WEEKLY WEEKLY MAGAZINE, MAGAZINE, AUGUST JUNE 22, 31, 2014 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
The World According to Naseer
On the eve of the release of his autobiography, And Then One Day, Naseeruddin Shah opens up on his chequered childhood, his two marriages, the parallel cinema movement and how the ‘method actor’ mantle was sometimes hard to wear. Plus: exclusive extracts from the searingly honest, tell-all memoir
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BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS
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Shortcut to Smart
by Dhruba Jyoti Purkait August 31, 2014
R.I.P
126 years ago, Jack the Ripper killed his first (known) victim. Here’s a flashback of the deadly man
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
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xactly 126 years ago, Mary Ann Nichols, the first of the Whitechapel victims, was murdered. The most infamous mass murderer in history, simply known as Jack the Ripper, a contemporary of the fictional Sherlock Holmes, terrorised the streets of London between August and November 1888. He killed at least five women, and then vanished. For decadees, writers fused Holmes and Ripper in fiction, but even the genius of 221B, Baker Street, who started his practice a year before the first murder, was unsuccessful in solving the mystery. This unknown killer has his own pop culture following – thousands of obsessed ripperologists, trying to solve the biggest
Jack the Ripper suspects Jack the Ripper. Image taken from Puck magazine, 1889 unsolved crime in pop culture. Here are four things you should know:
Ab Tak Aapne Dekha
by Atisha Jain
Emraan Hashmi’s Raja Natwarlal is apparently fiction, which is sad because real con men are super. Here’s a run through
Frederic Bourdin Inspiration for Imposter (2012), a documentary Assumed about 500 false identities. Posed as a teenager and convinced his parents he was their missing son! Filmi line: “A new identity was a real passport, an American passport.”
1. The mastermind’s name comes from anonymous letters sent to the police and the press signed off as Jack the Ripper. ‘Ripper’ possibly because his victims were horribly mutilated. 2. He killed early morning or over weekends and that’s all we know of the crimes. 3. Some claim he killed 11 women till 1891, but police versions pin the number at five – all prostitutes. He never left eyewitnesses. Queen Victoria thought the criminal was a butcher. (If ever there was a reason to check royal sanity.) 4. The murders occurred in Whitechapel in the impoverished East End of London. Jack was thought to be a medical professional since the mutilations were surgically done. Among suspects was Victoria’s own doctor. Caution: No one knows if the murderer was a man. Jack might as well be Jill. Or just the figment of a journalist’s imagination. Elementary, my Watsons.
Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava The reported inspiration for Mr Natwarlal (1979) Dream of owning the Taj Mahal? Natwarlal sold it – several times. He escaped prison eight times. And remained elusive even in death: he died twice but could still be alive. Filmi line: “Main apne dushman se kiye huye vaade ko bhi poora karta hoon.” Conmen who carried out a heist on 19 March 1987 Portrayed in Special 26 (2013) A group of 26 people posing as tax officials raided a jewellery store in Opera House, Mumbai. They stole gold ornaments and stashed the booty in briefcases. Filmi line: “Logon ke pairon mein chakkar hota hai ... mere dimaag mein hai.”
BUNDAL BAAZ (1976)
Bollywood’s very own Aladdin story. And FYI, Shammi Kapoor is the funniest genie you will ever find.
JANBAAZ (1986)
It had a steamy sex scene in a barn! And Sridevi crooned to Har Kisiko Nahin Milta! Need we say more?
CHAALBAAZ (1989)
Sridevi as twins separated at birth. All you need to remember: a transparent umbrella and a rain dance.
BAAZIGAR (1993)
Do we need to tell you the plot? SRK on a killing spree to take revenge from Kajol’s father. And some eyelash batting.
On The Brunch Radar
LOVE IT
n Alia Bhatt joking about Alia Bhatt n The Rice Bucket Challenge. Instead of pouring a bucket of ice, donate a bucketful of rice n The mini heart attack when you mistake a Faking News headline for a real one n Robo Brain n Eating a salad a day. Omnom n The innate inability to be punctual n All those ranting about Priyanka Chopra playing Mary Kom in the film. n Celebrity fan wars on Twitter n Almost-famous friends n All those people misspelling Richard Attenborough’s last name in #RIP tributes
SHOVE IT
Watch out for the 20’s Forever series in Brunch over the coming weeks – Your key to tight & bright skin Cover design: MONICA GUPTA Cover image: SATISH BATE
EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Aastha Atray Banan, Veenu Singh, Satarupa Paul, Saudamini Jain, Asad Ali, Atisha Jain
AUGUST 31, 2014
by Junisha Dama
Recently released Katiyabaaz got us thinking: Bollywood has a long history of Baaz-type films. You may not have heard of most of these, but here’s what they’re about
by Saudamini Jain
Stranger Than Fiction
Frank W Abagnale Jr Portrayed in Catch Me If You Can (2002) Impersonated a pilot, a doctor and a prosecutor. Cashed forged cheques worth $2.5 million – before he turned 21. He went on to work with the FBI. Filmi line: “An honest man has nothing to fear and I am trying not to be afraid of anything.”
Front Row
A Bollywood BAAZnama
On This Day
DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Swati Chakrabarti, Payal Dighe Karkhanis, Ajay Aggarwal
Pritish Nandy tweeted: @TheVikasKhanna You got a new fan. After I read @ HTBrunch I decided ed I must follow you. – @PritishNandy
Sanjay Dutt with and without a moustache and iron lady Anita Raj avenge the Cheetah… we mean Gulshan Grover.
JUNGBAAZ (1989)
An escaped prisoner, a lawyer; and a seriously funny Mandakini dancing around in a kimono.
AAKHRI BAAZI (1989)
Govinda must avenge a friend’s death by fighting Cobras (not literally!). Or his brother… Aakhir kaun hai cobra gang ka leader?
BAAZ (2003)
A bunch of actors that were a success (not so much anymore) and a serial killer who detests anything beautiful.
Stuff That T Happened Last Sunday
anna, r boy, Vikas Kh chef and cove nday: Su texted us last re from the heart. ggg, Love it, Pu xt messages on gg in az am “Its te hatsApp and t-moving emails W 0 50 t Almos crazy hear ve ha e ople are W . le your artic lovely story. Pe ]” k you for the ic an [s . Th ie . ov op m st a nr no eat script fo saying its a gr Our favourite
Sunday is all about @HTBrunch & today its all about @ TheVikasKhanna! Loved the feature on this amazing chef – @LeoAmore6 u Thank yo r fo so much r ant cove that brilli locked story! Un vel of le another as n for Vik admiratio na <3 an h K aloni – @XiaoS
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JAAN KI BAAZI (1985)
Truely superb. tussi toh humne emotional kardeta with this article. #Impressive #Innocent #Inspiration. #touchwood
- @Archu_o
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COVER STORY
His soon-to-be-released autobiography is elegantly written – and also brutally honest. Naseeruddin Shah, arguably India’s finest actor, says...
