The Sunday Guardian

28.12.2014

not for sale separately

Inside G-Tonties: The best of Indian indie music

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Akhil Sood scavenges through the slush pile to present exclusive, personalised awards to the indie music glitterati for their contributions to the scene in 2014.

Jewels of the lit-galaxy: 2014 in books

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India's leading contemporary writers, critics and publishers share their favourite reads of the year. Here lies a treasure trove of books that will keep you busy all through 2015.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game 29 From the farce of Roger Federer bumping uglies with Riteish Deshmukh to Luis Suarez halting his World Cup adventure for some meatball pasta, Guardian20 documents the strangest happenings from the sporting world.

Kings of the console, the virtual emperors 32 Bucket lists are right up there with New Year’s resolutions when it comes to impossibly good plans. We just think they stand more of a chance because there’s more time to get everything done. But do you really have to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower? Are threesomes overrated?

Is flinging yourself out of a plane worth almost dying? Guardian 20 takes a loving pair of scissors to your overambitious lists and knocks the most tedious items off them, so you can pay attention to the things that really matter. Happy New Year!

Azeem Banatwalla spent the whole year working his socks off (playing video games all day) to come up with the very best gaming titles of the year and, of course, the very worst.

Worse for wear: The year in fashion disasters 36-37

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Hitler chic? The evolution of leggings into jeggings into meggings? Beards with actual flowers in them? Payel Majumdar traces the absurd fashion trends she's hoping we don't bring into the new year.

THE EIFFEL TOWER

TIMES SQUARE ON NEW YEAR’S EVE For starters, you need to be there very early, or you can pretty much forget about watching the crystal ball drop. Also, the Big Apple is about -10˚C or so that time of year, so at some point you’re going to consider going home. But you won’t, because the bragging rights are too tempting to let go of. By the time the countdown begins, you’ll find that you couldn’t care less about spending midnight at Times Square and wonder why you sacrificed the warmth of your blanket when all this would’ve looked so much better on TV.

La tour Eiffel, is it worth it? Most certainly. The only thing we’re questioning is your insistent need to get to the top of it. The lines snakes along the block so unforgivingly that once you’re in it, you’re in it long enough to need two meals before you get to the elevator (and at least one panic attack should you suddenly realise that your bladder is full).

And at the top… there’s a wire mesh wrapped around the tower that won’t let you take proper photographs, it’s a tiny space cramped with tourists taking selfies anyway, all of which really takes away from the wildly overpriced cone of champagne that you can buy from a little counter. If it's the view you're after, Montparnasse is much nicer. continued on Page 22

The Best of Your Week Ahead 28th Sunday

29th Monday

30th Tuesday

Nataraj International Dance Festival The Buddha, MG Road, Gurgaon 10 A.M. Hosted by Zorba, this is a five-day festival featuring ace dancers from biodanza, contact improvisation, dance mandala and tantra. Along with the performances, there will also be tutorials for Bollywood, Bhangra and belly dance.

Ticket To Heaven Alliance FranÇaise, Lodhi Road 7 P.M. Written and directed by Saleem Shah, this is an absurdly hilarious play set in suburban Mumbai on a stormy night, where a chance meeting taken place between a conman, a sex-starved wife and her god-fearing husband.

Photo-Poetry Instituto Cervantes, Connaught Place 11 A.M. A tribute to Nicanor Parra — Chilean poet, mathematician and physicist, by Indian photographers Ronny Sen and Nikita Hemrajani, who have captured the visual version of some of Parra’s poems and anti-poems.

31st Wednesday

1st Thursday

2nd Friday

Masquerade New Year Party Hard Rock CafÉ, DLF Place Saket 9 P.M.

Savory Trade Fatehpuri Masjid, Khari Baoli 10.30 A.M.

Gear up to wrap up 2014 with DJ Ashish Nagpal and greet 2015 with year-end mega festivity of drinks, food and music. Disguise, dance and dazzle with masks and feathers to usher in the New Year.

A tour through Asia’s largest spice market with Sherpa Priya Poddar, this walk through old Delhi looks to understand all about spices — their origin, use and trade with a chance to buy the exotic flavours.

Ballabhpur Ki Roopkatha Sri Ram Centre, Delhi 6.30 P.M. A 400-year-old palace situated in Ballabhpur has to be sold. It is now in the custody of Bhupati Rai, a grandson who is facing hardships carrying on with the legacy. The story unfolds hilariously as he conjures up ways to sell this haunted palace.

3rd saturday

Khusar Phusar Kamani Auditorium, Janpath 7 P.M. Reflecting on the pretentious lifestyles attached with the high class populace, this is a hilarious drama on how a bunch of guests are playing hard to hide the facts at a dinner gathering in a plush south Delhi house, where the host wife is missing and her husband has been shot.

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Artbeat LEARN AN INSTRUMENT

THREESOME!

“If you are Bengali, it is understood that you need to know classical music of all kinds; do the foxtrot and tap dance; play five string and percussion instruments; engage knowledgably in political discourse; and know your pointillists from your impressionists, to qualify as half-civilised. So sue me if at ages 4, 9, 12, 14, 17, 19 and 22 I spent painful hours in hobby classes trying to unsuccessfully pick up the tabla, banjo, keyboard, sitar, gueetaaa and piano. I haven’t touched a single one of them since. See, grandmom? Sometimes a person’s musical talents are so latent they refuse to be stirred by even your deep-digging snide remarks.”

Ah, every boy’s wet dream.

Every girl’s secret nightmare. Let’s go with the more keenly sought-after M-F-F fantasy. Two girls, one bucket (list). But really, have you ever seen two girls together outside of a porn site? They’re not dying to feel each other up; they want to pull each other’s hair out.

They don’t want to share you, they want you to themselves. You are not going to get away with paying more attention to one girl, less to the other. And if one of them is your girlfriend, haha, good luck the morning after.

LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE Learning a new language in itself isn't such a terrible thing ­— if we move to Barcelona next month (fingers crossed), we’ll have to take a crash course in Spanish to speak to the locals (or in Gibberish, if we get transferred to the US). But those are practical reasons; as a bucket list item, learning a new language seems fairly counterproductive to the idea. It should ideally be quick (and painless) and easy. A language requires nuance, fine-tuning, understanding of rhythm, tone and context, years of patience — and considerable linguistic aptitude. Having this on a bucket list makes sense only if it's literally the only item on it. .

INK YOURSELF Fact: most tattoo parlours in the NCR earn roughly 40% of their revenue through tattoo removal.

Fact: The trained professionals in these establishments wished they had a rupee for every time they had (unsuccessfully) warned a client against having their partner’s name inscribed on their skins.

We understand that tattoos are badass, but have you really, REALLY thought about what you’re committing to for the rest of your life? Maybe you should try something more transient, like getting a haircut in the shape of their initials.

