibree
T
O TALK to Mira Jacob is to imbibe just some of the vitality of her darkly comic debut novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing. Searingly honest, refreshingly unpredictable on the page, Jacob is that rare novelist who also bowls you over with her humour and honesty in conversation. She is so at home in her own skin that just a passing mention of a tongue-in-cheek review of her novel by renowned satirical author Gary Shteyngart, who describes it as ‘punchy, clever and stuffed with chapatis,’ sends the 41-year-old author into peals of laughter. But mention the fact that her novel is being compared to the works of literary superstar Jhumpa Lahiri and Jacob demurs. “It’s a very flattering comparison, I think she’s an incredible writer so I’m obviously thrilled, but I feel we write very differently.”
JHUMPA LAHIRI VERSION 2.0
It was inevitable that The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing would evoke comparisons with Lahiri’s stories, given that it is anchored in the immigrant Indian experience in America, the terrain that Lahiri has made uniquely her own. But that’s where the comparison ends. Unlike Lahiri, who is particularly adroit at evoking the underlying unhappiness of those she writes about in plain, unadorned prose, Jacob’s story of an immigrant Indian family and the generational struggle between new and old world dances rather more lyrically between comedy and tragedy, between the mundanity of everyday family life and a rambunctious, messy vitality. Unlike Lahiri, whose Bengali characters anchor themselves in New England, Jacob writes of the immigrant experience in Ameri-
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ca’s Southwest, where her own parents, Syrian Christians from south India, settled in the ’60s. Syrian Christians (Surianis) or St Thomas Christians trace their roots back to the time St Thomas came to India in AD 50. “We were a minority in India already and then coming to New Mexico we were the minority of the minorities,” says Jacob, who now lives in Brooklyn with her filmmaker husband and fiveyear-old son. “It was the Wild West out there. There were very few Indians and I wanted to tell that story, which is really under-told. It was heartbreaking for so many families of the Indian diaspora at that point. And I wanted to tell the story of grief and loss but also of finding something within that grief and loss.”
WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT
In doing so, Jacob has managed to say something new about the immigrant experience and, indeed, the nature of inherited and chosen families in The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing. Moving back and forth between Salem, India and Albuquerque, New Mexico and between the ’60s, early ’80s and the late ’90s, the novel unfolds largely through the eyes of Amina Eapen, a 30-year-old wedding photographer with a stash of secret photographs, who has moved to Seattle to distance herself from her perennially squabbling parents. But when her mother, Kamala, reveals that her father, Thomas, a brain surgeon, is talking to ghosts, Amina returns home where she is forced to confront the death of her brilliant older brother Akhil, along with other family ghosts and secrets. Her visit also serves, unwittingly, to rekindle an old romance and her former career as a photojournalist, which she’d abandoned after a photograph she’d taken of a Native American activist jumping to his death off a bridge, had brought her notoriety. Notions of connection and rupture, voyeurism and secrecy are expertly threaded through this luminous novel, where comedy and sadness are uniquely conjoined and where even food, lavishly depicted in Jacob’s trade-
mark melodic prose, is like a secret language. “Food is the thing you use when you run out of words, which I think is particularly true of Indians and Indian culture because it’s a culture where you don’t talk about your feelings a lot. It’s a culture where people feel their way around a situation by navigating the food.” It is also a culture, she insists, that communicates through its unique brand of humour, and one of the triumphs of her novel is the way it captures the optimism, humour and syntax of the subcontinent in snatches of prose and dialogue. “I find Indian humour just ridiculously, unbearably funny. There’s so much joy in it. There’s also a beautiful way of constructing langue and dialogue that I just find completely thrilling. My father told the best stories of all time, but his language was so mangled, strange and beautiful that it was almost like a song only he could sing, and I feel that way a lot when I’m listening to Indians speak to each other. I think, ‘no one else knows the words to this song but us’.”
HOW TO FINISH YOUR NOVEL
For Jacob, who spent ten years writing The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, all the while working long hours at a job in the corporate world, only finishing it when she was laid off unexpectedly, the novel is itself a song of prayer, a hymn. “I was getting so far away from the life that I wanted for myself as I was working in the corporate world and these characters were my escape. Writing this became this weird form of church for me. For years when I was writing it, I thought, ‘well, the time when I could have published this has come and gone, but I’m just going to keep writing.’ And I feel people should know that, because there are so many like me who have creative dreams and so much in our lives to tell us to give up on those dreams,” she adds. “So if anyone gets the idea to keep going, then I feel the world’s going to be a better place.”