“If I’m going to paint myself in heroic colours, I may as well write a novel” by Poonam Saxena; photos by Satish Bate
AUGUST 31, 2014
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T’S A CLOUDY, damp evening in Mumbai and Naseeruddin Shah’s Bandra home is suffused with a soft golden light. The mellow setting seems just right for the 64-year-old actor – long considered to be the gold standard in acting – to talk about his soon-to-be-released autobiography, And Then One Day. There’s something of a rash of film stars’ memoirs these days. But Naseer’s book is different – rather like the man himself. It is elegantly written (no, there is no ghostwriter), but what really makes it stand out is its searing honesty. “Why fantasise?” Naseer counters in that famous gravelly voice, as he lounges on a sofa, drinking tea. “If I’m going to paint myself in heroic colours, I might as well write a novel.” Naseer says he began writing about his life for his own “amusement.” He wrote intermittently over ten years and then gave the 100-odd pages he’d come up with to his friend, the historian Ramachandra Guha, who urged him to finish it. And Then One Day spans Naseer’s life from his childhood to his early film career, ending rather abruptly around the time of his marriage to actress Ratna Pathak and the return of his daughter from his first marriage to India. In between are the crucial lifechanging years at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Delhi’s National School of Drama (NSD) and the Film and Television Institute at Pune (FTII). This rather bald summary conceals tumultuous decades, the troughs of disappointment and regret balanced by the highs of bittersweet success and the discovery of enduring love. It’s quite a journey. Naseer’s childhood was spent in Ajmer, the Rajasthani town dominated by the marble shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, where his father was the administrator. Soon enough though, Naseer and his two older brothers, Zameer and Zaheer, were packed off to St Joseph’s in Nainital. In that cool and hilly setting, Naseer got his first taste of Hollywood films. The school would show English films every week and Naseer was swept away by the dashing Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper, by Charlie Chaplin’s whimsy, Fred Astaire/
Ginger Rogers’ skill… Hindi films just couldn’t compete. “My tastes were shaped by the Wizard of Oz and Tarzan rather than Dilip Kumar, whose films were actually the best Hindi films of the time,” recalls Naseer. “I saw Uran Khatola, but I’d also seen Knights of the Round Table. Where was the comparison? I saw Ben Hur. And then I saw Yahudi, which was an embarrassment. Dilip Kumar looks like he’s in another film. Right man, wrong movie.” The Hollywood films also transported Naseer to a seductive world that he badly wanted to be part of rather than the real world where he was. He didn’t care for studies unless it was poetry, literature or drama. As he says with a grin, all he knew of geography was that the Earth was round. When told to mark the Thar desert on a map, he would draw faces. History lessons were spent sketching beards on pictures of Akbar. “Pretending was the only thing that made sense to me,” he says. “I was dissatisfied with myself as a child. I wasn’t happy in my own skin.”
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t the heart of this brooding discontentment perhaps was his difficult relationship with his father. Aley Mohammed Shah, not unusually, hoped for his son to ‘do’ something, to ‘become’ someone. But Naseer’s waywardness and poor performance in school only brought disappointment. At a time when, as Naseer says, walloping your kids was considered normal, his father never lifted a finger on him. But neither did he try and ‘understand’ his child. This fraught relationship continued all their life, with the father struggling to come to terms with his son’s foolish dream of becoming an actor. And Naseer struggling with his father’s stern disapproval, terrified of him, but certain that the “urge could not be silenced.” “Now, with the passage of time, now that I’m getting older and dealing with children myself, I can understand how my father must have felt about the fact that I ignored him,” says Naseer. “He felt I was indifferent to him. But I had to put on that indifference because I thought he was indifferent.” Their relationship was further
I wanted to sing, to beat up the bad guys. But I was terrible at it. I just couldn’t buy into that kind of synthetic drama
I haven’t written about Smita Patil because I didn’t know her very well. I didn’t find her a very interesting person tested when Naseer went to study at AMU. Instead of applying himself to his studies, 19-year-old Naseer plunged into theatre – and an intense relationship with 34-yearold Purveen, a Pakistani studying medicine in Aligarh. Cheerful and loving, she was deeply supportive of his acting ambitions. They ended up getting married on the 1st of November, 1969. But it did not – perhaps inevitably – end well. Naseer was, in his words, “insecure and ill-adjusted.” He had got admission to NSD and left for Delhi. In Aligarh, Purveen was already pregnant. Ten months after they got married, she gave birth to a baby girl, Heeba. This is the point in the book where you pause and catch your breath in some surprise. Because Naseer, like a detached medical examiner conducting an autopsy, unsparingly chronicles how he resented the arrival of the baby, was too absorbed in his exciting new life in NSD to bother about marriage and fatherhood, and eventually stopped visiting, writing to or phoning Purveen altogether. Purveen soon left for London with her child, and it would be 12 years before Naseer saw Heeba again. Today, she is part of his family and his theatre company. “My story wouldn’t have been complete without this chapter of my life,” says Naseer. “Purveen was hugely encouraging and I owe her a great deal in determining my direction and finding my spot.” He has been equally candid about other controversial aspects of his career too – such as being almost always stoned during various phases of his life. “I’m not recommending it or advocating it to anyone, but it was okay for me,” says Naseer. “It helped me become aware that I have a mind. I think I’d credit ganja with making me a little more intelligent!” Though this is not to say that he has kept no secrets in his memoir. “I felt I didn’t have to tell the truth about everybody,” he says. “I had to safeguard some people.” And so he doesn’t reveal the name of the person he had a long-standing relationship with, right from his NSD days. She merely goes by the moniker R – maybe because the relationship ended and today, R is a happily married woman.
AUGUST 31, 2014
It was when Naseer was recovering from his broken relationship with R (soon after his film career took off with his first film Nishant) that he himself found The One. He was standing at a roadside sugarcane juice stall in Mumbai with theatre director Satyadev Dubey, discussing Sambhog Se Sanyas Tak, a play Dubey was directing, when Ratna Pathak, who was also acting in the play, turned up. It was a hot day and Naseer found it hard to take his eyes off the glowing, striking-looking young woman in front of him. He even considered the possibility of spending his life with her. As it turned out, he did. And if there’s one person in the book who is the object of his unstinted love and admiration, it is Ratna.
