Brunch 22 12 2013 by Hindustan Times

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 22, 2013 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

Christmas Wishlist

Sumptuous feasts Magnificent midnight mass Soul-stirring choir music A sparkling Christmas tree (and lots of mulled wine)

PLUS: A quick cheat-sheet to fib your way through this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s popular culture

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

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Free Advice

by Rachel Lopez

OH, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE!

What if there’s a luxury gift for you this season? Will you ruin it by pronouncing the name wrong? Not after this guide

HERMÈS o Hurrms o Air-MEHZ o HER-mizz

CHANEL o Shuh-NELL o Cha-NIL o Shay-nel

GALLERIA o Ga-LAY-ria o GALLERY-aah o Guh-lah-RE-ah

GUERLAIN o Gair-lahn o Gu-er-lain o Gurr-line

CARTIER o Car-tee-YAY o Kar-tee-year o Car-tyre MAYBACH o May-back o May-batch o My-Bakh

SHISEIDO o Shi-SIGH-doe o She-SEE-doh o she-SAY-doh VOLKSWAGEN o Folks-va-gun o Volks-VAH-gone o Volks-WAY-gon

VERSACE o Were-sayz o Ver-say-chee o Ver-sah-che

Ab Tak Aapne Dekha

by Shreya Sethuraman and Yashica Dutt

DANCING AWAY...

We love television and we love dancing. We love it even more when we watch people dancing on TV. And now that there are so many options to choose from, we pick the ones that have left a mark JHALAK DIKHHLA JA What’s it about? This Colors show is the desi version of Dancing With The Stars, and is just as good. Watch it for... The three judges, Madhuri Dixit, Remo D’Souza and Karan Johar, along with the two hosts, Manish Paul and Kapil Sharma, provide much entertainment. The dancers are brilliant, with mindboggling, beautiful choreography. The flip side: We can't seem to find any! NACH BALIYE What’s it about? Relatively well-known couples dance with their partners on Star Plus. Watch it for...The contestants, Terence Lewis and Shilpa Shetty. The flip side: Hosts Gautam Rode and Karan Wahi try too hard; Sajid Khan is rude.

BOOGIE WOOGIE What’s it about? This Sony show is the oldest one on TV and has some super talented kids. Watch it for... The judges – Jaaved Jaffery, Naved Jaffery and Ravi Behl. They’re never ever rude to contestants. The flip side: Some dances have been vulgar and cheap.

DANCE INDIA DANCE What’s it about? One of the early shows, this Zee production is the template most dance reality shows today are based on. Watch it for... The talented dancers. Also, judges – Mudassar Khan, Feroz Khan and Shruti Merchant – are unscathed by jaded TV formats. The flip side: Too dramatic. Mithun Chakraborty gets caught up in his own demi-god status.

On The Brunch Radar

by Saudamini Jain

LOVE IT

n“Oh, it’s good for networking”

n Pop culture listings for 2014

n The banners at Jantar Mantar #GlobalDayOf-

Idiot Box

by Shantanu Argal

I Am Legend

LIFE OK’s new show about Hatim Tai premieres on Dec 28. Here’s a quick primer History regards Hatem ibn Abdellah ibn Sa’ad at-Ta’iy or Hatim Tai as a generous man and a poet. Popular culture sees him as a source of intrigue. The guy went on a successful quest to answer the Seven Riddles and lifted a spell that changed the Gulnar Pari from stone to what she was originally made of. Most likely cinnamon and ittar.

1. What I saw once, I long for a second time. 2. Do good, and cast it upon the waters. 3. Do no evil; if you do, such shall you meet with. 4. He who speaks the truth is

Bollywood Has Had A Hatim Film For Every Generation n Directed by G.R. Sethi (1933) n Directed by Homi Wadia

(1956)

n Saat Sawal (1971)

directed by Babubhai Mistry

n Haatim Tai (1990) by Mistry again. Sangeeta Bijlani

danced to Aaj Bachna Mushkil, also sung by Amrish Puri

always tranquil. 5. Let him bring an account of the mountain of Nida. 6. Let him produce a pearl of the size of a duck’s egg. 7. Let him bring an account of the bath of Bad-gard. In Addition To Some TV Shows n Dastan-e-Hatimtai (DD): The cast included bigshots like Shammi Kapoor and Parikshit Sahni. Bad CGI and worse acting n Hatim (Star TV): Star ran it for one season, but managed to get 48 episodes in. It is still aired by Star’s channels in Hong Kong and the US

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Cover image: THINKSTOCK Cover design: MONICA GUPTA

DECEMBER 22, 2013

Stuff You Said Last Sunda Sunday

us ry. It gave fabulo Loved the ad sto ad. an of g kin ma insight into the v/s Mumbaikar Also the Delhiite reshing ref s piece wa al – Priyanka Bantw

Sunday Must QueenRead: @Happy TBrunch H @ Rose story in hind MOM on the men be toine – @chezan

@HTBrunch ohh how do you prove every time tha t you're the best to read!! MO M story makes me feel how less I knew of India. I Salute ISRO!! – @joshiniki

SHOVE IT I am a re g of Dr. Sh ular reader ikha Sha rma’s column. informa It is very tive and written in lu cid lang ua am very thankfu ge. I l to Sharma for her g Dr. reat advice – Bimale n Bhattac du harya

s Mars article wa The Mission To in simple en itt wr ll We e. awesom plained difficult language and ex easily. It was as so ms ter scientific a Sci-Fi film ing tch wa as exciting th – Debasmita Na

It’s been quite a time I read #HTIf Brunch. Finally! y, not the hardcop ch online. @HTBrun I didn't realize ng what I was missi #HappySunday 330 – @vivek_singh

Psst, send us an email, find us on on Facebook or tweet eet to @HTBrunch

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman

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

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

Photos: THINKSTOCK, SHUTTERSTOCK

The Seven Riddles / Seven Questions

Rage and everybody protesting against 377 n When a rich kid is your Secret Santa n A mashed potato bar at parties (so much better than the chocolate fountain) n That Mia Farrow does her laundry in the hotel sink. (Bollywood royalty, listen up)

n If the Hrithik-Sussanne break-up made any difference to your or life FB status n Hindutva trolls n That corporate is now the norm. Doomsday? n The trailer of Kill The Rapist?

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e r u t l u C r a l u p o P r u Yo 013

2 t e e h S t Chea W

All things that made 2013 entertaining – some regular, others you may not have heard of. No worries, when in doubt, fake it!

PICTURE ABHI BAAKI HAI

e’re a bit of a film crazy country. And let’s face it, some of us watch a LOT of movies. And we talk about them over and over again. But how many things can you do anyway? And what if you haven’t watched the big films? All hell will break loose – “Yaar, woh picture kaise nahi

dekhi?” – so we bring you a list of all the Bollywood films that rocked our world in 2013 (and not always in a good way!). If you’ve missed out on any, DVD leke aao, popcorn banao aur baith jao, okay? (Alternatively, say what we tell you to say and you’ll be safe)!

galore, this is one Only Rakesh Roshan gives Rakesh YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI absurd amusing film Roshan work/Can chameleons walk Ranbir’s the hottie, Deepika’s the at its best. So hard to through walls? nerd, things click, nothing happens. resist a blonde Saif Years go by, things eventually fall going ‘I keeel dead RAANJHANAA into place. Essentially, it’s goodpeepal’. He keeled it with this one. Unrequited love always hits danlooking people travelling to What to say: This Vir Das is so gerously close home for some good-looking places talented! We must go for his next folks and Raanjhanaa ofand attending E show. fered an alternative to the D-DAY, TH goodtraditional happy ending. looking LUNCHBOX, BESHARAM shaadis... BOMBAY TALKIES What to say: Killing yourThat’s exactly what should’ve been self is no answer/I hate it What to , ht tig t, en Differ said after giving the makers of said when people think Dhasay: They rellwe , ng sti intere film one tight thwack. It’s not often ally shouldn’t ree nush only sang Kolaveri acted... these th that people walk out of a Ranbir Di... so stupid I say. have split up. s are what you film Kapoor movie (in which he has They look so good row in the face th dance numbers as well!) looking so SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE together! s of those who dis stunned at what has just happened Watch it because it’s a llywood and Bo to them. Watch the movie. Go brave new world where LOOTERA AND n eig for ip rsh wo ahead. I dare you. we (gasp) date people GOLIYON KI RASLEELA: a em cin What to say: How could Ranbir and don’t marry them RAM LEELA y: sa to What do this?!/ How could his entire (double gasp), We were familiar with e’ve finally gone “W family do this?!/ That because we do the stories (at least yond such movbe heroine was terrible/ get scared in all English literature BHAAG being classified ies MILKHA BH Ranbir can’t pull off relationships. students were) and AAG parallel cinema” as a Salman...woh itna What to say: we wanted to see how A non-cric ke t Finally a movie Dabangg nahin hai. they would be handled. sports rela ted ADMIT THREE on how relaBoth films got some ‘O movie! The versationships work in CHENNAI EXPRESS Henry/Shakespeare must tile Farhan Akhtar the real world. SRK made a movie. be turning in their graves’ put on his running How could it not be reactions but everyone agreed, shoes to po rt KAI PO CHE big?! The great northboth films were a visual delight! Milkha Sing ray h an d it south divide was hotly Arguably the one film What to say: (For Ram Leela) worked! this year that everyone debated. It meant that Bhansali’s usage of colour and What to sa y: We liked. With a bevy of conversation in theatres lighting is exquisite. Watching his should all serve relatively unknown often went something films is such an experience! our countr y/ actors and a sensitive like this: (For Lootera) The Last Leaf was could have It been subject, not many were A: “Like this Sharook, my favourite story in school/ 30 mins sh orter/ expecting much. And you also think all south Sonakshi has really grown as I don’t know how wrong they were! Indian languagan actress. Such a mature a love stor why y was Despite Chetan ‘meses sound like performance. needed siah author of ende pende ADMIT ON the middle na?” E KRRISH 3 class’ Bhagat’s B: “Arre but The entire Roshan involvement, this film that is what it khandaan and Priywas the ‘must see’ of sounds like” anka Chopra were the year! A: “You north back in action in What to say: Such good Indians....” our desi caped young actors Bollywood What to say: crusader saga. Add has now/ The book and the Repeat the a body suit-wearing movie are so different/So many convermutant Kangana lives destroyed by the riots. sation Ranaut and a kajalabove/ eyed Vivek Oberoi GO GOA GONE Such a and you know you It was India’s first zom-com typical Rohave an epic film (zombie-comedy)! With some great hit Shetty on your hands. highly quotable one-liners and movie. What to say: My zombie film pop culture references kids really liked it/ – Shaoli Rudra

DECEMBER 22, 2013

TUNE IN

Quick, there’s still time, listen to these on YouTube to sound cooler than you really are.

MUST-HEAR ALBUMS n Random Access Memories by Daft Punk: Get Lucky is not exactly Discovery but it had some very smooth grooves. n My Soul Alone by The Chris Duarte Group: A killer Texas blues album with some really soulful guitar work. Progressive experimentation in Carelessness. n Lucky 7 by Stupid Ditties: This compilation album comprehensively represents the indie scene across our great nation. Tremendous effort by ‘veteran scenester’ Rishu Singh! GOOD SINGLES n Best Song Ever by One Direction: 1D had an eventful 2013: they released a movie in 2013 (colloquially referred to as 1D3D); they released an album (featuring this song); they came close to defeating Beliebers as the most hated fan club in musicdom. n Up in the Air by Thirty Seconds to Mars: This song was released in space. A disc was sent up as a payload to the NASA crew who then premiered it on NASA TV. The video is written, directed and edited by Jared Leto, and may trigger epileptic seizures. Also, it won Best Rock Video at the MTV-VMA 2013. THE VIDEO LIST n Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus: The album is called Bangerz. A near-naked Miley tongues a sledgehammer. A fully-naked Miley rides a wrecking ball. After the kind of year she’s had, more needn’t be said to convince you to watch it. n Dented Painted Remix & The Mamta Tribute: This effort takes music to hitherto unexplored territories. Samples of speech are interwoven with dubstep loops and the result is music that you laugh with. The former stars Arnab ‘DaNationWants2kno’ Goswami with Abhijit ‘Rashtrapati-putra’ Mukherjee and the latter, Momotadidi. – Shantanu Argal

BOOKS MOST TALKED ABOUT THE MIRROR OF BEAUTY

by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi Premise: A ﬁctionalised account of the life of Wazir Khanam (the mother of the well-known 19th century Urdu poet Daag Dehalvi) set in Delhi. And how the beauty courts Mughal noblemen, British ofﬁcers of the East India Company and others to her advantage. What you should know about it: This is an English translation of Faruqi’s 2006 Urdu novel, Ka’i Chand The Sar-e-Aasmaan.

