Hindustantimes Brunch 20 November 2011

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 20, 2011 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

What makes KBC work?

A: You play along with the contestants

B: Turns nobodies into crorepatis

C: Amitabh Bachchan is a class act

D: Real drama, real stories, real tears

2 0 . 1 1 . 1 1

I N

After 11 years and four seasons, Kaun Banega Crorepati successfully reinvented itself as a show that could transform the lives of invisible, often impoverished Indians from the hinterland

EAT

Going Nowhere

Because international food guides don’t have an understanding of Indian cuisine, our chefs don’t get the global recognition they deserve PLAY

10 Tech Upgrades That Will Change Your Life - II

The pending five; plus a few bonus points thrown in

Sometimes, it’s best to crank the volume knob all the way to the right WELLNESS

Hair Now, Gone Tomorrow

Bald patches on your scalp? Take action before it’s too late!

Part Two – Augustin Hunarmand The Jeweller of Agra

BRUNCH ON THE WEB

@nimishdubey Superb article on eveteasing in context of the Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez death by @seemagoswami

The crorepati gets comfortable

If you too, like us, can’t wait for the magic of music from the Thar and the Sahara, then log on to our website to see videos of the artists performing live. And don’t forget to book your seats for the Amarrass Desert Festival (November 26-27 in Siri Fort, Delhi), at www.amarrass.com.

Or call 011-46661200. Tickets at Fab India outlets

E X C L U S IV E P

IC T U R E S !

As we answer the five crore question, there’s one we have for you! What does the steely Sushil Kumar do at home? Go through our exclusive photoshoot with the latest crorepati in his hometown Motihari (Champaran) to get all the answers about him and his rooted lifestyle!

Write to brunchletters@hindustantimes.com For marketing and ad-related queries, contact Suresh Tripathi 09818899646

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hindustantimes.com/brunch Do you have the blues?

@konkonas Looking forward to next week's #Brunch’s Tales of the First Firangis. Great read

@satnams8 Well done on ADD cover story. Though did not see much ways of resolution of this problem.

The actor reveals all about peeping into Jim Morrison’s home, turning gay and being called Ramphal!

All New Questions!

Next Week: The story of Thomas Stevens, the Marathi Poet of Goa

twitter.com/HTBrunch

@Mittermaniac ‘Tales of the First Firangis’ - HT Brunch’s five-part series starting today has already hooked me. Ajmer down. Waiting for the next four!

Arjun Rampal

A Frenchman in Agra designed Emperor Jahangir’s favourite throne and military machines, lived a luxe life and revelled in gifts from the emperor

Calling All Tweeple

@lourdes130583 @virsanghvi tried the bread pudding recipe in HT Brunch and it was just awesome! Thanks Vir for sharing the recipe.

PERSONAL AGENDA

\PHOTO: ANKUR MALHOTRA

Anami Saggar Brunch is another internet for me. It provides knowledge about different fields and make us awares about different things.

But if an ‘advisory’ is the answer, then here’s my very own

Livin’ Loud

Unni Krishnan I am a big fan of Brunch magazine . Aftr reading th cover story “Wot wz tht again”, me too startd the descipline of startchange-stop. Finished reading Brunch in one sitting.

Sagar Ahire Awesome cover story; everybody should be forced to read this in one shot!

The Medium Is The Mess

LISTEN

Madhu Nair Last week’s article Dessert Island was an eye-opener.

Though India is known for its variety of food, it’s amazing how the world tends to ignore us. Wake-up call for Indian chefs.

Sarah Khan Today’s Brunch was awesome. The article by Amrah Ashraf was very very good. A feather in Brunch’s cap.

LIVE

Special 5 Part Series: Tales of The First Firangis

facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch

I S S U E

INDULGE

What Makes KBC Work?

We’re Logged On

T H I S

NEW VIDEOS

Brunch done well

WHAT A perfect Brunch today! It totally interrupted my checking Facebook for the 10th time that minute to see if my latest status was receiving due attention! The cover story, What Was That Again? (13 November) was an amazing read, voicing the main concern of school, college and office-goers alike. We just don’t have time to do anything right. Seema Goswami too, hit the nail right on the head with her brilliant piece; creepy stalkers will always be creepy stalkers in the real world. Only in the movies can someone like that be referred to as the ‘hero’. And ALSO! Finally Brunch Personal Agenda has different questions with Palash Sen cheekily answering each in his unique style! No more knowing if the celebrity would prefer a horse, skateboard, or a bicycle if stuck in a traffic jam! I think I used too many exclamation marks, but anyway!

Great job!

— DEEPALI AGARWAL, Delhi

Four to go

THIS REFERS to the story of Thomas Coryate by Prof Jonathan Gil Harris (Tales Of The First Firangis, 13 November). The story was facinating and I also liked the way Prof Harris identified himself with Coryate. It was really nice.

There were many firangis in Calcutta during the British Raj and there’s even a Kali temple named the Firangi Kali Bari. I would like to convey my greetings to Prof Harris for his wonderful writing which takes us back to the 16th century and the Mughal era. I look forward to the other four stories.

— BABLU RAY, Kolkata

New agenda

PALASH SEN’S replies were crisp and interesting (Personal Agenda, 13 November). Good you’ve brought in a new set of surprisingly good questions. The old ones had become so boring and stale.

— RAVINDER SINGH, via email

OOPS!

Have you seen our Brunch Quarterly photoshoot with Vidya Balan yet? Log on for this and an all-access pass to your favourite stories from this and previous Brunch Quarterly issues.

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Kushalrani Gulab (Deputy Editor); Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Tewari, Pranav Dixit, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf

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In The Fakir of Ajmer, Moinuddin Chishti – the Sufi saint whose dargah is in Ajmer – needs to be distinguished from Salim Chishti, the Sufi saint who prophesied a son for Akbar. Salim Chishti was a descendant of Moinuddin Chishti; Akbar was a devotee of both.

DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor Design), Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Singh, Saket Misra, Suhas Kale, Shailendra Mirgal

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

Cover design: Ashutosh Sapru

THE JEWELLER OF AGRA

A Frenchman in Agra designed Emperor Jahangir’s favourite throne and also worked as a martial engineer.

He lived a luxe life and revelled in gifts from the emperor text and photos by Jonathan Gil Harris

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HAT MOST arrested my gaze at the Taj Mahal was not anything physically substantial: rather, it was an absence, a door surrounded by jali work through which I could see only darkness.

For me, that absence hinted at something that has receded from historical visibility: the elusive identity of the firangi, the foreigner-turned-Indian, in whom the distinction between West and East was not as absolute as it is today.

The Agra of the twenty-first century is a dirty, provincial city of twisting alleyways, crumbling buildings, and excrement. Its former glory as capital of the Mughal Empire is still visible, however, in its many beautiful ruins and monuments – the Taj Mahal, of course, but also the sprawling red Agra Fort, Akbar’s sublime tomb in Sikandra, and his extraordinary abandoned city in Fatehpur Sikri.

For the thousands of Western tourists who flock to Agra every year, these sites might promise a

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A SPECIAL FIVE PART SERIES: Part Two – Augustin Hunarmand

RED REMINDER Agra’s former glory as capital of the Mughal Empire is still visible in its many beautiful ruins and monuments like the Agra Fort

thrilling encounter with the remains of an Oriental culture from which they are distant not just in space, but also in time. Yet the divide between Westerner and Indian in Agra has not always been so clear, as the story of Augustin Hiriart shows.