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aseer’s film career, a brilliant if complex and contradictory maze, began with Shyam Benegal’s Nishant, a film overflowing with the cream of Indian theatre talent, from Vijay Tendulkar to Mohan Agashe. The movie pushed Naseer into the forefront of the parallel cinema movement, and he got a string of powerful roles in films like Manthan, Bhumika, Sparsh, Aakrosh, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai, Bhavani Bhavai and too many others to enumerate. Though his book has sketches of many of the people he worked with, he’s written next to nothing about Smita Patil. “I didn’t know her very well,” shrugs Naseer. “To be honest, I didn’t find her a very interesting person.” He concedes that these films gave him the opportunity to play all kinds of roles, and gave him the reputation he acquired. But the experience was also disillusioning. Given their minuscule budgets, Naseer often ended up working for free or almost free. Even when the budget was better – as in the case of the Basu Bhattacharyaproduced Sparsh – Naseer found he was not paid. If he thought he was somehow being noble by not taking money, all it took was a poignant conversation with actor Satish Shah to disabuse him of the notion. “Satish asked me, ‘you think you’re doing something great? But what about people like me? How will we manage?’” says Naseer. “That’s when it struck me
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that I was being taken for a ride. I realised that a lot of directors were cashing in on me because they couldn’t get another actor for free. There were only a few exceptions – such as Shyam Benegal, who was always very fair.” What kept Naseer’s home fires burning were the commercial films he did. Contrary to popular perception, he says he never dumped off-beat films to do commercial films or vice versa. “I was doing both alongside,” he explains. It is also untrue, he points out, that he did not want to act in commercial films. “I wanted to sing, beat up the bad guys, fight,” he smiles. “But I was terrible at it.” In his first commercial film, Sunaina, Naseer was anything but impressive. Nor was he in most of the other such films he did (anyone remember Hero Hiralal?). “I couldn’t do it and not for want of trying,” he admits. “The reason I wasn’t good in these movies is because I just couldn’t buy into the kind of synthetic drama they contained. I have no clue how Mr Bachchan or Dilip Kumar did it. The degree of excellence these two gentlemen have…they did the kind of acting one aspired to but couldn’t do.” But Naseer is aware – how could he not be? – that he was, indeed is, regarded as one of the greatest actors in Hindi cinema. Tell him that and he doesn’t look entirely pleased. “I’ve never taken it seriously,” he says. “It’s nice… But it created problems for me as far as my development was concerned. I couldn’t even bring myself to sing a song properly on screen! I didn’t relish terms like ‘method actor’ or ‘committed actor.’” Almost as a reaction, as therapy, he did films like Tehelka, where he dressed in drag. “I had to do it,” he insists. “I had to chuck this mantle of serious actor.” But it was too late. Naseer’s formidable reputation had already been cemented through his art films. There are worse things an actor can be stuck with. But like we said, Naseer is different. As a young man, he yearned for fame and recognition. Today, he’s not sure whether he likes it anymore. “If I’m not recognised, will I miss it or not? I don’t know,” he says. As the golden evening light darkens, it’s time to leave. Not without giving a message to Naseer however: he should write part two of his memoir now. He smiles and says, “Well, as E Alkazi told us in NSD, keep your audience wanting more.” poonamsaxena@hindustantimes.com
Exclusive extracts
And Then One Day... A Memoir by Naseeruddin Shah (Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin)
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ne morning, answering the door at Purveen’s I saw two gents whose white bush shirts, khaki trousers and brown shoes instantly announced their identity. ‘CID,’ said the one in front. ‘Miss Murad lives here?’ Purveen went even higher in my estimation. What an interesting life she leads, thought I, and had a quick vision of myself in mackintosh and felt hat, smoke curling from my cigarette, flashing my identity card at a terrified wrongdoer. Turned out that they hadn’t come to dispatch her or me on a guns-and-gals mission, they had come to check if she was still in India and to remind her that her visa was due to expire soon. Those were days of frosty relations and mutual suspicion between the neighbours. The Bangladesh conflict was beginning to fester and the explosion was round the corner. Pakistanis visiting India had to register
themselves and report weekly to a police station, and in some cases they were even kept under surveillance through their stay. I have no idea if she too was, but she had stayed on long enough to warrant notice... A couple of days later I was taken into confidence. She was on the verge of overstaying in India and the penalty for that would be deportation and a ban from ever visiting again. She had to return to Pakistan within the month. There was no way for her to stay on but to seek Indian citizenship which, considering the existing situation, would be far from expeditious. There was one way, however, by which she could stay and that was to marry an Indian citizen. To me there didn’t appear to be any hitch at all. Here I was, a bona fide Indian citizen, madly in love with her; all I had to do was wait for my big break and I’d be marrying her anyway, sooner or later. The news of Richard Attenborough’s dream project – to film Gandhiji’s life – had been circulating in India since I was a child
in school... The person slated to play the part then was Sir Alec Guinness but at that time it was just an announcement. Over the intervening years many other respected thespian names were floated: Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasence, Anthony Hopkins, Brian Blessed, John Hurt. And just around the time that Aakrosh came out, the news broke that an Indian actor would be chosen to play the part and Sir Richard was to visit Bombay shortly to look for such an actor. My antenna vibrated madly, I thought I was in with a pretty good chance... I thought I could age convincingly, I had done it several times on stage, but getting the eponymous role in a huge Hollywood biopic – it all seemed too unreal to actually happen but reason told me it wasn’t impossible at all. Which European actor would be able to get Gandhi’s body language, I thought vainly; and there weren’t too many other accomplished actors in India either who could manage the physical resemblance... Not suspecting that the dice was loaded, I got an appointment to meet Sir Richard, friendliness itself. He had just seen Aakrosh, waxed eloquent about my work and kept addressing me as ‘maestro’... Every second actor in Bombay was making the rounds of the Taj Hotel where he was staying, in the hope of a meeting, but I secured another one at which he asked me if I would like to travel to London for a screen test... ...at Shepperton Studios, the first sight that greeted me in the corridor was the back of Ben Kingsley’s head and my heart sank. He turned around as we were introduced and it went further down somewhere near my ankles. The man already looked more like Gandhi than I ever could. I had been too smug in my belief that there couldn’t be an English actor who could manage the resemblance but here he was right in front of my eyes... I later deduced that Ben had in fact already been cast, as had Rohini [Hattangady], and this whole business of tom-tomming all of us being tested and sneaking the news
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MEMORIES
Below left: Naseer with his father Aley Mohammed Shah, his mother Farrukh Sultan, and older brother Zaheer. His mother gave birth to five sons, but only three survived Above: With wife Ratna Pathak Shah, the love of his life. The two got married in Ratna’s mother’s home – for sentimental reasons Right: Young Naseer takes a ‘selfie’
to the press in India that I had been chosen was a masquerade conducted to pre-empt objections that inevitably would have arisen if a white actor were announced straight away... It’s a pungent irony that in my entire career this is the one part I went after and it eluded me. I don’t know if I was so eager to play the part itself or eager for the worldwide exposure it would involve. I did think though, when I saw it, that Ben was quite wonderful, he got everything right except Gandhiji’s ear-to-ear smile. I was not at that time skilled enough to have pulled it off the way he did, though. My curiosity to know if I could, however, was finally stilled many years later when I played Gandhi on the stage in a hugely successful production; and merely repeated that performance in a film with so much prosthetic on my face it could have made a Mongolian actor resemble Gandhi if his head were shaved and he wore granny glasses. Shabana and I over the decades have worked together in more films than you can shake a script at. Her dramatic abilities are too well documented to need a testimonial from me so I won’t go
AUGUST 31, 2014
there, except to say that but for the somewhat smug reverence she has for her own acting and her tendency to perform with background music playing in her head not to mention the eccentric preference for her right profile over her left (or is it the other way around?) I have never found her to be anything but a consummate professional ... Playing off her has always been non-competitive, full of mutual regard and trust and, therefore, a great joy... ...Despite spending so much time together, we have somehow escaped becoming close on a personal level, which I am inclined to think is not a bad thing. We do consider each other to be friends, but visit each other’s homes on an average once every two years or so. The roles in our real-life relationship are not at all defined so when we meet there are no expectations, and when we approach two characters at work it’s like drawing those people on a clean slate, the baggage of things personal does not intrude.