THE LOWLAND

by Jhumpa Lahiri Premise: Subhash and Udayan, two inseparable brothers grow up in Calcutta in the ’60s. But their bond is broken with the Naxalbari movement, which Udayan chooses to become a part of. Subhash, on the other hand, leaves for America and returns at the news of Udayan’s death. He marries his brother’s pregnant wife, Gauri, and takes her to America. The rest of the book is about how Gauri comes into her own. What you should know about it: It was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, which went to Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries instead.

AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED

A YEAR OF GREAT TV

by Khaled Hosseini Premise: A collection of nine interconnected stories, all but one either set in Afghanistan or about Afghans, woven into a novel moving back and forth between time and geographical locations. The book begins with the brutal separation of a 10-yearold impoverished village

boy Abdullah from his three-year-old sister Pari, who is adopted by a rich, childless couple, the Wahadatis in Kabul; two cousins who had moved to America return for a visit and struggle with mixed emotions; a little boy grapples with the realisation that his father is a druglord… What you should know about it: That Hosseini was on the cover of Brunch earlier this year.

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

by Neil Gaiman Premise: The narrator returns to his hometown in Sussex and visits the farm of Lettie Hempstock, a girl he used to know when he was seven. They used to call her duck pond, “ocean” and while looking at this ocean, he is ﬂooded with memories of what had once been magic – the dark things that had happened 40 years ago, his nanny who was actually a “thing”, a monster from the other world. And only the Hempstocks can save them all. What you should know about it: It will remind you of Coraline, Gaiman’s 2002 horror/fantasy novella for young adults. In fact, without one tiny sex scene, this is easily PG-13.

THE HOPE FACTORY

by Lavanya Sankaran Premise: Anand is the owner of a small car factory, a self-made man who married well, and is now trying to make it even bigger. But his marriage is falling apart and he has to compete with cheaper Chinese manufacturing. Kamala is the family’s domestic help who wants her 12-year-old son to uplift their lives with a good education. But he’s keeping bad company. In this book are the parallel stories of their hopes and aspirations set in a transforming Bangalore. What you should know about it: The struggles in the book have been compared to Dickens’ works. – Saudamini Jain

HOLLYWOOD’S MOST QUIRKY

he year is almost over and your checklist on Hollywood cinema has barely moved beyond Gravity and Despicable Me 2. With all the parties you’ll be attending, some talk of movies is bound to creep in. And you can’t possibly gain much intellectual high ground by going on about the space-SFX-survival miracle that was Gravity – agreeably one of the most genuinely heart-felt flicks of the year. So to dip into that esoteric elixir of highbrow, this is the only guide you that’ll make you sound more profound than you are.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

A down-on-his luck singer in the 1960s navigates the folk music scene in New York. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, this movie is based on one week in the life of a singer as he struggles to make it on his own. Sound Profound: The music is the real star of the ﬁlm. It holds the movie together so brilliantly. My favourite is Please Mr Kennedy. You should hear it / It’s cinematic magic on screen. Probably The Coen’s brothers’ best yet.

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR

Two girls fall in love as teenagers, indulge in tons of lesbian lovemaking, grow up and grow apart. The film, despite its controversies of extended sex scenes and reports of acrimony between the cast and the director, won the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Sound Profound: It’s an arresting film but the sex scenes are somewhat artificial / The coming of age of a teenage girl is depicted so tenderly.

HER

Joaquin Phoenix is a writer who falls in love with his computer – an operating system, called Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Heart-broken after a failed relationship, he begins to ﬁnd comfort in the voice of an intuitive computer program, which leads to a touching, awk-

ward romance. Sound Profound: It’s not entirely impossible you know, the way things are going, we could fall in love with our computers / This is not just a movie; it’s a commentary on modern human relationships.

BLUE JASMINE

A rich socialite played by Cate Blanchett, suddenly finds herself without money and comes to stay with her sister. Sound Profound: Even though, like most Woody Allen films, this one walks the thin line between comedy and drama, Blue Jasmine might be his most sympathetic and incisive film yet / It’s wonderful how Cate Blanchett slowly disintegrates on the screen.

12 YEARS A SLAVE

It’s the true story of a free black man who gets kidnapped and is forced to be a slave for 12 years. It’s adapted from Solomon Northup’s memoir. Sound Profound: Chiwetel Ejiofor’s - (lead actor, look him up) soulful eyes wrench you by your throat / This is the ﬁlm on slavery that America has been waiting for. – Yashica Dutt

Here’s what the world watched on TV in 2013 If you’ve been hiding under a rock this year... The biggest, most ambitious, most talked-about shows are where to start. Game Of Thrones had a gory season that answered as many questions as it asked new ones. Breaking Bad wrapped up everything they’ve been cooking up with a series ﬁnale that gave fans a high. If you are a young white woman with #FirstWorldProblems... Viewers vented with Girls as they dealt with job cuts, writer’s block and breakups. Because, you know, that’s life. And one woman struggled through minimum security women’s prison, with tamponburgers, screwdriver theft and

incarceration with her lesbian ex-lover in Orange Is the New Black. Because that’s life too. If your idea of a party is a political party... House of Cards slowly and deliciously showed us how to play everyone in Washington and still hold all the aces. But on Veep, it all fell apart hilariously and the slightly neurotic US Vice President may just run for the big job next season. Everyone was talking about Scandal, and its many plot twists as it covered White House crisismanagement. Homeland started out with promise but tripped all over itself. If you can get out of a totalled Aston Martin and get away with it... You’ll want this year’s episodes of Mad Men as they try to sell Heinz ketchup, and baked beans without

staining their own reputations. If you’re certain that gay people are not the ones to fear... Look to the real monsters on TV. Vampires walked in daylight and upset the immortal faeries in True Blood. A botched cloning experiment resulted in multiples of the same ailing person on Orphan Black. If you were more interested in the Kat-Ranbir romance... or any romance Mindy is still falling for incredibly hot men on The Mindy Project, as the new season ﬁnally found its comic dynamic. – Rachel Lopez

HT INITIATIVE

A Bridge Across The Learning Divide

he skills gap in India Inc. is enormous. Most human resource professionals are of the view that close to 60 per cent of graduates in India are not geared up to meet the requirements of the industry. Our IT industry alone recruits between 200,000 to 300,000 students every year but not more than 15 per cent are in a position where they can be put on the job. Clearly, there is a huge disconnect between the needs of the industry and the quality of graduates being churned out by our academic institutions. Using technology to bridge the gap between what our educational institutions are delivering and the needs of the industry in skills and competencies, was the focus of the inaugural ‘BRIDGE Briefings’, a stimulating brainstorming session organised by BRIDGE School of Management on December 11 at its first learning centre at Gurgaon. Delivering the keynote address on ‘Educating the Indian workforce to drive economic growth,’ Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and former CEO of Infosys and chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, said with as many as 50 per cent of Indians below the age of 25, India was on its way to becoming the youngest nation in an ageing world. “People’s aspirations have been unleashed

From left: Professor Henry Bienen, former President of Northwestern University, Professor Dipak Jain, former dean of INSEAD and Kellogg School of Management, Hindustan Times Executive Editor Rajesh Mahapatra, Professor Thomas Gibbons, Dean, School of Continuing Studies at Northwestern University and Rajiv Verma, CEO, HT Media Ltd, at the BRIDGE Briefings event Photos: S BURMAULA

Rajiv Verma, CEO, HT Media Ltd, addresses the select gathering

DECEMBER 22, 2013

Nandan Nilekani (left), chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, delivers the keynote address at the first ever BRIDGE Briefings

Rajesh Puri, CEO, India Education Services Private Limited

HT INITIATIVE

Rajan Bhalla, Group Marketing Head, HT Media, at the event

A section of the audience at the first BRIDGE Briefings at the BRIDGE School of Management, Gurgaon because of greater Internet reach and more media. When everybody’s aspirations are extrapolated over a million people you have a volcanic mass of aspirations,” said Nilekani. The challenge of providing quality education to a large section of people can be met using innovation and technology, added Nilekani. “Innovation and new technology are particularly relevant in a country like India in bringing quality, speed and scale to provide quality education to a large section of people,” said Nilekani.

icking off the discussions, Rajiv Verma, CEO, HT Media Ltd, said one common lesson from the success stories of most leaders was the crucial role played by education. “A group of students I recently interacted with was discussing whether to invest their valuable time and money in pursuing an MBA. The advent of technology and online media has made it possible that education doesn’t remain the preserve of a gifted few. Thanks to the Internet, you have the flexibility of timing. The BRIDGE School of Management is one such initiative where we hope to bring education to millions of students who have been denied this so far,” added Verma. In the nation’s education landscape, no one has been catering to the working professional, said Rajesh Puri, CEO, India Education Services Private Limited. That is

Adam Gutstein, Vice Chairman, PwC, speaks at the BRIDGE Briefings the audience the BRIDGE School of Management, launched by India Education Services Private Ltd, a joint venture between HT Media Ltd and Apollo Global Inc (USA), seeks to address. “Since working professionals are short on time, they can’t really venture out of their offices. Still, their employers want them to upgrade their skills. So, what we’ve done is brought the world’s best technology into our school and given the students the option to study online for about 80 per cent of the time,” added Puri. Nilekani’s keynote address was followed by a lively panel discussion on ‘The Changing Trends and Future of Continuing Education’ featuring HT Media Limited CEO Rajiv Verma, Professor Henry Bienen, former President of Northwestern University, Professor Dipak Jain, former Dean of INSEAD and Kellogg School of Management and Professor Thomas Gibbons, Dean, School of Continuing Studies at Northwestern University, moderated by Hindustan Times Executive Editor Rajesh Mahapatra. The evening concluded with a second panel discussion on the subject ‘Will technology be a game changer for continuing higher education in India?’ featuring Adam Gutstein, Vice Chairman, PwC, Professor Dipak Jain, Professor Thomas Gibbons and Dr Mukesh Aghi, Board Member and CEO, L&T Infotech Limited. brunchletters@hindustantimes.com

From left: Dr Mukesh Aghi, CEO, L&T Infotech Ltd, Prof Thomas Gibbons, Dean, School of Continuing Studies at Northwestern University, Prof Henry Bienen and Prof Dipak Jain

Prof Dipak Jain, (left) former dean of INSEAD and Kellogg School of Management, in conversation with Nandan Nilekani, chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India DECEMBER 22, 2013

WELLNESS

MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA

KNOW YOUR FATS

Everything you need to know about fats and oils, including how to make healthier choices

HERE IS A wide variety of fats and oil to choose from, but most people still don’t know much about fats. Here’s how you can identify fats and oils and stay healthy. To lose weight, should you go absolutely fat free? No. Fats and oils are essential for the overall nourishment of the body, so cutting them out of your diet completely is very harmful. The trick lies in choosing the right kind and quantity of fats or oils. It is also important to know that most foods have small quantities of natural fat, so that mostly takes care of your fat requirement. The ideal weight loss regime should include natural fats.

which clogs the arteries and damages the liver. Even packaged foods use really poor quality oil to ensure taste, prolong shelf life and reduce pricing. These oils are extracted using solvents and chemicals, and are extremely unhealthy. The foods made from such oils include biscuits, instant noodles, ice creams, readyto-eat foods, chips, wafers, namkeens, instant mixes, instant coffee, soups, cake mixes, etc. Which oil is good for the body? You should consume only natural fats and limit the consumption of processed oils. Natural oils found in nuts like almonds, wal-