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4 GO TO DISNEYLAND

GET YOUR WORK PUBLISHED

We won’t lie; going to Disneyland used to be on most of our bucket lists too. When we were five. We wanted to meet Donald Duck (who’s the Rahul Dravid to Mickey Mouse’s Sachin Tendulkar). It’s the only thing we wanted to do at the time. And then we just sort of… forgot. Because we had the attention spans of, you know, five-year-olds. People with double-digit ages who’ve kept this toddler fantasy intact really need to take stock of their lives.

Would the world be a better place if William Wordsworth had had a girlfriend? If Percy B had made actual friends, would they have allowed him to be a sappy little lend? We understand that poetry can connect with a person on a deep, emotional level. It’s a personal, intimate thing; but please do the world a favour, save a life (ours), and don’t ever publish that poem you wrote with your own tears when you got dumped. As for writing a novel, ever met anyone who claims to be in the midst of the next Great Indian Novel? Noticed how painfully insufferable they are?

MEET YOUR IDOL The initial rush of blood when you come face to face with the person you’ve idolised all your life is amazing. But what if your idol doesn’t like you back? What if they think you’re just a simpering admirer, unable to view them as a normal person?

What if they, horror of horrors, turn out to be just mediocre human beings? The truth is, meeting your idol always runs the risk of being a let-down.

FIND YOUR INNER PEACE Some people like the sound of their own voices a little too much. And at the other end of the spectrum there’s you, hoping to locate your karma/ chakra/ zen by escaping the babble of everyday life. But here’s the thing: there’s no peace, no serenity in silence. Nothing’s not like anything else, it’s just nothing. You’ll only be bottling things up for dispersal at a later date. As George Costanza discovered in Seinfeld, “Serenity now, insanity later.”

DRUGS & ABSINTHE

SWIM WITH THE DOLPHINS

Of all the Disney-inspired, John Williams-scored, schmaltzy fantasies on bucket lists everywhere, this one takes the crab cake. Here’s why you shouldn’t be swimming or paddling around in the same watery mile as a dolphin. One, they probably don’t want swimming partners, and if they do, they’d prefer ones who can keep up with them. Two, they’ve been known to get aroused by the sight of humans and, umm, make advances (if dolphin sex is on your bucket list, we have no further advice for you).

Three, there are several diseases that are communicable from dolphin to human. Swim with your own kind and let the dolphins be.

BUY A SPORTS CAR Not that it matters (it doesn’t!), but men often have small eggrolls. And by eggroll, we obviously mean pen*s. Sometimes, men start balding. Other times, they grow fat bellies.

They get pokey hair on the flaps of their ears. Often, they reach 40 and they want a young girlfriend to have an affair with but can’t seem to manage. These reasons are all valid grounds for buying a sports car; it’s called overcompensation. It’s great, and not to stereotype, but that’s the aura most sports-car owners project. And we haven’t even gotten to the price and maintenance yet.

RUN WITH THE BULLS One second. How is running with bulls even a thing?

We’re fairly certain it’s animal cruelty of some sort — do the bulls even want to run with us for starters? Secondly, are bulls not terrifying and terribly dangerous? There are enough things in the world that danger junkies can try out that don’t involve being crushed to certain death by a snorting beast. This cannot be a bucket list item; at best, it works as a last resort — you see a bull chasing after you and you run; you don’t actively seek out the experience.

t he s un day gua rdia n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

RUN A MARATHON

Dropping acid turns up on a lot of bucket lists, especially those sad souls who still can’t believe they missed the 1960s. But the ultimate fix with cultural cache is undoubtedly absinthe. The green fairy will certainly make you hallucinate, but so will a high enough fever (why not just wash your hair, ditch the woolens and take a long walk in the cold)? Beyond that, absinthe will increase your body temperature and get you smashed in a matter of seconds.

Also, it tastes like concentrated, liquid saunf. It looks dazzling, and Rimbaud and blah, but that’s just how they trick you. Drink Jägermeister instead (which also sucks, but we’ll leave that for now).

HOUSE The thing about a beach house is that I WANT ONE IMMEDIATELY. But unless you actually live in a place like Goa or Pondicherry, you’re not going to use it much. So then it’ll start feeling like an unnecessary luxury. Which you’ll try and fix by saying, Hey, I know, I’m going to rent it. And then you’ll have to find a tenant. And help. And keep going back to fix things. And realise that the house is never free of guests when you have time off. A better plan is to have a friend who has a beach house. All of the perks, without any of the pain. Or wait till you retire.

FREEWHEELING ALTAF TYREWALA

Nothing’s OK, Computer

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merica was a good place to be in in 1997. The Internet hadn’t yet unleashed its asphyxiating tyranny of convenience. The Bush administration and 9/11 were 4 years away. Western economies had quickly weathered Asia’s mini-crash. With the cigar-happy President Clinton having begun his second term, things had never looked more stable and promising.

Against this manic and bubbly cultural backdrop — in the summer of 1997 — came Radiohead’s alternative-rock album OK Computer, casting its dark and prophetic shadow over millions of charmed, young lives.

There was no immediately discernible reason for teenagers and young adults — the album’s target audience — to take to OK Computer’s music or its themes. The songs were plodding and often abstract. Radiohead’s signature guitarheavy sound had given way to a strange electro-rock hybrid, filled with beeps, tings, and sirens. And the themes were still foreign to the typical 20-year-old music lover: the songs spoke

CLIMB A MOUNTAIN Don’t listen to us. Listen to Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild, who wrote, “I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing.

But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.” Unless you’ve trained yourself with decades of climbing smaller mountains, don’t even think of attempting the big boys — Everest, Kilimanjaro. A webpage dedicated to the latter actually has a “Why you shouldn’t…” page (The reasons: It isn’t a holiday; It’s dangerous; It’s painful; It’s expensive; You may not make it to the summit). Even mountains think you shouldn’t climb them.

SKY DIVE/ BUNGEE JUMP Forget creationism. The fact that millions of people attach themselves to rickety structures with bits of rope and launch into a free-fall is the best argument against evolution possible. So much could go wrong. A miscalculation of cord length and you crash into the ground/ sea and die. Whiplash from when you’re jerked up could permanently damage your neck or spine. Eyesightrelated problems have been known to crop up after bungee-jumping, enough to prompt a medical journal article (“Ocular complications of bungee jumping” in Clinical Ophthalmology).

We’d advise you to really ask yourselves if this is how you’d like to go out (rather than doing something as dangerous but more original, like slapping a lion).