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indulge
Photo: VIR SANGHVI
The French roasT While there are some great chicken dishes in their cuisine, French chefs will tell you that a roast chicken is the real test of a good kitchen
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OU WOULDN’T normally think of the French as the Punjabis of Europe. (Actually, the Bengalis like to think of themselves as the Frenchmen of India. Though frankly, they are the Irishmen of India. But we’ll save that for another time.) There is one respect, however, in which Punjabis and the French are perfectly aligned: their love of chicken. There are differences, of course. I always think that Punjabis are more in love with the texture (or even the idea of the perfect kukkad) of chicken than the taste. Otherwise, why would they raise no objection when so many traditional recipes are ruined by the use of industrial broiler chickens, birds that have been brought up to have no flavour? The great dishes of Punjabi cuisine – to say nothing of the triumphs of Punjabi tandoori restaurant cooking – were created around flavourful freerange birds. Take away the flavour of the chicken and you destroy the dish. And yet, in home after home and restaurant after restaurant, they use tasteless broilers. The French, on the other hand, take their chicken more seriously. Even a chef at the humblest bistro would turn his nose up at the sight of a frozen, factory chicken. And while free-range birds are the norm, the French also have a caste system among chicken. Certain breeds (Black Leg, for instance) are preferred to others. And as with wine, the terroir in which the chicken grew up is vitally important. Most Frenchmen would probably concede that chickens from Bresse are the best in the world. They are limited in number, have special diets (corn-fed is the
Vir Sanghvi
rude food
MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, log on to hindustantimes. com/brunch The views expressed by the columnist are personal
norm) and some are given individual numbers. Most Frenchmen will happily eat fish, lamb, beef, pork, snails, frog legs, animal entrails or whatever, but when you sit them down and ask them to recall a meal they have really enjoyed, a surprisingly large number will talk about their mothers’ roast chicken. They will go into rhapsodies about the taste of the meal, the smell of the kitchen when the oven is opened and how the aroma of the cooking juices fills the house, and so on. While there are some great chicken dishes in French cuisine (the Coq au Vin of Burgundy is a classic), French chefs will tell you that a roast chicken is the test of a good kitchen in the sense that a dal is the test of a good Indian restaurant. The recipe is simple. Every French housewife knows how to make roast chicken. But to make it perfectly, you have to have the gift, that special ability that distinguishes great cooks from those who are merely very good. The last time I was in Paris, I asked Simon and Sebastien, the two foodie concierges at the Bristol – my
AUGUST 31, 2014
BEATS EVERY OTHER HICKEN
At Le Coq Rico (above right), I ordered the full Bresse chicken. A giant golden bird (above) had a flavour that I have never before encountered in any chicken current candidate for Best Hotel in Europe, though my wallet doesn’t necessarily agree – where they thought the best chicken in town was served. We were joined by a rich American guest (a lady who, I was to discover, spent rather a lot of time by the concierge’s desk whenever Simon was on duty) who said, “Hey, I know where the best roast chicken in the world is. I’m American so don’t blame me if I mention the obvious place.” All of us knew what she was talking about. All Americans who make the pilgrimage to Paris – and everyone above a certain income level in America dreams of going to Paris – have a favourite restaurant. The Bristol is a longestablished haunt of well-travelled, well-heeled Americans. (It is where the protagonists stay in Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris, which is not only the best representation of the American obsession with Paris, but is also Allen’s best movie in two decades). And so the concierges have the number of Chez L’Ami Louis on speed dial, because it is the favourite eating place of all their American guests. You may have heard of Ami Louis, as the American call it. Movie stars love it. Many years ago, Rishi Kapoor, the greatest gourmet in the Indian film industry, sent me a text urging me to try it. It is a smallish, distinctly unfancy restaurant near the old garment district in the 3rd Arrondissement that dates back to 1920. I’m not sure when Americans discovered it but in the heyday of the old Hollywood studios, all the big stars were dispatched here for photo-ops by movie moguls. When the columnist Art Buchwald lived in Paris in the 1950s, he often wrote about the ‘celebrity chicken’ and the restaurant became world famous. Every non-French person of consequence who has come to Paris has eaten here: Mick Jagger, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, etc. L’Ami Louis does serve other dishes, but 90 per cent of the guests come only for the roast chicken, a giant bird (often from Landes), that is put in the centre of the table.
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You are encouraged to eat with your hands, to gnaw at the thighs and to soak up the delicious roasting jus with bread. They do many kinds of potatoes – from thick fries to upmarket hash browns. But two people will find it difficult to finish a whole chicken. I went to L’Ami Louis some years ago and though the chicken was delicious, I’ve always treated it as one of those touristy Paris hang-outs like La Coupole or Ladurée, where the food is never the problem (ie it’s usually good), but where you get tired of blinking as the flashes of tourist cameras fill the room and where no French people are in evidence. I said as much to the concierges – and to the American lady – and all of them agreed. But Simon insisted that the chicken was worth it, anyway. It was, he said, easily the best roast chicken in Paris. (When the French say that, they mean ‘in the world’!) But I had another candidate. I’m on the jury of the Foodie Top 100 Restaurants and among the many Paris restaurants listed (the Foodie 100 is as pro-French as its rival, the San Pellegrino Top 100 restaurant list, is deliberately anti-French) was one that intrigued me. It was called Le Coq Rico and was described as “a single ingredient concept squarely focused on gourmet interpretations of pedigree poultry”. In other words, it was also a roast chicken restaurant. The Bristol concierges knew it well. Simon even offered to call the manager and ask him to take special care of me. (They had no idea, by the way, that I wrote about food and wine or hotels. They do this for all guests, I was to discover.) I said that was not necessary. Could he just make a booking and ensure that I got a table, because I had no desire to sit at the counter? Of course, he said, that would be no problem. Two things struck me when I got to Le Coq Rico. The first was that the décor was as modern as L’Ami Louis
is old world – white on white and an open kitchen. The second was that it really was a temple to roast chicken. Many single diners – Frenchmen, mainly – sat silently at a counter near the kitchen concentrating on the roast chicken. Yes, there were lots of tourists too. But unlike L’Ami Louis, you had the sense that the restaurant attracted locals as well. The menu has other dishes (foie gras ravioli etc) but it is crazy to go there and not eat the chicken. You can get a plated quarter chicken, but to get the full head-on experience, you need to order the whole bird. The menu lets you choose your chicken – Challans, Landes, Coucou de Rennes – but if you’ve gone all that way, you might as well order a full Bresse chicken. It is 98 euros but it serves up to three people so it is not bad value for one of the most expensive chicken breeds in the world. My chicken, when it arrived (it takes about 35 minutes to cook so they suggested I nibble on duck rillettes to not ruin my appetite) was perfection itself. A giant golden bird, it had a flavour that I have never before encountered in any chicken. The skin was crisp and delicious and the meat was moist and tender. They served a jus with the chicken but frankly it did not need it. And the fries that came with it were top notch. I couldn’t finish the chicken, of course, but I overstuffed myself anyway. After all, when was I going to eat chicken of this quality ever again? The next day, I told the concierge at the Bristol that I had actually preferred the Le Coq Rico roast chicken to the L’Ami Louis version. Simon looked surprised. Really? He thought L’Ami Louis was better. Simon’s a Frenchman. He knows his roast chicken. But then he also knows that L’Ami Louis will make his American guests happier. So, I guess we will have to agree to disagree!