Is there a difference between fats and oils? The solid variety is called fat and the liquid kind is called oil, provided this is their form at room temperature. So if you melt butter, you cannot call it oil. Do all oils and fats have NOT ALWAYS RIGHT nuts, pecans, pistachicholesterol? White butter is healthy os, cashew, hazelnuts Usually, fats extracted in small quantities, but etc. are loaded with from animals have more very unhealthy when minerals and healthy cholesterol than oils used for frying fatty acids. extracted from plants. Similarly, sunﬂower Plant oils are naturally seeds, ﬂaxseeds, pumpkin seeds cholesterol-free. It is important etc. are an excellent source of to learn that all kinds of cholesnatural oils and are palatable terol are not bad for the body. In when roasted slightly. These fact, the liver produces cholesseeds also improve fertility. terol itself. Natural organic cream and white butter are the healthiest So, which fat or oil is unhealthy? when consumed in small quantiThe fats and oils used in street ties, but are very unhealthy foods are the unhealthiest. Usuwhen used for frying. ally, vendors use poor quality oil and reuse it. Most street foods TO BE CONTINUED… are fried and the reused oil ask@drshikha.com creates compounds in the food, Photos: THINKSTOCK, SHUTTERSTOCK

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch DECEMBER 22, 2013

HE THING about Delhi is that it says goodbye to every year with style. The city is at its most beautiful – it’s as cold as cold can get without being biting and bitter. The malls, the markets, even the kinara dukaans are dotted with red and green, brimming with fake Christmas trees and sparkly plastic baubles. There are piles and piles of plum cake, there are children humming carols while skipping around with Santa hats on their head, and there is just so much excitement in the air. We, at Brunch, are going to make the most of the holidays this time and party unabashedly. We bring you where and how. This Christmas, eat, drink and spread the cheer. Dear readers, we wish you a merry Christmas! brunchletters@hindustantimes.com

To some of the oldest churches in the city! In 1579, Jesuits from Goa were invited by the Mughal emperor Akbar to Agra where they set up their mission. In the 17th century when the capital shifted to Delhi, the city’s first churches were built. In the next 100 years, these would be destroyed and later restored. The Christmas programmes begin with Advent, which starts anywhere between November 27 to December 3. But the real celebration begins on the 22nd, with a lot of carolling and choir singing. Jesus was supposed to have been born at midnight, so the Christmas mass starts a little before – keeping ‘vigil’ for Christ to be born.

ST JAMES’ CHURCH

KASHMERE GATE The oldest surviving church in Delhi was built in 1836 by partScottish, part-Rajput Col James Skinner (lying wounded in battle, he vowed to build a church if he survived). 11.30pm: A ‘simple’ mass attended mostly by non-Christians.

ST MARY’S CHURCH

CHANDNI CHOWK A chapel that stood here was destroyed during the 1857 uprising. This church was built in 1865. 10pm: Christmas qawwali in a mix of Hindi and Punjabi. 11pm: Carol singing in Photo: SUNIL GHOSH English and Hindi. 11.30pm: Service in Hindi.

SACRED HEART CATHEDRAL

Nativity at Sacred Heart Cathedra

GOL DAK KHANA The oldest church in New Delhi and the largest Catholic church in the city, it was built 70 years after St Mary’s.

(at home or even to a party )

Photo: VIPIN KUMAR

St James’ Church

11pm: Carol singing at St Columba’s grounds. Midnight: Vigil service.

THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE REDEMPTION

NORTH AVENUE Built to meet the spiritual needs of British officers in Delhi, it was opened in 1931. It’s the only other church in the city with a pipe organ (to hear it play, head to the church on Christmas morning at 8.30 am or for any other Sunday service). 11.45pm: Mass in English.

ast week, we called Santa to the Brunch How do you get into people’s homes in office. And this nice big gentleman chimney-less Delhi? (seen at left) turned up with a bag full Through the door? <pauses> I don’t fit in of presents – a dinky Christmas tree, shiny chimneys anymore... plastic ornaments, cupcakes, an extra Three ways to get off the naughty list: Santa suit and more. There was also a 1. Brush your teeth twice a day. handwritten letter – which hich 2. Don Don’t wake up late and miss said ‘You must take your our school. sc Santa Claus colleagues gues out to lunch 3. Ba Bathe regularly (though, I don’t). has 31 hours if you want to be on This is Call Santa Home, a ChristTh the good list next mas initia initiative by Order Happiness, to deliver year!’ We intera small service pr providing compresents to viewed d Mr Claus and pany where you can literally buy pan all the kids in he was quite funny: happiness. Call them today to book happiness th e world. But What do you eat? a Santa ffor the 24th or 25th for 30 to do so, he’ll minutes ffor `2,950. Plum cake, cookies, need to travel Call: 95407 08885 milk. But I am thinking Website: callsantahome.com We of going on a diet... at a ra

Photo: SANJEEV VERMA

te of 7718.2kph!

Glittering ornaments, sinful feasts, a jolly fat man and all the things that bring ye cheer... We’ve spared no effort to make your festive season truly happy and joyous

...because too many trees look lopsided, characterless or just plain blingy

eople will tell you that there’s no wrong way to decorate a tree. But look to the giant eyesores in hotels (all pomp and no personality) or in liv✦ Think of proportions when you’re shopping. You don’t want big ornaments on a small tree or vice versa. ✦ Details count. I’ve passed over stuff that didn’t have good finishing touches. I’ve said, “Sorry, angel, I’m going to have to put you back” in shops that had badly proportioned figurines. ✦ Segregate ornaments by colour, type and size. Group the reds, golds, blues, bells, bows, cherubs, and so on before you start. ✦ Put your prettiest ornaments on top (it gets the maximum focus), or in a viewer’s direct line of sight.

The Christmas tree originated inthe d Germany aroun 8th century

ing rooms that look like the owners are colour blind! Shalini D’Silva puts up a lovely one at Bungalow 9, Mumbai. It’s grand, yet intimate. Here are her tips: The clunkier decorations can hang at the bottom to cover unsightly gaps between the branches. ✦ Ornaments have become very sparkly now, but families who have been decorating for years will have less glittery stuff in the mix. Go as blingy as you like, so long as it reflects your personality. ✦ Traditional trees in homes have a nice mix of everything – without a theme. But if you want yours to have just purple decorations, who am I to judge? ✦ Zoom in and out. Take several steps back every few minutes so view your tree from a little distance. You’ll find the holes, the lopsidedness and imbalance of colour or sizing that you’d have missed at close range. If you do have holes, you could always cover them up with cotton! co ✦ A tradition I want to start is to request friends and lo loved ones to contribute one or ornament each (no matter how old or worn out) from ma their tr tree, which I could call my own – they’ they’ll be stories for the children I’ll have. ha

As the winter gets colder, pull out some old clothes from your closets to make the season cosier for everyone. AID STREET DWELLERS: The Uday Foundation’s Woollens Donation Drive is one of the biggest in the city. They collect warm clothes and blankets for under-

If you’re not in the mood for a fake plastic tree (which can cost anywhere between `500 to `15,000) get a live tree from any nursery near you (it’s illegal to chop trees). Padam Chand Saini of Joginder Nursery says, “Most coniferous plants will work as Christmas trees and will cost anywhere between `500 to `2,000. If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, your tree can grow more than twice as tall as you, otherwise it’ll stay at about 5-6 feet tall.” Here are three Christmas favourites: Juniperus: The foliage is compact and the small leaves can easily be pruned into the perfect shape. If you want one that will grow taller over time, get Juniperus chinensis. The Cook Pine (Araucaria Cookii): The horizontal branches are perfect for hanging decorations. You can keep it indoors for a few weeks. It can grow up to 7 feet tall in a large pot. Morpankhi (Platycladus Orientalis): Found in nearly every Indian garden, it’s usually treated like a shrub but it’s conical and can grow up to 50 feet tall! Photos: THINKSTOCK

privileged children as well as people living on the streets and outside hospitals in Delhi. Website: udayfoundation india.org/donations A HELPING HAND: The Happy Feet Project is a growing Facebook community. It’s a reminder to keep at least one pair of socks in your bag at all times – so every time a kid asks you for money or you see a family shivering under a ﬂyover, you hand it over to en-

DECEMBER 22, 2013

sure there’s one more person with happier feet, instantly! Where: Anywhere Website: facebook.com/ warmuptheworld FOR ANIMALS: Old sacks, blankets or coats will keep the city’s animals warm. cle Where: Circle of Animal Lovers Website: circleofanimal lovers.org

18 Photo: RAJ K

RAJ

The best sound of music in Delhi

ou won’t be able to see too many performances of Delhi’s best choir groups on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day because many singers are expats who go back to their respective countries. But just until last week, Gospel was the flavour of the month. The women dress in bright saris, the men in churidar-kurtas. There are high school students and people in their seventies, and each person sings with equal gusto. Begun in 1994, The Capital City Minstrels (CCM) meets every week for two hours at the Hungarian Culture Centre. This serves as the perfect stress buster for Reuben Israel, who has been with CCM for six years. His day job as a book publisher never keeps him too busy for choir practice. He’s a bass singer. “Men usually are the bass singers,” he says. “Look at the choir as an instrument being played by somebody. Left to itself, a choir can sing, but it’s the conductor who helps to bring in one group at a time (each choir has different groups of singers or voices: tenor, soprano, alto and bass). So when you’re interpreting a choir, you can’t have each

person interpret it their own way. The conductor is the one who knows IF YOU LIKE THE when a dynamic CLASSICS… voice should ✦ O Come All Ye Faithful become soft and Originally known vice versa.” as Adeste Fideles, The it consisted of four The Delhi C four-year-old Latin verses. You can hristian Cho Delhi Chamber The Redemption in D rus performing at th sing the ﬁrst and third e Cathedral ecember 20 11 verses from its Wiki Church Of Choir, howpage in English. ever, takes only trained ✦ Silent Night singers and musicians, because current director, has UNESCO listed this it’s easier to work with them on been part of the group for 17 years. carol, composed in 1818 in the finer points of singing. “Our The best part about his group, German, on its Intangible music is slightly complicated in Mclaren says, is their wide variety Cultural Heritage List. the sense that we’re more into clasof songs. “We have a collection of ✦ We Three Kings of Orient Are Composed by a priest, it’s sical music and we also do a lot of about 1,200-1,300 songs and hardly about the Three Wise Men visita cappella singing,” says Isabelle ever repeat any song that we sing. ing Bethlehem. Jaitly, administrator for the Delhi The music of the likes of Mozart IF YOU LIKE A PEPPY BEAT Chamber Choir and a former jourand Bach is everlasting.” This ✦ Joy To The World nalist who’s now into research. huge group of about 50 people Based on Psalm 98, this can be The Delhi Chamber Choir has two that meets once a week to practice quite exhausting to sing. (sometimes three) main profor almost 90 minutes has eight ✦ God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen This is famously mentioned in grammes a year. They meet once a musicians playing the piano, tromCharles Dickens’ A Christmas week for two-hour sessions. bone, trumpet, flute, bass guitar, Carol, itself a seasonal classic. The oldest choir in the city cymbals... ✦ Good King Wenceslas is the Delhi Christian Chorus, Pramod Kingston, who is a piCovered (sort of) by Hugh Grant which was formed in 1964 – they ano player and teacher, always felt in Love Actually (he sings it will celebrate their golden jubilee with his detective for the little that churches didn’t play enough girls who answer the door). for the next two years. Royall S classical hymns (pop versions THE EASIEST TO REMEMBER Mclaren, the choir’s are more popular). And so, in a ✦ Deck The Halls bid to draw younger people to the This is Welsh, from the 16th classical, he began the Canticle century; if you forget the lyrics Choir in 2005. “The response from just sing fal la la la, la la la la, every second line. ungsters was more than I youngsters ✦ Little Drummer Bo Boy ted; they anticipated; The T Trapp Family Singtook to it rather its s ha as ers (of the Sound The term Xm well,” he says. urch. X is Music fame) origins in the ch hich is the of People got to originally recorded i, w Ch r tte le k ee Gr the know of, and rist’s name. So this in 1955. first letter of Ch ligious THE ONES YOU’LL subsequently Xmas is as re DEFINITELY HEAR IN joined the as Christmas CHURCH choir by word d of ✦ O Holy Night mouth. Some who ho The hardest dest to get right, O have joined Kingston Holy Night, rises to a marvelwere part of church choirs. lous crescendo. This is the one we’d love to be able to get right. Most choir singers say they ✦ Hark the Herald Angels Sing sing for love, for the joy it brings This is kind of solemn, but has a is year at the th them and for the people they sing of ce an rm last perfo catchy ring to it. Minstrels at their for. Are you ready to step up the The Capital City Chanakyapuri el, ap ULA MA Ch y BUR S ss to: ba Pho tempo for the festivities? Vatican Em