“Food is the thing you use when you run out of words”
The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing HBK published by Bloomsbury India. Price: `599 brunchletters@hindustantimes.com
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TRAIN FROM PAKISTAN
It Suits Us Better
Indian designers haven’t done much to re-energise the ubiquitous desi salwar suit. But it’s got an elegant makeover with inspiration from across the border WHAT’S DIFFERENT?
by Yashica Dutt
R
EMEMBER THAT seminal cinematic moment in Jab We Met, when Kareena Kapoor, wearing a Patiala style salwar and long T-shirt, jumps off a train? That outfit, which launched a style tsunami? But that was seven years ago, which in fashion parlance, might as well be a millennia. The salwar suit style train has since left the Patiala station and is now halting in Pakistan. Because women in India are now wearing something that’s loosely called the ‘Pakistani suit’ and it’s changed the Indian salwar suit mould entirely. This particular style typically includes an ankle-length kurta with deep side slits, worn with a pants-style salwar, usually edged with lace. The Pakistani suit gained popularity in 2012, after a very successful exhibit, Lifestyle Pakistan – a first-of-itskind premium exhibition held in Delhi that year. Showcasing apparel, textiles, design, furniture, jewellery and art, the exhibition gathered a huge response and initiated a chain reaction to what was to become one of the biggest salwar suit trends in the coming years. (We’d already called that one out in Sex Up The Salwar, our style report that followed the exhibition in 2012).
MISSION DOMINATION
The managers of Libas Impex, a clothing and apparel store in Lajpat Nagar, one of the biggest salwar suit markets in the country, tell us that Pakistani style suits make for almost 30 per cent of all sales – a sizable chunk in a market that’s dominated by heavy net churidaar suits and flouncy Anarkali style kurtas. “The suit is typically made in a fabric called lawn, which till recently was only exported from Pakistan,” one of the store’s employees told us. “Now variations of lawn are available in
Surat, and other fabrics like cotton satin, chiffon and mulmul are being employed for the suit.” The Indian fashion market, which till recently divided its focus between ornate weddingworthy Indian wear and trendy western wear, rarely gave women adequately stylish choices for casual yet traditional clothes like saris and suits. Even the big Indian designers rarely experimented with the silhouette. The result? There have only been a few radical style innovations, barring Bollywood’s occasional takes on the matter (Bunty and Babli – short kurti and salwar; Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya and Dil Toh Pagal Hai – skin-fitting churidar salwar, chiffon kurtas). The Pakistani design industry, on the other hand, focused keenly on stylish Asian clothes (including mostly salwar suits), leading to fresh trends and several style inventions over the years. “That’s why,” Pervez Lala, CEO of the one of the oldest Pakistani lifestyle brands, Lala (it was established in 1948), told us over the phone from Lahore, “the Indian market is now hankering for Pakistani designs.” “One of the reasons these suits got so popular in India is because their styling was completely fresh, unlike any other style seen in the Indian market,” says Lala. “Also, since 2012, efforts have been made to improve bilateral trade, which has led to a proliferation of Pakistani fashion in India.” With an eye on the Middle Eastern market, Pakistani suit fashions strive to be more global than ethnic, a quality which adds to their appeal in India.
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1. KURTA: Voluminous, typically ankle-length with deep side-slits. 2. SALWAR: Pant-style, with wide cuff ends and often lined with lace, unlike the Indian style which tapers narrowly. 3. MATERIAL: Originally made in lawn, it now comes in variations of mulmul, chiffon and cotton satin. 4. SILHOUETTE: Loose, flowy and flattering all body shapes.
FORGIVING SILHOUETTES
Apart from its crisp silhouette, this style is extremely formflattering for the average Asian woman, unlike the Anarkali or the Patiala that only looks good on the skinny. Shruti Sancheti, who showcased a collection of Pakistani suits in her recent outing at the Lakmé Fashion Week, says the Pakistani style provides ease of movement and more comfort than other suits. “The kurta here falls straight and hides ungainly bulges that a tight shirt kurta openly reveals,” she explains. “And the style is not only contemporary, but versatile. It can transform from daywear to a night ensemble easily, due to the grace of its cut. And the delicate lace pajamas that resemble wide-legged pants and palazzos suit the typical Indian broad hips more than the ruffled Patiala salwar does.” Adapted by designers like Sancheti and Vandy Mehra, Pakistani suits are now available in Indian handloom textiles like chikan, with indigenous embroidery and prints.