START A NEW BUSINESS (OPEN A RESTAURANT) What’s the easiest way to stand from the crowd? One billion Indians work 9-5 jobs, so starting one’s own business venture sounds about right, originality be damned. And, we don’t know if this is a Delhi thing exclusiely, but when guys get really drunk here, one invariably ends up saying, “Bhai, restaurant kholna banta hai (Bro, we have to open a restaurant).” Which marks the start of an unbearable (especially if you’re sober) conversation in which people who’ve never cooked anything more than Maggi in their lives are discussing menus (“tapas and nachos”), possible names (“Nukkad te Kukkad”) and logistics (mostly the bribery of various species of officials). It’s a good thing that these plans usually emerge under the influence ­­— Delhi and Bombay already have enough eateries with identity crises.

Imagine every single glorious marathon ad: running in slow-mo, soft focus as droplets swirl away from your tanned, muscled, 6% fat body-machine, a sense of victory.

Inspired by those ads and a fierce bout of peer pressure, we decided to give it a go. The result? A world of hurt, bleeding noses, endless snooze buttons (we’ve developed RSS on my index fingers). It concluded in a frenzy of pathetic panting, and pretty much crawling on our hands and knees to the finish line. That is not victory. It is a flawed concept, much like Marxism and parenting.

of exploitation, consumerism, and mistrust of corporations; a desire to bring down the government; alienation from society at large; and the stultifying effects of increasing computerization.

After hearing OK Computer for the first time, executives at Capitol Records had dismissed the album’s commercial viability. An understandable verdict: OK Computer directed most of its venom at corporate minions, people like those record executives, who wished to be ‘fitter, healthier and more productive/ a pig/ in a cage/ on antibiotics’ (song seven, Fitter Happier).

To those of us on the verge of entering mainstream work-aday lives, OK Computer provided a vivid and terrifying glimpse of the drudgery and disillusionment that would soon be our collective lot. The Internet is littered with accounts of how the album changed people’s lives, how it compelled listeners to course-correct and shift priorities.

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ersonally, OK Computer placed in sharp focus my fuzzy inkling of there being something dark and deathly at the heart of the Western way of life. After graduating, I spurned employment, abandoned New York and returned to India. After a few years, I stopped listening to the album.

Away from the West, I could no longer relate to OK Computer’s dystopian themes. India had its own horrors unfolding before my very eyes, horrors that are only OK Computer is a majestic occasionally and reflection of a world governed fleetingly mirrored in some Bollywood by economic greed and or that rare technological totalitarianism. soundtrack Indie-pop release.

But all said and done it’s Seventeen years later, I am living the exact life just a music album, a work I thought I was spurnof art. And art seldom ing when I left New York. I work for a corprovides solutions. poration. Since I don’t know what to do with my free time, I shop to fill the void. And I am glad when it’s Monday again. My income allows me to splurge on entertainment and technology: I am never away from my phone, or Internet connectivity. Never lacking for something to read, to listen to, to look at, to swipe, to pinch and zoom and buy with a single click. For all practical purposes I have become one of OK Computer’s "networking" yuppies, a "kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy" (song two, Paranoid Android).

I can’t bear listening to the original OK Computer now. Its effect is too raw and direct, too disruptive of the calm reliability essential to my corporate existence. I need to be at work on time. I have responsibilities. Better to have "a job that slowly kills you" (song ten, No Surprises), than to be driven to desperation by debt and poverty. And that stuff about bringing down the government? Sure, as long as my kid can still go to an elite school and my properties aren’t usurped by the Marxist administration.

OK Computer is a majestic reflection of a world governed by economic greed and technological totalitarianism. But all said and done it’s just a music album, a work of art. And art seldom provides solutions.

One of my favorite past-times in the past year — and further proof of my existential vacuity — has been unearthing the vast trove of OK Computer covers by musicians working in a variety of genres. Mother Falcon, an orchestral indie band, has re-imagined the album using jazzy undertones. Vitamin String Quartet is just one among numerous classical musician collectives that have rendered OK Computer’s melodies at their bare-bone best. But my latest and most shameful acquisition is Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Radiohead, which doesn’t just strip OK Computer’s songs to their essentials, but infantilizes them, turns them into plinky-plonky ear-candy fuzz that one safely listen to on the way to work, without ever running the risk of not showing up.

Altaf Tyrewala is the author of Ministry of Hurt Sentiments, among other books. He lives in Mumbai.

Artbeat 23

th e s u n day g u a r d ian 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e su n day gu ar d ian | 28.12.2014 | n ew d elh i

The strangest art happenings of 2014

Where it comes to high art, controversy and, often, sheer silliness are never far behind. Sonam rounds up some of the year’s most bizarre, reviled and ridiculed artworks, from a mammoth inflatable sex toy in Paris to a former president’s doodlings.

Chit art In India, another political leader was in the news for her art. However, unlike Bush’s diplomatic portraits, Mamata Banerjee’s oeuvre has mostly revolved around floral still lifes. The West Bengal chief minister came under CBI’s scanner after the dramatic appreciation of the value of her paintings: from Rs 20,000 in 2005-06 to Rs 2-3 lakh in 2012-13. It has also been alleged that one of Mamata Banerjee’s paintings was bought for a whopping Rs 1.8 crore by Saradha scam accused Sudipta Sen. In turn, Banerjee and her party claim that no such sale took place, and that the proceeds from the sales of her paintings were always diverted to the TMC’s campaigns.

Portrait of a politician

Act two

In April, former American president George W. Bush surprised everyone with an exhibition of oil paintings of world leaders.

The list of his subjects included everyone from Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair, Hamid Karzai, the Dalai Lama and Angela Merkel to our very own Manmohan Singh and his father George H.W. Bush, all sporting rather bland expressions and pictured against monochromatic backgrounds. Instead of yielding any insights into the controversial politician’s psyche, the exhibition was criticised for being a selective and sanitised version of Bush’s tumultuous and war-torn foreign policy. The paintings themselves were widely panned for being flat, expressionless and amateurish. Their lack of depth was further underscored with the revelation that the portraits had been copied from the most popular photographs thrown up by a search on Google images.

Lady Gaga’s March concert in Texas included a performance that was slightly more bizarre than usual. In “Swine”, Gaga’s collaborator Millie Brown consumed and then induced vomiting to regurgitate green-coloured milk all over the singer.

Later, she also covered Gaga in black vomit. The two have collaborated on a short video earlier, in which Brown retched turquoise liquid on Gaga’s white dress. Brown is a “vomit artist”: she doesn’t eat for two days prior to the performance and follows the same method to create splatter paintings. With artists having worked with everything from blood to human excretions in the last few decades, at first, vomit seems like only another medium. However, Brown has been criticised for glorifying eating disorders, though she has claimed that the performance is more of a “cleanse” and a way of using her body to create “raw and uncontrolled” art.

Performance anxiety Actor Shia LaBeouf was in the news for all the wrong reasons this year, but the strangest instance was his experiment with performance art.