The French take their chicken very seriously. Even a chef at the humblest bistro would turn his nose up at the sight of a frozen, factory chicken
CELEB HAUNT
Chez L’Ami Louis (above), is a smallish, distinctly unfancy restaurant that dates back to 1920. Every non-French person of consequence who has come to Paris has eaten here: Mick Jagger, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, etc
TOP GRADE
The Bristol (above) in Paris is my current candidate for Best Hotel in Europe
Chez L’Ami Louis: +33148877748 Le Coq Rico: +33142598289 Hotel Bristol: www.LHW. com, www.lebristolparis.com
Metal In a new lIght Sanjoy Narayan
download central Pallbearer has all the characteristics of a doom metal band. Yet, it can appeal to you even if you don’t like heavy metal
METAL WITH MELODY
Pallbearer’s (top) latest album, Foundations of Burden, held my attention the way no other metal band has managed to
M
ETAL IS not my usual go-to musical genre. I find most head-banging musical styles repetitive, unnecessarily loud and even headache inducing. Yet, that door is not firmly shut to me. There’s a crack and I sometimes do make use of that for an occasional peek into the dark, decibel-charged world of metal and its myriad sub-genres, which go by a plethora of prefixes: doom, death, black, nu, war, dark, sludge and so on. Sometimes during those rare forays, I’ve been lucky to discover some excellent bands, gems that shine in an otherwise dark and gloomy netherworld. That’s how some years back I discovered Sunn O))), the Seattle band that makes dark and heavy ambient music that’s curiously appealing; or Boris, the Japanese metal band, which is constantly experimenting with style; or, more recently, Deafheaven, a San Francisco band that somehow manages to blend shoegaze style, self-effacing music with typically metal-style vocal snarls and shrieks; and, Goatwhore, a more straightforward death metal band from a very musically different city, New Orleans. That was my metal music checklist till last week: I chose from those four bands when the need to listen to that sort of thing arose (infrequently) and once that urge was satisfied, I’d go back to genres that I liked much better. Then, last week, I discovered a Little Rock, Arkansas-based doom metal band called Pallbearer. The grim connotation of their name is not coincidental: metal bands, particularly the ones that are of the doom or black or death type, have dark and gloomy themes in their music, their lyrics and their attitude. Still, Pallbearer’s name could seem as a misnomer. Unlike my short roster of metal bands (Sunn O)))); Boris; Deafheaven; and Goatwhore), Pallbearer is a metal band that is most unlike a metal band. Let me try and explain why that is not oxymoronic. First, here’s the easy part. Pallbearer has all the characteristics of a doom metal band: the guitars are tuned low; the music is sludgy and down tempo; the lyrics are forebodingly dark. Yet, it’s a band that can appeal to you even if you don’t like heavy metal. That’s because, its guitar riffs are sharper and clearer; there’s melody – something eschewed by others in the same genre – in the music; and the vocals by frontman Brett Campbell are delivered clearly and crisply.
AUGUST 31, 2014
Photo: DIANA LEE ZADLO
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My first listen to Pallbearer was their latest album, Foundations of Burden (FoB), which is their second, after 2012’s debut album, Sorrow and Extinction (SaE). FoB is produced sparklingly and has none of the muddy deep sludge that contemporary metal bands thrive on. The tracks – there are six (all averaging 10 minutes in duration, barring one that’s surprisingly slightly over three minutes) – have great bass and guitar riffs, harkening back to the early days of heavy metal. Ten11-and-12 minute doom metal tracks can get to become quite boringly stressful. Pallbearer’s songs don’t ever do. Beginning with the opener, Worlds Apart, right up to the closer, Vanished, which at 11:42 clocks in as the longest song, FoB held my attention the way no other metal band has managed to do, at least in recent years. After FoB, I sought out the band’s first album, Sorrow and Extinction and had roughly the same experience listening to it – a vintage metal sound that is quite different from what is created by today’s metal outfits. Pallbearer, like many other metal bands, hat tips the 1970s British heavy metal pioneers, Black Sabbath. More than 35 years after I’d last heard Black Sabbath, I went back and heard their selftitled debut album from 1970: Tony Iommi’s guitar; Ozzy Osbourne’s vocals; and Geezer Butler’s bass and synths. I’d forgotten how vintage heavy metal sounded. And also how Gothic that album’s cover had looked. I had been trying to put my finger on what made Pallbearer so different from contemporary metal bands. Now I knew. Pallbearer is far from being a clone of Black Sabbath but if you want to hear a contemporary version of ‘vintage metal’, it’s the band you should check out. Photo: NAMAN SARAIYA TAILPIECE: If metal’s not your thing and yet you’ve laboured through till here, just as we were going to press, I heard Kolkata’s indie rock sensation once again. I’d written here about The Supersonics in 2009 when they released their debut album with HERE’S A HEADS UP the corny title, Maby Bak- Kolkata-based indie rock band ing. Well, their second The Supersonics’ second album one, Heads Up, is out and Heads Up is a beaut it’s a beaut. After a break of five years, The Supersonics show that they have an originality few other Indian bands do. Their 10 fun songs have everything the doctor ordered: great guitar lines; nice vocals; good harmony; and a lot of sunshine. Quite the flip side of what you may have read higher up. Download Central appears every fortnight
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indulge The FireFox FireFighT! Mozilla isn’t simply making cool browsers, they’re going mobile too, and doing it cheap
HOW IT UNFOLDED
2012: I’m sitting with some people from Mozilla and they are all so excited about their dream, a $25 smartphone, that they keep interrupting each other and I can make no sense of the meeting. I dismiss it as one more group with their heart in the right place and their brains all over the place! n 2013: I’m shown some Firefox phones and a roadmap of how these phones will change the world. They will mainly be for the developing world, and India would be a key market. I play around with the phones and dismiss them again as they are sluggish and frankly, terrible to look at. n 2014: I’m given a proper ‘ready for the market’ Firefox phone priced at about $25 to play around with at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The phones are very n
Rajiv Makhni
techilicious MORE ON THE WEB For previous Tech columns, log on to hindustantimes.com/ brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter. com/RajivMakhni The views expressed by the columnist are personal
AS SLY AS A FOX
The Firefox smartphone is built well with a smooth OS and is priced even lower than a feature phone
well built, the OS is smooth and the experience is good. I am changing my mind, but I’m sceptical about the $25 price. n August 2014: Two companies in India will launch the Firefox phone: Spice and Intex. Each is moving fast to announce that they are the first, each is selling around the $25 mark, each claims that they have the better product. The Firefox Firefight has begun.
A CRITICAL DREAM To price a smartphone even lower than a feature phone has been the dream for most companies, and especially for the mobile phone industry. To empower the next billion users to truly use a phone for more than voice calls, to get them all online, to give them true connectivity and information, that was the promise ever since the dawn of mobile phones. Now, with these two phones, we may be closer to this amazing revolution. But for that to happen, these phones must be really good and not suck, like some of the other economy smartphones do. WHAT’S DIFFERENT
Mozilla took a different tack on how a smartphone could work, how the OS operates and how a user gets to use the full potential of being always on and always connected. I’m going to spare you the boring tech gobbledegook and just let you absorb a single sentence: Think of it as a phone that is basically just a Web browser, within which reside multiple apps and services. While it has a familiar icon-based look and feel, it’s basically just HTML 5 and a webcode for everything that it ex-
AUGUST 31, 2014
IT’S SIMPLE!