Four hundred years ago, Agra was considerably more culturally diverse than it is now. The Emperor’s Omrah, or nobles, comprised not just Mughals, but also Persians and Turks. And from the time of Akbar, Agra also hosted a large firangi community. Akbar invited Portuguese Jesuits into the city, where they built a large church. And they were accompanied by traders, poor labourers, and soldiers of fortune from all over Europe.

When the merchant William Finch visited Agra in 1611, he was greeted by an English mercenary, three French soldiers, a Dutch engineer, and a Venetian merchant.

The Mughals were keen to take advantage of the military and artisanal knowledge of their firangi guests. They employed Europeans as artillerymen in their armies. But they particularly valued European jewellers. The only firangi Jahangir mentions by name in his memoirs is a “European” jeweller who designed his favourite throne – a gold and silver seat ornamented with precious stones and supported by sculpted tigers. Jahangir gave the jeweller the name “Hunarmand”, Persian for “skillful.” Which is to say, this European was a firangi in the special sense I am trying to recover here: he was a foreigner who had become Indian,

TRACING THE PAST The grave of John Mildenhall (Augustin Hunarmand’s travelling companion)

adopting not only an Indian name but also Indian practices – in this case, artisanal skill in designing and manufacturing the throne according to Mughal tastes. Jahangir demonstrated his gratitude to Hunarmand with numerous gifts designed to ease the jeweller’s cross-cultural transition. He

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

PAST PERFECT Once, behind the jali work on the back door to the mausoleum in the Taj Mahal, were elaborate silver doors, possibly designed by Hunarmand. He may have also designed part or all of Shah Jahan’s Peacock Throne (right)

says he rewarded Hunarmand with 3,000 darb (1,500 rupees – a huge sum at the time), a horse and an elephant. We now know from a letter written and signed on the 20th of July, 1620, by one “Augustin Houaremand,” that this Hunarmand was the French-Basque jeweller and engineer Augustin Hiriart.

Hiriart was born in Bordeaux, a city in southwest France, in about 1585. The details of his life prior to his arrival in India are scarce. One of the four surviving letters he sent from India to Europe indicates he lived in England for some years before deciding to travel east in approximately 1610. Hiriart journeyed through Persia with John Mildenhall, an English merchant who had visited India previously and had two children with an Indian woman. But Mildenhall fell mortally sick when he and Hiriart reached Lahore in 1613. The Englishman bequeathed the Frenchman his property on condition that Hiriart marry his half-Indian daughter, then aged ten. We don’t know if Hiriart honoured Mildenhall’s request after his death. He claims to have married the daughter of a Hindu woman who had performed sati at her husband’s funeral. Hiriart had two children with her, though one died young.

After he came to Jahangir’s attention, Hiriart/Hunarmand served in the Mughal court until the 1630s, reaping many rewards, including (by his own testimony) “a house valued at eight thousand livres” that was probably as grand as the Omrah mansions that overlooked the Yamuna river. Unlike most firangis in Agra at this time, then, Hunarmand lived a life of luxury. He boasted that he wore a hat with a “likeness in gold” of Jahangir, and that the emperor had gifted him tigers, leopards, and rhinoceroses. Not uncoincidentally, Hunarmand also became an early exponent of the Indian tradition of re-gifting: in one of his letters, he speaks of trying to fob off some of these feral “presents” onto an English ambassador, who unsurprisingly wasn’t keen to take them.

His diet would also have consisted of the finest

khana that Mughal cuisine could offer. It was partly to taste such khana that I decided to stay in the Oberoi Amarvilas luxury hotel near the Taj Mahal. Not only is the hotel distinguished by terraced lawns, fountains, reflecting pools and pavilions that recall the pleasure houses of the Omrah; its restaurant, Esphahan, also offers Mughlai dishes that descend directly from the great culinary innovations of the seventeenth century.

Hunarmand may well have savoured something like the Esphahan’s unspeakably tasty hariyali kebabs stuffed with apricots. Such a delicacy would have reminded Hunarmand, perhaps, of the gastronomic as much as geographical distance he had travelled from the city of his birth.

Jahangir employed Hunarmand not just as a jeweller but also as a martial engineer. He boasts in a letter to a French friend that he “got a great reputation for the military machines which I have made and which do for this country.” This reputation served him well after Jahangir’s death in 1627.

When Shah Jahan succeeded to the throne, Hunarmand remained on the Mughal payroll, despite the new emperor’s animosity to Christians.

He may well have designed part or all of Shah Jahan’s legendary Peacock Throne, or Takht-e

Tâvus, which is supposed to have included the Koh-i-Noor diamond. In a letter he wrote on the 9th of March, 1632, Hunarmand says that he had just two years “making plans for a new throne … the King had required that two hundred times a thousand livres should be spent on this throne in gold, diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds.”

More fanciful is the speculation that Hunarmand was the chief architect of the Taj Mahal, a baseless claim that one still finds routinely repeated on many Indian websites. The canard was probably born of a condescending European conviction that such a beautiful building couldn’t have been designed by a non-Westerner.

Nevertheless, Hunarmand may have been commissioned to design the mausoleum’s original silver doors. Apparently he received a commission to do similar metalwork in the Agra Fort, though he never completed it. In any case, Hunarmand’s career illustrates how what we think of as Mughal art, architecture and culture was, at least in this instance, shaped also by firangi hands.

I journeyed to Agra hoping to find material traces of Hunarmand’s life and handiwork during his two decades in Agra. Like the end of a rainbow, however, these traces always eluded me. The closest I got was in the Agra Catholic Cemetery, just behind the Bhagwan Talkies cinema near National Highway 2. There I found the grave of John Mildenhall, Hunarmand’s travelling companion. A nineteenth-century visitor claims to have found in the same cemetery a tombstone bearing the inscription of one “Jane Hiriart” – Hunarmand’s daughter, perhaps? – but it no longer exists. Indeed, everywhere I went in Agra, Hiriart/Hunarmand is conspicuous only as an absent presence. In Agra Fort, the stunning Diwan-i-Am – where the Peacock Throne and its predecessor would have sat – looked naked, begging me to fill it in my mind’s eye with Hunarmand’s lost handiwork. My visit to the Taj Mahal summed it all up: at the back door to the mausoleum, where there is now only darkness visible through the jali work where once there were elaborate silver doors possibly designed by Hunarmand, I encountered a sign saying pravesh nishedh: “No Entry.”

Hunarmand’s time in Agra is a cluster of black holes that seem to forbid access. Yet these black holes all hint at the unique, forgotten status of the seventeenth-century firangi, in whom difference between Westerner and Indian was not always clearly visible. The precise details of Hunarmand’s death are unknown; but rumour has it he was poisoned in Cochin while negotiating a settlement between the Mughals and the Portuguese – a mission that suggests he saw himself as belonging to both sides. And although we don’t know what happened to his surviving child, the French-born Augustin Hiriart may well have Indian descendants still living in Agra. Perhaps Hunarmand the Skilful’s greatest skill is that he can teach us anew how Mughal and Indian history is also firangi history. Agra in 2011 may be a venue for staging the absolute difference between Indian local and Western visitor. But in Hiriart/Hunarmand, the twain most certainly did meet.

Next week: Thomas Stevens, the Marathi Poet of Goa. Jonathan Gil Harris is Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, DC. The author of five books on William Shakespeare’s plays and culture, he is currently spending a year in India researching a new book about European travellers to India in the time of Shakespeare

HUNARMAND LIVED A LIFE OF LUXURY. HE BOASTED THAT HE WORE A HAT WITH A “LIKENESS IN GOLD” OF JAHANGIR

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

brunchletters@hindustantimes.com

COVER STORY

5

The

crore question

What makes

KBC work?