Staged in a Los Angeles gallery in February, the piece #IAMSORRY was a reference to LaBeouf’s plagiarisation of the ideas of graphic novelist Daniel Clowes for a short film. Visitors were invited for an interaction with the actor, who sat in a room with his face was covered with a paper bag emblazoned with the words “I am not famous anymore”, an accessory he also wore to the Berlin Film Festival and the premiere of Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomanic earlier in the year. #IAMSORRY’s emphasis on the personal encounter was broadly similar, even imitative of performances by veteran artists Marina Abramovic and Yoko Ono in the ’60s and ’70s. However, the full implications of the performance was only divulged in November, when LaBeouf revealed that a woman stripped, whipped and sexually assaulted him in the gallery. At the end, everyone was left asking: was this art or just another antic?

Butt of course In October, Tree, American artist Paul McCarthy’s mammoth inflatable sculpture named after a Christmas tree, was vandalised in Paris because of its evident resemblance to a butt plug. Installed in the city’s historic public square Place Vendome, the 80-foot-high Tree was attacked and deflated, while the artist himself was slapped by an angry protestor two days earlier. Famous for breaking taboos, McCarthy has previously installed an inflatable pile of poop and made subversive sculptures of Disney characters. He responded to the uproar by setting up a Willy-Wonka-like chocolate factory manufacturing miniature — and edible — chocolate sculptures of the same Christmas trees and Santa figurines. He also scrawled insults, obscenities and negative reactions to Tree across blank canvases.

Octopus’ garden In mid-November, the sedate premises of the Jindal Mansion, a historic Mumbai landmark on Peddar Road, became the stage for a scene from a science fiction movie, with the tentacles of a large green octopus waving out of the grand upper floor balcony. The eye-catching inflated sculpture Octopus in the House by British street artist Filthy Luker, was one of the examples of the month-long St.Art Festival in the city. From Bandra to Dharavi, Mumbai’s buildings and walls were painted by street artists from India and abroad. If the octopus grabbed eyeballs because of its entertaining absurdity, the most poignant work to emerge from the festival was a painting of Dadasaheb Phalke looking at a film reel on the MTNL building, one of the largest murals in India.

Faking it

Cry baby

In June, an open secret of the Indian art world came into the limelight — counterfeiting. An auction by Bengalurubased Bid & Hammer allegedly had fakes of paintings by celebrated artists Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, K.K. Hebbar, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Hemendranath Majumdar and K.H. Ara. Several of the paintings already existed in the original in museums in Delhi and Kolkata, while the authenticity of others was questioned by families and trusts of deceased artists such as M.F. Husain, K.K. Hebbar, K.H. Ara and Bikash Bhattacharjee. The auction proceeded despite the protests, amidst calls for a government-backed regulatory body to certify authentic artworks.

City of Dreams, a public sculpture inaugurated in Mumbai’s Nariman Point in June, comprises of a giant baby head covered with image of Mumbai. The bald orange baby looks skyward, its mouth halfopen in a gasp of wonder.

The work seems out of place in what is the city’s financial hub, but brightlycoloured, highly stylised and grotesque babies have been recurring symbols in Upadhyay’s universe — and tools of social and political critique. The motifs imprinted on the baby are primarily clichés of the city: high rises juxtaposed with slums, a vada pav, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, dabbawallas and the 2008 terrorist attacks.

the buzz

‘Early Mona Lisa’ traced to U.K. house

Online buyer snaps up $2.8 mil Mehta

Shimmering Cezanne FBI, L.A. police to heat up auction recover stolen art

Researchers into the provenance of a painting dubbed the “Early Mona Lisa” reported on Monday they had identified an English noble who probably bought it in Italy in the late 18th century and a country house where it was found in 1911. The revelations came as the work went on show for the first time in Singapore in a display about the portrait and Leonardo da Vinci, who a Swiss foundation holding it argue painted it before the version in the Paris Louvre.

An online buyer from New York overcame spirited bidding to grab a painting by Tyeb Mehta for $2.8 million at a Christie’s auction in Mumbai. Mehta’s untitled 1999 painting, with the central figure of a falling bull, sold to the private bidder at the auction, beating pre-sale estimates of between $1.3 million and $1.9 million. Bidding for the acrylic on canvas had started at Rs 50 million. Mehta, who died in 2009, had been consistently inspired by the iconography of the bull. An earlier work by Mehta, an oil on canvas titled Girl In Love, was snapped up by an Asian buyer for nearly $7,00,000.

A “shimmering” Paul Cezanne painting is expected to attract the big-money buyers at a February auction that includes works by Modigliani and Picasso, Christie’s said last week. The Cezanne work, Vue sur L’Estaque et Le Chateau d’If, which he painted in 188385, will be auctioned on 4 February. “This is a spectacular image, it’s got the heat of the south of France, it’s got the shimmering quality of Cezanne,” Jay Vincze, head of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s London, said.

Federal agents and police in Los Angeles have recovered nine paintings worth millions of dollars that were stolen from the home of an elderly couple six years ago, including works by Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera. The paintings were recovered in an FBI sting operation in which a suspect identified as Paul Espinoza, 45, was arrested as he tried to sell the stolen artwork to undercover agents. Espinoza was charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors with possession of stolen property. The couple told investigators they were in their bedrooms and heard nothing at the time of the burglary.

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Artbeat

t he s un day gua rdia n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

The G-Tonties Excellence in Indie Music Awards It’s that time of year where we don’t feel guilty, shallow or inferior when writing lists. Looking back at the indie music goings-on of 2014, Akhil Sood rates the finest and the weirdest. Presenting... The G-Tonties.

The Zoo Zoo Twitterati Collective Orgasm Award Winner: NH7/Harley Rock Riders There was this one particular day a few months ago when there was nothing to spit venom about on Twitter. Bored out of their bandwidth, hundreds of people started tweeting about a notional time in history when the city formerly known as Bombay “rocked”, using #WhenBombayRocked. People started narrating accounts of defining moments from India’s not-glittering rock ‘n’ roll history, leading to a virtual group hug between fully grown men and women — plenty of digital tears and memories exchanged. Soon enough, the guys responsible for the trending hashtag, the good people at NH7, revealed that the Harley Rock Riders gig would be happening in the city, with an explosive line-up to boot. It was a brilliant way to capitalise on nostalgia, as it rightfully should be exploited.

The Hoobastank Butthole Surfers Best Name Award Winner: Inspector Maal He is Sahil Mehndiratta, former Faridkot/Indigo Children drummer/ percussionist, aspiring booty-shakin’ hip-hop musician, who plays live drums with usually solo electroproducer Frame/Frame. Not that it matters. All that does is the moniker: Inspector Maal. Delhi’s psy DJ Kumbhkaran comes a close second.