FOR YOUR FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS: ✦ The Krackerjack Karnival creates a pre-Christmas, winter wonderland for children. It’s brimming with toys, books, furniture and interactive activities. Tickets: `100 per person (free for children under ﬁve) When: Sunday, December 22 Where: The Ashoka Hotel Website: www.krackerjackkarnival.com

✦ Dastkar’s Christmas Carnival has traditional crafts workshops and other activities for children. There will also be Christmassy gifts on sale. When: 11am to 7pm, till December 29 Where: Nature Bazaar, Chhatarpur ✦ Christmas Carnival 2013 in Rajouri Garden will have a laser show, fashion show, drawing competition for kids, ﬁreworks, dancing and singing compe-

DECEMBER 22, 2013

titions, puppet show, magic show, dhol performance... among other things When: December 24-27 Where: Rajouri Garden

When: On till December 24 Where: Cherie at One Qutub Price: `1,400 plus taxes/person. For reservations: 88004 80048

CHRISTMAS FEASTS:

✦ The NYC buffet will feature roast turkey, duck in orange sauce, Xmas pudding, stollen, Yule log cake and more. Price: `5,000 for a couple Where: Radisson Blu Plaza (Mahipalpur)

✦ Special Christmas menu of mulled wine, roasted garlic asparagus and chestnut, spiced pumpkin and duck conﬁt salad, and pan-roasted tournedos with goose liver.

The best of Christmas is in its food, merry eating!

INGREDIENTS: Turkey: 1, Cayenne pepper: 10gm, Cumin powder: 8gm, Coffee powder: 8-10gm, Liquid glucose: 100gm, Honey (preferably forest): 100gm, Smoked paprika powder: 10gm, Brown sugar: 30gm, Worcestershire sauce: 30ml, Dark soy sauce: 10ml, Orange zest: 1 no, Juice of one orange, Hickory barbecue sauce (American Garden): 50ml, English mustard: 1tbsp, Sea salt: 10gm, Pepper: 5gm For Apple GlAze: Red apple: 500gm, Apple cider vinegar: 150ml, Grain sugar: 60gm, Rosemary: 2-3 sprigs, Jumbo garlic: 2-3 cloves METHOD H Pat turkey dry with a paper towel. H Rub it generously with sea salt, sprinkle pepper all over it. H Refrigerate the turkey in a ziplock bag for 1 hour at 5 degrees C. H Mix the ingredients from 2 to 14 (cayenne pepper to English mustard) in a bowl and marinate the turkey for 4-5 hours. Put it into the ziplock bag and refrigerate overnight. H Next morning, once it reaches room temperature, put it in a preheated oven at 220 degrees C. H When the turkey acquires some colour, cover it with silver foil and put it back in the oven for 4-5 hours. For Red Apple Glaze: H Caramelise sugar in a saucepan, add chopped red apple and stir. H Add rosemary and garlic, followed by apple cider vinegar. H Turn off the heat once the mixture reaches a syrupy consistency; then tightly strain it at room temperature. H Take the turkey out of the oven, slice and pour the red apple glaze over it. recipe courtesy chef Jiten Singh, at Amour - The Patio Restuarant, Hauz Khas Village

INGREDIENTS: For the pAstry: Plain ﬂour: 240gm, Vegetable shortening: 60gm, Cold butter: 60gm, Juice of 1 orange, Pinch of salt, Mincemeat: 350gm, icing sugar (for dusting) Mixture: Ruby port: 60ml, Soft dark brown sugar: 75gm, Cranberries: 300gm, Ground cinnamon: 1 tsp, Ground ginger: 1 tsp, Ground cloves: ½tsp, Currants: 75gm, Raisins: 75gm, Dried cranberries: 30gm, Finely grated zest and juice of 1 clementine, Brandy: 25ml, Almond extract: 3 drops, Vanilla extract: ½ tsp, Honey: 2 tbsp METHOD H In a large pan, dissolve the sugar in the ruby port over gentle heat. Stir in the cranberries. Add cinnamon, ginger, cloves, currants, raisins, dried cranberries, zest and clementine juice. Simmer and cook until the fruit has broken down and has absorbed most of the liquid in the pan. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little. Add brandy, almond extract, vanilla extract and honey and mash the mixture into a paste. H Once you are ready to make your mince pies, get out a tray of miniature tart tins, each indent 4.5cm in

diameter, along with a 5.5cm fluted, round biscuit cutter and a 4cm star cutter. H Measure the flour into a shallow dish and add vegetable shortening and butter, put in the freezer for 20 minutes. H In a separate bowl, mix orange juice and salt, chill in fridge. H Blitz the flour mix in a food processor till it becomes a pale pile of porridgelike crumbs. Pour juice into it. H Make small tarts from this dough. H Wrap each disc in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 220 degrees C. H Roll out thin discs (you want a light pastry case, but one sturdy enough to support the dense mincemeat). H Out of each rolled-out disc, cut out circles wider than the indentations in the tart tins, add a teaspoon of mincemeat. H Cut out your stars with a star cutter and place the tops lightly on the mincemeat. Bake for 10–15 minutes. H Remove from the oven, prising out the little pies straight away and letting the empty tins cool down before you start putting in the pastry for the next batch. H Dust some icing sugar over it by pushing it through a tea strainer, and serve the pies

recipe courtesy Chef Ashis Rout, Courtyard by Marriott Gurgaon

INGREDIENTS Dry red wine: 150ml, Brandy: 15ml, Cinnamon: 2 pieces, Whole cloves: 5, Whole star anise: 1, Orange zest: 2 wedges, Sugar: 1 teaspoon METHOD H In a clean saucepan over low flame, add all the ingredients, except brandy. H Stir until sugar is dissolved. Do not bring to a boil. Add brandy and remove the flame. H Keep on room temperature for 20 minutes so that the flavours are transferred to the wine. H Heat on low flame and serve the mulled wine

INGREDIENTS Brandy or rum: 40ml, Sugar syrup: 10ml, Milk: 50ml, Egg yolk: 1, Freshly ground nutmeg METHOD H Pour brandy syrup, milk and egg yolk into a cocktail shaker, ﬁll with ice cubes, shake. H Strain into a highball glass with ice cubes. H Sprinkle with freshly ground nutmeg.

✦ Special dinner buffet spread with traditional Christmas foods like roast turkey with stufﬁng, ham, roast beef and Yorkshire puddings and live dessert counters along with Christmas carols during dinner. There will also be a live performance by Sebastian. When: December 24 Where: Kafe Fontana, 24-hour coffee shop, Taj Palace, New Delhi, Diplomatic Enclave Price: `3,500 all inclusive per person ✦ Enjoy Christmas Eve with a DJ and a live band, live barbeque and unlimited select beverages When: December 24, 8pm to 1am Where: Island Bar, Shangri-La’s Eros Hotel, Connaught Place ✦ Enjoy a special buffet on Christmas Eve featuring roast turkey with cranberry sauce and plum pudding with custard sauce. When: December 24, 7pm onwards Where: Rodeo, Connaught Place

MUSIC ✦ The Keystone State Boychoir from Philadelphia, a group of 60 members, will perform a selection from their repertoire Where: Select City Walk, Saket When: 6pm and 8pm, December 30

NEW YEAR’S EVE ✦ Enjoy performances by some of the country’s best DJs as well as a superb spread of delicacies and unlimited champagne all evening Where: Kitty Su, The Lalit Price: `12,000 all inclusive for couples; Stag entry: `8,500 all inclusive; Single women: `5,000 all inclusive ✦ Eat dinner at the Emperor’s lounge, and party the night away at Machan, which will be converted into a dance ﬂoor Price: `4,750 all inclusive per person Where: Machan, Taj Mahal Hotel, Number One Mansingh Road For reservations: +91 66513244

recipes courtesy sommelier Anthony Phillip at Amour - The Patio Restuarant Photos: THINKSTOCK

No plans? Stuck at home? Make yourself some mulled wine or eggnog (recipes above) or a big mug of hot chocolate and cuddle up with the telly

CHRISTMAS EVE The Santa Clause 2 (2002) Santa Claus aka Scott Calvin has been mysteriously losing weight, and to stay fat and jolly, he must ﬁnd a suitable Mrs Claus. Plus, his son Charlie has landed on the year’s “naughty” list. So, leaving a substitute Claus at the Pole, he heads home. But when the substitute institutes strange redeﬁnitions of naughty and nice, it’s up to Scott to save Christmas. Where: Zee Studio, 10.30 pm

CHRISTMAS DAY Four Christmases (2008) Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) make elaborate excuses to avoid their families during the holidays, but this year their usually foolproof plan goes bust and they have to visit Brad’s father, then Kate’s mother, and then Brad’s mother and, ﬁnally, Kate’s father, thereby celebrating four Christmases. Where: HBO Deﬁned, 10.50pm

BONUS WINTERY FILM Happy Feet (2006) In Antarctica, the Emperor Penguins express true love with a special song. But misfit Mumble (voice of Elijah Wood) cannot sing, instead he tap dances. The colony blames the tuneless penguin for the dwindling fish. So Mumble and his friends set out to find the true cause of the famine. One of the cutest animation film ever – it’s got song-and-dance penguins and an environmental message. Where: WB, 3.40pm (December 25)

SHOWBIZ

twitter.com/HTBrunch

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Suits

The stars of TV’s best-turnedout legal show on life beyond the swanky office

1. Louis Litt is allergic to cats

Rick Hoffman who plays the catloving Louis, is actually “deathly allergic” to cats, keeps an inhaler on set and gets vacuumed up after every cat scene so he isn’t affected by cat hairs or dander. “I have to give him the credibility of pulling off those scenes in spite of being allergic to cats,” says Patrick J Adams. “He loves dogs and that too he only loves hypoallergenic dogs.”

by Rachel Lopez

LL THOSE of you who’ve never watched the cult TV show Suits, here’s what you’ve been missing: smooth-taking lawyers; highstakes gambits; ingenious shortcuts to success; and the addictive thrill of watching smart people outsmart each other every minute. And, of course the suits. Ace closer Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), his secretary Donna (Sarah Rafferty) and his smarmy nemesis Loius Litt (Rick Hoffman) are key players in an NYC law firm headed by Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres). But a secret is lurking. Specter’s genius associate Mike Ross (Patrick J Adams) hasn’t been to any law school! His paralegal paramour, Rachel (Meghan Markle), knows, and so do others. But there are bigger problems at the firm... Get to know the team better.

2. Jessica is Mrs Morpheus, and may just be Wonder Woman

Gina Torres is married to Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus in the Matrix movies). Comic book fans have been heavily campaigning for her to play Wonder Woman on film. “I am trying to imagine Gina in a Wonder Woman suit,” Gabriel Macht says. “I think they share a lot in common. Both are headstrong, fit, speedy, agile and intuitive.”

3. You’ve met Harvey’s wife and dad already

Macht’s wife played the jury consultant Zoe Lawford last season. Macht says having his wife as part of the cast “felt like home.” His father Stephen plays his on-screen dad too – the Harvard Law professor Gerard Specter.

4 Suits will go Olympic

American athlete Michael Phelps tweeted so much love for Suits, they invited him on. Phelps will play himself on Season 3.

5 Mike Ross is a newbie

Patrick J Adams had bit roles on TV shows here and there... (there was a tiny role in Lost) “and then Suits happened,” he recalls. “I will be honest; my career took a 360-degree turn. Now people recognise me more as Mike Ross than Patrick.” Suits creator Aaron Korsh says he cast Adams as Mike because of his intelligent eyes.

6. And he really has a photographic mind Most of the images on the wall of Rachel Zane’s

office have actually been shot by Adams.

7. Suits loves suits Costume designer Jolie Andreatta stocks more than 100 suits on set. “I am loyal to Tom Ford,” Macht explains. “Typically, you will see me wearing up to 10 looks in each episode.” The women wear Dior, Victoria Beckham, Prada, Zac Posen and Burberry.

8. Rachel’s had a profitable career in… handwriting!

Meghan Markle didn’t wait tables as a struggling actress. She did calligraphy for celebrity wedding invitations and holiday correspondence. But Adams, her love interest on the show, hasn’t got a note from her yet. “I’m looking forward to it, maybe soon.”

9 Harvey and Donna have been friends for 20 years

In fact, it was Macht who recommended Sarah Rafferty to play Donna. “Our friendship has got stronger since the show,” Macht says. “Although I must admit, I find it difficult to film with her as we always burst out laughing. We joke about how awkward it would be if our characters got romantic.”

10. The gang fakes the smarts

None of them actually know all the film references they so confidently toss around. Though Macht isn’t admitting it: “My lips are sealed!” Suits airs on Comedy Central

RACHEL ZANE

played by

MEGHAN MARKLE

HARVEY SPECTER

LOUIS LITT played by RICK HOFFMAN

JESSICA PEARSON

played by GINA TORRES

DECEMBER 22, 2013

played by GABRIEL MACHT

DONNA PAULSEN

played by SARAH

MIKE ROSS

RAFFERTY

played by

PATRICK J ADAMS

rachel.lopez@hindustantimes.com Follow @GreaterBombay on Twitter

indulge

HigH On THe SeaS I

Life on a cruise is like going off to a resort party. There’s lots to do on board; plus, it’s good value

HAVE ALWAYS declined invitations to go on cruises. It is not that I have anything against ships, but as a guy who suffers from quite severe claustrophobia, I’ve always worried about how I could react to being stuck in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. The one time I was tempted was when the SeaDream Yacht Club invited me on a luxury cruise around Europe. But then, the dates did not match and my claustrophobia remained a factor. Ratna Chadha, who has done such a great job of popularising Royal Caribbean cruises in India, has tried – without success – to persuade me to embark on a series of exciting cruises, all the way up to the Arctic. But last month when she came up with a weekend cruise around

Vir Sanghvi

rude travel Singapore, I finally decided to take the plunge. A weekend is not a long time. And Singapore is near enough. Getting to the cruise was fun. I flew Singapore Airlines after ages and it was even better than I remembered: comfortable seats, perfect on-time performance, and personalised in-flight service. Then, I spent the night at the new W Hotel in Sentosa and was completely knocked out by the warmth of the welcome and the service. And I also ate the best steak I’ve had in months at Skirt, the W’s steakhouse. After all this pampering, my first sight of the ship, the Mariner of the Seas, was certain to be a let-down. If, like me, you have little experience of passenger ships, then you probably expect your vessel to look like pictures of the QE2

if not the old Queen Mary. But the Mariner of the Seas looks like a Holiday Inn that has been pushed into the water. It is massive. I was told that it had 15 decks (a deck is like a floor in a building) and I found 12 of them. It had hundreds of cabins spread over these decks so the parallel with a large Holiday Inn seemed more and more appropriate. My cabin, described as a suite, was actually a double room of the kind you would find at, yes, a Holiday Inn, with an even smaller bathroom. This was not exactly a surprise because we expect ships’ cabins to be small. But what was nice was a small sit-out area (like a balcony) facing the water, large enough for two people to have a drink, or even, a coffee. The Mariner of the Seas is an all-inclusive boat, which means that the price of your ticket includes virtually everything. Once you are on board you can take part in innumerable activities (from bingo to disco dance parties), can gamble at the ship’s huge casino, see movies in the cinema on board, eat as much as you like in the formal dining room or at the vast coffee shop and participate in all kinds of games. Not everything is free, of course. They charge quite a lot for alcohol and to make sure you pay their prices, they try and stop you from bringing your own alcohol on board. (Unlike say, a hotel, which lets you drink your own vodka in your room.) I discovered that for several hours after I had boarded, my suitcase, which had been taken from me when I checked in, had not been delivered. I tracked it down to a special security section on a lower deck. Was there a problem? “Yes, sir,” said a security man. “We find that there is contraband in your suitcase.” Feeling like a gold smuggler or a heroin peddler, I asked nervously, what this ‘contraband’ consisted of. “Sir,” said the man gravely. “You have a bottle of alcohol. And that is not allowed.” Ah, so that was the contraband! I explained to the eagle-eyed security man that actually I had two bottles of contraband, not one. And, according to the folder they gave me with my ticket, I was allowed to bring two bottles of

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Photos: ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES

wine on board, provided I consumed them in my own cabin. “Ok,” he grudgingly conceded the point. “But I want to see them.” I have no idea what he hoped to gain by examining the labels but on the grounds that he might be an aspiring Robert Parker figure, I showed them to him. He looked disappointed, but finally let me retrieve my suitcase. Despite the awkwardness, I was glad I had taken the wine along. They let you drink your own wine in the restaurants if you pay corkage charges of $25 a bottle but given that single glasses of wines I’d never previously heard of were going for $15, the expense was worth it. As for life on the ship, what can I say? It was like going off to a resort party for the weekend. Our ship started out on Friday (evening), reached Port Klang in Malaysia on Saturday morning, left again on Saturday night and sailed around till we were back in Singapore on Monday morning, I did not get off at Port Klang and stayed to check out the ship. The overwhelming impression was one of sheer size. It is hard to think something this huge and crowded being able to stay afloat. Royal Caribbean made its reputation with its highly regarded cruises around the Americas, so I won’t judge the line on the basis of a weekend cruise from Singapore. But our ship was packed out with Chinese families. Some were from Singapore (quieter, well-behaved, eager to eat everything on offer, careful with money and Englishspeaking), but thousands appeared to be Mainland Chinese (not-so-quiet, not-so-well-behaved, eager to shop, happy to spend, and speaking no English) families with so many kids, that here was positive proof, if any were required, that the Chinese had given up on the one-child policy. There were a few Indians and virtually no white people except for the ship’s staff. Each morning, the ship’s PA system and in-house TV channel would resonate with the voice of the improbably named Dan Dan Miang (“all the way from Seattle in the United States, folks!”), who would tell us about all the exciting things happening on the ship that day (“and there’s an art auction, folks, with champagne that is absolutely FREE. Yes, FREE” etc.) One evening Dan Dan and his Chinese assistant Kitty (no Karamchand jokes, please) who looked on admiringly as Dan Dan entertained us, even did a Seventies disco number while hundreds of happy Chinese people clapped along to order. Speaking for myself, I decided very quickly that Chinese disco parties were not my scene and tried to make the most of the ocean. I discovered that I could leave the revellers far behind and sit undisturbed by the peaceful waves, enjoy the sea, and read a book or listen to music. One advantage of being on this kind of ship is that you are, if you are wise, out of reach. Roaming telephony is expensive and though the ship offers a very slow Internet connection, it is so expensive that you can only really use it sparingly. Most busy people will enjoy the opportunity to remain largely unconnected and to switch off. Why waste time on the Internet when you can sit on your balcony and look at the Malacca Sea? At the end of my voyage at – at 7.30am on Monday when

PARTY PARADISE

they evicted us from the ship – I was reassured that cruises did not give me claustrophobia and could actually be rather calming. I don’t think I will do this cruise again, but I’m now game for more adventurous voyages. So, should you take a cruise? Well, it rather depends on what you are looking for. If you want to get from Point A to Point B in a leisurely fashion, then a cruise is not a bad idea. Assume you spend a week on a ship. Compare the cost of your ticket to the cost of an airfare for the same journey plus seven days food and stay in a Holiday Inn-style hotel and you’ll find that a cruise can be much cheaper. It is a good way of combining travelling with a holiday. Even if you want to just take the sort of cruise I went on, it is still worth it if you are going with kids. There are loads of activities directed at children and you never have to worry about how to entertain them. Plus, it is good value. I won’t generalise about all cruise ships, but a family of four on my trip probably spent less on their cruise than they would have if they had paid for three nights in a Holiday Inn-style hotel (plus all meals) in Singapore. If, on the other hand, you want a romantic getaway or a dash of glamour, this ship with its hundreds of screaming Chinese children may not be your best bet. Other ships may be better suited for these purposes. If you are a foodie, steer clear. There’s lot of food but quantity cannot make up for truly dire institutional catering (even in the so-called specialty restaurants for which you pay extra). Perhaps this sector is not noted for its cuisine. Or, perhaps I was just unlucky. But I ate some really bad meals: even the Indian food had a nasty kacha masala taste about it. On the plus side, F&B service was friendly and obliging. But either way, you should try a cruise of some kind. I waited too long to do it. You shouldn’t make the same mistake.

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Once on board on the lavishly decorated ship (left), you can take part in innumerable activities (from bingo to disco dance parties), can gamble at the huge casino (above), and see movies in the cinema (below)

ROOM WITH A VIEW

My cabin, described as a suite, was actually a double room of the kind you would find at a Holiday Inn, with an even smaller bathroom

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Photo: THINKSTOCK

Dearly DeparteD

Funerals may be difficult to negotiate, but that’s no reason to goof around at them

NLESS YOU’VE been living on Mars, you must have seen pictures of that now-infamous ‘selfie’ that Danish Prime Minister Helle ThorningSchmidt clicked with US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron at the memorial of the late, great Nelson Mandela. The three world leaders, grinning cheesily into the camera, craned their necks together to get into the frame, oblivious to the thunder-faced Michelle Obama who looked pointedly away. I am no mind reader, but I can pretty much guess what was going through Michelle Obama’s head as her husband grinned goofily for the camera. What on earth are you thinking, Barack? This is the memorial service of a remarkable man who inspired millions across the globe. Countries from across the world have sent their leaders to pay homage to his soul. This is a solemn occasion to mark the passing of a true hero. This is not the time to pose for a ‘selfie’. But then, much of the world was thinking along the

Seema Goswami

spectator 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

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

same lines. Memorial services and funerals are supposed to be about remembering those who have passed on and honouring their lives, not posing for cheesy pictures on the sidelines. You can just about forgive giddy teenagers for gaffes like these, but heads of state and government? Seriously, what is the world coming to? Of course, there were those who said that we were making much ado about nothing. The Mandela memorial service was about celebrating his life and having a rollicking good time while at it. So, what was wrong if Obama and Cameron decided to flirt a little or even pose for a picture with Ms

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING, REALLY? The three world leaders – Obama, Thorning-Schmidt and Cameron – grinned cheesily into the camera and craned their necks together to get into the frame at the memorial for Nelson Mandela

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SAY SOMETHING NICE It doesn’t matter if you are not good with spoken words. Write a letter sharing anecdotes about those who have passed on

Thorning-Schmidt? It was all in good fun, and knowing Nelson Mandela, he would probably have chuckled along, or even leant in for a piece of the action. As the debate raged on, I couldn’t help but wonder: what is the right funeral etiquette these days? There was a time when there was general agreement that funerals were solemn occasions, where grave faces and discreet tears were the order of the day. People came clad sombrely in black (or white), sat quietly to pay their respects, and then left to allow the family to mourn in peace and privacy. These days, however, all that seems to be changing. First off, in India at least, nobody seems to abide by the all-white dress code. People come wearing pretty much what they like, from jeans and kurtas, to saris and shorts, all in colours of their choosing. Many people don’t even bother to sit through all the bhajans, leaving as soon as they have marked their attendance with the family. Those who do, fiddle discreetly with their phones, answering mails and sending smses so that they don’t miss out on a single minute of a working day. And the close friends and family members who stay back for a cup of tea or coffee afterwards, shuffle awkwardly as they try and make conversation with the bereaved, and take off as soon as they can without violating the laws of common decency. Part of the problem, of course, is that all of us are, at some level, rendered acutely uncomfortable by death. There is an element of ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I’ in our reactions to the news of someone’s passing. And in that maelstrom of emotions, we find it hard to negotiate the best way to communicate our sympathy to those who have lost a loved one. “I am so sorry about your loss,” sounds exactly like the cliché it is when we say it to someone who has lost a parent, a spouse, a sibling, or even worse, a child. But no matter how acutely we feel for them, we don’t seem to have the vocabulary to express the depth of our feelings. And so, it just seems easier to just avoid any meaningful conversation until the worst of their grief has passed. But no matter how uncomfortable we feel, it behoves us to treat a funeral with proper respect. And that means turning up on time, instead of halfway through the prayer service. It involves dressing in a manner that respects the memory of those that have passed (it doesn’t have to be funeral black or white so long as you stick to formal wear). It means no cracking silly jokes, just to break the tension. And even if you can’t think of what to say, don’t avoid meeting those who have lost a loved one. Just hug them close, and give them the chance to weep on your shoulder, should they want to take it. Don’t make them embarrassed about their tears. Don’t tell them to cheer up. Never say, “Don’t cry”. Offer a tissue to wipe their tears, give them the space to share their feelings with you, and most of all, allow them to grieve in your presence. It doesn’t matter if you are not good with spoken words. Find some other way to acknowledge their loss. Write a letter sharing anecdotes about those who have passed on. If you have some nice pictures of the departed soul, frame them and send them to the family as a remembrance. Share a book or a piece of music to help those grieving.