After 11 years and four seasons, Kaun Banega Crorepati successfully reinvented itself as a show that could transform the lives of invisible, often impoverished Indians from the hinterland

by Poonam Saxena

T

wenty-seven million viewers tuned in to watch Motihari’s Sushil Kumar win five crore on Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) earlier this month. The ratings for that episode were so stratospheric, the executives at Sony (the channel on which the show is aired) almost had a seizure. Laughs Sneha Rajani, senior executive vice president and business head, Sony, “My heart popped out!”

The moment was eerily reminiscent of 3 July 2000, when KBC first hit Indian TV screens. A struggling Star Plus, lagging behind Zee and Sony, had gambled on getting Amitabh Bachchan to host the desi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, a hit British TV quiz show which had been recreated in over 20 countries. There was no dearth of sceptics. Wasn’t Bachchan a

TIMELINE

The journey from 3 July 2000 to 17 November 2011

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has-been superstar, whose career was set for a slow fade-out? Wasn’t it suicidal for him to stoop to television? Recalls Sameer Nair, then Star’s senior vice president (programming), “I remember some junior people in Star suggesting Govinda’s name instead! People scoffed at us, saying who puts a quiz show on prime time?"

In the end, it was Amitabh and Star who laughed all the way to the bank. KBC became a monster hit and changed Indian television forever. Star Plus shot up to No. 1, a position it still holds on to with grim determination. Not only was Bachchan’s career resurrected, he legitimised TV for movie stars. KBC became India’s first official adaptation of a big international reality show, opening the floodgates for acquisitions of American and British reality show formats by

SEASON 1 - From 3 July 2000 to 31 December 2001. The show played Mondays to Thursdays, with Amitabh Bachchan as host, took the nation by storm.

Included Junior KBC

SEASON 2 - Began on 5 August 2005, taken off air in January 2006, because Bachchan fell ill. KBC Dwitiya, as it was called, was a weekend show. Prize money raised to two crore

Indian channels. And, in a post-liberalised India, it made the word ‘money’ a ‘not-dirty,’ even desirable word, despite critics who insisted the show had spawned a culture of greed.

But in an astonishing feat, even after 11 years and four seasons, KBC has smashed TV ratings records once again and emerged as the top show this year. Isn’t there such a thing as fatigue?

Ironically, that’s what Star Plus had thought when it declined to renew the rights to the show after hosting three seasons of KBC (the last one with Shah Rukh Khan in 2007). Explains Nair, “From the Star point of view, it was like people would say, ‘Really? Is that the best you can come up with? What’s new?’”

Star stepped back, Sony moved in. Says Rajani, “We never thought the show had reached its sell-

SEASON 3 - Shah Rukh Khan took over as host in January 2007. He did 52 episodes over 13 weeks, Mondays to Thursdays. Though SRK did his best, it wasn’t good enough

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

SEASON 4 - The show moved from Star Plus to Sony and Bachchan was back as the host. Started on 11 October 2010, ended on 9 December. A total of 36 episodes, and a five crore jackpot

SEASON 5 - Started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. A total of 56 episodes went on air, Mondays to Thursdays.

The season was a stunning success

Q&A: AMITABH BACHCHAN “THE STORIES WERE SO POWERFUL, HEART-RENDING” The host for four out of five seasons of KBC, Bachchan is almost synonymous with the show, which has just finished its fifth season.

What’s the journey been like, from 2000 till now?

Initially of course it was all about moving to TV from films. It was considered taboo back then – moving from 75 mm to a 25-inch screen, reducing the size of your face and figure. But I found the concept novel and different. There was a lot of apprehension. But when the show opened, and the first reactions started coming in, it was clear that the show had taken everyone by storm. We did 320 episodes at a stretch, that’s a lot for a game show! TV is hugely exhausting because most of it is impromptu. It's tougher than film. And then we did KBC Dwitiya.

What happened then?

Well, I fell ill. Then Shah Rukh Khan took over the show. After him, Star forgot all about the property.

Sony took KBC and approached me. I was sceptical. The show had been played out, weren’t people bored of it? I checked with some other channels and they all had the same thing to say. But eventually I decided to do it.

ants from places whose names we were hearing for the first time. Their stories, their lives… to see their condition, hear about it, it was heart-rending.

The other day, we had this woman from Madhya Pradesh who earns R3,000 - R4,000 a month.

She eventually won R25 lakhs but she broke down after she’d won R20,000 itself. She said she’d never seen so much money. There were such powerful stories. And you know, despite everything, their morals and beliefs are intact.

Will you be doing KBC next year too?

Yes, I am contracted for one more season.

Though Shah Rukh did KBC for one season, you are the one most closely identified with the show.

Do you feel a sense of ownership of KBC? No, nothing like that. I’m just contracted to do a show and I do it.

Most of the contestants are so overwhelmed when they meet you. Do you feel embarrassed?

It becomes most embarrassing. But look at it from their point of view. It was like me coming to Mumbai for the first time and seeing my idol Dilip Kumar. Many of them had never been to a big city.

In this season, the show was all about the contestants…

Some people feel the crorepati episode was orchestrated because the season was ending.

Our tagline was, Koi bhi insaan chhota nahin hota.

That was the spirit of the show. We had contest-

This is so disrespectful to our countrymen, their knowledge and their sincerity.

by date. We always knew it would be a success, but that it would be such a roaring success…”

There is a reason for that “roaring” success. In this, its fifth season, KBC has become a platform on which Indians left out of the Indian dream can transform their lives and realise their aspirations – substantially if not fully.

The show has always been about the contestants, the prize money and the host, not necessarily in that order. “But now, the interplay between Amitabh and the contestants and the types of contestants – that took the game to another level,” says Rajani.

Here’s how that happened. After Sony received responses from aspiring contestants, it made a final selection via a complicated procedure which ensured that the contestants’ pool was like a microcosm of India. Geography, demography, education, occupation – and the ability to answer quiz questions correctly – all this was taken into consideration. Says Danish Khan, senior vice president and marketing head, Sony, “If we hadn’t gone through this exercise, it would never have been a pan-Indian game. The entire matrix we created was to ensure that we got an all-India representation on the hot seat.”

Adds KBC producer Siddhartha Basu, “It was very much a programming decision to reach out to contestants from further afield, from the interiors, to have video windows on each one of them, their lives and milieus, their hopes and disappointments... Because we wanted the viewer to relate more deeply with the person on the hot seat in this life-changing game. Koi bhi insaan chhota nahin hota, the tagline of the show this year, proved to be

HARSHVARDAHAN NAVATHE

a game changer.”

That’s also because much of the viewership of the show came from these very ‘interiors.’ In 2000, there were 25 million cable homes. Today, there are 110 million, and this massive expansion has swept small towns deep in the hinterland in its embrace.

Watching KBC was always something of a vicarious pleasure – imagining yourself in the hot seat and answering the questions, to know how you would have fared if you’d been there.

But when this new aspirational audience watches contestants from its own world win lakhs of rupees (at the very least) on the show, there is a special edge to the normal viewing pleasure. Many of the contestants have been dedicated viewers themselves.