Zero PSP12 Reunion Secret Gig ‘Tribute to Ourselves’ Award Winner: Superfuzz After a decade of mucking about — even transforming into Indigo Children for a good period of time — Delhi’s favourite garage band, The Superfuzz (just Superfuzz now), is back. They’ve released an album too, can you imagine? It’s a really good seven-song EP called Inner City Waster, featuring songs that any kid who lived in Delhi pre-EDM explosion can sing along to — School, What Every Kid Wants, Rat in the Dirt.

The angst doesn’t seem as furious or blood-curdling as before — maybe because the band members are now closer to 30 than they are to their teens, or maybe because I am — and they’ve mentioned on their Bandcamp page how the release is a “tribute to ourselves”, so this award was a no-brainer, really.

Andy Warhol Really Stretching It Award Winners: Pepsi MTV Indies Use of “Indies” in this new TV channel is apparently a contraction of “independent”. Suffixed by MTV, which is suffixed by Pepsi, ahem, let’s just say we beg to differ. The on-ground work they’re doing is great, and the channel provides much-maligned “exposure” to bands, so this isn’t

exactly a slight on their vision, just the misleading name itself; It’s a lie.

Maybe someone should spend some time to clearly define what indie really is — not like it’s a badge of honour or any such myth, just that some clarity would be welcome.

bourgeois nonsense, was packed beyond capacity (literally) by over 750 metalheads, every single one of them paying (probably much) more than what they could afford to watch a whole bunch of explosive Indian metal acts in this purely DIY crowdfunded venture. Each band was supported wholeheartedly by the audiences, there were intense moshpits, stage dives, crowd-surfing, the whole deal.

The Didier Burkhalter Destination Wedding Award Winner: Ziro Festival of Music Each year, hundreds of people head over to the Ziro valley, Arunachal Pradesh for this festival. It’s a long ways away from any kind of civilisation; a flight/train to Guwahati is followed by a rickety, often-violent, painfully uncomfortable 18-hour bus/cab ride to the open fields of Ziro. Yet not a soul has ever complained about the place, that’s how captivating the phenomenal beauty of the valley is. Or maybe the rice beer there — which everyone raves about — is spiked with a potion of happiness. Whatever it is, Ziro comes out trumps in this category, beating some of the others — Sunburn, for one — hollow.

Jakob Dylan-Rohan Gavaskar Imposter Award

Curtly Ambrose Bucket List Completion Award Winner: The Reggae Rajahs The Reggae Rajahs, the reggae soundsystem trio/quadruplo from the Caribbean, New Delhi, finally made the hallowed trip to Jamaica, the place of their soul-ancestry, this year. Sometimes, you just have to hold your hands up, applaud someone’s genuinely legitimately impressive achievements, and say: “Well done, jaah all; that’s massive.”

The Daler Mehndi Import-Export Award Winner: Shonen Knife (Japan) “Arigato”, shouted out the clever audience members when Japan’s legendary/cult all-girl punk threepiece Shonen Knife were playing their headlining set at the first ever Vans New Wave Musicfest in Goa in 2014. “Arigato”, responded vocalist Naoko Yamano. “Arigato”, shouted our Indian friends again. “Namaste”, she replied. This went on for a while. Really, arigato means “thanks a lot”.

Anyway, Shonen Knife played a memorable set that night to a few hundred people. International bands, both contemporary and has-beens, aren’t that uncommon in India anymore — a sure shot sign of India’s status as a superpower. So we’re quite spoilt for choice these days. But Shonen Knife had the kind of energy that seemed genuine, honest, even though they’ve been at it for close to three decades. There was an intimacy all around that seemed pure.

Even the moshpit that surfaced in the front seemed peaceful and pure in a way (minus the few rotten eggs who knocked over this writer’s beer).

THE B LIST

photo: Neville Sukhia

Joseph Stalin State-Sponsored Rank-Pull Award

Under pressure from senior management, we present Nicholson with the Best Newcomer Award for his soulful voice, dreamy songs and the strong modern aesthetic in his music.

the Public Enemy Public Enemy No. 1 Award Winner: Amit Trivedi Having headlined the biggest supposedly-indie festival in the country across multiple cities, Trivedi is naturally in the line of fire. It’s not him, per se, but what he stands for that’s so pissed off the indie imperialist gladiators. It doesn’t bother me personally all that much, but I’ll try to explain my interpretation of the ire.

I like Emotional Atyachar (both the song and the TV show), love it even.

But I don’t want to be reminded of it.

When I’m reminded of it, I get angry.

Usain Bolt 100m Award Winner: Krishna Jhaveri (Skyharbor, Pangea) Bassist Krishna Jhaveri was busy headlining the Red Bull bus that moonlights as a stage with his band Pangea on day one of the Delhi leg of the Bacardi NH7 Weekender.

Skyharbor, his other band, were scheduled to headline a different stage immediately after, so, once done, he had to jump off the bus, carry his gear and literally sprint over to the other stage. Next, he was running around on stage trying to locate signal for the wireless connection between his guitar and the amp. His guitar went off, so he ran off to the back of the stage to fix it. Sources have revealed he was

last seen galloping around the back alleys of Mumbai — laughing like a madman — and that Tom Hanks is very upset.

Bappi Da Bling 182 Award Winners: The Ganesh Talkies Bright, colourful, delightfully kitsch, the Ganesh Talkies are the rightful heirs to the throne of Sir Bappi Lahiri’s legacy (if he ever decides to bequeath it). They prance around on stage, they sing about item songs and dancing-dancing, they wear matching, thunderingly splashy outfits screaming excess, and they display their rich Bollywood, discoera affectations proudly on their shining sleeves. And beyond that, they play endearing, entertaining music, and they do it well.

SubramaniaN-Swamy-One-ManParty Do-It-Yourself-BecauseNo-One-Else-Cares-Anyway Award Winner: Control-Alt-Delete (CAD): Metal Chapter We’d love to be malicious and mock metalheads and this gig, but there’s really no way to; the metal edition of CAD was by far one of the standout gigs of the year. Mumbai’s Blue Frog, generally the domain of scotch-swigging muppets talking about smooth jazz and other

Winner: All India Bakchod Vir Das is a funny guy (even if a lot of people disagree). The guys from All India Bakchod (AIB) are also hilarious. Vir Das has a band with whom he sings funny songs. So now, the AIB guys do musical comedy too. It’s not even like the jokes aren’t funny, because they often are (if a little derivative to cater to the sheer volume of people who want to check them out these days). The problem is with the form itself — Govinda may have made a killing lip-syncing to songs with uproarious lyrics, but there hasn’t been a person before or since to have done the same, because the genre itself is flawed by design.

Weird Al is just about bearable in short doses, but then there’s Jack Black. He’s a sh*tbird if ever there was one. So Vir, All, Jack, Weird, you can all stop.