The Firefox phone has an icon-based look and you can get started in under a minute
ecutes. Even for initiating a voice phone call, it is just the same code running to make sure you can dial a number and get connected. Thus, almost any website can be turned into a modified app for the phone very easily. The OS doesn’t need any expensive hardware to run either; it demands very little from the processor, battery life is enhanced too and overall it’s all nice and smooth. It does mean though that you need to be online at all times. But you don’t need a blazing fast 3G or 4G connection – even normal 2G is good enough. That’s the theory, now, for the real-life grind.
SPICE FIRE ONE MI–FX 1 Apart from the rather long name, the Spice phone also has a long list of features and freebies. This is a 3.5-inch phone, dual sim, has a 1GHz processor, 2.5G connectivity, WiFi and Bluetooth, a 2MP back camera plus a 1.3MP front camera. In the box is a free silicon cover and a free offer for 1500MB data from Aircel. It also comes with Single Window Search, Adaptive App Search, Hindi, Tamil and Bangla language support, Facebook, Twitter and Connect A2 (a WhatsApp connect app). The phone is well built and solid, and the touch response on the screen is good. All of this is priced at `2,299. INTEX CLOUD FX This one has pretty similar specs to the
Spice Firefox phone, not surprising as both are based on a Mozilla reference design for its $25 Firefox platform. This too has a 3.5-inch display, a 1GHz processor, a 2MP rear camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and most of what the other phone has. The phone fits well in the hand and feels robust. Intex has priced this just under `2,000.
SHOULD YOU BUY ONE?
Surprisingly, I’m going with a very enthusiastic yes. It’s not that I had set my expectations very low. Rather, I was more than happy to dismiss these as a terrible idea executed poorly. These two phones are nothing like that. If you’ve been using a feature phone, if you want something that is simple and idiot-proof, if you’re overwhelmed by the daunting learning curve of any other smartphone OS, if your demands from a phone aren’t too complex, if you want something that is small and easy to pocket, if there is someone in the family who wants big icons and a phone they can get started with in less than a minute, if the need is for something that runs well and doesn’t need a rocket science degree to get started with – then this could be your best bet. It’s out in more than 17 countries now. And more importantly, this will be one more salvo in getting prices of overpriced smartphones slashed. Up next will be an Android and a Windows phone that will try and match these prices and, in retaliation the next generation Firefox phone may come down even lower, to a price of about `1,299. Who knows, this may even spawn an iPhone for `999. Okay, maybe I’m getting carried away with my dreams – but then that’s exactly what the $25 Firefox phone was just two years back! Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3
twitter.com/HTBrunch
It’s Your Fault!
Behind every unsuccessful man we look for the woman who ‘jinxed’ him
A
NUSHKA SHARMA has magical powers. Through her presence alone, she can ensure that her boyfriend fails in every innings, jinx the entire Indian Test team, and engineer two backto-back innings defeats in the recently-concluded India vs England Test series. Who knew? Not the BCCI, certainly, which gave Virat Kohli special permission to take his girlfriend along for the England tour. And certainly not Virat, or he would have left her behind safely in Mumbai while he played the field (I am talking of cricket of course; what did you think?) in the balmy sunshine of an English afternoon. But he took the unlucky minx along, and now look what’s happened: we have suffered our worst defeat since that much-talked-about summer of '42 in England! But don’t worry, all you cricket lovers (and Virat Kohli fans). The BCCI is on the ball, revising its rules to ensure that such disaster never strikes again. The Board has now decreed that cricketers will not be allowed to take their girlfriends on tour with them. And even legally wedded and bedded wives will only be allowed to accompany their cricketer spouses for a limited period of time. This will ensure, or so the BCCI assures us, that the team is not distracted by all those pesky little women, who always want to go shopping or sightseeing (or, whisper it, have sex!) and don’t allow their husbands to get on with serious stuff
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 The views expressed by the columnist are personal
like practising at the nets, working out at the gym, or even winning a match or two. Honestly, these evil women with their wiles and their charms, seducing our heroes away from the straight and narrow path that leads to victory. These horrid witches who cast a spell on their men, turning them into a shadow of their former selves – they really should be burnt at the stake! Or at the very least, have their passports torched so that they can’t travel along with their husbands/boyfriends. Yes, for some reason, it is always the women who bring bad luck, and the men who
BLAME GAME
Nobody would dream of suggesting that Anushka’s movie flopped because her performance suffered as she was involved with Virat Kohli Photos: GETTY IMAGES
indulge
Yes, for some reason, it is always the women who bring bad luck, and the men who have to suffer as a consequence
have to suffer as a consequence. So, if Dhoni has a bad run after he gets married, it must be his wife, Sakshi’s fault. She must be bringing him bad luck with her presence in the stands. And if Virat is back in the pavilion no sooner than he left, it must be because he can’t bear to be away from Anushka for a minute longer. Of the two evils, wives and girlfriends, wives are just a tad more tolerable. At least their sexual allure is a little dulled by familiarity, so they don’t distract their husbands quite so much. But girlfriends? Tauba, tauba, they must be banished forthwith so that the boys can get on with the job. So far, so sexist. Not just about the women, who are portrayed as sex-crazed and shopping-mad harpies who won’t give their men a moment’s rest. But also about the men, who are depicted as sorry stereotypes, constantly led astray by a certain part of their anatomy. This kind of scenario doesn’t just demonise women, it also infantilises men, to the detriment of both genders. But on balance, as always, it is the women who come off worse. They are the ones held responsible for the non-performance/bad luck of their men. Virat Kohli is playing so badly because Anushka Sharma is bringing him bad luck (or leaving him so exhausted and distracted that he can’t tell a full toss from a yorker). But nobody would dream of suggesting that Anushka’s movie flopped because her performance suffered as a consequence of being involved with Virat. That’s how it has always been, hasn’t it? Blaming women for stuff that they couldn’t possibly be responsible for. It happened centuries ago, when women who were widowed young were treated as social lepers who had to be cordoned off from society in case their bad luck infected everyone else (in some circles, this is still true even in the 21st century). We’ve all heard of cases where young brides are castigated for having brought bad luck when a family death occurs soon after their wedding (no matter that it couldn’t possibly have been their fault). And if the death is that of the husband, then all hell breaks loose. Yes, blaming women for all the bad stuff that goes down is as old as time itself. So, what’s been happening with Anushka Sharma is pretty much par for the course. And you could argue that it is pretty harmless. After all, it just boils down to a few jokes on social media, a brief flurry of commentary pieces on the sports pages, and a couple of cartoons. It’s hardly serious enough to do her any damage; as a strong, modern, successful woman, surely she knows how to take this in her stride? And I am sure that she does. But what a pity that we live in a world in which she has to!
AUGUST 31, 2014
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WELLNESS
MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA
For any worries related to unplanned pregnancy: Write to us at consumercare@piramal.com or call us at 1800-22-0502 (toll free) or sms ICAN to 56070 Website: www.i-canhelp.in
There is no scientific background that suggests emergency contraceptive pills are good only for teenagers. It has been found that all emergency pills are safe and effective for all women of menstruating ages. For your age too, you can safely consume this pill in case of an emergency. In case you still have doubts in your mind, then you can consult a local gynaecologist and follow her advice.
2. Dear Doctor, can you please give me some information about contraceptive injections? How safe are they? Are they 100% effective?
