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Saturday, July 2, 2011
Vol. 5 No. 27
LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE
Man and machine: Mumbaibased custom bike builder Akshai Varde has inscribed one of his creations with the Hanuman Chalisa.
LOAFING AROUND >Page 8
THE SILENT EPIDEMIC
Endometriosis afflicts 176 million women in their productive years and is worsened by society’s taboos about gynaecological health >Page 6
THE ENEMY IN OUR HANDS
The world’s best bike manufacturers are making a beeline for India, launching their highperformance machines for a niche, passionate yet growing market >Pages 911
Following the trail of the Afrikaner pioneers, you discover wild beauty and reconciliation >Page 12
THE NEW WHEEL BARONS GAME THEORY
LUXURY CULT
ROHIT BRIJNATH
RADHA CHADHA
THE HONG KONG RELIVING THE OLD MAGIC, MOMENTARILY ADVANTAGE
I
always wondered if Roger Federer collects art, visits museums, shrugs on a tuxedo and wanders off to the ballet to see racket-less versions of himself. Dancers, in their exquisite athleticism on a stage, in their suppression of pain during performance, are clearly athletes. The reverse occurs less frequently when an athlete produces such a harmonious yet lethal rhythm we liken it to dance. Dutch TV was so taken with footballer Marco van Basten that they did a split-screen comparison between him and a ballet dancer. >Page 4
CULT FICTION
I
was in Hong Kong last week, and the buzz in this luxe-loving city wasn’t about the latest “it” bag—it was about the newest luxury IPO. Prada just raised $2.1 billion (around `9,500 crore) and began trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 24 June. You may well ask why a deep-rooted Italian company like Prada is saying pass to the Milan Stock Exchange—and for that matter, Paris, London, New York, all arguably better roosting places for a luxury stock... >Page 4
R. SUKUMAR
THE ANGRY OLD MAN
Aravind Adiga’s new novel chronicles the real estate wars of Mumbai and creates its own riff on the ‘Bombay novel’ >Page 14
DON’T MISS
in today’s edition of
INSIDE THE BATMAN GYRE
I
f you are into math—this writer is, at least a teeny bit—and know a bit about William Butler Yeats’ fascination with geometry, the word gyre is sure to have some appeal for you. The gyre, of course, refers to the set of intersecting conical helixes central to Yeats’ world view, and is part of pop culture thanks to its appearance in Yeats’ famous poem, The Second Coming: Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer/Things fall... >Page 15
FILM REVIEW
DELHI BELLY