Wrought Iron Most Metal Metal Band Award Winners: Undying Inc. and Bhayanak Maut Delhi’s Undying Inc. came out with their EP, Ironclad, in 2014, a vicious kick-in-the-gut whirlwind of a release. Bhayanak Maut (Mumbai) released the very elaborate, volatile and stormy Man. Both turned out to be exceptional releases, but only one band was going to win this award. After debating endlessly over who we’d rather piss off — Bhayanak Maut or Undying Inc. — and not reaching any kind of conclusion, this award was duly turned into a giant cop-out.

Suhel Seth Caviar Cabernet Sauvignon Bourgeoisie Gentrification Pretentious [Redacted] Award Winner: Enchanted Valley Carnival OK, this one’s a bit of a stretch — I don’t know all that much about this electronic music festival and won’t pretend to either. But what I do know is that it happens at Aamby Valley, which seems a bit fancypants. And they have this thing at the festival called the “Enchanted Village”. I was still uncertain at this point. But I really like the name of this award.

What tipped me over the edge was their website, which blares out unsolicited rubbish music as soon as one logs on. That’s just the worst.

The very worst of past-due-date-itis

Bhanuj Kappal recently stumbled across the bewildering news that Britney Spears is still around and has an album due in 2015, prompting him to draft this list of artists who should no longer be allowed into a recording studio.

Britney Spears, like the other artists on this list, is stripmining her fame and squeezing every last drop of success and cash from a career long gone dry. And I think it’s time we had an intervention.

Britney’s not the first or the last to fall prey to past-duedate-itis, and it’s imperative we give the following artists — all of whom have releases scheduled for 2015 — the help and guidance they desperately need. Cut off their studio access, call the cops on their PR dealers, and be supportive when they’re going through fame withdrawal.

It’s for their own good.

Papa Roach

Best remembered for their break-out hit Last Resort, Papa Roach faded into obscurity once the nu-metal/ post-grunge bubble finally burst, but that hasn’t stopped them from making sh*tty music. But what’s really amazing is that once rap-metal turned into a cliché, the geniuses in the band responded by shifting to sleazy glam rock — a genre that was played out when they were still in high school. A clear sign that they’re not in their senses and need our help.

W.A.S.P

Def Leppard, the opposite of relevant.

Def Leppard

Let’s be honest, Def Leppard jumped the shark a long, long time ago, and probably would have retired already if their legion of overweight, balding 40-something fans would

Photo: Ash Newell

ever let go of their teenage fantasies. This is why the hippie counter-culture’s slogan, “Don’t trust anyone over 30 with access to iTunes” is still relevant. Old people have no taste.

Speaking of old people tastes, what the hell was going on in the ’80s? W.A.S.P’s overtly sexual (and sexist) shock rock makes Blurred Lines sound like a feminist anthem, and their name is actually an acronym for We Are Sexual Perverts. And people liked them? It’d be bad enough if they’d left it at that, but WASP managed to survive the post-Nirvana bloodbath and are still churning out more polished and less ballsy versions of their hits. Please, make them stop!

Atomic Kitten

This one’s on us, kids. The turn-of-the-century bubblegum pop explosion was pretty terrible, and it was all our fault. And now I hear Atomic Kitten are back, with a new album in the works! And a new fragrance! So now we won’t just have to hear and see them, we can smell them all over the place! Humanity, I fear for your sanity.

Kid Rock

Nope. nope. nope. nope. Dear god no! *quits music writing and moves to a farm*

The Jacobson Question Howard Jacobson

The discovery of despondent hedonism

I

reckon I was about 18 when I discovered despondent hedonism. It was listening to Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is?” that did it. If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s bring out the booze and keep dancing.

As a philosophy of life it has much to recommend it. If nothing else it solves the problem, at the heart of monotheism, of what to do next. God created us, now what? Are we just to go on saying thank you? If that’s all there is to religion...

The Peggy Lee song came back to me, sacrilegiously you might think, during a performance of Haydn’s Creation in the Great Hall of University College School, London, this week.

It was a half-amateur, half-professional affair, though it was the amateur half — the UCS Centenary Choir — that attracted me. It’s one of the great joys of Christmas in this country [England] that there’s a mass or oratorio being performed somewhere just about every day. And precisely because the choirs are amateur they can be relied on to perform with a marvellous verve. The UCS Haydn was no exception. But were they too thinking, as the concert finished, that they’d glimpsed sublimity and now what?

Haydn’s Creation begins wonderfully. Darkness broods upon the deep. For a moment we want the universe to stay that way, without form or clatter, undisturbed, uncreated. It is described as chaos, but this is less boisterous than chaos.

The spirit of God suddenly moving on the face of the waters is thus unwelcome — an ominous intrusion of divine vandalism — until the orchestra responds explosively to his call for light and we realise that it is better to be alive, even if it’s noisy, than to be unborn.

Everything is now thrilling as God busies himself dividing light from darkness, dispelling spirits whose malignancy hadn’t bothered us previously, filling the heavens and inundating those parts of earth destined to be seas. Rain falls, hail, “the light and flaky snow”, and in an exquisite aria the angel Raphael hymns the “softly purling rivers” and the “limpid brook”.

Reader, whatever you do or don’t believe, these first days of creation are lovely, no matter that no poet has yet been created to describe them. Sometimes undescription is good too.

But try telling God that. No sooner has he formed the beasts — the nimble stag, the sinuous worm, the flexible tiger — than he begins to ask himself if this is all there is. What he’s missing is praise. A being who will “God’s power admire”.

Enter Homo sapiens.

Knowing what we know now, we should have said no then. But the offer was too good to resist: a life of “incessant bliss” partnered, if you’re the man, by a woman of “softly smiling virgin looks” or, if you’re the woman — O lucky virgin, you! — by a man who’ll be your guide at “every step”.

But disillusion sets in at once. With nothing to do but extol God’s virtues in language that evokes Chief Sitting Bull’s — “Him celebrate, him magnify!” — Adam and Eve fall to asking if that’s all there is.

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his is where I come unstuck whenever I visit a synagogue or a church. The him celebrating. Is that all there is to faith? Saying thanks until you start to choke on the word? The advantage I enjoy over Adam and Eve is that I can walk out and find some booze. They, bored to within an inch of their lives, have to get themselves expelled.

Sin is the natural response to not knowing what to do next, a confession that the grandeur you were promised hasn’t eventuated. Smart religions build sin in, so that you will feel your dereliction is in fact another form of faith. I read Graham Greene avidly as a boy, This is where I come fascinated by the idea that the worse you behaved unstuck whenever I visit the holier you were. Now a synagogue or a church.

I realise that this is one of religion’s solutions to the The him celebrating. Is problem of its inherent that all there is to faith? tedium.

Another is terrorism.