PART-I
THE INCOMPLETE PACKAGE Your jar of jam or carton of juice may be convenient, but it’s more of a chemical cocktail than a source of nutrition
3. Dear Doctor, my wife took a n e m e r g e n c y contraceptive pill in the evening which is almost 20 hours after intercourse. Will it work? I read somewhere that ECP is effective only when taken along with breakfast. Is it true? An emergency contraceptive pill has to be consumed within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse for it to be effective. As your wife consumed the pill after 20 hours, the pill should work to avoid pregnancy. Also there is no requirement of consuming the emergency contraceptive pills in the morning along with breakfast. In fact, the earlier it is taken after unprotected intercourse, the better is the ECP’s ability to help prevent pregnancy.
Queries answered by Dr Nirmala Rao MBBS, MD, DPM; a well known psychiatrist who heads Mumbai based Aavishkar - a multifaceted team of expert doctors and health professionals. Aavishkar has a comprehensive approach to mental and physical health, with an emphasis scan this QR code to visit website on counselling and psychotherapy. Supported by:
freshness. These additives are usually based on sulphites – chemicals created in labs, which can harm us.
P
TEXTURES: Jams and jellies keep their viscous consistency thanks to a chemical called sodium benzoate. The smooth textures of juice, flavoured milk and smoothies are also created artificially, using chemicals. Remember when you saw your half-drunk The colours in smoothie separate into FLAVOURS: Natural fla- pastas are thanks to different layers? That’s a chemical additive your clue. To keep the vours are delicious, but texture looking fresh, a they break down rapidly compound called xanthan gum and can’t stay stable in packis added. Dextran is another aged foods intended for a long compound used in juices, which shelf life. So food companies ensures that the juice remains buy cheaper chemical flavours viscous and does not separate as substitutes. Strawberry ice into fibre and watery liquid. cream, for instance, doesn’t even contain the fruit, just the ask@drshikha.com flavour. These chemicals can (To be continued) cause allergies, nerve disorCHOOSE RIGHT ders and even liver damage if consumed over long periods of n Look for “No added colours, time. preservatives, flavours or sugars” on the label. COLOURS: The rich red in n Go for food that has “Zero your ketchup and Transfats” and “Reduced Salt”. the lovely green n Opt for the “High Fibre” tag. hue of the spinach n Avoid food that’s not recomin some kinds of mended for pregnant or lactatpasta are also not ing woman. real. Natural colours n Labels with “Omega 3” oils fade as they age. So are better than “Omega 6”. most packaged foods have n Whole wheat bread is added colour to mimic healthier than brown bread. ACKAGED FOODS sound almost heaven sent. They last longer, are easier to cook with and are just so convenient. But here’s the ugly truth: they’re nothing but cheap chemical substitutes that can do you more harm than FAKE FOOD good. Here’s how:
MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch AUGUST 31, 2014
Photos: THINKSTOCK
Contraceptive injections are one of the long-term contraceptive methods. These hormone injections stop ovulation and have other anti-conception effects like thickening of the cervical mucus, making it difficult for sperms to travel, or thinning
the uterus lining so that fertilised egg would have difficulty in attaching to the uterus. Depending on the type of injection used, one shot can protect couples from pregnancy for 8-12 weeks. If used correctly, contraceptive injections are more than 99% effective in avoiding pregnancy.
MediaMedic ICH/Q&A/0805
1. Dear Doctor I am 33 years old and I want to know how safe emergency contraceptive pills are for my age. I have heard that these pills are good only for teenagers.
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REEL WORLD
The Khan Who Can
Photo: SATISH BATE
Director of a new multi-starrer, mother to triplets and happily married to a less famous man – Farah Khan is still doing things her way, and making it look good by Aparna Pednekar
I
FIRST MEET Farah Khan The project has brought her while she’s taping a reality four new male actors to boss show at Yash Raj Studios. She around – Abhishek Bachchan, studies me for barely a second Sonu Sood, Boman Irani and before launching into a rapid-fire Vivaan Shah. “Bachchan,” she monologue about the rain, her says, “has given me more trouble kids, my (lack of) kids, her refusal in the film than my three children to WhatsApp – “I set it up and have ever given me in real life.” promptly had a dozen aspiring The film’s gruelling shoot has actors send me naked pictures, so I also drained the last vestiges of logged off for good” – and her new her original Bollywood avatar, film Happy New Year. She even the dance master. “I’m officially finds a way to dart a few friendly retiring from choreography after jibes at her co-judge on the show, this,” she says. For the climax song Anu Malik, in between. of the film, she asked her protégée Later, when we meet again Geeta Kapoor to choreograph the at her apartment, I “massive affair”, though have been deafened by she shot it herself. squeals of excitement It may just be the from legions of Farahsign of a new Farah philes at the studio. It’s Khan – one who’s finaleasy to see why. Khan ly learnt to chill. Those has energy, makes nonwho’ve worked with stop wisecracks and Khan have come away gives you the feeling awed by her ability to (so rare from a celebmultitask, to stay on - Boman Irani rity) that you are not top of every complicatjust a temporary cog in ed shot. “She may think the wheel of her dazzling life. she’s calm, but she’s a missile,” Though smack in the middle says Boman Irani, her co-star on of the media blitzkrieg for Happy Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi New Year, she looks fresh and and her upcoming film. He recalls relaxed, never once losing eye how she’d come to the sets with contact or interest. a little piece of paper carrying a shot breakdown so well conceived, CALLING THE SHOTS only a natural storyteller could do Happy New Year is aiming to be it. Mayur Puri, the lyricist and diaa big fat Diwali blockbuster. It’s a logue writer, says he was warned multi-starrer, a heist, a musical, that she was a bully and tyrant and an appropriately gargantuan when he first agreed to work with reunion vehicle for the director her on Om Shanti Om. “But she's and Shah Rukh Khan, best friends nothing like that,” he says. “She who fell out two years ago after does, however, have a low tolerance SRK slapped Khan’s husband for stupidity, because she is very Shirish Kunder. clear in her mind herself.”
“She may think she’s calm, but she’s a missile.”
AUGUST 31, 2014
THE FARAH YOU KNOW
That clarity shines through her work and somehow coexists with her famously crazy side. Even her tweets (she has 1.5 million followers) are hilarious – she bout traffic jams happily gripes about and a bout of conjunctivitis in addition to how SRK’s body is “just insane right now” during the last shoots for the film. “Meet me after a few drinks; I’m hilarious,” she says. “You’ll be the one drinking, though!” During Happy New Year’s closing party, she recalls, she had one too many and was a riot. “Let’s just say there were several torn shirts.” Not just her cast, but fellow filmmakers were roped in to join the madness. “I got Anurag (Kashyap) to do a cameo in the film. Let me tell you, he’s up to no good.” Choreographer Terence Lewis (he was co-judge with Khan and Shilpa Shetty on Nach Baliye 5) says that there’s a strong heart and mind under all that bonhomie. “Farah is a riot; sharp, At the honest and witty,” he says. “At same time, she can be the mommy on set. She’s fed us delicious home-cooked yakhni pulao. As a choreographer, Farah’s understanding of the camera is her biggest strength.”
HAPPY NEW HER
Khan’s story, she says herself, is a riches-to-rags one. Born into a filmi family – her father was the B-grade film producer and director
FAMED FOOTWORK Farah Khan’s favourite filmi moves Madhuri’s ‘Aaja Piya Aayi Bahar’ shake in Ek Do Teen (Tezaab)
Sunn Sunny’s kill-the-ant step in Yaara O Yaara (Jeet). “It's Epic!”