And contrary to conventional wisdom, the show is not just a lottery. Getting to the show may be a game of chance but contestants who got to the hot seat did their best to leave nothing to chance. Anil Kumar Sinha, a Kolkata-based bank officer who won a crore this season, has been trying to get on the show from way back in 2000. “I never stopped trying,” he says. “And I was never disheartened because I knew that so many millions of people were trying along with me.” It was the same with this season’s five crore winner, Sushil Kumar. And with Yusuf Mallu from Banswara in Rajasthan who didn’t stop trying even when he met with an accident in 2007 and was paralysed neck downwards.

And since KBC is, as Danish Khan says, a skillbased test, for many of the contestants, it was akin to preparing for a competitive exam. All of them,

“THAT WAS ONE DAY OF MY LIFE, NOT MY LIFE” In 2000, Harshvardhan Navathe, from Ghatkopar, Mumbai, became the first person to win a crore on KBC. In the aftermath of Sushil Kumar’s win, Navathe relives those 11year-old ecstatic moments.

Did the Sushil Kumar episode bring back memories?

Yes, it was quite nostalgic. All that confetti falling on him. The energy one feels… His reaction was a little different from mine. I was more in control. I didn’t react that much. I just raised my arms in the victory posture. Sushil Kumar showed his emotions and his happiness.

What did you do with the one crore you won?

I paid my taxes. I made some investments. I bought a car and a house. I went to Napier University in Edinburgh and did an MBA. Today I am heading a social business – we are the largest community water provider in India.

It didn’t turn your head, winning one crore?

I was 27 years old. Suddenly I was attending all these parties. I was thrown into another world. But I remained grounded. I realised that that was just one day of my life, not my life. I enjoyed it while it lasted, but I knew one day it was going to end. I was not going to sit around waiting for the phone to ring, for someone to invite me to a party or request me for an interview. I couldn’t make a profession out of winning quiz shows.

Are you still recognised?

It’s 11 years now. It’s not the same. I have changed too – I have put on weight. Often people recognise me but can’t place me. They ask me if I’m a newsreader or if I play cricket.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

11

COVER STORY

PHOTOS: AP DUBE

SUSHIL KUMAR, MOTIHARI HERO

RENAISSANCE MAN Sushil Kumar at his Motihari home (this picture) and with his parents (below left)

“I HAVE TASTED YEARS OF FAILURE AND HUMILIATION” ant to get in touch with the winner of the R5 crore prize in this season’s Kaun Banega Crorepati? It’s simple. Just address your letter to ‘Sushil Kumar (KBC winner), Motihari’ and it will be delivered to his door.

Just a couple of weeks ago, few residents of Motihari had even heard of the neighbourhood where Sushil Kumar, the 27-year-old son of a retired R70-a-day farm labourer from Gandhiji’s Champaran, lives. Now anyone will be able to guide you to him should you want to visit.

“You could almost call him a renaissance man for small town youth,” says Irfan Ahmad, Sushil’s longtime friend. “Young people with high aspirations but limited resources think he has all the answers.”

Sushil knows that fame is fickle. Even as he smiles when people who only a month ago wouldn’t give his family the time of day arrive to congratulate him – “Nothing can be more gratifying

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for someone who has tasted years of failure and humiliation,” he says – he admits that he’d be happy to return to a life of anonymity and his first love, reading.

Sushil has fame in plenty now, but the fortune has yet to arrive. Though viewers watched KBC’s host Amitabh Bachchan hand over a cheque for R5 crore to Sushil on November 2, the actual cheque for R3.5 crore (after taxes) had not yet reached him by November 12, the day Brunch spoke to Sushil. The R6,000-a-month computer operator with the MNREGA (the rural development ministry’s job guarantee scheme), is looking forward to the arrival of his prize money.

“The delay is because I do not have a PAN card and am in the process of getting one made,” explains Sushil. So all their plans for using the money are also held up. “All that’s on my mind at present is to get our ancestral house released from mortgage, build a new one large enough for the entire family and start a business in which Sushil’s brothers can be gainfully engaged,” says Amarnath Prasad, Sushil’s father.

“I also want to build a library and help children who have talent and dreams but little resources to pursue them,” adds Sushil. “The remaining money will be banked to generate a steady income of interest.”

At this time however, the family’s debt is actually deeper. “We were already paying interest of R25,000 a month on our borrowings. Now we have been burdened with increased expenditure because we travelled with Sushil to Mumbai by air, took taxis to Patna and are now entertaining an endless stream of guests,” says Anil Kumar, Sushil’s elder brother, an LIC agent.

Fortunately, after Sushil’s win, people are more

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE

than willing to lend the family the cash they require immediately. “Success in borrowing has nothing to do with need,” says Sushil wryly. “It’s all about perceptions of your financial solvency to repay the debt.”

Sushil is acutely aware that his family members have unspoken expectations from his winnings. His father, for instance, credits the family with allowing him space to study by freeing him from contributing funds to the common kitty. “He could not have succeeded without this support,” insists Amarnath. Sushil’s father-in-law claims some credit for his win as well. “I was among the first to spot talent in Sushil. That’s why I gave him my daughter’s hand in marriage. She has brought him luck,” says Krishna Patel, father of Sushil’s wife Seema, at his pakora shop in Meena Bazar, Motihari.

Sushil’s champion turn has also brought about a spurt in attendance at general knowledge ‘discussion groups’ among competition-oriented Motihari students. “From 2003 to 2007, I was part of such a group called Jai Hind,” says Sushil.

It was this experience that gave him the strength of mind to get through KBC, especially the final question. If he’d been wrong, he’d have slipped down the ladder to R1.6 lakhs. But he kept his head and answered correctly. And almost blew up the R20-crore KBC set! “I poured a bottle of water over my head in joy when I won, and the people at the channel later told me I’d almost caused a short circuit that would have destroyed the set!” he laughs. Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened, and Sushil will soon prepare to follow his dream to become an IAS officer. “I think it can be done,” he says with quiet resolve.

-- Rai Atul Krishna in Motihari

NOVEMBER 20, 2011

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

like Anil Kumar Sinha, “did something for their general knowledge every day.” Reading newspapers and magazines, brushing up on GK – it was not something they would do for a few days once they got selected for KBC. It was something they did every day, week after week, year after year, so that when – and if – the big day came, they would be prepared.

The other thread that links almost all the contestants is the emphasis on education. Each one of them, points out Danish Khan, “has invested in education.” Sushil Kumar doesn’t credit luck for his success. He credits education. “Education paves the way for knowledge. It also makes you aware of your surroundings,” he explains. It is this quest for knowledge that made him a post-graduate in clinical psychology though not one of his four brothers could go beyond even the matriculation stage.

For Sushil Kumar and the other contestants, getting on to KBC was not just about participating in a quiz. It was going to be one of the, if not the highest point of their lives. Says Anil Kumar Sinha simply, “I wanted to prove myself.” For many, it was a dream to be on a show they had followed for over a decade. And for all of them, down to the last man / woman, it was an opportunity to meet Bachchan.

No wonder Sneha Rajani says that when Sony took over the property, they had decided that if Bachchan declined, they were not interested. “The show belongs to him,” she declares. “With due respect to other superstars, this is his show.”

But in the end, as Basu says, it was the contestants, drawn from “the base of the social pyramid,” that lit up the screen in this season of KBC. poonamsaxena@hindustantimes.com

Q&A: RAHAT TASLIM

“I ALWAYS WANTED A NICE LIFESTYLE FOR MY KIDS” Rahat Taslim, from Jharkhand, is the only woman crorepati on KBC. The toast of last year’s season 4, Rahat’s story is nothing less than a movie script.