FASHION FORWARD
Several Pakistani designers have set up shop in Delhi and Mumbai, including the Pakistani Fashion Design Council and independent designers like Shaila Chatoor, Huma Naseer and Riyaz Gangji. According to Chatoor, Pakistani fashion has always found favour in India. Over email, she recalled her first collection for Bridal Asia in 2004, which reportedly sold out in less than two hours. “Pakistani fashion is visibly different from the Indian market in terms of the cuts and a subdued colour palette,” says Chatoor. “Also, in Pakistan, we still wear a lot of eastern wear during the day unlike in India. So the designers have to offer trendier alternatives to western wear, which results in experimentation with cuts, silhouettes and embroideries.” This is a wake-up call for Indian designers to explore the largely ignored casual Indian wear market. Or we’ll have no choice but to take a train to Pakistan. yashica.dutt@hindustantimes.com Follow @YashicaDutt on Twitter
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Photo: SUBRATA BISWAS
The Dude From Karachi Meet Pakistani actor Imran Abbas Naqvi who is making a two-fold debut in India – on the big screen and the small one by Satarupa Paul
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N DELHI’S sweltering heat, wearing a thick black jacket is an invitation to be dismissed as a wannabe. But you can almost forgive this faux pas if the person wearing the jacket wears it like it’s part of his anatomy. That’s how Imran Abbas Naqvi does it, so you don’t scream to set the AC lower. Naqvi, 31, is one of Pakistan’s most beloved small-screen stars, and is now about to make his Bollywood debut in Vikram Bhatt’s soon to release sci-fi flick, Creature 3D. He’ll also appear on the Indian small screen, when his 2011 TV show, Mera Naseeb airs on the new entertainment channel Zindagi, which broadcasts syndicated shows from Pakistan. “The good thing about Pakistani serials is that they don’t go on for years like they do here. They last a month or two, with 22-23 episodes max,” says Naqvi. “I was initially sceptical about appearing on TV in India, because then you would know me as a TV actor first. But my role in Mera Naseeb allowed me to showcase a range of acting skills. So people will know me even before I appear in my first Bollywood film.” Born and brought up in Islamabad, Naqvi comes from a family of Urdu poets and is an architect by training. He spent a year-anda-half modelling before moving to Karachi to work in television,
where he spent the next nine years working in hit serials such as Meri Zaat Zarra-e-Benishan (2009-2010), Noor Bano (2010) and Khuda Aur Muhabbat (2011), among others. Creature 3D, slotted to release in September, stars Naqvi opposite Bipasha Basu. This is his first film, though he might have been seen in Indian theatres long ago if he hadn’t been so busy. “I was offered the second lead in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish and the lead in Mohit Suri’s Aashiqui 2, both of which went to Aditya Roy Kapoor,” says Naqvi.“Bhansali had also wanted to launch me in Ram-Leela. But I was tied up in a contract with a production house in Pakistan at the time.” Like most actors, he’d always wanted to do films, but he’s grateful that he had nine years in TV before transitioning to the big screen. “It is the right time for me,” he says. “Because in TV dramas you can get away with a lot of things, but in films your acting has to be polished, you have to be a good dancer, your looks have to be mature. I have worked towards these in the last few years in TV.” Naqvi will also feature in Muzaffar Ali’s Raqs, opposite newcomer Pernia Qureshi (the fashion and filmstylist and designer behind Pernia’s Pop Up Shop).
I was sceptical about appearing on TV in India, because then you would know me as a TV actor first
satarupa.paul@hindustantimes.com. Follow @satarupapaul on Twitter
JULY 20, 2014
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PERSONAL AGENDA
twitter.com/HTBrunch
Actor
Arjun Kapoor
BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN PLACE OF BIRTH HOMETOWN SCHOOL/COLLEGE
June 26
Cancer
Mumbai
FIRST BREAK HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE An audition with Yash Raj
Getting my first film after my first audition and making it as an actor
The first thing you did on your first day on set. Check out the make-up van, which was to be my house for the next 90 days in Lucknow. You’re hardly seen clean shaven. How come? If I do come clean shaven you won’t recognise me. Most of my roles require a stubble, it’s an occupational hazard, which, by the way, I love. Which part of your body would you insure? My eyes. Three reasons a woman should date you. Just one reason: I’ll do whatever the woman would want me to do. You’re most careless about. My wallet. One lie you often get away with. “I’m stuck in traffic!” Share a secret with us. I once had a phobia of ceiling fans. Each time I’d stretch my hand towards the moving fan, I’d fear losing my fingers. Your favourite way to unwind. I watch a movie or a TV show. Right now, I’m enjoying Season Two of House of Cards. A piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were 14. To get up and play a sport instead of just watching it. So what do you play now? I manage to play cricket and kabaddi, but wish I’d learnt how to play football. I’m a die-hard Chelsea fan and have been tracking the game for more than a decade. A Bollywood actor you are dying to work with. Anil Kapoor.
YOUR FIRST CRUSH
Kareena Kapoor JULY 20, 2014
Mumbai
Arya Vidya Mandir, Chembur
LOW POINT OF CURRENTLY I AM... YOUR LIFE The brand ambassador Losing my mother
for Philips Personal Care
my movies
FIRST MOVIE I SAW ON THE BIG SCREEN
Ram Lakhan (1989) MOST OVERRATED FILM
Chef (2014) FILM I’VE WATCHED MOST NUMBER OF TIMES
Mr India (1987)
FILM I WISH I ACTED IN
Barfi! (2012), Agneepath (1990)
BOLLYWOOD FILMS I RECOMMEND TO EVERY FOREIGNER
Mr India, Company (2002), Lagaan (2001), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) and 2 States (2014)
A gadget you unfailingly carry with you at all your shoots. My phone. One place you feel most at home, apart from your home. A film set. One Hollywood actress you’d love to work with. Mila Kunis. You never leave the gym without... My clothes and turning off the lights! If you were to direct a film, who’d you cast? It would be fun directing Ranveer. The female lead would depend on the plot. One person, dead or alive that you’ve always wanted to meet. José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager. One disadvantage of being Arjun Kapoor. I’m constantly on a diet. The last line of your autobiography would read... I don’t think I’d have the patience to reach the last chapter of my autobiography if I was writing it. — Interviewed by Pooja Biraia Photo: PRODIP GUHA
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