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Hear THem OuT, NOw S

Tons of good music released this year. But the real fun was in discovering six amazing new artists that I’d never heard before

O MANY great albums have dropped in the past year that I don’t know how to even make a list of the ones that I liked. How many can I list? Fifty? Sixty? More? Music blogs and magazines have already put out their top albums of 2013 lists. Some, such as Rolling Stone, have listed 50; NPR has 100 favourite songs and 50 favourite records; PopMatters lists 75 best albums of 2013; and many others have lists for every genre (tip: if you want to get a smattering of what was happening in metal last year, do check out Stereogum’s top 50 in that loud genre; I was happy when I took a peek there to see the only metal album of last year that I bought, Deafheaven’s Sunbather, was No.1). Tons of good music got released this year. Refreshingly, many of them were from bands that broke their silence after years. Celebrated Irish shoe-gazers, My Bloody Valentine, came out with their first album in 22 years, m b v, which makes the band’s old fans happy because it’s so predictably their brand of music but it also works as a good introduction if you’ve never heard them.

Sanjoy Narayan

download central Photo: CREATIVE COMMONS/CC

Photo courtesy: JAKEBUGG.COM

Other older musicians who reappeared in 2013 included David Bowie whose quiet launch of The Next Day stole the show. It has some stunning tracks – check out Where Are We Now? and The Stars (Are Out Tonight). Even Iggy and The Stooges had a new album as did Pearl Jam who offered their 10th studio album, Lightning Bolt, and Nine Inch Nails, the angry JAKE BUGG American industrial rockers, came up Photo courtesy: FACEBOOK.COM/KINGKRULE with a remarkably (for them!) mellow album, Hesitation Marks, to which you can actually dance. Beatle vet Paul McCartney had an album called New and so did Elton John, called The Diving Board. Overall, I had quite a ball through the year. I heard The National’s TrouKING KRULE ble Will Find Me, which didn’t disappoint but fell short of being spectacular. But among more established bands, I was knocked out by The Flaming Lips’ The Terror, which MORE ON THE WEB could well be these inveterate experimenters’ best album in To give feedback, 30 years. It’s one album that pushes the limits of creativstream or download ity in rock music and I’m sure I’ll be listening to it for a the music mentioned long time into the future. Two of my other favourite bands in this column, go to had albums out in 2013: Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit (Peblogs.hindustantimes. com/download-central. destrian Verse) and America’s Vampire Weekend (Modern Write to Sanjoy at Vampires of the City), the latter an extraordinary album. sanjoy.narayan@ But the real fun was in discovering a few new artists hindustantimes. that I’d never heard before. Here are six of them. First, the com women…

SKY FERREIRA

DECEMBER 22, 2013

Photo courtesy: LAURAMVULA.COM

Photo courtesy: BOMBINOMUSIC.COM

LAURA MVULA

Photo: CREATIVE COMMONS/CC

LORDE

OMARA ‘BOMBINO’ MOCTAR

It’s tempting to classify UK’s soul singer Laura Mvula as part of the Brit retro-soul of the likes of the late Amy Winehouse or the popular Adele. She’s not. Mvula has an originality that is difficult to classify. Listen to Sing to the Moon, her first album and you’ll see what I mean. You can hear influences of great soul singers but most of all, you will hear Mvula in her uniqueness. Lorde is the stage-name of Ella Maria Lani YelichO’Connor, a 17-year-old singer from New Zealand whose debut album, Pure Heroine, is a powerful set of genre-busting songs that stand out for her surprisingly mature sounding vocal range and effortlessly literate lyrics. Just before the album came out and fame hadn’t touched her, the story goes that Katy Perry had invited Lorde to open for her shows, an invitation that was politely declined. Or so I’ve heard. Not surprising if true. Lorde’s new-wave dark vibes would hardly sit well with Perry’s music, whatever that is. Sky Ferreira nearly became a victim of the music industry. More than six years back when the American singer was just 15, she signed a recording contract for the first time and then recorded, hold your breath, at least 400 songs in the next few years. Sadly, only around a score of those were published, including the 11 on her debut album, Night Time, My Time, which came out only now. Dark, brooding and grungy, I’d watch this new artist. And the men… Jake Bugg is just 19 and the British singer’s take on folk rock of the kind that evokes Bob Dylan and The Everly Brothers but comes with a snazzy contemporary tweak (his Nottingham accent helps). Some of his songs on the debut album, Shangri La, remind me of Blood on the Tracks. King Krule (aka Archy Marshall) is also British and also 19 but he looks like a skinny little boy. Till he sings. That’s when he sounds as old and seasoned as Tom Waits. On his debut 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, the songs reek of blues and indie rock and hip-hop and the lyrics talk of street life – romance, anguish and anger. All delivered raspily in yet another Brit accent (South East London). Like Bugg, Krule is full of promise and both singer-songwriters are worth keeping a close tab on. Omara ‘Bombino’ Moctar isn’t from Britain. Nor for that matter from any English-speaking country. He’s a Tuareg musician from Niger. But his blistering guitar could put many western blues and rock guitarists to shame. A guitar sensation who also sings, Bombino lived in a series of refugee camps after his family fled Niger. The 33-year-old honed his guitar style watching videos of Jimi Hendrix and other rock guitarists. His third album, many would call it a break-out release, was produced by none other than The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. A must-have. Download Central appears every fortnight

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The STarT Of The end fOr TableTS?

A ‘must have’ on everybody’s list, tablets are seeing a dip in their popularity. An exciting product needs some rescuing

ABLETS CAME in riding an unstoppable stallion of brute force sales and fantastic customer demand. A new category in technology usually takes time to mature and create universal demand, but tablets were a whole different ball game. While they had been around for a while, it took the curation and tweaking of Apple to make it into a consumer product that was usable on a daily basis. And from there the market exploded. Tablets became the hottest category in tech, every company had a serious portfolio, it appeared on everybody’s wish list, it took on the role of the second tour de force of devices after phones, and turned out to be one of the biggest contributors to many a company’s bottom line. Tablets were ‘King of the Hill’ and were expected to fuel both growth as well as become an integral part of the ‘must have’ circle of devices for everyone. It was predicted that every person on the planet who had a phone would also eventually have a tablet. Until something very strange happened in 2013.

Rajiv Makhni

techilicious

CLUNKY TO CARRY To get some real use out of their tablet, users were buying Bluetooth keyboards and carrying them with the tablet

The two news snippets above weren’t a very big surprise to those that had been tracking consumer response to tablets for the last few months. There was a general sense of lag and fatigue in the market around tablets and most of if it was coming from the users themselves. The favourite question, which tablet to buy, was suddenly disappearing off discussion forums, the crowds around the tablet section at retail stores were thinning and the general euphoria around new tablets was that much lower. And while it seems shocking and a bolt from the blue, there wasn’t really a mystery as to why it was happening. Three serious reasons were at play.

PHABLETS

The most vilified and most terribly named device on the planet was

DECEMBER 22, 2013

proving to be the biggest phenomenon of 2013. Yes, big screen phones were the butt of a lot of jokes and were also written off by a lot of experts in 2012, but customers responded by plonking money down and picking them up in droves. Today, every flagship smartphone announced by any company has to have a big screen with a mind-boggling resolution. While this leaves some people quite frustrated (it’s very tough to buy a top-of-the-line phone in a size that is easily pocketable), widespread consumer demand and fantastic sales numbers have made this an unbeatable category. And an unexpected ripple effect of this is the realisation that a big screen phone with a fantastic resolution negates the need to buy a separate tablet. In fact, the TOUGH ‘tablet’ experience on a 6-inch+ COMPETITION smartphone with a full HD Notebooks became thin- screen is remarkably better ner, lighter, gained fantastic than what you can ever get on battery life, better screens, a 7 or 8 inch tablet with a midhybrid form factors and awe- dling resolution. Plus Phablets some ergonomics are that much more portable and easier to carry around. Strike 1 for tablets, especially the smaller ones.

HYBRIDS AND THIN, SLEEK DEVICES

While tablets were on the rise and posting phenomenal numbers, laptop and notebook manufa facturers weren’t sitting idle. Notebooks became thinner lighter, gained fantastic battery life, betthinner, ter screens, hybrid form factors and awesome ergonomics. In fact, the difference in size and weight between a tablet and a thin and light notebook was almost negligible. Most people carrying a tablet were strapping on thick protecti covers to make sure the tablet survived padded protective ad its daily adventures. And to get some real use out of their tablet, users were buying Bluetooth keyboards and carrying them with the tablet too. This made a tablet more unwieldy, thicker and gain more weight than a thin and light version on its own. Plus a sleek notebook already has a cover and keyboard built in. resurg The resurgence of notebooks and redisco the rediscovery of the pleasure of having a device that has everything built in and doesn’t need fiddly moving parts to make it efficient and usable made larger tablets look very clunky. Comparative stories of life with an iPad compared to life with a MacBook Air 11 or a Lenovo Yoga 11 were starting to get serious traction. And the notebooks were winning. Strike 2 for tablets, specially SHARING NOTES Comparative stories the larger ones

SEA OF SAMENESS

of life with an iPad compared to life with a MacBook Air 11 or a Lenovo Yoga 11 (above) were starting to get serious traction

Many other reasons contributed to the waning tablet demand. Foremost was the price equation. Tablets have always had a better price point, but mature buyers were starting to realise that this was an illusion of epic proportions. For a tablet to be a serious computing machine,

NOTHING NEW All tablets looked the same, they did almost the same things, they were still primarily to consume content and not create it TOO BULKY Most people carrying a tablet were strapping on thick padded protective covers to make sure the tablet survived its daily adventures you needed to buy something top of the line and with the most built-in storage your money could buy. Do a price comparison of a MacBook Air 11 with a 128 GB iPad Air and the price story starts to take a very different turn. Also at play was a lack of innovation. A tablet buyer of 2012 was given very few reasons to upgrade to a 2013 tablet. They looked the same, they did almost the same things, they were still primarily to consume content and not create it, and no jaw-dropping, must-have feature had been brought in by any company. Just a little thinner or a tad faster processor or a slightly better screen resolution wasn’t going to cut it. Plus, one of the biggest questions I asked all through 2012 became an epidemic in 2013. “What can I really do with my tablet?” was largely unanswered this year too. A sea of sameness and lack of innovation was strike 3 for tablets in 2013. Do I really believe that tablets are about to die? I would love to close melodramatically and say yes, the beginning of the end is here. But that would be premature. We have enough smart people in the tech industry to make sure that a cash cow as big and as profitable as tablets doesn’t start spiralling down towards irreversible doom. Tablets were a fascinating and very exciting category, and every one behind them should start realising that and bring them back into that mind space. I for one, would be thrilled for the industry to get me to change my tablet. It’s three years old and I haven’t had a single reason to upgrade yet. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3

MORE ON THE WEB For previous columns by Rajiv Makhni, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com/RajivMakhni DECEMBER 22, 2013

Photo: SANJAY SOLANKI

Across kitchens in Delhi and Mumbai, a sweet revolution is under way. Home bakers are on the rise, whipping up excitement amongst customers her lemon flan and cookiesand-cream cheesecake for them, and prompted Sanyal to launch her own business, Bombake. It’s kept her busier than she’d ever been as a hostess: “Some clients order my lime cracker pie every two to three weeks.” Sanyal is just the latest among a legion of women who’ve started to leverage their dessert-making talents into homebased businesses. Wellheeled women are firing up their ovens, rolling out pastry, and even quitting their jobs, to pursue their passion for baking. Some like Delhi’s Ridhima Khanna take summer courses in New York to stay up to date with international trends. (Khanna learned to make the trendy croissant-doughnut

hybrid ‘cronut’ this year). Others like Mumbai’s Stephanie Lobo are building their reputation by baking an order in as little as five hours and delivering it to a client’s house. And then there’s Delhi resident Arti Jain, who started off looking for some cookie recipes for her kids, but ended up spending three hours every night, reading tutorials, watching YouTube videos and inviting herself over to the homes of anyone whom she discovered could make good fondant. All the women say that while they’re happy to turn a profit, it isn’t essential; they’d rather bake to please. And they swear they’re happier baking at home than doing anything else.