How did you end up participating in KBC? I always wanted to participate in KBC. But the ma-

haul in my sasural was not conducive to doing so.

KBC is a general knowledge programme and my GK was always good. My husband was working in Kerala, I used to teach girls stitching at home. I always wanted to go out and work but was never allowed to do so. But I was determined to try for KBC. I went ahead despite opposition at home.

How did you feel when you won a crore?

It was like a sapna. I didn’t even have a bank account. Meri zindagi badal gayi. I always wanted a good lifestyle. I renovated my house, made a nice kitchen. I got new furniture. I want to do so much for my children. I am spending money on my daughter’s education, she wants to become an engineer. I’m also saving up for her wedding. My son is not so good in his studies, so I want to start a business he can do with his father.

Is your family happy now?

Nahin, aaj bhi nakhush hain.

indulge live The Medium Is The Mess

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spectator

Seema Goswami

THE SMART MOVE Avoid mainstream news outlets and rely on social media to get your message across

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

But if an ‘advisory’ is the answer, then here’s my very own...

S

O, THE press is everyone’s favourite whipping boy these days; or should I say the media, given that TV channels get as much – if not more – flak than newspapers. Journalists are accused of everything from venality and corruption to plain stupidity. We are told that we are neither well-educated nor well-read; that our priorities are all wrong; that we can’t tell the wood from the trees.

And that given a choice we would rather focus on cricket and Shah Rukh Khan than on farmers’ suicides or the maternal mortality rate.

To be fair – and despite being part of that much-maligned breed, a journalist, I do try to be fair – there is certainly something to this criticism. Yes, we do tend to go overboard when India wins the cricket World Cup. We attain a near-hysterical pitch when Saif Ali Khan starts dating Kareena Kapoor. We have turned the phrase ‘Breaking News’ into a running gag on television by splashing it randomly across the board to any news items that comes through on the wire services. And we have made the term ‘Exclusive’ meaningless by applying it to interviews granted to every media outlet.

So, yes, the media have a lot to answer for. But I don’t think that the answer lies in issuing risible ‘advisories’ on how the media should – and should not – cover the birth of Baby B, the firstborn child of Abhishek and Aishwarya (helpful pointers included: don’t position OB vans outside the hospital; don’t run astrology shows about the date of the baby’s birth; don’t run ‘Breaking News’ tags on the item; don’t reveal the sex of the baby – okay, I made the last one up, but just barely). Quite apart from the fact that this was hardly a seminal event in the history of the nation which warranted an ‘advisory’ (how about one on the Manipur blockade, guys, or even the children’s deaths from encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh?), it was also singularly pointless because there wasn’t a hope in hell that the habitual offenders would pay the slightest attention to it.

But inspired by this example and in keeping with the same spirit, I thought I would issue an ‘advisory’ of my own: a list of dos and don’ts for when you are dealing with the media.

NOT BREAKING NEWS The Baby B birth advisory is pointless as some media outlets will definitely ignore it

compunctions giving lovey-dovey joint interviews with your girlfriend when you were in the first throes of love, then don’t throw a hissy fit if the media go mad with speculative stories when you split up or when you are caught cheating on her. You made that bed; now they will report who lies in it.

2) If you don’t like the way a particular television channel conducts its prime-time news debates, then don’t agree to appear on it. It’s really not that hard to do. When the guest coorPHOTOS: REUTERS dinator calls to ask if you are free to appear on such-and-such show, take a deep breath, say a polite thank you for the invitation, and say no. Keep saying no every time they call. In a couple of weeks, the invitations will dry up of their own accord. And you can spend the evenings at home, sipping your whiskey/wine and relaxing on that wellworn couch. It beats the hell out of the alternative: driving miles out to some god-forsaken studio, shouting to be heard over the five other people on the panel, being lectured to by some self-righteous anchor, losing your temper or worse still, losing it on national television, and threatening to walk out. And then making an absolute fool of yourself by turning up on the show the very next night, to be slapped around all over again.

Honestly, why subject yourself to this daily humiliation? Do yourself a favour.

Stay at home. And if you must get your blood pressure elevated, do so in the privacy of your own drawing room, while shouting invective at the TV screen. I do it every evening. And believe me, it works like a charm.

THE MEDIA TENDS TO ATTAIN

A NEAR-HYSTERICAL PITCH WHEN SAIF ALI KHAN STARTS DATING KAREENA KAPOOR

1) Don’t open the door to any place you don’t want the media to go. Because once you allow entry there is no getting rid of them.

So, if you agree to dish the dirt on your love life, your marriage or your divorce while you are promoting a book/movie/music album, then consider yourself warned. From then on, it will be open season on you.

And you won’t really be in a position to object, given that you opened the door to that line of questioning in the first place. So, if you had no

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3) Let’s assume that you have no choice but to engage with the media despite all your reservations about it. Stick to the policy perfected by American politicians over the decades. Decide before you go on what message you want to get across to the watching masses. And then stick to that message no matter what the anchor or reporter asks.

Remember, it’s not the questions that will stay with the viewers; it’s your answers that will stick.

Or better still, avoid mainstream news outlets altogether and rely on social media to get your message across. Given how obsessed mainstream media is with Twitter and the like, you’ll get the same amount of coverage anyway – and without having to go through the middleman, as it were.

And thus ends my own little ‘advisory’. (Follow at your own peril.) seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

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rude food

Vir Sanghvi

ATLAS SHRUGGED Not one of the top ten Asian restaurants listed in the fourth edition of the Miele Guide serves real Asian food

Going Nowhere

Because international food guides have no understanding of Indian cuisine, our chefs don’t get the global recognition they deserve

F

OOD GUIDES are a complicated business. As far as the world’s chefs are concerned, there is only one that matters: Michelin. Ever since the guide to France, published by the eponymous tyre company, first started handing out stars to restaurants, its rankings have had a disproportionate effect on the food scene.

Michelin operated on the principle that merely to be included in the guide was an honour. Very good restaurants were given one star. Excellent restaurants got two stars. And the world’s finest restaurants got three. (Three stars is the highest ranking.)

The Michelin Guide was founded and edited by Andre Michelin in 1900. Michelin (along with his brother Edouard) had founded the tyre company in 1888 and the guide was his way of helping motorists find their way around France. In the early guides, restaurants were merely listed.

Though the first stars were awarded in 1926, the guide did not bother with much prose or description till the end of the 20th century. But the stars alone were enough. Chefs began to long for Michelin ratings for their restaurants and such was the Guide’s influence on chefs that the confusion over who got the stars – the chef or the restaurant – began.

Michelin was clear. It did not rate the chef. It gave the stars to the restaurants. Thus, Maxim’s, the famous Paris restaurant showed off its stars in the early part of the 20th century even though the chef remained a lesser-known figure toiling away in the kitchen.

But because restaurants became so closely identified with their chefs, it became harder and harder to say who had got the stars:

the restaurant or the chef himself. When a famous chef left a restaurant, Michelin often took its stars away. And when great chefs moved to new restaurants, Michelin had a way of ensuring that their stars travelled with them.

Today it is common to speak of ‘Michelin-starred chefs’ though in theory, the stars continue to be given to the restaurants, not the men who cook in them.

As the fame of French food spread, Michelin launched guides to other European countries, finally arriving in England in the 1970s.

In French-influenced nations, the guide was well received. At other places, the reaction was mixed. For instance, British food writers often claim that Michelin’s London guide makes too much of fancy French food and that the Michelin inspectors do not understand other cuisines. (They certainly know damn-all about Indian food – the London guide shows that Michelin’s UK operation is lost when it moves away from European food.)