Hritik’s pelvic thrust and palm push in the title track, Kaho Na Pyaar Hai. “I have no idea why, but it’s extremely popular.” Balm The Zandu Z rump massage in Munni Badnaam Hui (Dabangg). “I’ve treated all “I’v my songs like mini movies,” says Khan. mo “Each had a beginning, middle and end.” SRK’s arms-wideopen pose in nearly all his romantic songs. “We’re researching the genesis of this step. I’m probably responsible for it”, Khan says.. In Happy New Year, Deepika Padukone tries to teach the boys this move, and SRK is the one who just can’t get it right!
twitter.com/HTBrunch Kamran Khan, her aunts are Daisy and Honey Irani – didn’t mean a life of privilege. She was barely six when her father’s film Aisa Bhi Hota Hai bombed spectacularly in 1971, taking with it the Khans’ savings and assets. She was 13 when her father’s drinking forced her mother to move out with her and her brother, Sajid. They’ve sold jewellery to make ends meet, lived out of a storeroom and rented out their home for card games just so there’d be money at the end of the day. So it’s no wonder that Khan seems impervious to the public’s reactions to her choices as an adult. “I tend to make light of situations, whether it’s marrying a younger man, directing a blockbuster, or deciding to go the IVF route to have a baby,” she says. Making light of Tees Maar Khan, that blot on her otherwise illustrious career, may have been harder. “People didn’t like the film; it’s as simple as that,” she says. The slump after the film bombed – the feeling of being “thrashed, trolled and seeing all the people who you thought loved you, celebrating your failure” – lasted for precisely 15 days. Khan recalls being invited to an award ceremony to pick up a trophy for choreographing Munni Badnaam Hui when all she wanted to do was crawl into bed. “It’s one of the
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FAMILY FIRST
Khan's strength comes from her family, be it her husband Shirish Kunder (extreme left) or her brother Sajid (left)
Photos: PRODIP GUHA
toughest things you do. You put on your lipstick, blow dry your hair, go out and say **** you,” Khan says. “It’s very difficult to learn about life from success. But if you can handle failure, you’ll make it through. People can’t do it; I’ve seen it happen with my dad. But that sort of jolt should force you to look back. You’re plain stupid if you don’t learn from mistakes.” Khan’s mistake translated into an 18-month sabbatical to write Happy New Year, which she’s calling the best script she’s written.
LIVING THE DREAM
Khan’s successful Bollywood run outshines that of her actor-host brother Sajid and her director husband. The industry and media tend to see Sajid as somewhat pompous – a criticism that she says hurts her more than barbs directed at herself. Her husband’s inability to find his feet in Bollywood has hit her
hard too. Khan says, “He’s a genuine artist and his time will come. I think he needs to work with people he gets along with; lesser stars, but people who care about the movie and are on his wavelength. He’s not the sort to make an effort to create a rapport where none exists.” Detractors have delighted in writing off the unlikely couple (he’s younger, she continues to be better known) ever since they got married a decade ago, and have advertised their opinion on social media. “I had no idea they paid people to sit down at a laptop and trash others; if I knew earlier, I’d have done it myself !” Khan says. But the couple seems content with quiet dinners and going out with their triplets. Clearly there are no regrets. “I’m very happy that I got married to the right person at the right time,” she says. “At the end of the day, we’re in an industry that’s full of negativity. If you
don’t have a strong and secure family, you can become mental here!” Khan’s strength clearly comes from her family. Puri, who’s also working with her on Happy New Year, has seen family change her. “She’s now much calmer and sober,” he says. “When I met her again for Happy New Year, she’d written out the script on one of those lined green-paper foolscap notebooks. Then her daughter tore some up by mistake, so she wrote it again! She's passionate about her relationships; it’s either all or nothing. Directing a film like Happy New Year is akin to doing the work of 20 people on the sets. But she was equally concerned about what went into her kids’ lunchboxes and what we should do for the next birthday party.” As I leave, I compliment Farah on her chic supersized home. She points to a carpet covering one corner of the cavernous living room: “Sajid and I grew up in a house that size,” she says. “Sometimes I wake up at night and just sit here, looking at this huge apartment, wondering how it all happened.” Perhaps that’s a film in itself. brunchletters@hindustantimes.com
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PERSONAL AGENDA
Actress
twitter.com/HTBrunch
Parineeti Chopra
BIRTHDAY SUN PLACE HOMETOWN SCHOOL/COLLEGE FIRST BREAK SIGN OF Ambala, Haryana Convent of Jesus & Mary, Ladies vs Ricky Ambala Cantonment/ BIRTH Libra Bahl (2011)
October 22
Manchester Business School, UK
Ambala, Haryana
HIGH POINT OF LOW POINT CURRENTLY I AM... OF YOUR YOUR LIFE Celebrating the end of Being able to create LIFE period taboos with a name for myself in the industry so soon
Photo: ROHAN SHRESTHA
Do you plan to sing for a film or have a singing career like your cousin? Singing is my secret talent. Ever since I was three, I have wanted to sing. I would like to sing playback for my movies. An advantage of being a YRF actress. I had the best debut! I never imagined I would be an actress. Going from PR to the face of YRF, I guess it was destiny. You worked for Manchester United. Which is your favourite football team? The German team. Arsenal’s mid-fielder Mesut Ozil is my favourite player. Songs on your playlist right now. Just a Dream by Nelly Furtado, Hey Baby by Pitbull and T-Pain, Loca by Shakira and Who’s that Chick by David Guetta and Rihanna. Your ultimate escape. London. But, I would love to see Ladakh and Kerala. London or Mumbai, which city you most enjoy being in? I absolutely love London. All my friends are there, I studied there. Also, London has everything – the beach is an hour away, there’s the best shopping, the best food. And the weather is always amazing. The craziest thing a fan has done. There are some who I meet often and they take a photograph and autograph every single time. I ask them, “Didn’t you take a photograph two days ago?”, and it really doesn’t matter to them. We hear you’re a gadget geek... I am! I’m always on my iPad. I keep changing my phones all the time. I just love the feeling of a new electronic item in the house. I spent my first big movie pay-cheque on an Apple laptop.
I’ve had none, yet
Whisper’s Touch The Pickle campaign
my movies THE FILM YOU HAVE WATCHED MOST NUMBER OF TIMES
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)
THE MOST PAISA VASOOL FILM
Daawat-e-Ishq (2014) A MOVIE THAT WAS A PART OF YOUR CHILDHOOD
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)
You were a geek in school too. Has it helped in Bollywood? Not really. Glamorous or minimal roles, which do you prefer? I’ll also do glamorous roles, but the script has to be good. At the same time, I want to be the best actress in commerical films. A snack you cannot resist. I eat full meals in the middle of the night, especially pizzas. A classic film you wish you were in. Hands down, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). Banking or PR – the career you would want to go back to. Banking. I have a back-up plan and I think everyone should too. A book you can’t put down. Everything by John Grisham. The best piece of advice that you’ve received from Aditya Chopra. “Give me the best performance and never make me feel I should have considered someone else for the role.” — Interviewed by Junisha Dama
DO YOU SPLURGE ON SHOES?
I won’t spend `80,000 on one pair. I’ll buy 20 pairs for `2,000 AUGUST 31, 2014
Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK