Brunch 22 02 2015

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 22, 2015 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

niversary issue. We an l ia ec sp is th r ve o aders take at excited us. th s le ta Our beloved Brunch re ith w ed nd o ur stories, you resp about YOU! l al is n o asked you to share yo iti ed is Th . es traordinary liv Here’s toasting your ex Our readers: (From left, standing) Jitendra Jain, Vineeta Rana, P Aanand Naidu, Aditya Vij, Navika Mehta, Paras Joshi and Deepika Kant (sitting, in front), pose for us at Hindustan Times House

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BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

To read Brunch stories (and more) online, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch. To discuss the stories (or give feedback), follow @HTBrunch on Twitter. For everything cool on the Internet, like Hindustan Times Brunch on Facebook. And for videos, check out our channel (youtube.com/HindustanTimesBrunch).

by Poonam Saxena

When Brunch Turns 11...

On The Brunch Radar by Saudamini Jain

LOVE IT

Our eleventh anniversary!

And what better way to celebrate than by having a Readers’ Special? You, dear reader, have always been the most special, the most important part of Brunch. Over the years, we have forged a warm, friendly relationship with you – and we know that you have a sense of ownership of the magazine, which is as it should be. And for us, you are our real celebrities.

That’s why, in this issue, we celebrate your lives, your interests and your passions. There’s a mistaken belief that only celebrities have extraordinary lives. But that’s not true. Celebrities are just famous, that’s all (and often they’re famous for no good reason that we can think of !)

As we step into our eleventh year, we’re going to continue doing the best we can to bring you a lively, entertaining, interesting Sunday magazine. Whether it’s books or films, music or food, your online-offline world is what interests us.

Keep reading us, keep writing to us, keep talking to us and always remember – you’re the real deal!

Cover image: RAJ K RAJ Cover design:

MONICA GUPTA

Brunch Opinion

Photo: RAJ K RAJ

Photo: LABONY KAUSHAL

by Saudamini Jain

How This Issue Was Put Together

ra Jain, P Aanand Naidu The Delhi bunch: Paras Joshi, Aditya Vij, Jitend Rana ta Vinee and Kant ka Deepi , Mehta a Navik

n We put out a small promo in Brunch on this very page, asking you to write to us about something that makes your life extraordinary. n We were bombarded with hundreds of entries! (Some were just bizarre. A gentlemen wrote to us about his wife’s culinary skills – “she makes me warm food every night, she does,” he said. A young girl told

The Mumbai gang includes (from left) Kausi k Misra, Parampara Patil Hashmi, Raina Mehta and Aftab Yusuf Shaikh

us she didn’t quite know where her life was heading. And then there were those who told us the government was corrupt and the world was a horrible place.) n But then there were some heartwarming stories, and some just adorable. In the pages of the magazine today, you’re going to find ordinary readers who have some-

thing special going on. n We did this like we would do any other interview: we met the readers (or telephoned them if they were travelling), we organised photoshoots, and called everyone to office for a cover shot and to meet the Brunch team. n Maybe we should do this more often? Let us know!

For the stories that could not be accommodated – for some of our Mumbai readers in the picture above (right) – log on to hindustantimes.com/Brunch

Front Row

by Nihit Bhave

The Oscar Outrage

Every year after the Oscars, overrated winners and underrated losers cause heated debates, fan-fights and online outrage. Ahead of #Oscars2015, here are some memorable ones

THE OVERRATED WINNERS:

THE UNDERRATED LOSERS:

THE HURT LOCKER (for Best Picture) Why It Won: Female director.

American heroism in the MiddleEast crisis. 30 minutes too long (the way the Academy likes it). And most importantly, female director.

We Hated: That the movie was basically about four overwrought bomb defusals and a minor porn racket.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY (Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club) Why He Won: It was an Aids movie in which he played an angry victim, lost weight and conned for a good cause… poor Leo never stood a chance!

We Hated: That he won by ticking all the boxes and not because he blew people’s minds away.

12 YEARS A SLAVE (for Best Picture) Why It Won: Slavery is Hollywood’s weak spot. The movie was too charged with political correctness to lose.

We Hated: That it ate up Gravity’s chance to win big.

n The World Book Fair. Last day today! n That Twitter has finally allowed Hindi hashtags n The cover shoot for this issue of Brunch n That a Modern Family episode was shot almost entirely with iPhones and iPads. It’s a whole new world...! n President Pranab Mukherjee at Mughal Gardens #swag EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Aastha Atray Banan, Veenu Singh, Satarupa Paul, Saudamini Jain, Asad Ali, Nihit Bhave, Atisha Jain

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

LEONARDO DICAPRIO (for The Wolf Of Wall Street) Why He Lost: Because he’s #BadLuckLeo and has lost a total of five times to date.

We Loved: That when the Internet was shedding tears for his loss, he manned up, hugged and kissed Matthew McConaughey and congratulated him.

AVATAR (for Best Picture) Why It Lost: Because fantasy films only make an impact on nerds and geeks (if you don’t know the difference between the two, you’re doing life right).

We Loved: That the movie was even included in the nominations, given its genre. Cannot wait for sequels!

INCEPTION (for Best Picture) Why It Lost: By the time the Academy and the voters understood the movie, it was too late.

We Loved: That hardcore Christopher Nolan fans deemed the awards too silly for a film of its stature and basked in their own smugness.

n The constant scare of contracting swine flu n Aamir Khan n Gearing up for more deaths on Game Of Thrones n If you’re still gloating over our victory at Adelaide

last Sunday #WontGiveItBack n Playing hard to get

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

Drop us a line at: brunchletters@hindustantimes.com or to 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001

SHOVE IT

From The Editor

Stuff You Said Last Sunday Watching #IndvsPak while reading an amazing @HTBrunch story on the same! #LoveIt – @MrinaalDatt This article Hail The Bearded Male is one of the best articles by @HTBrunch.

I’m a creep, I’m a #Beardo ?? #LumbersexualsForever #BeardLover – @TheGrayS aySpa park rk @sanjoynarayan that Songg lyric from #LakeeSon ists mberrists Deceembe by @TheeDec is my fab too! Love ticle.. them. Loved the article Everything true!

– @Kanika_Katyal

Aaj ka cover story in @HTBrunch and today’s #IndiaWins are complimentary to each other – @bibbaputtar

Husband, Chef and DJ .. my very own #Beardo ..

–@MarleneRatus Find Hindustan Times Brunch on Facebook or tweet to @HTBrunch or

FOR ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT National – Sanchita Tyagi: sanchita.tyagi@hindustantimes.com North – Siddarth Chopra: siddarth.chopra@hindustantimes.com North – Shaila Thakur: shaila.thakur@hindustantimes.com West – Karishma Makhija: karishma.makhija@hindustantimes.com South – Sharbani Ghosh: sharbani.ghosh@hindustantimes.com

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WELLNESS

MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA

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

etc. It will be good if you and your husband visit a gynaecologist and understand the various contraceptive methods and select the one which you mutually feel the best.

W

3. Dear Doctor I am 33 years old and I want to know how s a f e e m e r g e n c y contraceptive pills are for my age. I have heard that these pills are good only for teenagers.

There is no scientific background that suggests emergency contraceptive pills are good only for teenagers. It has been found that all emergency pills are safe and effective for all women of menstruating ages. For your age too, you can safely consume this pill in case of an emergency. In case you still have doubts in your mind, then you can consult a local gynaecologist and follow her advice.

Queries answered by Dr Nirmala Rao MBBS, MD, DPM; a well known psychiatrist who heads Mumbai based Aavishkar - a multifaceted team of expert doctors and health professionals. Aavishkar has a comprehensive approach to mental and physical health, with an emphasis scan this QR code to visit website on counselling and psychotherapy.

Supported by:

E MAY have different tastes in music, but all of us respond to it. Even infants and very small children respond to music with joy. Music is an expression of the soul: it has an automatic effect on the mind and body.

It evokes all sorts of emotions, from energy to melancholy, tenderness to harshness, pride to peace. It is a force and energy that is being investigated by medical experts all over the world who believe that both its sounds and the vibrations caused by its beats hold a power of good for the human mind and body.

A study of the effects of music on newborn babies showed that stressed babies benefit from hearing three types of music: 1. The sound of a heartbeat, just like the mother’s heartbeat the baby heard in the womb.

2. Fluid sounds that are similar to the sounds the baby heard in the womb.

3. Lullabies in the mother’s voice.

All these sounds calm the baby helping him/her to eat and sleep better.

Other studies have shown that music can reduce the anxiety and stress caused by a hospital setting and reduce physical pain among patients in emergency rooms. Music has a positive effect on the body by reducing cortisol, the hormone that surges when we are stressed.

And it causes a definite improvement in the body’s immune response.

SOUND EFFECT

Tibet’s ‘singing bowls’ produce deep, gentle sounds that relax the body

Music is the audible part of sound, but sound is actually vibrations of energy that travel in waves. These vibrations can be felt, even if the sound can’t be heard. This property of sound is used in a therapy called Vibroacoustics that is used to treat diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Fibromyalgia, which are connected with disturbances of inner body rhythm.

TRADITIONAL MUSICAL THERAPY Music therapy is as old as humankind. All traditional healing systems use music. For example, yoga’s bumble bee breathing technique (brahmari) involves plugging both ears closed with the index fingers and then humming softly. This has been shown to normalise blood pressure.

Tibet’s ‘singing bowls’ are large bowls struck with a padded mallet to produce deep, gentle sounds that have a relaxing effect on the body and lead to deep, high-quality sleep.

And all cultures use chanting as part of meditation and relaxation techniques. ask@drshikha. com

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch FEBRUARY 22, 2015

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

2. Dear Doctor, I will be getting married next month and my in-laws have already hinted me to have a baby within a year of marriage. I want to first enjoy some time with my husband before having a b a b y. H e n c e , w h a t contraception can I use to avoid pregnancy for only one year?

There are several contraceptive methods that you can use to avoid pregnancy for one year. You can use condom, regular birth control pills, spermicidal tablets/ foams, diaphragms

Medical experts all over the world are realising that music can do you a world of good

MediaMedic ICH/Q&A/0204

1. Dear Doctor, we get intimate only twice or thrice a month, so is it ok if I take a n e m e r g e n c y contraceptive pill each time?

It is not advisable to consume emergency contraceptive pill more than once in a monthly cycle. If you plan to have intercourse, you should use regular contraceptive methods like condom or spermicidal tablets etc to avoid pregnancy. Emergency contraceptive pills should be consumed only in emergency cases and not casually.

MUSIC IS THE BEST MEDICINE

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R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

SO, WHAT’S YOUR STORY? Here’s presenting: Brunch readers with the most interesting tales to tell

Changing Lives,

One Mudra At A Time

18-year-old Navika Mehta, herself an accomplished kathak dancer, decided to teach the classical dance to young girls less fortunate than her

by Satarupa Paul

T

he Air Force cantonment in Delhi is clean, quaint and beautiful this sunny winter afternoon. Birds chirp, a lone dog barks on the empty roads, and the sound of ghungroos becomes louder as we make our way into one of the many similar-looking, white-washed officers’ quarters. A big, jolly Golden Retriever comes bounding at us and ushers us into the large, open backyard lined with trees and a vegetable garden.

Around 12 girls of varying ages and heights stand in two

rows, their fingers and arms folded in the same gesture, their legs – and the ghungroos tied on them – beating rhythmically in unison to the bol that their teacher sings out loud. Their teacher is an 18-yearyoung girl, confident and vivacious, ever-smiling and pleasant.

Dressed casually in a pair of jeggings and a kurta, she jokes with her students, playfully admonishes her dog when it bounds in into class, and calls out to her mother every now and then for something or the other. From afar, she looks like just another 18-year-old. Only her clear, heavy, no-nonsense voice betrays the command she holds over her students; and the respect and adoration she gets from them.

Navika Mehta was three when she attended her first ever dance class. Born in Hyderabad, she has lived in many places including Wellington, Bhopal, Nagpur and Delhi – courtesy her father’s job in the Indian Air Force. “When I was little, about three years old, we lived in Bhopal. I used to dance all the time apparently. So my mom took me to a dance class and that

was my first tryst with Kathak.”

But the whole business of moving from place to place came between her and her passion of learning this Indian classical dance form. “When we moved to Delhi, I joined jazz and did a workshop with Ashley Lobo’s Danceworx. Then we shifted to Nagpur which, being a small town, didn’t have any jazz classes. So I learnt Odisi for a year instead.”

She finally got around to devoting her time and effort to her first love, Kathak, when they shifted back to Delhi for their second stint here.

“I have now been learning Kathak full time for the past four years,” she says. “I am also preparing for

“Our Didi Best-est” Vimla Saroj, BA First Year It’s a great feeling, learning Kathak from didi.

I have performed twice on stage. We wore proper costumes, ghungroos and all, and everyone praised us so much.

Kanchan Parcha, Class 8 When I came for my first class, didi showed us several movements. I was totally mesmerised and was really keen to start learning right away. Didi gives us homework which we have to practise at home before the next class.

Pooja Rajak, Class 8 My mother used to work here as a maid and I would come with her sometimes. I used to see didi practicing and I felt like dancing too. I was really happy when she decided to start teaching us. The first time we performed on stage, there were 400 people in the audience. I felt slightly nervous, but it was so awesome.

Mansi Raj, Class 6 I love dancing! I like all kinds of dance…

Bollywood, contemporary. Kathak is nice too.

I want to keep learning it as long as didi keeps teaching.

my visharat pratham (BA 1st year exam) for Indian classical dance.”

The lives of others

Since October 2013 however, Navika has been teaching Kathak to her ‘students’ – girls from very low income households, who wouldn’t otherwise have had the means to learn this graceful dance.

“It all started when my mother employed a new maid. She has five kids. One day I saw two of her girls working in our house instead of the mother,” she says.

“I asked them their age, and they turned out to be pretty young. It didn’t seem right. Turns out that the maid had actually taken up another job somewhere else and put her daughters to work here, so as to increase the income they could take home.”

Navika, with her mother’s help, had the girls registered at the local government school. “But putting them in a school didn’t seem enough.” So she started to educate them in the language she knows best – the language of dance.

“By teaching them to dance, I am not telling them that oh, you could become great dancers, I am not putting any illusions in them.

It’s just to show them that through dance you can become more confident and even gain some knowledge – the kind that not many people have the fortune to learn.”

Navika started her classes with three girls; the number went up to 50 at one point. “During summer break last year, my backyard here was full of kids learning Kathak.

There were several boys as well.”

She has helped arrange two stage performances for the “brightest” of her kids, as she calls them.

Even though her class 12 exams are round the corner, she still takes out an hour a week to teach them. And that’s just a part of what she does.

Navika is also a national-level swimmer, she’s learnt karate as well as horse riding, she’s now pursuing photography as a hobby and taking piano classes too. As she says, “It’s all about managing your time.” satarupa.paul@hindustantimes.com Follow @satarupapaul on Twitter Photo: RAJ K RAJ

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R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

Photo: RAJ K RAJ

The Collector

Of The World

Aditya Vij’s passion for collecting old things stems from a need to preserve everything that will soon become history

by Veenu Singh

T

he Bali Nagar residence of Aditya Vij contains 3,000 matchboxes, innumerable old books (including some 100-year-old editions of books by Rabindranath Tagore and Rudyard Kipling), more comic books than you’d find at an average bookshop (including Indrajal, Amar Chitra Katha, and American comics), old maps, tin boxes (Parry’s, Morton, Cadbury), old British relics such as the coronation plates issued when Delhi was declared the capital of India in 1911, typewriters, cameras, radios, record players, Bollywood movie posters, priceless vintage cars and scooters, and wildlife specimens from birds’ nests to eggs to insects to parts of plants. There may be other things, in this house crammed with things, but it’s difficult to make out what they might be after identifying this much. But oh yes – there’s a big collection of HT Brunch too, looked after with just as much care as all the other collections.

Vij, 42, is pretty much like his collections – totally eclectic. He’s an anthropologist, an entrepreneur, and a teacher of marketing and fashion at institutes such as Bhartiya Vidyapeeth University and Pearl Academy. He’s also quite used to being called a hoarder and kabadiwalla – he’s been a collector of everything since he was a child.

“I got into the habit of collecting things when I was just five or six years old and used to go for walks with my father who was an avid reader and collector of comic books and books on wildlife,” says Vij. “Inspired by him, I started keeping these things carefully and always kept an eye out for unusual things.”

Over the years, Vij has had many different collections, including old scooters (Lambrettas) and vintage cars. About five years ago, saddened by the disappearance

of hand-painted movie posters, he began collecting those too.

“There were plenty of printed posters available, but I wanted the litho prints of the original oil and watercolour posters,” says Vij. “Today I have around 18 big posters and about the same number of the smaller posters that were put up in the windows of cinema halls. The oldest one I have is of the 1942 film called Roti, starring Sheikh Mukhtar and Sitara Devi and directed by Mehboob Khan.”

He also has posters of the iconic 1955 movie Azaad, starring Dilip Kumar and Barish (1956), starring Nutan.

“Vinyl prints take just a few minutes in the making today, but they lack the beauty of these handpainted prints,” says Vij.

In love with the past

For Vij, old is truly gold. If anything’s about to disappear, he’s sure to begin a collection. “Buying a new thing is easy, but how many of us know about things that were there 40-50 years ago?” he asks.

“When I take out my old Fiat today, youngsters ask me about the car.

How many of us have actually seen the baats and the sers (vintage weights) or Agfa cameras?

At one time, taking a good picture

was an art. Today digital cameras have made things so easy.”

Vij says it’s hard to have favourites among his collections.

But he does admit to being extra obsessed with a few. There’s a 1928 map of Delhi, for instance, that had to be restored from a tattered state, which showed how 70-80 per cent of India’s capital city was agricultural or forest land. And there’s a Hudson car that took him three months to acquire from the person who was selling it.

“The vintage cars are certainly the most glamorous of my collections, but my matchboxes take prime place,” says Vij. “These matchboxes change with time.

There are pictures of kings, historical buildings, automobiles and

An Old Soul Dazzled By Everything Ancient...

If anything’s about to disappear, Aditya Vij will begin a collection

■ Matchboxes: With a keen interest in

phillumeny (hobby of collecting matchboxes), he has a mind-boggling 3,000 matchboxes ■ Old comic books: Amar Chitra Katha, Indrajal comics, Raj comics, Archie comics and American classics ■ Old books: Including 100-year-old editions of Rabindranath Tagore and Rudyard Kipling’s works ■ Old tin boxes from the 1940s to the 1990s: Parry’s, Morton and Cadbury’s ■ Old cameras: An almost complete set of Agfa cameras

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

■ Memorabilia: Old maps and movie posters ■ Old weights: Sers (before kilograms existed) ■ Typewriters: A Groma, Smith Corona, Remington ■ TVs, radios and record players ■ Stamp papers and old letters from the East India Company, stamps, coins and old documents ■ Vintage cars: 13 of them from 1934 to 1973. He also owns a couple of Lambretta scooters and a British Army World War II lookalike Royal Enfield

even a Doraemon matchbox. They tell the story of changing times. At one time, all matchboxes in India came from Sweden as we never had the technology to make them.

Today, India is the biggest exporter of matchboxes to Europe.”

Lost and found

Vij travels far and wide to build his collections, but says that Delhi’s Chandni Chowk and Daryaganj are good places to begin, filled as they are with people willing to sell treasures – though at a high price. “At times people have actually given me things because they know I’ll take good care of them,” he says.

Occasionally, Vij has to work a little harder for his passion. For instance, in Jodhpur, he once had to buy two kilos of jeera because he wanted the Salto tin the jeera was stored in, and the shopkeeper had nothing to transfer the jeera to.

Vij’s collections are his alone for the moment but he has big ideas for them. “Ideally, I would want to set up a proper museum where these things can be showcased in a planned way,” he says.

“Already, people who laughed and said I was weird are bringing their children to my house for a date with history.” veenus@hindustantimes.com Follow@VeenuSingh12 on Twitter

READERS SPEC IAL

hindustantimes.com/brunch

Stop Me If You Can! Deepika Kant, who has cerebral palsy, has had to fight society all her life, supported by her family at every step. But she believes in dreaming big

Photo: SUBRATA BISWAS

GET, SET, GO

Deepika Kant in her automatic car

by Atisha Jain

W

hen Champa Kant dropped her five-yearold off to school for the first time, she wasn’t sure if her daughter would ever learn to speak English. It didn’t take her long to realise that nothing, not even cerebral palsy, was going to deter Deepika from achieving what she wanted.

Still, she has a hard time convincing other people, and had to deal with insensitive comments like, ‘Such a pity to have three daughters, and one of them is disabled too!’

“There have been days when I regretted that I gave birth to a disabled child,” says Champa, her voice quivering and eyes brimming with tears. Today, looking at her confident 25-year-old daughter, she’s embarrassed to even admit that she had such thoughts.

The story so far...

It was 1989. Champa Kant was a happy homemaker, her husband was in the Air Force in Pune. Her pregnancy led to a breech birth – the baby appeared bottom first.

But when Deepika was born, she didn’t cry.

The parents doubted if Deepika would make it. But survive she did. She appeared healthy and at first it seemed that she might have emerged unscathed.

However, when she was close to turning one, they noticed how Deepika couldn’t roll her body over like their neighbour’s baby could. “We thought she was a slow developer,” says APS Kant, Deepika’s father.

But when Deepika couldn’t sit on her own without falling, or

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“I thought that my child has come so far. But settling in a big city like Delhi and studying a subject that requires long hours in the lab…Will she be able to do it?”

But Champa’s doubts proved to be unfounded. Because she realised that an uneven gait wasn’t going to stop Deepika from realising her dream of earning a doctorate.

And so Deepika applied to colleges in Delhi University and was eventually offered a place at Sri Venkateswara College.

Not only did she graduate in Life Sciences, she went on to receive a Masters in the subject from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Innumerable trips to hospitals made her interested in knowing more about her disease and the workings of the human body. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience from JNU.

The big dreamer

when her neck always needed support, her parents realised something was wrong.

A visit to a specialist and further tests revealed that Deepika had cerebral palsy. “We couldn’t understand how a one-year-old healthy-looking child could have any problems,” says her father.

The doctor explained that during the delivery, lack of oxygen had affected all of Deepika’s four limbs. She might have difficulty walking, among other health complications.

But the doctors’ assurances that her brain had not been affected, and that she was sound mentally, gave them hope.

“The Almighty will show us through,” they believed. “We didn’t want to limit her, she could choose her destiny,” So after being home-schooled in the initial years, Deepika moved to a mainstream school where she was immediately looked upon as an ‘alien’.

“My classmates would stare at me. Teachers were doubtful about me. If my family made me feel normal, the world around me made me aware of my disability, over and over again,” she remembers.

But she sailed through the

“I can see what they are thinking – ‘Oh she must have got in through the quota.’ I fail to understand why people can’t acknowledge merit” choppy waters as her family adjusted the sails. “My family’s life revolved around me. Daddy would drop me to school. Mummy would stay for the rest of the day, to help me switch rooms, or if I needed something. My two elder sisters would help me with studies and take me for walks. My brothersin-law made up for the brother I never had. What more could I have asked for?” she laughs.

Over the years, Deepika moved around the country (from Pune to Chennai to Siliguri) because of the nature of her father’s job.

After she finished schooling from Siliguri, she announced that she wanted to pursue a BSc in Life Sciences from Delhi and Champa admits that even her iron will faltered just a bit.

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

The first thing that strikes you about Deepika is her large brown, droopy eyes. Then, her beautiful smile. She is pleasant and warm, with a streak of independence.

Through regular exercise and physiotherapy, her condition has improved and she is able to manage on her own. “But I want to be completely independent. How long will my parents take care of me?”

And so, Deepika recently bought an automatic car. She has also appointed a personal assistant to help her in college. “I am a day-dreamer!” she confesses. “And I believe in dreaming big.”

Her indefatigable spirit is contagious. “I have developed a thick skin to people’s unsolicited comments. And there are people in worse conditions than mine. I have been rather lucky.”

In her entire life, she swears she has never availed the offer of extra time to finish her examinations. “Why should I? When I can write perfectly well!”

After enduring a childhood in calipers, she now uses elbow crutches to support her through the day. She knows she is not 100 per cent fit and normal, “but then everyone is born with flaws. This is mine, and I accept it.”

From not being able to sit on her own to driving her own (automatic) car, it’s been a long journey.

And not an easy one. But Deepika believes in miracles. She has seen them happen. atisha.jain@hindustantimes.com Follow @JainAtisha on Twitter

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R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

How To Be

Forever Young

Renu Mehandru was in her mid-50s when she went to the US to get an MBA – because, really, age is just a number

by Saudamini Jain

R

enu was not yet 16. There was a flurry of excitement at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, the posh Delhi girls’ school where she studied: some of the girls would be sent to America on an exchange programme for a year. Renu was selected. But the Delhi of the early ’70s was conservative, and the only girl child in the family wasn’t allowed to go. Later, Renu found herself doing what most ‘conventeducated’ girls did: studying English Literature at Miranda House, Delhi University.

Around the same time, Gopal Mehandru, after his engineering, was supposed to go to the UK to study – but he couldn’t.

When the two married in 1977 – Renu was barely 20 then – they had a goal in common: to make sure their children studied abroad.

Little did Renu know at the time that one day, in her 50s, she would make several trips to the United States over a period of three years and return with an MBA. The years following the economic liberalisation of India, also witnessed a remarkable rise in the number of Indians going overseas for higher education. Delhi’s upper-middle classes wanted to study abroad – and as foreign universities began lobbying for international students, they could realise their dreams of becoming global citizens of the world.

In the early 90s, this trend was at a very nascent stage, and not yet pervasive. But Renu spent hours

every day in the USIEF library on Hailey Road researching for all the possible US universities her son could apply to. “There was no Internet, mind you. Nobody knew how to apply, where to apply: I looked through so much material and contacted many universities!”

In two years, she had sent both her sons to college in America.

And now, she was an expert at education in the United States.

So Renu became a professional education consultant, guiding and counselling Indian students who wanted to study in the US.

A dream of your own

In 2002, on a business trip to Strayer University, which has several campuses across America, “I noticed students who were CEOs of companies, they were in their 30s and doing their MBA... and I was floored! What a beautiful system! In India, everything has an age limit!” Mehandru remembers wistfully thinking of her dream as a young girl. “I told a colleague at Strayer that I had always wanted to study in the US, and she said, why don’t you?” The university waived 75 per cent of the fee because she worked with them, and she could take some of the courses online from India if she liked.

In 2006, Mehandru boarded a plane to attend her first class. She was a little apprehensive. But, “Age doesn’t matter in the US! Most people in my class were about half my age... but there was a gentleman who looked like he was in his

“Age doesn’t matter in the US! Most people in my class were about half my age... but there was a gentleman who looked like he was in his sixties, but I’m not sure – nobody asks your age there” FEBRUARY 22, 2015

sixties, but I’m not sure – nobody talks about your age there.” She found it difficult to keep up in class, in the beginning. But in a way, it helped her make friends. “If it took them 15 minutes to do something, it took me half an hour. But they’d help me out – especially with math, which I was always bad at. My husband would tutor me as well,” she giggles.

Over three years, she’d spent half the time in America. She submitted her final assignment in 2009: a three-hour exam that she gave online from home. She finished it at one in the afternoon, and “my husband had booked a spa appointment at 2! I got a massage, a pedicure, a manicure and when I came out to the hotel lobby – I couldn’t believe it – my friends were there. We ate dinner together.

They were all so proud of me!”

They went to Washington for her graduation, where for the first time in her life, she donned a blue

gown and a matching square hat to receive her degree. Her entire family was there: her husband, their two sons and the daughters-in-law.

“It’s not as hard as it sounds – all you need is a four-year degree [Mehandru had done her BBM when her sons were younger], a reasonably good GMAT score and work experience – but age won’t be a hindrance,” she says.

It adds to your qualifications: “When I counsel students who want to study in the US now, I can tell them what it’s really like”.

It gives you perspective: “Interacting with people from diverse cultures and countries makes you a better human being”. But more importantly, it was something Mehandru did for herself. Think about it: can anything in the world match the sense of achievement when you realise your childhood dream? saudamini.jain@hindustantimes.com Follow @SaudaminiJain on Twitter

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R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

The Feisty

Missile Fitter

How swimming across a river to school in rural Andhra Pradesh set P Aanand Naidu’s ambitions soaring

by Aasheesh Sharma

T

he river that flows next to his village in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district played an important role in Doordarshan deputy director general P Aanand Naidu’s life story. Crossing the waters with his books tied on his head in a halfstanding, half-swimming posture was an everyday routine for the boy who grew up to be an air force missile-fitter-turned-lawyer-turned TV administrator.

Naidu, 50, learnt to go against the current and take on the challenges that life threw at him, while negotiating the river’s sometimes turbulent waters.

As a 10-year-old, Naidu would wake up at four, study for some time, work for a few hours in the farm, cross the river and then walk six kilometres to school. “The school I went to served students from four villages. We studied together at one common ‘ajjada’ as

we call it in Telugu.”

After class 11, when a friend suggested Naidu explore a career with the Indian Air Force, the wiry teenager decided to go with the flow. “During the exam I was told I might be underweight. For my height [five feet five] I had to weigh 43.5 kilos. But I was just 38. So I stuffed myself with bananas hours before the exam. In time for the test, my weight crossed 40 kg and I was selected,” he says.

Fighting prejudice

In 1982, the year the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launched the Asian Games, Naidu joined the Indian Air Force. “I became a

missile-fitter. The discipline was so new that the ex-servicemen in my village said it didn’t exist. I was part of the second batch of missile-fitters in Air Force.” So what exactly does a missile-fitter do? “He prepares the missile for the launch carried out by an engineer and the operational officers.

Normally missiles are not put on high-alert since that reduces their shelf life,” explains Naidu.

Then airman Naidu applied for selection as commissioned officer and succeeded. In 1986, the year he was working on surface-to-air missile Two (SAM 2), Naidu was deployed for Operation Brasstacks, carried out to simulate the operational capabilities of the Indian armed forces. “We were pulled out to a war location, with the missiles loaded and frequencies set for launch if needed.”

In the last fortnight of his training, Naidu got a call letter to join the Air Force Academy. “On the first day, the teacher asked a class of 53, how many of us had studied in vernacular medium schools. I raised my hand promptly. There was silence and I realised everyone was staring at me. Some of my classmates were from Doon School. But they became

During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Naidu manned the ATC radar at Jodhpur, at a time when Mirage aircraft played a crucial role with precise, laser-guided strikes

Photo: VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

my friends once I won an essay competition.”

Memories of Kargil

During the 1999 Kargil conflict, recalls Naidu, Mirage aircraft played a crucial role with precise, pin-point strikes. “At the peak of the conflict, I was manning the ATC radar,” he says proudly.

Clearly, Naidu was passionate about flying. Why did he join the legal profession then? The two are not entirely disconnected, he says. “The regulations followed in ATC are all based on international civil aviation organisation rules.

Each word that I speak on radio telephony is a command for the pilot. I say climb and he’ll climb without thinking of whether he will crash into another aircraft.

That’s where I first developed an interest in law,” says Naidu.

Taking voluntary retirement, Naidu practiced law frenetically for three months. So much so that his health began to get affected.

“During the time I was practising law, I was foregoing my sleep. ” On his wife’s advice, Naidu took a sabbatical from courts. A few days into the sabbatical, he responded to an advertisement looking for deputy director general (security) with Doordarshan and was selected.

In his new role, Naidu manages security systems for 67 Doordarshan kendras and 400-odd stations spread across the country. He also dons the hat of channel manager with DD Bharati, the culture channel of the public service broadcaster. “The viewership figures of the channel were languishing at just one million compared to 115 million for the other DD channels. A senior officer called me and said: ‘You’ve been an air traffic controller for 25 years. That is the most stressful job in the world. I am sure you can handle the channel.’ Despite no background in culture – I am a fauji by training – I took up the responsibility.”

In his avatar as channel manager, too, Naidu has done well.

“We’ve signed agreements with institutes such as the National School of Drama and leading Delhi museums to cover good events on the channel. And this week the TAM rating touched 4 million.”

Even at 50, the flow of life never ebbs for this feisty fauji! aasheesh.sharma@hindustantimes.com Follow @Aasheesh74 on Twitter

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R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

A Teenage

Storyteller

Law student Paras Joshi wrote his first book at 16. Here’s how...

by Saudamini Jain

H

ere’s a copy for the Brunch team. I know it’s worthless right now, but wait a few years,” beams Paras Joshi. He is 21 and exceptionally earnest.

We met at Café Turtle in Khan Market. “At 12, I had written a short story, borrowed heavily from the Harry Potter series. It had a character called Kalazar Kai (like Salazar Slytherin) and a Governor of Magic. I knew I wanted to write when I grew up,” he said.

Joshi didn’t wait to grow up to write his first novel though.

After class 10, he had just changed schools – from Bal Bharti, Gangaram Hospital Marg, to Modern School, Vasant Vihar. And he had an idea for a book.

It was going to be a collaborative effort between Joshi and his cousins. When they were younger, they’d make up stories. Eventually, however, it fizzled out. And Joshi worked on the book himself.

He made flow charts, jotted down important points of the plot – “but let my characters decide their destiny.” So the book kept changing every time Joshi had a new idea, which was often.

The year was 2010 and everybody was reading Amish Tripathi’s Immortals of Meluha.

Mytho-fiction had arrived in India.

As is often the case with commercial fiction in India, it had a great plot, but less than sparkling prose.

“I was reading Immortals of Meluha at the time, and I always read

the acknowledgements of every novel. I read Anuj Bahri’s name and discovered that he was Amish’s agent and his first publisher, so I looked him up, found an email and submitted a few chapters.”

By January, Bahri had assigned him an editor “who was finishing Amish’s last book at the time”. Within a month, during the vacations between Class 11 and 12, Paras wrote his first draft.

A long wait

Over the next three years, two editors quit, the novel went back and forth, and through some changes.

Joshi was now a law student at IP University. Finally, last December, it was published. “When you write a novel at 16, and it gets published only when you turn 21, everybody knows about the book. By the end of it, I had no idea when it was going to be out, so I was relieved when it happened!”

The book, Equilibrium (first in the Aavaasya trilogy) is inspired by many fantasy and sci-fi books you may have read. “If you are writing fantasy, you will borrow elements from other books: we’ve all read Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire… but I was also influenced by the Mahabharat and the Ramayan. I took the concept of good vs evil from them – that good and evil are the flip sides of the same coin. And added the concept of cyclical time:

“I met Amish at a book signing, and when Anuj [Bahri] introduced us, he said to me, maybe one day I’ll be standing in a line like this, to get your autograph” FEBRUARY 22, 2015

this meeting now has happened before, it is happening right now and it will happen in the future.

When these three time cycles converge, apocalypse sets in.”

It is a bit confusing, the plot.

The protagonist is a 17-year-old orphan thief who can break open any lock and must break into a government vault. The dark forces are rising, set to destroy the “Equilibrium”... But picture a 16-year-old kid who wakes up to the idea of a book fully formed in his mind. More interesting still, is that he was enterprising enough to approach agents and actually tried to do something about the few chapters he had written.

Joshi is now promoting the book in schools and colleges, updating his Facebook page and “doing everything I can to push the sales,” he says.

The plan of action

He’s 21 now – half a lawyer. “But I’m not studying law to be a lawyer,” he clarifies. “I love John Grisham’s books, and I want to write legal thrillers.” He already has an idea – “but I have to be sure of the legal details of criminal law.

I’ll probably work on it over the summer.”

He’s almost certain that the book will do well. Or at least that his writing career will. “I met Amish at a book signing, and when Anuj introduced us, he said to me, maybe one day I’ll be standing in a line like this, to get your autograph,” Joshi grins.

At 16, when Joshi had just begun writing his book, he would daydream while typing furiously on his laptop. He had three recurring fantasies.

“There’s a bookshelf right next to my bed and I would imagine my book sitting prettily there,” he says. Fair enough, everybody wishes that. “My second fantasy was to be on the cover of HT.” We grin, break into laughter. And pause the interview for a few seconds to remind him of the cover shoot the following day.

“My third fantasy was to be a multi-millionaire author,” he says matter-of-factly.

Two out of three ain’t bad.

But rich writers are a rare thing, I warn him. He seems unfazed. “I’m hoping that since my first two fantasies have come true, I’ll graduate to the third too!” saudamini.jain@hindustantimes.com Follow @SaudaminiJain on Twitter

Photo: SAUMYA KHANDELWAL

22 R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

Photo: VIPIN KUMAR

Been There, Done That,

Got The Ticket

Unlike people who collect souvenirs from the places that they visit, student Vineeta Rana hoards ticket stubs

by Veenu Singh

M

ost of us, when we travel, take pictures obsessively.

After all, photographs are a great way to keep memories alive.

Not Vineeta Rana though. The 19-year-old collects travel memories in a most innovative way – by hanging on to the stubs of every admission ticket she’s ever used.

Movies, museums, concerts, even Disneyland, Rana has saved her admission tickets to all of them.

“I’m a sucker for souvenirs, and tickets (or ticket stubs) are my favourite kind of memorabilia,” says Rana. “Not only do they have the date of my visit and the name of the place I went to, they are more permanent than memories and photographs one never looks through again.”

Rana’s father works with the ministry of external affairs. As he was posted to different countries every few years, Rana never had a sense of permanence in her life.

Books, pets, family, friends… she had to constantly leave everything behind to move on.

Not a piece of paper

Two years ago, when they were in Vienna, Rana’s mother suggested she start collecting ticket stubs, so that she had something tangible and permanent in her life.

Once she accepted the idea, Rana decided to store her ticket stubs innovatively. Though most are kept in a box, many are neatly pasted on the walls of her bedroom. These include a VVIP ticket to a David

Guetta concert (in Vienna), a plane ticket (from Vienna to Paris), and a museum entrance ticket (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence) among other memorabilia and letters from friends.

“Going through my pile of tickets or looking at this wall always makes me weirdly nostalgic,” says Rana. “I have a pretty good memory and remember in detail almost all the places that I have been to.”

Journey of life

Some of those memories include the looks on the faces of ticket collectors when she asks for her tickets back. A big fan of the writer John Green, Rana still regrets the loss of her ticket for

“Tickets seem like the perfect way to document my journey and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it until about two years ago,” the movie The Fault in Our Stars, which her friends left behind in the auditorium.

Rana’s collection consists of many tickets for all sorts of things, and the most precious is the one for Disneyland, Paris (April 2013).

She now wants to visit and collect the tickets for the Harry Potter Studio Tour (London) and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Orlando) as she is a big Harry Potter fan. veenus@hindustantimes.com Follow@VeenuSingh12 on Twitter

READERS’ SPEC IAL 23 15

Meet The

Bookmarkophile

Kausik Misra wanted to be different.

He found his place in the world (and books) by collecting bookmarks

by Aastha Atray Banan

Photos: LABONY KAUSHAL

I

don’t like competition,” says Brunch reader Kausik Misra, 30, a marketing professional with a TV channel. “I have always had a hatred for anything that everyone was doing. So people collect stamps, coins and such but I collect bookmarks.”

Misra says he was amazed and honoured when Frank Divendal, the world record holder for the most bookmarks ever (more than 1,20,000), found his Facebook page and wrote to him, saying he loved the page! “That was a good day,” he smiles.

He started collecting bookmarks in 2002, when he first arrived in Mumbai from his hometown, Jamshedpur, to study at St Xavier’s. One day, he bought a few bookmarks, and realised that this could be a “unique” hobby when he googled the English word for a person who collects bookmarks and didn’t find one. “According to French websites, the word is Signopaginophile,” he says.

Twelve years on, Misra doesn’t know how many bookmarks he has. “It takes away the romance of it all, if I start counting. Then it becomes a chore.” He’s not slowing down though. He has bookmarks from

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

countries as far away as the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Malaysia and South Africa and every place he has visited in India. “My friends and family know what to get me as a gift!” he says.

What’s important to him is that his bookmarks have memories attached to them.

“When I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I didn’t buy posters of the paintings, but instead bought bookmarks. ” And in Belgium, where everyone was buying the lace umbrellas that the country is known for, he bought a lace bookmark.

Misra also loves making his own bookmarks. He has used airport baggage tags as bookmarks, even Do Not Disturb tags from hotels. To make a bookmark out of the BEST bus tickets that are no longer in use, he actually travelled on the routes that used the red, the blue and the green tickets separately. “It makes for a great memory and story then.

What’s the point otherwise?”

This is his only hobby, he says, but it defines him. “It’s on my Instagram and Twitter bios.

It’s who I am.” aastha.banan@hindustantimes.com Follow@Aastha82 on Twitter

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Second LookS, Second chanceS, Second heLpingS A A new hotel in Bangalore, great homedelivery places in Delhi, a revisit to an old restaurant – it’s been a full fortnight

ND SO after another frenzied bout of travelling, here are some of my impressions of the places I’ve eaten at over the last fortnight. I’ll start with Gurgaon because I briefly mentioned chef Ramon Saito in my piece on chorizo last week. Some months ago, I’d done a massive hatchet job (their phrase, not mine) on Spectra at the Gurgaon Leela. The general manager called me at once. I usually dread these calls because the general managers tend to be both defensive and whining at the same time. But Michel Koopman, the Leela’s guy, was straightforward. Yes, he said, we have a problem. Give me a few weeks and I will fix it.

So last week I went back for a massive lunch with Michel. Ramon did some great tapas and an amazing paella but Michel got all of the Leela’s chefs to show off their stuff.

Overall, the food quality was remarkably high and the star of the show was of course, Kunal Kapoor, who must be the nicest TV chef in India. Kunal knows how to preserve the flavours of home cooking while creating great restaurant dishes.

Vir Sanghvi

rude food THAILAND IN CUFFE PARADE

At The President in Mumbai, Ananda Solomon still packs them in at Thai Pavilion and maintains the Taj’s reputation for excellence

I won’t claim that this meal is necessarily representative of the food the average punter will get at Spectra or any of the Leela’s other restaurants. But if they can keep up some of these standards, then the Leela’s gastronomic problems may well be over.

On the subject of tapas. I think I’ve found the most under-rated famous restaurant in Delhi. All of us know that Claridges now has a restaurant called Sevilla. We also know that it is vaguely Spanish and that the combination of an indoor and outdoor setting really works well.

What we don’t know is how good the food is. Perhaps this is because a new chef is behind the stove (an Indian, but he has worked in a variety of British restaurants) and when I had dinner there, not one dish was a disappointment: sautéed peppers, chorizo with prawns, ham croquettes, pizza bianca and lots more. Now all they need to do is import a variety of sherries to go with the tapas.

The Sevilla pizza was Italian in execution but the pizzas at NYC.PIE, the new restaurant in Defence Colony market, are all-American. The restaurant is the brain-

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

SPECTRA-CULAR

Ramon Saito at Spectra at the Gurgaon Leela did some great tapas and an amazing paella (top) when I went back for a massive lunch last week

child of Raj Rao, who opened Threesixty when he looked after food and beverage at the Oberoi in New Delhi. Raj is a legend in the business (full disclosure: both Rao brothers – including Uday who is with the Four Seasons – are old friends of mine) because of his imagination and his fierce commitment to quality. His new place is intended more as a home-delivery operation rather than a full-fledged restaurant. But the pizzas are spectacular and if I put on ten kilos by next month, it will be because I keep ordering them at home. If you live in South Delhi, you must go or order in.

Also on the home delivery circuit is a relatively new operation called Leaping Caravans.

Though their delivery area is Gurgaon and they mainly focus on offices in that region, they will deliver at home too if your place is not too far from Gurgaon. I tried many of their dishes – all good home-style North Indian food with a few Calcutta touches – and was pleasantly surprised by both food quality and the packaging.

And so to Bangalore where, I was once again astonished by how well the new JW Marriott is run – that makes three great JWs in a row for me: Poona, Bombay and now Bangalore. I suspect Marriott may be the dark horse in the hotel race. We rarely talk about the chain but their India properties are really world class.

Though they don’t necessarily advertise this, RitzCarlton hotels are also part of the Marriott family. I’ve been meaning to stay at the first Ritz in India, which opened last year in Bangalore but loyalty to my comfortable bolt-hole at the Windsor kept me from straying. But seeing as I was staying at the Marriott and had abandoned the Windsor anyway. I decided to check out the Ritz.

I have to say that I was totally blown away. This is easily Bangalore’s most sophisticated hotel, a full generation ahead of anything else in the city. It radiates an air of quiet but artistic (the hotel is filled with original works of modern art) exclusivity and the night I went there were so many foreigners in the lobby that I had the sense that I was in Hong Kong or Shanghai. (Is that a good thing? Well, it de-

27

WORTH A CHECK-IN

The Ritz-Carlton (left) is a full generation ahead of anything else in Bangalore. They persuaded me to dine at The Lantern, their Chinese restaurant (above). The dim sum were first rate, with some outstanding riffs on Yauatcha classics

pends on what you’re looking for, I guess).

I went first to the rooftop bar, which is visually stunning (though there is not a great deal to admire in the Bangalore skyline) where I bumped into Manu Manikandan who I had last seen at the Chanakyapuri Leela. Manu is the beverage manager at the Ritz, one of a high-powered team there which includes Anupam Bannerjee (ex-Mandarin Oriental) as the chef and Nilesh Singh, very much the Oberoi group old boy as executive assistant manager (F&B).

They persuaded me to dine at The Lantern, their Chinese restaurant, which is essentially a more upmarket version of the Yauatcha formula (I think I’ve offended both the Ritz and Yauatcha with that comment!) with a chef who has worked at Hakkasan, Yauatcha’s older sibling. The difference is the décor – understated but elegant – and the level of service (led by Pooja Bailey, who I remember from Bombay’s Sea Lounge).

The meal began indifferently, with slightly doughy dim sum but picked up with some outstanding riffs on Yauatcha classics (the baked chicken puff melted in my mouth) a Din Tai Fung-style soup dumpling (better than at most Din Tai Fung branches these days!) and a terrific lamb rolled (with makroot flavour) in cabbage.

The dim sum were first rate but the one stirfry I tried (a Kung Pao chicken) suffered from the usual HakkasanYauatcha problem

The pizzas at NYC.PIE in Defence Colony are spectacular. If I put on ten kilos by next month, it will be because I keep ordering them

of too much sweetness in the seasoning – a consequence, I suspect, of hiring overseas Chinese chefs from Malaysia.

I have no idea how well the hotel is doing: Bangalore faces an over-supply of hotel rooms, the Oberoi is now back in the game, having got its act together and a new Shangri-La is due to open in a few months. But I do know this: the Ritz deserves to do very well.

And then to Bombay where I remain a creature of habit tending to rely on old familiar places. One of these places, Thai Pavilion at the Taj President, is currently undergoing something of a renaissance, celebrating yet another anniversary or the other. (Is it 20 years? Could be. The restaurant opened a few years before Ajit Kerkar left in 1997).

It is still packed out night after night and what I love the most about Pavilion is that you might see Ratan Tata or Anil Ambani at a table sitting next to a middle-class family from Cuffe Parade – and they both get exactly the same kind of service.

The Taj is currently gripped by talk of change, one result of a change in management at the top. The consensus seems to be that the weakness of the food is a major failing and that the new management has realised this. I have no way of knowing whether this is idle gossip, but you cannot deny that in all three top food categories – Chinese, European and Indian – where the Taj was the pioneer, it now lags far behind.

How nice then to eat at The President where Ananda Solomon still packs them in at Thai Pavilion and maintains the Taj’s reputation for excellence, an island of stability and continuity in an ever-changing food scene.

There is still one area where the Taj is ahead of other chains (including ITC’s Dakshin) and that is Indian food: the trio of Karavalli in Bangalore and Southern Spice and The Raintree in Madras are hard to beat. At the President, Solomon’s Konkan Café is my favourite of the Taj’s South Indian restaurants (I actually prefer it to Thai Pavilion, even!) and it is one of the few restaurants in Bombay where I have never had a bad meal. (I ate at Karavalli while I was in Bangalore. But that meal will have to wait for a longer piece I am planning on the restaurant for its silver anniversary this summer.)

Meanwhile, I gather the Bombay scene has hotting up.

Floyd Cardoz has finally opened the much-awaited Bombay Canteen in Parel. I haven’t been there. But Floyd Cardoz is a great chef. And I can’t wait to eat at the Canteen.

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

A GOOD SAVE

Michel Koopman at the Leela’s Gurgaon admitted they had a problem with Spectra. He said to give him a few weeks to fix it

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, log on to hindustantimes. com/brunch The views expressed by the columnist are personal

28

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The end Of fOOd PART - II

From Star Trek to Willy Wonka, we’ve dreamed of a meal in a pill. Is the future here with Soylent?

I

T’S TAKEN thousands of years of tweaking, experimenting and perfecting to achieve the culinary knowledge that we have today. Imagine throwing all of that out in one shot.

No farming, no growing food, no shopping for raw ingredients, no searching for recipes, no slaving over a hot kitchen cooktop, no sitting down and eating, no cleaning the utensils after. Imagine the efficiency of your life and the time and effort saved.

MEAL IN A PILL

The dream of a meal in a pill seems to have been around forever. Whether we were amused by it in a Jetsons comic strip or read about it in popular science fiction or saw it in Star Trek episodes – the idea that a delicious full meal, with all the nutrients that the human body needs, could be achieved by popping a pill has always fascinated mankind. Well, the three-course meal pill may still be a few years away but a powder that claims it will replace all food is taking the world by storm. It’s called Soylent and no, its not made of human flesh converted to delicious dust.

THE HISTORY AND INGREDIENTS DRINK UP

Soylent supposedly has all the nutrients that your body needs

In 1973, the movie Soylent Green introduced the world to a single food product that eradicated all farming, growing grain and vegetables, livestock and labour used to produce food. All people had

techilicious

The idea of achieving all that the human body needs through a pill has always been fascinating MORE ON THE WEB For more Techilicious columns, log on to hindustantimes.com/ brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter. com/RajivMakhni The views expressed by the columnist are personal

This cake-batterlike sludge gave a feeling of fullness that lasted five hours

of planning and cooking, it was a solution for survival.

What I had just eaten could be the end of food!

SOME BIG QUESTIONS

I stayed on Soylent for very few days, not because I didn’t like it, but because I had a very small supply. In this time I was asked lot of questions. Did I feel hungry in between?

No, not at all, as you can drink this anytime and it does keep you full. Did I not salivate when I passed a pizza shop or took in the aroma of fresh doughnuts? Surprisingly, no. I enjoyed the idea of another meal but never had the desire to break from Soylent. Were there any stellar changes in my body? I was on it for very little time but I did feel more energetic, mentally sharper and a nagging skin allergy on my upper shoulder started to clear up. Did my body adapt to a liquid food diet immediately? No, there is a bit of rumbling inside the stomach and you do tend not to have too many friends willing to stand next to you on Day 2 (serious flatulence) but it’s gone by the next day. Did I lose weight?

Yes, about a pound was gone but that’s not the objective of Soylent. This is not a weightloss meal, this is your meal itself ! It’s just that we all tend to eat a lot of superfluous food to get our nutrients.

This is a straight ‘lab to tummy’ chemical concoction.

IS THIS THE END OF FOOD?

It will need a lot of studies and some seriously detailed tests over a long period of time for anyone to ascertain that. The good thing is that the Soylent project is now backed by serious money and some real momentum and those studies are on. It’s also irresponsible to call this the end of food. Eating for most people is an emotional and social experience. The taste, texture, smell; the stunning art and craft of a great meal; the psychological experience of to eat was Soylent Green and it gave them going out with friends or family to a restauNOT SO GOOD immense energy. Food shortages and hunrant for a meal – those can’t be replaced. Also, the ger were a thing of the past till it was discovered Soylent Green, the coming of Soylent or its future iterations doesn’t that the main ingredient to make Soylent Green 1973 movie almost mean that restaurants and fast-food chains all was human remains. As I drank my first glass of got it right over the world will shut down. But if the Soylent Soylent, that’s all I could think of. experiment is a success, then maybe we will look at traditional meal times differently. They will become soTHE FIRST IMPRESSION cial experiences, to be enjoyed once in while when you want I couldn’t taste any humans in my drink. What I could taste, to go out, when you want to do something special, when you was grainy, almost bland, somewhat pleasant, with a trace want to celebrate. The other meals that are more drudgof sweetness – like cake-batter sludge slowly going down ery than an experience may all get converted to Express my throat. I was surprised to feel that I was full halfway Soylent Specials. through, even though I hadn’t eaten any breakfast. I got a MY 30-DAY EXPERIMENT batch of Soylent (it’s very tough to get, as the demand is There is a small delay in getting my 30-day experiment gosky high) from a friend who had latched on early to the ‘end ing as getting my large batch of Soylent to India is turning of food’ bandwagon. The aftertaste was slightly chalky but out to be far tougher than I originally thought. But it will be comfortable and the feeling of fullness lasted about five here soon. Watch out for an update on how I fared though hours after I had chugged the whole sludge meal in. a 30-day period with nothing but Soylent in my body. And START OF THE END I may just have enough to take along one or two more peoThis beige batter supposedly had almost every micro and ple on this awesome adventure. Write to me on Twitter if macro nutrient that the human body needed. It was a meal you want to join me in drawing the curtain on thousands of that came from a laboratory rather than a kitchen, a food years of conventional cooking!

Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, that was more science than culinary. Rather than luxuriate Cell Guru and Newsnet 3 over a five-course meal that took an equal number of hours

Rajiv Makhni

ALL IN A PILL

THE NEW FOOD?

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

30

indulge

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

Homing in Moving house may be the most stressful thing, but it does have its upsides

Y

OU KNOW what they say about moving house, don’t you? That it is one of the most stressful things in life, right next to divorce and losing a loved one. And as someone who spent the better part of her youth moving from one apartment to another, I have to agree that there is some truth to that.

It’s not just the sheer physical inconvenience of packing up all your belongings and then unpacking them at the

Seema Goswami

spectator KEEP OR CHUCK?

There’s nothing like the thought of packing up all your possessions to scare you into re-evaluating if you really need all this stuff

next stop (and mourning all those that get damaged in the process). It’s also the emotional upheaval of leaving behind a place where you made memories with your loved ones, where you laughed and cried, where you lived a part of your life, no matter how brief the period. Put all this together, and it is completely understandable why it is such a wrench to move out and move on, even if you are moving to a better address, a bigger house, or a nicer place.

Which is why I have great sympathy for those of you who are currently struggling with a move. I know what a pain it is to pack away your entire life in an endless series of cartons, with the knowledge that in a few days' (or weeks') time you will have to undertake the same process in reverse. I know the sense of loss when you

can’t wake up to the view that you got so used to. I know that strange, unsettled feeling when a house doesn’t quite feel like home, even though all your possessions are in it. I know the pain of trying to adjust to new neighbours all over again. Not to mention the agony involved in getting a new Wi-Fi connection, installing new phone lines, and cable for your TV. It’s enough to drive anyone bonkers.

So yes, I do agree that moving house is one of the stressful experiences in life. And once you’ve made yourself at home in the new place, it’s completely understandable to swear to yourself: never again!

But don’t be so hasty. Hard as this is to believe when you are drowning in a sea of cartons, there are a few upsides to moving house. And sometimes, they make up – if only partially – for all the hassle involved in moving.

For starters, this is the best way to de-clutter. There’s nothing like the thought of packing up all your possessions to scare you into re-evaluating if you really need all this stuff. Those jeans that you haven’t worn since before you had the baby; the boots that have seen better days; the tat that people keep sending you for Diwali and Christmas; those dog-eared copies of cheap thrillers that you will never read again; the stack of DVDs that you’ve already watched; those pots and pans that have had the Teflon coating cooked right out of them; the list of the junk we all tend to accumulate goes on and on.

The rule in these circumstances is: if in doubt, delete. As in, chuck out with the garbage.

If you think that someone else can get some use out of some of this stuff, then make a bundle and cart it to a charity shop (or a lending library). But be ruthless now. Get rid of all the junk. I can guarantee that you won’t miss it in the next place; in fact, you’ll barely notice it’s gone. What you will feel is infinitely lighter, as you reclaim those empty spaces that we all need in our lives.

Ah, an empty space. A clean slate. A bare canvas.

That’s what a new place is. This is your opportunity to try something new, to create a new ambience for a new you.

Experiment with colours: if you’ve always gone for light, inoffensive pastels, try a bolder colour scheme (if you’re too scared, limit yourself to one wall out of four). Paint a mural on the ceiling. Jazz up dark corners with some snazzy wallpaper. It’s too much of an investment to buy new furniture, but it is quite cost-effective to give it a new look. Change the upholstery, or just buy new slip covers. Accessorise with new throw cushions, or a brand new set of curtains, and you will have updated your interiors without breaking the bank.

But more than the opportunity to de-clutter and re-decorate, what a new house brings with it are the possibilities inherent in new beginnings. Maybe this is the place where you will finally reinvent yourself, becoming the person you were always meant to be. This could be the setting that inspires you to write the novel you always wanted to. This may be the house where you get around to starting a family. This could be the place where you finally find peace and contentment.

And if you’re lucky, and it is meant to be, then this could be the home where you live happily ever after. What more could you ask for? (Apart from never having to move again, of course!)

I know what a pain it is to pack away your entire life in an endless series of cartons

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

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

34 R EA D E RS ’ S PEC I A L

Photo: RAJ K RAJ

Shortwave

Surfer

“The first time I heard Ulan Bator radio, I went to a bookshop the next day and looked it up. That’s when I found out it was the capital of Mongolia!” side showing details of the radio station (frequency etc).

DXing was popular in the 1920s and ’30s, when broadcasters depended on the community of DXers to gauge the effectiveness of their transmissions. But it was the allure of the colourful QSL cards – and of course the possibility of discovering foreign shores on the humble radio – that initially drew Jain to DXing. “Not just cards, I would get calendars, stickers and T-shirts too!” laughs Jain. But you have to send a proper report to the radio stations to get the cards: “You have to rate the signal quality properly. It’s called a SINPO rating (Signal strength, Interference with other stations or broadcasters, Noise ratio, Propagation, that is the ups and downs of the reception and Overall merit).”

Mongolia memories

THE TOP DECK

Jitendra Jain shows off his collection of QSL cards sent to him from remote radio stations

Ever since childhood, Jitendra Jain has been passionate about DXing – listening to radio stations from far-off countries

by Asad Ali

A

t 37, Jitendra Jain is a successful corporate professional, an aspiring poet and an incipient novelist (he had to settle for prose). All pretty much normal for these days.

But when he was younger, he had a most unusual hobby. While most Indian children play cricket, Jain was hunched over his radio, DXing. In other words, he was trying to catch and listen to radio stations from very, very distant parts of the world.

We meet at a coffee shop, and as we chat, Jain lays out a bunch of cards that look like picture postcards on the table. “These are QSL cards,” he says. “I only have about 50 of them in Delhi, but I have hundreds back home in Assam.”

Born and schooled in Gola-

ghat, close to about a hundred tea gardens, Jain became a radio geek pretty much because of these QSL cards. Radio stations send these cards to listeners who send in formatted reports of station reception from distant parts of the world.

DXing is telegraphic shorthand to indicate long distance. D stands for distance, X stands for unknown.

“You pick up the radio and start tuning in to detect unknown stations. And keep at it until you chance upon a unique station,” explains Jain. Once a ‘foreign’ station is detected, you send a reception report to the station’s office. If all criteria are met, the station sends back QSL cards – just like picture postcards, one side showing an image of the station’s country of origin and, the other

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

What might seem like an exercise in tedium fascinated Jain who says that DXing was his only hobby for three years from class 9 through to class 12. “Just imagine hearing ‘Welcome to Radio Ulan Bator!’ It’s a different kind of excitement!” exclaims Jain. Chancing upon the radio waves of Ulan Bator is one of his earliest and most cherished DXing memories. “I didn’t even know where Ulan Bator was!” he says. “The first time I heard Ulan Bator radio, I went into a bookshop the next day and looked it up.

That’s when I found out it was the capital of Mongolia!”

In an era when the Internet was still to cast its web around the country properly, this obscure window to completely alien cultures in faraway worlds excited Jain no

The Collector, Writer Etc Jain also collects coins that are circulated for special occasions, such as the Asian Games or with campaign slogans like Hum Do Hamare Do. He has coins commemorating 25 years of Indian Independence.

There’s a book deal in the pipeline too. Jain wanted to write poems, but realised the market for that was limited and difficult to break into. So prose it is, to be published by Rupa & Co, with the quirky title S#!t called Board Exams and Terrorism.

end. He credits his friend Babul Gogoi with starting him on it. Gogoi, who Jain says “was a geek in the ’90s when it wasn’t that cool!” had read about DXing somewhere and told another common friend Shashank about it. Through them, Jain learned about it and started DXing. “It used to be like a contest amongst us, who could get the most QSL cards,” says Jain.

Global playground

Japan Radio sent him the most colourful cards but Radio France remains his favourite: “They always had a lot of programmes on air, and contests. I won a lot of gifts from them too.”

Didn’t he feel like the odd one out with such a hobby? Jain says, “Initially all my friends and even my father would be like, ‘ye tu kya karta rehta hai saara din radio pe,’ but when they saw that my reports were being acknowledged and I was receiving fancy mails from abroad, they thought it must be something good.”

Just to clear the air, Jain says he has played his share of cricket too! “Studies were not as much of a pressure. I managed about 55 per cent in my Board exams, so I was always playing cricket or doing something else outdoors. This hobby just engaged me a lot more, and when they looked at the gifts I got, my friends thought it was cool too,” he laughs.

So what does one need to start DXing? According to Jain, you don’t need a fancy set up. “There are dipole antennae available and other equipment but just buy a four-band radio – you will get it for around `700. Then start listening at night because the interference is minimal. And tie a copper wire somewhere high on the terrace.

That’s it.”

Jain says that though he hasn’t really returned to DXing after college, he intends to start soon.

“Nowadays the desire to discover has reduced. Maybe because we can know about other countries and cultures simply by logging on to the Internet. But I will take it up again very soon,” he smiles.

Asad.Ali@hindustantimes.com Follow @AsadAli1989 on Twitter

READERS’ SPEC IAL 35 15

Doctor Of Letters By ditching Twitter and FB for snail mail, Divya Padmanabhan keeps in touch with the age-old art of writing

W

hen 17-year-old Divya Padmanabhan started junior college, she had a hard time making friends and adjusting to the new life. But expressing her emotions through writing came much easier to her.

That’s when she thought about writing to strangers around the world and making connections via letters.

“I googled how to make pen pals,” says Padmanabhan. “I came across some web sites that required you to pay some fee and was put off by the idea.”

A few weeks later, Padmanabhan found penpalsnow.com, a web site that allowed people to select age groups and interest areas in order to start writing to each other. “This website neither required money, nor photos,” she recollects. “It wasn’t even that intrusive, so I made my profile and wrote to a couple of people.

Some wrote back promptly, and we’re friends to date.”

While most teens text and tweet to each other, Padmanabhan prefers the age-old snail mail. “There’s a sort of psychological satisfaction in writing,” she says. “Seeing a person’s handwriting, the souvenirs they send, the inks they use, etc, give you an insight into their lives.

There are only so many fonts to choose from and photos to attach on email. It’s a bit limiting.”

A usual exchange between Padmanabhan and her pen pals in Britain, Canada, Belgium and Poland (all teenagers) includes everything from venting about education systems to talking about peer pressure. “My Polish friend and I discuss rock bands.

My British friend Thomas and I discuss playing the piano,”

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

“There’s a weird satisfaction in writing. There’s only so many photos you can attach and fonts you can choose from over email” says Padmanabhan. “Elska, my Canadian friend, is the one I talk to most often. We even email between letters.”

While Padmanabhan’s pen pals tell her about the bullying at their schools, and send her pictures of the four feet of snow that their cities get, she sends them pictures of Mumbai and other “Indian looking” stuff, like bookmarks.

She realises that hers is a weird hobby for today’s times.

“I’m not on social media, so people think I’m mad because I prefer writing to tweeting,” she says. “But the best part is that when writing to people who live far away, you’re never waiting for a reply. The letters arrive unannounced and leave you beaming with joy!”

And while she might be struggling with making friends, she says having friends in different countries is a blessing in disguise. “Friends can get suffocating, but this way, I know that they are available and I have someone to talk to, while skipping the pressure of maintaining friendships.” nihit.bhave@hindustantimes.com Follow @misterbistar on Twitter

Photos: LABONY KAUSHAL

by Nihit Bhave

36

READERS’ SPECI A L

Desperately Seeking Raina

Raina Mehta spent her life copying her twin sister.

It took courage to see herself as an individual and break free from a borrowed identity

by Rachel Lopez

R

aina Mehta, 21, is tall, beautiful, articulate and a little conscious about coming across as fat on camera (she shouldn’t be, as you can see). A stranger would take in her hip handbag, iPhone clutched in one fist, her casual confidence, and dismiss her as one of the affluent few who’ve always had it easy.

But, Raina, an equity research analyst, has learned the hard way that self-worth is more valuable than any blue-chip investment.

“Until I was 19 or 20, I didn’t even know who I was,” she says. That’s because she was busy trying to become her sister, Akshina. “We’re twins. I’m two minutes older.

But she was the assertive one. I liked the way she knew what she wanted; following her seemed easier – she’d be the one to take the fall if things turned sour.”

No one suspected a thing, least of all Akshina, but it took its toll on Raina. “I gained nothing from junior college but an exceptional amount of weight – my body was taking the brunt for my mistakes.” Raina didn’t pose for a single picture in those two years.

And, oddly, decided to become an engineer, taking IIT tests every other Sunday. “I’d fare so badly, I’d look for my name in the marksheet from the bottom up.” Eventually Raina says she stopped trying, smiling or believing. “I was ready to give up on life itself.”

Self discovery

And then came change. “I realised in my head what I’d felt in my bones all along: that the choices

The way it was

Things never turned sour for Raina, because there was less and less Raina as the years progressed. She slowly abandoned her identity for her twin’s: “I copied her ambitions, her hair cut, her favourite restaurant. She was interested in Western music and fitness, I took guitar lessons and running. She read books on psychology. I read them too, even though I could never understand them. The world knew me through her – I was ‘Akshina’s sister’.”

When the twins went to college, Akshina picked science; Akshina’s sister did too.

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

READERS’ SPEC IAL 37 15

that were right for a person who looked just like me, were entirely wrong for me,” Raina says. One day, her hands trembling over the keyboard, she googled her career options. “I abandoned the ones I didn’t like and was left with what I hate the least: economics and finance, of all things! This might sound absurd, but I actually started reading newspapers and blogs to learn what opinions sounded like. I answered in class, I asked questions. It was a terrifying new feeling and I loved it.”

Raina graduated, found a job valuing companies,

“I’m two minutes older. But she was the assertive one. Following her seemed easier – she’d be the one to take the fall if things turned sour”

took classes in becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst, and is enjoying it. Her twin, Akshina is still a role model – she’s completing her Masters in immunology at Oxford – but “I no longer want to become her,” Raina says simply. “A lot of us don’t take the risk early on to learn what drives us. Ask yourself this: If I were to die tomorrow, what would I want to achieve? It was heartbreaking to realise that, at 19, I’d spent my life chasing what I didn’t want.

No one dies from a bad career.

But not knowing who you are is the worst that can happen to you – you die a little every day!” rachel.lopez@hindustantimes.com Follow @GreaterBombay on Twitter

MORE ON THE WEB For the first two editions of Brunch Readers’ Special (the first where we asked you to write for us and the second, when we asked you to photograph for us) log on to our website hindustantimes. com/brunch Photo: KUNAL PATIL

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

38

PERSONAL AGENDA

twitter.com/HTBrunch

music channels. We were a generation obsessed with new music and they were our window to the world beyond. Now STAND-UP it’s really tough.

COMEDIANS There is mad THAT YOU ARE competition and it’s not just about the FOND OF music anymore.

One song that describes your current state of mind.

Slip Away by Rodriguez.

The biggest risk you have ever taken.

My show called The Bench. I think it is risky as it could have backfired.

A piece of advice you wish someone had given you 10 years ago.

Before you want to join the media, do your research. Don’t buy some other guy’s plan.

The cheesiest pick-up line you have ever used or was used for you?

I don’t use pick-up lines as I’m not attracted to people who get picked up by a pick-up line. This could be a pick-up line!

Three grooming products you can’t BIRTHDAY CURRENTLY I AM...

HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE PLACE SCHOOL/ do without.

August 6, 1980 Hosting a web show OF The moment I realised I don’t have to COLLEGE Sensual midnight inner-thigh called The Bench, which BIRTH Delhi College of Arts and study for a school exam ever again cream, yoga organic eyebrow SUN SIGN I helped create and write.

Indore Commerce curler and yograj tonic for men.

Leo Also, I am getting ready LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE Your fitness fundas.

FIRST BREAK for a television show My early teens were full of conflict I hang only with the lazy and HOMETOWN Theatre and production with scheduled to be aired and I was always nervous about the frail.

Delhi Roshan Abbas in February the future Your favourite holiday destination.

Turkey.

If you weren’t in showbiz you would jokes about everyone, no one is It was during the Semi Girebaal What makes your day? have been... sacred or above it. show. I accidentally walked into Eating a great meal with people A folk musician or a farmer The shows you enjoy watching. a birthday party, wearing heels I love and then falling asleep as and I’m pretty sure I’d be just Game Of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and in costume. When the party they tell me about their hopes. as happy.

House Of Cards, Modern Family finished, everyone stared at me, What spoils it?

Has making fun of others ever backand Family Guy. this hideous six-foot-five-inch A 600-page book with fired for you?

Are Indians loosening up as far as creature in drag. diagrams. I’ll send it across.

Oh yes. I’ve had threats. I’ve humour is concerned?

An Indian reality show that you’d love You de-stress by... had people trying to shut down Not all Indians, but I guess there to host.

Solving other people’s proba TV show I hosted. I’ve even is a large population that has Any of the ones that have music lems. I feel I’m a great motivahad a guy chase me around a really opened up and comedy or performances in them. I love tional guru for other people’s wedding with a bottle! owes them a lot. They actively hosting those. problems and a complete failure How do your friends in Bollywood take follow comedians.

How do music channels of the ’90s at mine. to being made fun of?

A funny incident or anecdote that you compare to those of today?

They love it, most people love can’t forget.

The ’90s was a lucky time for — Interviewed by Veenu Singh being made fun of as long as they are in the joke. I think A FILM YOU HAVE SEEN FILM times a day problems start when it gets The Master (2012) MORE THAN FIVE TIMES. personal and biting and that’s never been my style.

As Good As It Gets THE FIRST FILM YOU SAW Whose sense of humour do you admire (1997) A FILM THAT WAS A PART ON THE BIG SCREEN more: Karan Johar’s or Farah Khan’s?

OF YOUR GROWING-UP Chota Chetan (1998).

Karan’s sense of humour is THE MOST PAISA VASOOL YEARS It was my first ever like a suspense film. It’s like The Jungle Book FILM 3D film. My 3D the climax scene from The Karan Arjun (1995) (1967). We had the glasses tore and Usual Suspects. You realise, a week later, that the joke was tape which, funnily the whole movie was on you. He is the king of wit THE MOST OVERRATED enough, played 12 a blur and sarcasm. With Farah, she

I adore Chris Rock and George Carlin

VJ/Actor

Cyrus Sahukar

my films

FEBRUARY 22, 2015