In 2005, the Guide spread beyond Europe and launched a New York edition – only to find that nobody cared. New Yorkers trust the New York Times (where a single review can make or break a restaurant) and many have affection for Zagat (which is based on feedback from ordinary diners). But nobody cares too much about Michelin. Though the Guide loyally gave three stars to the French chef Alain Ducasse when he opened in New York at the Essex House hotel, this cut no ice with diners and Ducasse’s restaurant closed down. (Ducasse has since opened a new restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel.) Similarly, two Michelin stars did not help Gordon Ramsay’s New York restaurant especially after

ARE ALL OUR

CHEFS USELESS COMPARED TO A BUNCH OF WHITE EXPATS IN ASIA?

GET REAL In Hong Kong, Michelin respects Lei Bistro’s local food (above), but Miele likes the European Bo Innovation (left)

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

PHOTOS: REUTERS

ten restaurants, six are European and schooled in the French tradition. Of the other four, three are Asians who run ‘modern European’ or French restaurants. And the one exception specialises in a kind of molecular gastronomy.

Hello! Is this a guide to Asia or what? Or is it just a directory of expatriate chefs?

I have nothing against the top ten restaurants themselves. The ones I do know on the list are all very good: Iggy’s and Andre in Singapore, Caprice and Bo Innovation (which I wrote about a few weeks ago) in Hong Kong, etc.

LOCAL HERO? But are these really the best restaurants in Asia? Is there not In Hong Kong (left) Michelin made an effort to understand a single Chinese, Thai or Indian restaurant that is in the same local cuisine. But in London (above), it upsets food writers league as these places?

And what about Japan? Michelin thinks the food in Tokyo is Ramsay failed to impress the New York Times. amazing. But I could not find a single Japanese restaurant in the Asia was next on Michelin’s list. In 2007, it announced that it was Miele guide’s top 20 restaurants. At first I thought that perhaps launching a Tokyo guide. When it appeared, foodies were startled Japan was not part of the guide. But no, there is an extensive to discover that Tokyo had 150 Michelin-starred restaurants – more Japanese section. So why are there no Japanese restaurants at all than Paris. Next came Hong Kong where Michelin made a genuine in the top 20? effort to understand Chinese cuisine and gave stars to small, That leaves India. Does it make sense to claim that not one of relatively-unknown restaurants.

Asia’s top 10 restaurants is in India? The first Indian entry is the I am not sure where Michelin will go next but Singapore must Bombay Dum Pukht at 15, followed by the Madras Dakshin at 16 be high up on the guide’s list of priorities. Such critics as Pascal and finally Bukhara at 20. I do not dispute the choice of restaurants Remy, a former Michelin inspector (in Michelin parlance, an inspec(though personally I would have taken the Delhi original over the tor is a man who visits a restaurant anonymously and reviews it Bombay Dum Pukht) and yes, it is an amazing achievement for ITC for the guide) who fell out with Michelin and wrote an expose of to get three restaurants (the only three Indian restaurants, as it the guide’s methods, claim that the whole business of rating restauturns out) in the Asian Top 20. rants is no more than a means of furthering the tyre company’s But is there no restaurant in all of India in the same league as commercial interests. That’s why the guide went to Japan, which three different Singapore restaurants? Are all our chefs useless is a major tyre market, says Remy. compared to a bunch of white guys who live the expat lifestyle in If that is true, then I doubt if we will get any Michelin guides to Asia? Is French the only cuisine that matters? Does it make sense India in the near future and so our restaurants and chefs will be for Asian cuisines to be completely excluded from an Asian Top denied the stars that are their due.

Ten? Surely, Bukhara and Dum Pukht (Delhi) belong in any genMeanwhile, our chefs look for global recognition whenever they uinely representative Top Ten? can find it. Last month, there was some excitement within the I won’t waste more time on the Miele Guide because you are restaurant and hotel business about the fourth edition of the Miele unlikely to hear of it again. But its rankings tell us something about guide to Asia’s restaurants. the Asian attitude to Asian food. When Michelin, which I went to the launch party for the first Miele guide and is confident about its Frenchiness, goes to Tokyo or Hong wrote about it then. I had hoped that the guide would grow Kong, it respects the local cuisine and unearths little to become an Asian Michelin but my hopes seem to have gems (such as Tim Ho Wan and Lei Bistro in Hong Kong), been belied. In all my travels through Asia over the last which serve great Japanese or Chinese food. But when few years, I’ve never actually heard anyone quoting the an Asian outfit produces a guide to Asia, it genuflects Miele guide and the only place I have ever been able to find before the influence of European cuisine and disrespects a copy on sale is in Singapore, where the guide is based.

Asia’s own food.

(Perhaps I just move in the wrong circles and go to the The real loser in all this is Indian food. Given that wrong bookshops.)

Michelin in the West shows no real understanding of I was looking at the fourth edition and I thought I knew Indian cuisine, our restaurants and chefs never get the what the problem was. The reason the guide has failed to global recognition they deserve. If Michelin does come make the impact it could have is because it seems embarto India and demonstrates the same commitment to rassed by the food of Asia. local cuisine that it has shown in Hong Kong or Tokyo Take for instance, its top ten Asian restaurants in this then I’m sure that at least two Indian restaurants would GUIDING PRINCIPLE edition. Not one of these restaurants serves real Asian get three stars (the Delhi Dum Pukht, for one), and food. Three out of ten are branches of French chains. New Yorkers are fond of many others would get loads of stars.

Zagat, a food guide Another three out of ten are located in Singapore (includBut Michelin has no Indian ambitions. And existing ing numbers one and two) which is almost too conven- based on feedback from Asian guides have too many European ambitions, makordinary diners ient for a Singapore-based guide. Of the chefs of the top ing Indian chefs the orphans of the global food scene.

WHERE’S INDIA? The first Indian entry in the Miele Guide is the Bombay Dum Pukht (right) at 15, followed by the Madras Dakshin (left) at 16 and finally Bukhara (far left) at 20.

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PHOTOS: REUTERS

indulge

TWO MICHELIN

STARS DID NOT HELP GORDON RAMSAY'S NEW YORK RESTAURANT

DARK STARS Though the Michelin Guide loyally gave three stars to the French chef Alain Ducasse when he opened in New York at the Essex House hotel, this cut no ice with diners

indulge play The Other Five live | eat |

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Phones with ginormous screens, wireless printing and more – Get. These. NOW

techilicious

Rajiv Makhni

BIGGER IS BETTER The humongous, high-resolution screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note can do double duty as a Tablet

T

IME FOR me to tell you about the other five tech upgrades that can change your life. In fact, as most people tore me apart last week for saying ten and coming up with only five, I’m going to throw in some more as a bonus. Lots of ground to cover, no time for chit chat, let’s get this puppy on the road.

#6 THE CLOUD

No it isn’t impossible to understand, you don’t need a rocket science degree to get going and it absolutely won’t rain and wipe out your data. The cloud, for most of us, is only going to be about choosing one or two services that deliver an idiot-proof experience. Think of the cloud as this magical space somewhere out there that holds all that you need – data, documents, music, videos, pictures – and delivers it to you irrespective of where you are and what device you’re on. DropBox, Tonido, Sparkleshare, Spideroak, Box.net are all fantastic. Just google them, get started with the one that makes sense (most are free and you can upgrade if you need more space) and then realise just how electrifying the cloud is.

#7 DEDICATED GPS

YOU NEED A DEDICATED GPS DEVICE IN YOUR CAR THAT GETS YOU RIGHT TO THE DOOR EVERYWHERE

The Samsung Galaxy Note has truly set the cat among the pigeons. A high-resolution, vivid, humongous screen that can really do double duty as a Tablet. What you can achieve with a screen that size has to be experienced to be understood. Efficiency goes up; Web pages open fully with no need for any horizontal scrolling; the text is large enough to read with no pinch-to-zoom; YouTube videos are gorgeous and full HD movies are breathtaking; gaming is way better; apps have more

22

space to breathe in. For those that think it’s just way too big, consider phones at around the 4.3+ inch screen size. It’s a big world out there, you spend hours on your phone doing much more than talking – stop doing it through a dinky little screen.

#9 NAS DRIVE

Okay, entering super controversial territory. GPS is now omnipresent everywhere. It comes on your phone, on your camera and even on your Tablet. But I’m going out on a limb and stating this: you need a dedicated GPS device in your car that does just that – voice-guided navigation that gets you to a numerical address you feed in and gets you right to the door. Mapping in most of urban India is now truly stateof-the-art and can really help you in a pinch. The GPS on your phone just doesn’t cut it. Battery life takes a huge hit; the screen isn’t big enough to truly follow; you will anyway pay extra for a really good map and voice guidance software; the GPS unit in a phone isn't that good; and the level of sophistication and extra features on a dedicated GPS device beat the pants off what your phone will ever do.

#8 LARGE SCREEN PHONE

PRINTER POWER Wireless printers can print off a phone, a Tablet and a Notebook. They can install without a CD, run dedicated apps and even print from anywhere via email

This may sound like overkill but it can change your world. A NAS drive plugs into your WiFi device through an Ethernet port and shows up as a wireless hard drive on EVERY single device that accesses your WiFi network (yes, even the iPad). It can work as your media hub, it can stream movies and music, it can be your picture and images depository. You can set it to be accessed from anywhere in the world and share a common password for a folder that all your friends and relatives can have access to. It can backup data from all your devices automatically and on a preset schedule. Once you go NAS, you can never go back

#10 WIRELESS EMAIL PRINTER

This is another must-have. In the world of portable devices, the idea of a fixed, wiredthrough-USB-and-needing-dedicateddrivers-on-each-device printer is as outdated as me typing this on a typewriter. Printers today can print wirelessly off a phone, a Tablet or Notebook, can install without a CD, have dedicated apps that run on them and on many devices and most importantly, have an email ID built into the printer itself. All you do is mail a document or picture to that email and UNWIRED BLISS the printer prints it like magic. It’s the best A wireless mobile way of printing off a mobile phone that charging system doesn’t have any way of printing all the can unclutter amazing things that you carry on it. your room There are many other tech upgrades that can make your life go through a radical transformation. A media streamer will unlock the hidden potential of all your digital media, a multi-room music setup will make you rediscover the magic of music, an in-car bluetooth audio system can be a lifesaver for that all important call (while parked, of course), a wireless mobile charging system can unclutter your room and your life, a GPS and movement-tracking fitness watch can be your guide and mentor to a more healthy you – yes, is a lot out there. Arthur C Clarke said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

It’s time for you to let that magic transform your life.

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

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

indulge

live | eat | play |

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Livin’ L

UD

Sometimes, it’s best to crank the volume knob all the way to the right

download central

Sanjoy Narayan

E

PHOTO: CC/TREY CADY

VERY TIME I listen to Baba O’ grew on me and any time Two Princes Riley, The Who’s marvellous comes on the radio (very, very rarely, alas), song off their Who’s Next I have to turn the volume up. album, I simply have to crank The list of songs that I like listening to up the volume to as high as my ears can loud is long. But there are some take. Always. Ever since I first heard that among them that I particularly like. album in the early 1970s with its cheeky Such as Patti Smith’s Rock N Roll cover photograph of members of the band Nigger. Heard it? If you haven’t, get having just peed on a huge concrete hold of it and crank the volume up. Smith piling, when Baba O’ Riley comes on, it wrote that song in the late 1970s but there just has to be full-on the highest volume are more contemporary musicians whose level that I can manage. Attribute it to the stuff I prefer to listen to loud. Jim James violin solo on the song. Apparently, of My Morning Jacket sounds divine when putting the violin solo into that Pete you go clockwise with the knob. On their Townshend-composed song was the idea newest, Circuital, two songs – Victory of the late Keith Moon, The Who’s pretty Dance and Holdin’ On To Black Metal – mad drummer. It was a great idea because virtually beg you to do just that. The White that solo is brilliant and one that begs you Stripes are the other band any of whose to turn the volume knob or your iPod touch songs sound brilliant loud. What makes wheel or whatever works the loudness on the experience worth it is the raw, genius the device that you get your fix on, up high. guitar licks by Jack White. Sadly, the band So, it was a pleasant surprise to read broke up but we can look forward to the post on a popular NPR blog on White’s prolific other projects.

November 11 that polled readers for the Black Keys are yet another band whose songs they always want to crank the minimalistic blues seem to get more volume up on. The idea had something to enhanced as you raise the volume. All do with the date: 11.11.11 and the suggestheir albums sound great but I’d choose LOST IN THE MUSIC Thickfreakness (2003) and Brothers tion that there are some songs that Jim James of My Morning Jacket sounds divine (2010) to hear at very loud volume. simply have to be heard very loud... at 11 when you go clockwise with the volume knob And when El Camino comes out next even though your volume knob may not month, the first listen will go up beyond 10. There was certainly be at 10. more to it, though, including I know, I know, there are a reference to Spinal Tap, many bands (including some the fictitious heavy metal of the above) that sound band, but if you want to read great at low volumes too but it, check out the links in the right now this column’s web version of this column. about listening to music There are many songs loud. And when it comes to that I just cannot listen to at that, there are few bands normal volumes. They have that can top an ensemble to be cranked up. Most of my we’re all familiar with called favourite Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin. Ever tried albums – Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Beggars Banquet – listening to Led Zep at 5 or I have to listen to at OTT under? That would be levels. Jimi Hendrix? Almost insulting their music, no? all his songs have to be at Here’s what I’m going to do crazily high levels and if it is immediately after I finish Electric Ladyland, 11 won’t writing this: get hold of do; I’d go for 12! But there Kashmir and get hold of are other, newer musicians Stairway to Heaven . Put some of whose songs I like them on one after the other to turn up the knob for. My and crank it up to 11. And introduction to Spin Doctors then, listen to Kashmir again in early 1990s was courtesy at 11. my companion who favoured listening to their song Two Princes To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to (off the album Pocketful of Kryptonite) very loud and also insisted http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/download-central, follow argus48 on Twitter or visit our on dancing a very bouncy, arms-flailing type of wild dance to it. It website: www.hindustantimes.com/brunch

THE WHITE STRIPES ARE A BAND

WHOSE RAW, GENIUS GUITAR LICKS BY JACK WHITE SOUND BRILLIANT OUT LOUD

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

23

Wellness

CASE NOTES

Hair now, gone tomorrow

THIRTY EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Karan Prakash had a healthy mop of hair that he loved to style. He tried different hairstyles, dyed it and chopped it, and it grew back abundantly.

One day he noticed a bald spot just above his left ear. It could be seasonal hairfall, he thought, so he changed his shampoo and ignored it. But within months, Prakash went from a big mop to multiple bald spots.

“When I saw the first bald spot, I thought it’d grow back, but when I started developing more spots, I started panicking,” recalls Prakash. His dermatologist diagnosed alopecia areata. “I had to wear a skull cap for nine months but my hair never grew back the way it was,” says Prakash.

WARNING SIGNS

Humans lose about 100-150 strands of hair every day. In fact, in 1,000 days, all the hair on your head is new. So losing hair every day is natural. But if you start developing bald patches on your scalp or beard, it could be alopecia areata. And if you notice hair falling from one side more than the other, it is a cause for concern. The area of hair loss may tingle a bit. Another common occurrence is the thinning of hair towards the end.

THE SOLUTIONS

If the affected area is small, it sometimes doesn’t require treatment and the hair starts growing back on its own. But in severe cases, you will need medication, after which the hair usually grows back in 9-12 months.

Had Prakash paid attention to that bald patch, he could probably have had a full head of hair again.

BALD, NOT BEAUTIFUL If you develop bald patches, it could be alopecia areata

MYTHS BROKEN

Most people believe that alopecia areata is a fungal infection. But alopecia areata is the result of the genetic disposition of the body’s immune system. Also, it is a non-communicable disease.

Hair colours and dyes do not cause alopecia areata.

They only damage the hair as they make it rough and dry. In fact, if the p-Phenylenediamine or PPD content is less than two per cent, dyeing does not cause hairfall. Excessive shampooing does not cause alopecia

PART IV

HAIRFALL

Bald patches on your scalp? Take action before it’s too late

by Amrah Ashraf WHAT HAPPENED Alopecia areata is an auto immune disease that causes sudden and excessive hair loss when round or oval bald patches start forming on the scalp. Often mistaken for a fungal disease, it is actually a failure of the immune system, which starts destroying hair roots for unknown reasons. Alopecia areata is genetic, and affects men, women and kids.

areata. However, you do need to use the correct shampoo for your type of hair. Avoid shampooing with soap as it leads to dry hair and subsequent hair loss.

Alopecia areata is not caused by stress. Stress could lead to hair damage and drying but does not cause hairfall.

Women tend to lose hair post pregnancy. But this is not alopecia areata. It is normal to lose hair post pregnancy and it grows back automatically.

LIFESTYLE CHOICES

Alopecia areata can be controlled (but not prevented if it is genetic). Remember to cover your hair on the road.

Give up smoking, use the right products, and finally, eat lots of green leafy veggies and apples.

(Inputs by Dr Mukesh Girdhar, senior consultant, Max Super Speciality Hospital) amrah.ashraf@hindustantimes.com

NEXT WEEK: CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME

MIND BODY SOUL

A five part series

SHIKHA SHARMA

BODY OF ANGER I

RECENTLY WATCHED an interesting documentary on anger. We all feel anger at various times. But what is it?

Anger arises from thoughts. And thoughts are created in that part of the mind called the ego or ahamkara where we perceive our identity. The ego creates all thoughts. And anger, at the base level, is fear. Fear that turns aggressive is anger.

When we feel humiliated, it is because the ego interprets outside events as harmful to the self. This can range from physical violence to imagined loss of life, material or emotional possessions, prestige, self-image, love… etc.

Once the mind decides that the situation is threatening, it triggers the eruption of a flood of hormones to start the fight or flight response.

The fight response is the aggressive expression of anger, usually displayed by men. Flight response is the passive-aggressive DON’T GET MAD expression of anger, usuAnger sends hormones into a frenzy ally displayed by women.

HOW ANGER AFFECTS THE BODY

Anger begins in the part of the brain called amygdala. This sends hormones into a frenzy. Nerves get tense, muscles become taut, blood rushes to the limbs, eyes narrow, and breathing becomes rapid to ingest more oxygen to set the blood and hormones pumping. Blood pressure shoots up from 120/80 to 200/130, the blood releases a factor that makes it very thick to prevent blood loss in case of injury, the logical part of the mind shuts off and the person attacks.

The cooling down process can last from hours to days, with recurrent attacks of anger in the cooling down period.

Anger disrupts sane thinking. The part of the mind responsible for sane behaviour is the prefrontal cortex. This is more powerful than the anger area but slower to respond in untrained individuals. If you can train it, it can thwart the amygdala.

WOMEN AND ANGER

Years of genetic training have taught women that they are likely to get hurt if they get aggressive. So they repress anger or vent it on weaker beings like kids, pets or even themselves.

Repressed anger takes the shape of over-eating, overdrinking, over-exercising, obsessive behaviour, suicidal tendencies, and attempts to hurt others through secretive means. It usually shows in the body as pain of unknown origin; also skin disorders and breathing difficulties. ask@drshikha.com PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK

PERSONAL PERSONALAGENDA AGENDA Sun sign

Birthday

School/ college

Occupation

Sagittarius

Kodaikanal International School, Tamil Nadu; Hindu College, Delhi

High point of your life Birth of

my kids and National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor, Rock On

November 26 Actor, producer and restaurateur too

Hometown

Jabalpur

First break

My debut movie Moksh, which released in 2001

Low point of your life When

ARJUN RAMPAL Which character from Sholay do you most resemble and why?

under R10?

I would turn gay for...

Your most irrational fear...

Jai, for the simple reason that I really admire Mr Bachchan a lot and would love to be in his shoes.

I didn’t have much work to do

...a film.

The last line of your autobiography would read…

What are you doing currently? Making my

I would actually quote Jim Morrison, ‘Did you have a good world when you died? Good enough to base a movie on?’

TV debut with Love2HateU on Star World

One song that describes your current state of mind?

Jack Johnson’s Banana Pancakes.

Your darkest fantasy?

I’m not actually a shopper. I hardly buy anything even for the kids, and honestly, I really don’t have an idea about what all you get for less than this amount. ...Is to fear.

The most clichéd answer you’ve ever given in an interview.

It depends on the kind of clichéd question I’m asked.

The most overrated movie/book?

Very tough to say. I actually feel that no movie as such is overrated.

If you were an ice cream, what flavour would you be?

How would you explain Twitter to your grandmother?

Honestly, I wouldn’t even bother to make that effort.

Perhaps a healthy flavour like sitaphal that rhymes nicely with Ramphal (that’s how most people would pronounce my surname).

You wouldn’t be caught dead wearing…

How many pairs of blue jeans do you have?

...Nothing.

Lots, and they are all blue!

The stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?

The one lie you got away with?

Is deep down inside of me.

According to a person who loves to hate me, in the movie Rascals, I was actually trying to prepare for my role in Ra. One.

The one place where you would never get yourself tattooed?

The most sensitive part of my body. Let your imagination roll.

What is the last thing you bought

Blame everything on the traffic!

Where did you spend your last summer?

In New York, London and Miami on holiday with my family.

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever given your date?

The day I proposed marriage to her.

– Interviewed by Veenu Singh

PHOTO: RAJ K RAJ; LOCATION COURTESY: THE OBEROI, NEW DELHI

WHAT WOULD WE FIND IN YOUR FRIDGE RIGHT NOW?

IF YOU WERE GIVEN A CHANCE TO REMAKE RGV’S AAG, THE MOVIE, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

HEALTH FOOD IN ONE AND KID STUFF IN THE OTHER

WON’T TAKE THAT CHANCE PHOTO: MCT

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HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 20, 2011

IF YOU COULD PEEP INTO ANYONE’S HOUSE, WHOSE HOUSE WOULD IT BE?

IF JIM MORRISON WAS ALIVE, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN HIS HOUSE