Women have quit their jobs to pursue their passion for baking

HAT DO you do when you love to entertain but keep running out of ideas of what to serve for dessert? Mumbaikar Nikita Sanyal solved her dilemma by baking sweet treats herself. Gradually, the chorus of oohs and aahs from friends led to requests to make

TIPS

Ridhima Khanna

Photo: JASJEET PLAHA

AKA: Addicted–Freshly Baked GREATEST HITS: Carrot walnut cinnamon cupcake TIPS: Mix dry and wet ingredients separately. Sugar is a wet ingredient, mix with other wet ingredients. Once you add ﬂour to batter, don’t over beat or you’ll get a crumbly cake. Put your cake in the oven once the dry ingredients have been added.

Stephanie Lobo AKA: Pixie Mojo GREATEST HITS: Xmas pudding and mulled wine hamper TIPS: Weigh and measure all ingredients accurately. Sift ﬂour to aerate it. This lightness translates into the ﬁnished product. Butter wrappers are handy to grease baking tins.

TIPS

Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

by Mignonne Dsouza

GOOD, BATTER, BEST

India’s explosion of home bakers echoes a worldwide trend. The world, it seems, is now obsessed with homemade desserts that are several notches higher than your grandma’s easy-bake chocolate sponge cake. New York’s Magnolia bakery, which ignited the cupcake trend in 1996, has a bestselling cookbook that is a Bible for many home bakers. And when Sofia Coppola fetishised the macaroons from Paris bakery Ladurée in her 2006 film Marie Antoinette, macaroons suddenly became world-famous. Closer home, an episode of Masterchef Australia, which featured a macaroon tower, spawned a similar craze. In the UK, the show The Great British Bake Off (on air since 2010) has made baking cool again. An article in The Guardian stated that sales of cake stands at Marks & Spencer rose 243 per cent in the UK in the run-up to the show’s 2012 finale. “In India, it all really exploded three to four years ago, but more so in the last two years,” says Kanika Parab, co-founder of Brown Paper Bag, an online

Aarti Sarin Jain

Photo: JASJEET PLAHA

TIPS

AKA: Baking From My Heart GREATEST HITS: Elaborate customised cakes TIPS: Don’t refrigerate iced cupcakes. If you do have to refrigerate cupcakes, take them out in time for your party (in the morning for an evening party). To prevent the cake top from cracking, cover the cake tin with foil halfway through your baking time.

the time they need to make a customer happy. But “price-wise and taste-wise, also, they are cheaper,” he adds since some use cheaper ingredients. Home bakers, however, are quick to point out that they don’t always cut corners. “I use an expensive brand of Belgian chocolate for my desserts,” says Sanyal. Still, Mehernosh Khajotia of Celebrations Fine Confections, a pastry shop in Mumbai, believes that home bakers cannot compete with professionals. “They’re usually a one-man operation, so they don’t have the manpower or correct equipment to do big orders,” he explains. “I can make a ton of chocolate for a single order. Which home baker can match that?”

DOUGH A DEAR

A gigantic order is clearly out of the range of home bakers and their little ovens, but while they acknowledge they can’t churn out large quantities at one time, they point to their adapatability instead. “Commercial guys have a set menu,” says Lobo. “But I can customise.” She recently created a coffeeand-coconut cake on demand for a customer. Others go to extraordinary lengths to please clients. Arti Sarin Jain prefers to meet customers before preparing cakes. “If it’s a birthday cake for a child, I ask the mom to show me images of the dress and shoes Photo: THINKSTOCK

lifestyle website. Of course, shows like Masterchef have done much to glamourise the labour-intensive work, precise proportions and temperamental ovens. But Parab adds that there’s also been a “explosion in cooking studios, purpose-built venues for one-day classes and short workshops in icing cupcakes, mastering macaroons and baking cakes” that may have tipped people over to the dark chocolaty side. It also helps that for the first time in our metros, a recipe you may see in a magazine or on TV is actually 100 per cent replicable at home – you don’t need to rely on make-do substitutes for ingredients, tools or equipment. Belgian chocolate? The supermarket has six varieties. Maraschino cherries and real vanilla pods? The gourmet store imports them. Cupcake corers, gluten-free flour and edible sprinkles? Local websites will deliver. In short, everything a home baker needs to turn her cake from gooey to gorgeous is available. And if it isn’t available (or proves too expensive), many home bakers turn suppliers themselves, stocking up on ingredients and tools on trips abroad. Or they turn to friends and family. “My husband picks up sprinkles for me,” says Sanyal.

Photo: SANJAY SOLANKI

TIPS

ICING ON THE CAKE

For customers, however, the increasing numbers of home bakers is sweet news indeed. It means more variety, a greater likelihood of getting new, trendy desserts, and the assurance that your dessert was created personally by someone who knows and cares, not some underling on an assembly line. “I order cakes from home bakers on almost every occasion and I’ve not been disappointed yet,” says Delhi resident Divya Burman, who has sampled cakes from Jain. “I enjoy the fact that they can be customised, and I feel such cakes have a better flavour; shop-brought cakes tend to taste a little synthetic sometimes.” While it may appear like there’s a home-baking enterprise (or five!) in every neighbourhood, the industry is in no danger of collapsing in on itself any time soon. Almost all the bakers and quite a few professionals agree that the pastry and dessert category is underdeveloped in India, even as customers are becoming savvier about dessert. “People travel abroad and then come back, looking for the same kind and quality of sweet treats, and for new things to try,” says Sanyal. “That’s why although I started my business only in August this year, I don’t think I’m too late an entrant.”

For customers, the increasing numbers of bakers is sweet news

CAKE STUDIO

What’s exceptional is that home bakers are finding customers even as commercial patisseries open in nearly every suburb, selling a lot of the same desserts. Chef Marzban K Avari, pastry chef at the Sofitel BKC hotel in Mumbai, says home bakers are holding firm precisely because they can take all

the child will be wearing on that day, the wallpaper in their room, etc., and then design the cake in such a way that the child will be able to relate to it,” she explains. Jain once produced a pink tiaratopped cake after looking at 20 images sent by a particularly fussy client. She prides herself on never repeating a design: “I look at my cakes as a form of art.” Ridhima Khanna too takes suggestions for new cupcake combinations directly from customers and regards her time at culinary school as her USP. “It exposes me to the latest trends and gives my creations an international flavour,” she explains.

Nikita Sanyal AKA: Bombake GREATEST HITS: Dulce de leche pie TIPS: Bring all ingredients to room temperature before you start baking. Incorporate dry ingredients together with a whisk to reduce clumps before adding wet ingredients. To slice a cake neatly use a hot knife (dip in hot water and wipe dry). Wipe the blade clean between slices.

DECEMBER 22, 2013

mignonne.dsouza@hindustantimes.com Follow @mignonned on Twitter

Pour Me A A Champagne Cocktail When it’s time for bubbly, why not take things up a notch with a cool cocktail? by Veenu Singh, photos by Deepak Budhraja

S WITH most cocktails, the better the quality of the spirit, the more you’ll enjoy your drink. But when the spirit in question is champagne – that sparkling, crisp liquid gold that’s already the best that money can buy – how do you make it even more special? Simple, you bring in the best man for the job. Douglas Ankrah, drinks and beverage specialist (oh, he’s much more than a bartender) has earned his stripes by making cocktails cooler with London’s hip set. Ankrah, who has visited India to shake up a storm at our bars, had his work cut out for him. Champagne-based drinks aren’t new. They’ve been around for almost as long as champagne’s been around – 300 years. Champagne punch recipes calling for brandy

and orange liqueurs have shown up in old cookbooks dating to the 1860s. Proper champagne cocktails, however, probably bubbled into our lives in 1861, when England went into mourning for Prince Albert and a London bartender put a black spin on the drink. He blended it with Guinness stout to make a Black Velvet, creating one of the first champagne-based mixes. The first recipe for a champagne cocktail, as it were, dates to Jerry Thomas’ The BarTenders Guide from 1862. Thomas recommended we fill a tumbler a third-full of broken ice. Pour in champagne, half a teaspoon sugar, two dashes of bitters, a piece of lemon peel. Shake. Serve. Shake. As in, cause a minor explosion by agitating a carbonated

Styling: SUJATA SADR; Location courtesy: THE LEELA, GURGAON

SPECIAL PUNCH INGREDIENTS • 140 ml of freshly pressed Seville orange juice • 50ml of Good Agaves Tequila • 30ml of Mandarine Napoleon or Cointreau • Half a bottle of Cava sparkling wine

OLD CUBAN INGREDIENTS • 30-40ml Havana Club rum • 2 bar spoons of castor sugar • 8 leaves of fresh mint • 10ml sugar syrup and one teaspoon of castor sugar • 15ml freshly pressed lime juice

METHOD Mix all ingredients in a cocktail jug then add the Cava and hard cubed ice to the ﬁnished drink. GARNISH Wheels of orange inserted with mint and drops of Angostura bitters.

METHOD Shake all ingredients for about 2-3 minutes, allowing the fresh mint to bruise and then ﬁll the rest of the glass with chilled champagne.

GLASSWARE A big jug to prepare it in. Best served in rock glass. This simple drink works best for big gatherings.

GARNISH Fresh mint coated with castor sugar. GLASSWARE Champagne ﬂute.

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COCKTAIL BASICS • Chill your sparkling wines. • Don’t use cheap sparkling for cocktails. Good ingredients make a good drink. Don’t use the highest end sparkling either. Drink your Dom straight. • As most sparkling wine drinks

drink! Later recipes amended the method by omitting the shaking bit – but no one knows for sure how many accidents those early cocktails might have caused. Regardless, it seems people really liked the taste of the sweetsharp champagne drink. Mark Twain mentioned it in his 1969 work Innocents Abroad. And in 1889, the bubbling cocktail finally had its shining moment when a man named John Dougherty added brandy to a champagne

PAST TIMES INGREDIENTS • 25ml of Hendricks gin • 15 ml elderﬂower cordial or St Germain elderﬂower liqueur • 2-3 seeds of cardamom seeds • 15ml freshly pressed juices of lime METHOD Shake all ingredients and then simply charge with (pour small amounts of) Sula Brut. GARNISH Fresh mint, cardamom, and long shavings of fresh cucumber. You could also add fresh pomegranate seeds to add more colour to the drink. GLASSWARE Anything will do. It can also be made in a big jar or punch bowl.

DECEMBER 22, 2013

are on the sweet side, use a dry sparkling [aka Brut] for cocktails. • Chill the glass ahead of time. Sparkling wine tastes best when served well chilled. • Pour small amounts of sparkling in at a time to prevent the ﬂute from foaming over.

cocktail and won the New York cocktail competition. Today, almost anything can go into a great-tasting champagne cocktail. The secret to crafting a great drink is in the order of assembly. Most recipes get you to add the spirit slowly and only as the final step (it’s called charging). Don’t try to be 007. Don’t shake. Don’t stir. As with most of life’s finest luxuries, take your time and enjoy the moment – that’s the spirit. veenusingh@hindustantimes.com

BRUNCH DATE

‘I’ve Never Worked With An Alien!’ All music is world music, says sitar player Anoushka Shankar as she discusses working with Norah Jones, and bringing together the East and the West by Aasheesh Sharma

WO YEARS after releasing the Grammy-nominated Traveller, London-based Anoushka Shankar is on a concert tour with her new studio album Traces of You, which also features her half-sister Norah Jones. We caught up with the celebrated sitarist-composer in Delhi. Excerpts from an interview:

for instance, he has written Indian classical music in composition for musicians to play. So Menuhin was playing Indian ragas, actually. The type of collaboration I do is different. Today, several generations down, it’s about the dialogue which happens after the introduction. It’s about getting to know each other and influencing and sharing.

How do you switch between being a composer and sitar player?

Our musical form is ancient, but within the form we are meant to be able to improvise. There is an aspect of creativity in our classical

What was collaborating with Nitin Sawhney and Norah Jones like?

I’ve been lucky to work with many creative people. My work with [musician and composer] Nitin Sawhney on Traces of You is more similar to my collaboration with Javier Limón in Traveller, because

ZUBIN AND I

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Anoushka with son Zubin and film director husband Joe Wright This is my ﬁrst visit to India after my son was born. I want Zubin, two, to grow up to be a man who respects women. We have named him after Zubin Mehta. Zubin uncle is a close family friend and someone who is world renowned for his art and this was the only name both my husband and I liked. East London is an exciting place to be. It feels like a new young artistic, thriving centre. Since we’ve gotten together, Joe and I have inspired each other. We are both artists. His work is inspired by me and my work is inspired by him and all the other things that our lives are inﬂuenced by.

Who is the ‘you’ being referred to in ‘Traces of You’?

he worked as a producer. Like a lot of people I work with, Nitin was a friend first and that creates a good sense of safety and chemistry to write songs together. Working with Norah was lovely. The content was very personal and it was great to share it with my sister. Artist to artist, she’s an amazingly good singer.

I am glad you asked me that. The album is not a tribute to my dad, as people keep assuming. It was my last album and sadly for me, my father happened to pass away last year. So obviously, that influenced the music I was making. A lot of the songs on the album are about the loss, about my feelings around my father. But it’s not a tribute. If I were to make a tribute album to my father, it would probably be an album of classical Indian ragas. This is just an album I have made in the year my father passed away.

Your use of the hang drum in the eponymous single is interesting…

It has a tonality that complements the sitar in a beautiful way. Also Austrian percussionist Manu Delago, who is on tour these days with me, is the very best hang drum player in the world.

Your father taught sitar to George Harrison. How are you bringing together the East and the West?

In my father’s context, people were being exposed to the sounds of India for the first time. If you look at his collaborations, the work he did with Yehudi Menuhin or Jean-Pierre Rampal

playing unlike in the West, where usually it is clearly delineated. There, someone can either be a performer or a composer because they are two very different ways of thinking. In my case, they are interchangeable because I feature myself in a lot of my compositions (laughs). As a sitar payer, I am thinking in terms of interpreting music. It’s about showing the best thing you can in that moment, in a beautiful way. As a composer it is a step before that, when you have to create a character. I suppose being a composer is similar to being a director, while a sitar player is like being an actor.

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The hang drum’s tonality complements the sitar beautifully DECEMBER 22, 2013

Would you classify your sound as world music?

Everyone on this planet falls into the world music genre. I have never worked with an alien! Unless I travel to space and start to work with aliens, every musician I work with has to be a world musician. aasheesh.sharma@hindustantimes.com Follow @aasheesh74 on Twitter

NOSTALGIA

With the reopening of Ghungroo, the fabled nightclub of the ’90s, we look back at Delhi’s pulsating nightlife in that decade by Yashica Dutt

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HE PAST is a foreign country. They do things differently there. For no other generation does this LP Hartley quote hold truer than ours. We, the children of the ’90s, find a piquant pleasure in filtering the present with nostalgiacoloured lenses. And Facebook groups documenting how the decade of Madhuri Dixit, Shaktiman and Gold Spot ‘was so much better’, testify to that. So, when Ghungroo, the fabled nightclub of the ’90s, reopened a few weeks ago, it would have been a disservice to our (read: my) fixation with nostalgia not to focus on that era’s illdocumented nightlife. How dancing in nightclubs would have made for a slightly odd playtime option for five-year-olds – the average age of the ’90s kids then – is a minor technicality which shouldn’t be allowed to hinder this pursuit.

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THE WAY WE WORE

When DD Metro was the television channel of the youth and model and VJ Ruby Bhatia listed out songs that tenaciously stuck to the international charts – Cotton-Eyed Joe by Rednex was there almost every week – on Channel V, partying was a thinly-veiled allusion to getting together at a friend’s house, blasting the stereo and letting it rip, while mommy served Uncle Chipps and cold drinks. Going to the disco was an occasional pastime, when a friend with liberal parents would offer to drop and pick you from a nightclub. (Or you were obviously spending the

night ‘studying’). Party regular Tanisha Mohan, who in the early ’90s worked with British Airways, often partied with friends like the late model Jessica Lal and her sister Sabrina. “It’s not like today when you can party any day. We would wait for the weekend the whole week. We would extensively discuss plans – since we were allowed to go out only once – figure whose parents were picking us up and when to make a trip to Janpath or FU/Inter Shoppe in South

As a girl, you spent three hours with hot rollers in your hair so that your curls would be perfectly permed for the night Planned the entire week (with all your friends) as to w which clubs you’d hit on Saturday night no e k r u e o Assidulously practised the ‘mad’ moves of Y uw g Macarena to show off at the disco later yo rtyin e a Waited in endlessly long lines at the bank to p … th withdraw cash for the evening. (Hard to imagine not in ies if having cards around, isn’t it?) et Nin Knew at least one proper break dance/robot dance move from start to ﬁnish

DECEMBER 22, 2013

Extension, the only places to buy fashionable clothes. It was all very simple back then.” Channelling the frothy fashion of the era, the girls would dress in leggings and satin dresses with huge bows at the back or later, around the late ’90s, in tube tops and halter blouses with denim skirts and leather pants. Hair was almost always big and permed and by the time the Eighties hangover passed, poker-straight with blinding highlights. Ramneek Pantal, now an emcee but a model in those days, admits to using a lot of bling, especially towards the end of the decade. “We did try and look like the Spice Girls!” The men couldn’t care less about clothes, (metrosexual was yet to be coined) and often hung around in loose jeans and round necked T-shirts or baggy, ill-fitting suits that can only be classified as the worst of the ’90s. Dancing was on everybody’s minds and as designer Ritu Beri

puts it, “It was definitely different back then. The refrain was ‘let’s go dancing’, when all people want to do today is to go ‘chilling out’. The idea was to have a good time.”

THE IT LIST

Music was meant for dancing and all one heard was dance music.

NOSTALGIA

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Royal, Nehru Place Community Centre. Unlike today, when every community has a club in its backyard, t a ften usic most ‘discos’ were o d laye its m located in five-star ani pwn for m a o v hotels. Which made i n S k mer; it was them expensive o Drum o ngr and way tougher u h G to get into. Gunjita Dhawan, who owns a drinking game, predicting what a PR firm now, regularly went out tracks would be hits. He won on Saturdays with her husband almost every time. “I had friends Abhinav Dhawan, and describes working with airlines who would the velvet ropeway, much like the be nice enough to carry the latest clubs of New York and music from across the world. London, where entry Without the Internet it was not so was impossible unless easy to get new releases. Our own you knew the manager. Indi-pop was big too and Anamika, “There used to be long Bally Sagoo and Sivamani were queues which extended very popular. Chura Liya was miles outside the club. requested all the time. Also, no one Unlike today, it wasn’t played Bollywood music in clubs as if you’d eventually like you hear these days, except get an entry if you maybe a track or two,” says Sarid. hung around long The nightclubs were few but enough. Profiling was fabled. Apart from Ghungroo in stricter which made Welcomgroup Maurya Sheraton the clubs that much (it has reopened in WelcomHotel, safer,” she says. Dwarka), there was Djinns at the People partied till the wee Hyatt, CJ’s at Le Méridien, My hours, since clubs stayed open till Kind of Place at Taj Palace, An5-6 am on weekends, adds Dhawan. nabelles at Hotel Intercontinental, “There were no 12.30 am deadlines Mirage at The Surya Best Western and we would be out the whole Hotel, Fireball at 32nd Milestone, night. The party goers were few Gurgaon, and Float at The Park and one ended up knowing almost

asy as e iles t ’ n was for m lubstended NGROO c o t U x n : GH ing i es e tesy Gettn; the lin Photo Cour the Tracks like Dr Alban’s It’s My Life and Los Del Rio’s Macarena were evidently popular, followed by the Vengaboys’ music in the later years. DJ Sunny Sarid, who played at Ghungroo, however, didn’t rely on charts and countdowns but on sounds that moved the crowd. He and the hotel staff even invented

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everybody. It was actually a party circuit.”

WON’T YOU LINGER?

Since there was so much concentration on dancing, the dance floor was glamorous territory, not a cube of space at the end of the floor, like it is now. Ghungroo claims to be the first club to have introduced lighting under the glass floor, a concept we now associate with dance floors in Delhi. Greesh Bindra, general manager, Crowne Plaza, recalls launching Float in the late ’90s, a stylised club which invited you to sit at different levels around a dance club in the centre. “Today’s youngsters stand and dance anywhere but then one only danced on the dance floor. I remember we hosted the launch party of Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani and Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla stayed almost the whole night partying. It wasn’t an orchestrated fleeting appearance.” Brands were few, choices limited and people still considered loyalty a virtue, especially with regard to their favourite clubs. Abhishek Narang, who now works as an assistant F&B director at the Hyatt, was a bartender in Djinns back then. “There was no concept of clubhopping. People came to a club and stayed there till it closed for the night. There was no rush to get to some other place. It allowed friendships to foster,” he says. Adds Sarid, “At a time when mobiles were nonexistent, clubs were the place where friends caught up with each other.” Even if it’s strange to think of clubs as friendly places, remember it was in a foreign country when things were done differently.

Clubs only existed in five-star hotels. Every locality didn’t have a disco of its own

DECEMBER 22, 2013

yashica.dutt@hindustantimes.com Follow @YashicaDutt

PERSONAL AGENDA

Actress

twitter.com/HTBrunch

Deepika Padukone

BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN PLACE OF HOMETOWN SCHOOL/COLLEGE CURRENTLY I AM... BIRTH January 5 Capricorn Bangalore Sophia High School, Mount Answering this fun Copenhagen

FIRST BREAK

Om Shanti Om (2007)

Carmel College, Bangalore questionnaire

HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE The success of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013)

WAYS TO LOOK GOOD ALL THE TIME

Sleep well Exercise Think happy thoughts Dress simple

And don’t accessorise too much. A watch and a pair of sunglasses will do the trick

Photo: THINKSTOCK

Which is home – Bangalore or Mumbai? I have two homes. Have you ever beaten your dad at badminton? Yes. But deep down inside, I know he let me win. Apart from being very, very, goodlooking, what’s Ranbir Kapoor really like? He’s intelligent and witty. Three rules everyone should follow in a relationship. Be yourself, be honest and give each other space. What did you most like about Rajinikanth? His simplicity. What eyewear do you wear? Vogue Eyewear. One thing nobody should wear. Ever! A fake personality. Your best Bollywood buds. Dinesh Vijan, Shahana Goswami and Homi Adajania. The one thing you’re terrible at.

LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE

Living away from my family

Sometimes, I am way too organised for my own good. A diet that always works. Pooja Makhija all the way! Five healthy foods that actually taste amazing. Quinoa, sushi, dark chocolate, veggies cooked interestingly and veggie juice. Your favourite cocktail. The movie! A woman you really admire. Every woman is special and unique. Your favorite book. It has to be the first book I read, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The best kind of workout. Pilates works best for me. — Interviewed by Saudamini Jain

A FILM THAT MAKES YOU GO ‘AWW’.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona DECEMBER 22, 2013