Saying thanks until you Rather than capitulate to start to choke on the word? despondent hedonism, let’s blow somebody’s brains out. The great advantage such extremism enjoys over the soulsearching Western liberalism to which we haltingly subscribe is the promise it holds out to its would-be adherents that they won’t ever be left asking what next.

We, the children of Creation, remain locked in the paradigm of enticement and disappointment. Bathos is in our bones.

We know no “softly smiling virgin” awaits us in Paradise when we have killed our hostages. Yet somehow that knowledge leaves us weak instead of strong.

Is it because we fear we cannot offer the young anything like as good a time as Isis can? Are we secretly envious of those who aren’t wondering if that is all there is? Is that why, in our descriptions of ourselves, we act as their recruiting agents?

The gunman who held up the Lindt café in Sydney has been described as a “lone wolf”. Reader, there is no such thing. A man may act alone but no one thinks alone. In the melange of ideologies he expressed before he killed was much he would have found simply by reading the papers we write. If you oppose the West, we will induct you into the hows and whys of hating us, because no one hates the West more than the West hates itself. If you want to make a bomb to blow us up, we will show you how to do it online.

Careless talk costs lives, but we welcome its dissemination on the internet as the very emblem of our liberty. Though we know we are a lethal species, we forbid invigilation of our menace. To the exhausted liberal who believes in nothing, this at least remains an article of faith: the freedom to say what you like, when you like, where you like. And whoever warns of danger is a fear-monger. Soon, this faith too will pall and we will ask if that is all there is. Only by then there won’t even be a “that”. THE INDEPENDENT

Artbeat 25

th e su n day g u ar d ian 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e Su n day gu ar d ian | 28.12.2014 | ne w de l hi

The seven ages of hangovers: Tipsy toddlers and charcoaled youths A hangover is earned and subsequently, nursed. It is a thing of beauty that unites rich and poor, young and old alike. Novelist DBC Pierre takes you on a guided tour through the world of hangovers, with detailed instructions for dealing with them at every age.

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espite authorities t i ght e n i n g t h e i r grip on the causes of hangovers, the hangover itself enjoys halcyon days.

It can only mean one thing: authorities quietly love a hangover. And why not? The hangover is culture.

For one thing, the authorities themselves will have hangovers this month. Many more per capita than us. And as we’ll be on the streets seeking comfort from all the crap we can usually avoid, tame as lambs, our barriers as low as our judgement, consumer spending will rise and authorities’ budgets will be safe for another year. Better news still if our fry-up doesn’t work: GDP rises every time we touch the medical/health complex. Hangovers: steroids of growth. Governments love them. Markets love them. It only falls to us to love them.

This advisory in no way seeks to endorse or condone the over-consumption of alcohol. What it does promote is the responsible, full-blooded pursuit of hangovers; how you arrive at them is up to you. Here then, according to Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man, is a citizen’s guide to

festive auto-malaise and selfpalliation:

The key to hangover science is that it takes longer for the body to process alcohol than it does for us to toss it down. This leads to stray poisons in the gut, which can push us over the edge. A couple of charcoal capsules can act as a handbrake by absorbing the worst of them.

1. 0-8 Years The Infant Mewling If you’ve already tasted alcohol you are French, which is cheating. Your parents may think they’ve cleverly avoided the hangover at this point in your life, by continuing to drink every day at lunch and even breakfast, but we call that not stopping. If we didn’t stop we’d feel French, too.

2. 8-18 Years The Whining Schoolboy You are going to puke. It’s that simple. The reason you shouldn’t drink, and hence why there’s no cure for your hangover, is dat yous aready be fik init. If we were as undeveloped as you we wouldn’t need to drink either. Think about it. Our brains spin at many more revolutions in order to pay the taxes that support your lives. After that toil we take a drink to enjoy so much as a breath of the state you call home: where we can also know everything and talk shit.

3. 18-30 Years The Lover You are now licensed to put in motion a hangover and it falls to you to make a strategy. If your goal is unconsciousness on a floor, it can be done in 12 minutes outside

“The reason you shouldn’t drink, and hence why there’s no cure for your hangover, is dat yous aready be fik init.”

an off-licence. If, however, you seek the scenic route via jollity, noise and disappointing sex, that decision carries a duty to think and prepare. Your first advisory consists of simply remembering the four Bs; Water, Banana, Bucket, Bed. Water doesn’t strictly begin with B, but that’s how you’ll pronounce it. Put a pint of water, a bucket and a banana beside your bed before going out. Make it your last waking act to consume the water and the banana, and not use the bucket. For this age there’s also a magic bul-

let; activated charcoal. The key to hangover science is that it takes longer for the body to process alcohol than it does for us to toss it down.

This leads to stray poisons in the gut, which can push us over the edge. A couple of charcoal capsules can act as a handbrake by absorbing the worst of them. The jury is still out on its clinical effectiveness but reports from Japan, where they really need this kind of thing, are encouraging. Just remember the next day that charcoal is black, and stays black. So no, it’s not a bleeding ulcer.

4. 30-45 Years The Soldier The power-band of hangovers. Here we not only manage them but begin to enjoy them, first by clearing a space, which means not taking one to work, and second by understanding that half the joy of festivity lies in curing yourself with food and quiet aimlessness the following day. A hangover brings sentimentality at simply having survived. It makes you the survivor of a train wreck, and you should look forward to that climb back to life. It’s a natural punc-

tuation, a day off school, and only brings shame when we resist it. Science at this age teaches that B-vitamins are depleted in processing alcohol, but can be topped up by supplements before and after a session. The miracle of sleep also grows clear, compared to being awake and feeling like crap.

5. 45-60 Years The Justice This is the golden age of selfpalliative measures. You can book a suite for your hangover, take the week off. And by this age you’ve

discovered milk thistle, the liver whisperer. You still carry activated charcoal for a sense of abandon, but you don’t need it because your system has found its stride.

Like a puppy at tea-time it can smell the drinks coming, put them away, and float you through the following day in nothing worse than a gentle fog. What many don’t know is that this newfound harmony is mostly owed to your discovery of the one true panacea: Alka-Seltzer.

6. 60-75 Years The Slippered Pantaloon Many of life’s dynamics follow an inverted U-curve.

Much of a good thing flattens the benefit curve, while too much of a good thing sends it down. Certain things attracting this dynamic are also cumulative and you can feel them accumulating. Now you carry charcoal not to feel rakish but to help hold in wind over dinner.

As for hangovers, if you’ve

passed through the stages above, you are a silent possessor of the final truth: that a hangover’s bite comes from withdrawal. The brain has taken sedation for granted and compensates the wrong way. As holder of this truth, to milk thistle, to B and C vitamins, to fruit sugars, water, Alka-Seltzer and sleep, you have added a hair of the dog.

All that remains is to polish your French.

7. 75-100 Years Second Childishness The master position. Your regular ailments are now more uncomfortable than any hangover, and you toss your head in defiance. By now you’ve mastered the 80/20 rule: if the second sherry is the one that feels best, you only have that one.

The crowning reward of this position is that you have successfully self-palliated through seven ages; and now the authorities can kiss your arse. THE INDEPENDENT

26

Bookbeat

the s u nday gua rdi an 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

A bookish year: Writers pick their best 2014 reads We got some of our favourite authors and poets to pick their memorable reads of 2014. We ended up with a wildly miscellaneous bunch that includes poetry, comics, environmental books and much else.

Jerry Pinto Author of Em and the Big Hoom

Poetry: I have two books of poetry, both involving Arundhathi Subramaniam. When God is a Traveller, her third book of poems, represents a clear, clean, beautiful voice refined in the furnace of a quest.

Eating God: A Collection of Bhakti Poems is a bit of a difficult choice to make because (full disclosure) I am involved too. Some of the Marathi women poetsaints that Neela Bhagwat and I have translated are here too. But it should be essential reading at a time like this. At any time really, but more specially at a time like this.

Anita Roy Author, publisher at Zubaan Books

change and environmental destruction are rarely off our front pages.

Rajorshi Chakraborti

during Gujarat’s 2002 riots, Fireproof makes you, unexpectedly, grieve for the perpetrators as much as for the victims of such gruesome violence.

at the intersection of memoir, documentation and travel, which I particularly enjoy. The writer is political, self-reflecting and funny.

What more can one ask for?

Author of Lost Men and Or The Day Seizes You

Sumana Roy

Appupen

Poet, critic

Writer/artist, author of Aspyrus and Legends of Halahala

Fiction: Among novels I read this year, my favourite was Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto, just outstandingly alive and outstandingly written, moving and funny on every page. I also thoroughly enjoyed Altaf Tyrewala’s new short fiction collection, Engglishhh, a wonderful Mumbai compendium.

Non-fiction: Big cities are exciting. They are also scary. Most of all, they are inexhaustible. Rana Dasgupta’s Capital, my nonfiction read of the year, thrillingly shows us how Delhi is perhaps India’s most transformed metropolis of the past two decades.

Altaf Tyrewala Author of Engglishhh and No God in Sight

Poetry: Ranjit Hoskote’s Central Time is a special book — it is an extraordinary imagining and retelling of contemporary history and its jargon of violence in the most efficient and epiphanic idiom.

Fiction: It might be because I turned 40 this year, but Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Fairytales at Fifty spoke to me more than any other book of fiction — I particularly enjoyed his reworking of the Jataka tales.

Comics: Actually I’ve only read and worked on comics last year. Trip to Tulum

by Federico Fellini and Milo Manara and Indian Summer by Hugo Pratt and Manara have overpowered me recently. I really don’t read poetry. The last fiction title I read was Aldous Huxley’s Island, a beautiful book.

Jai Arjun Singh

Non-fiction: Manuel Lima’s The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge is a book that provided my love for plant life with a map. It also made me feel less lonely in this one-sided relationship. What a relief it was to discover a community of ancient lovers of the tree sign.

Critic, author of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron: Seriously Funny Since 1983

Author of Gulab, Love Stories #1 to 14

Non-fiction: The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience by Rob Hopkins.

Written by the visionary architect of the transition movement, Rob Hopkins’ handbook is a genuinely useful guide to how to reshape our lives — our inner landscapes just as much as our cities, houses and gardens — to be truly sustainable in a “post-cheap-oil” world. Surprisingly funny, always down to earth, practical and optimistic, I’ve returned to it often for a note of hope at times when the ravages of extreme weather events brought about by climate

Fiction: This Is Not That Dawn by Yashpal, Anand (translator): A Partition-era epic that depicts the moral, physical and psychological tragedy of the colossal event through the eyes of two middle-class, educated, Lahore-based siblings: Tara and Jaidev. The novel particularises the Partition like nothing I’ve ever read.

Fireproof by Raj Kamal Jha: How do people participate in butchery and gang rape and continue to live normal human lives? In which corner of one’s head and heart does one lock away memories of one’s transgressions?

And when the abyss opens, and the guilt gushes up like lava, where does one run? Set

Poetry: Arundhathi Subramaniam’s When God is a Traveller reminds me of how much I admire her poetic grip and why she’s one of my favourite contemporary poets writing in English. It’s hard to explain what I mean by “grip”. It’s sort of like watching a firm hand swoop into an idea and pluck a poem whole out of fuzzy, foggy surroundings.

Non-fiction: Nicolas Wild’s Kabul Disco: Book 2: How I Did Not Become an Opium Addict in Afghanistan. It is a delightful sequel to Kabul Disco: How I Wasn’t Kidnapped in Afghanistan. The book lies

Non-fiction: Naseeruddin Shah’s memoir And Then One Day. Shah is often hailed (especially among those who have a kneejerk dislike for popular cinema or for the excesses of mainstream Bollywood) as a Truth Teller, as someone who “says it like it is”; the boy who points out that the emperor is naked. This is a simplistic view — in fact, Shah frequently contradicts himself or changes his mind whimsically, and his judgements about cinema and screen acting can be annoyingly narrow-minded — but either way, his memoir, about his life up to the age of 33, is among the drollest, most candid and entertaining autobiographies produced by a cultural figure in India. You can hear his voice in every sentence.

Be pragmatic with Christmas gifts MARIAN KEYES

I’ve bought my husband the same Christmas gift for 10 years It’s a membership to a cheese club. It’s not a mind-blowing present, but he loves cheese, and every month, four new cheeses are delivered to the house. This year he asked me, “So what am I getting you?” And I said, “It’s grand, I’ve already bought it, but I need to wear it a couple of times before Christmas, then I’ll give it back to you to put in a box and give to me on the day.”

We’re pragmatic about it!

I’m breaking with tradition this year My mother always has the five of us (children) to hers for Christmas. So there she is, cooking a turkey from 5 a.m. that no one wants, while we›re all trapped in a roasting-hot house, snacking on our own weight in selection boxes. This year, I, my husband and our friends are instead going for a walk in the hills with turkey sandwiches, mince pies

Marian Keyes.

and crackers. People will be aghast!

When you’re an addict, Christmas feels like permission to get wrecked Most things can be twisted to justify why you need to drink. I know it sounds mad but these days

(as a recovered alcoholic), the festive period makes me feel grateful: I feel sorry for all these people under pressure to cane it every night through December while holding down a job.

Love is having coffee made for you in the morn-

ing My husband is not a flower buyer, but he’s so aware of my needs in all the little ways: he’ll set up our TV to record my favourite Scandinavian crime dramas without my asking, and he set up a parking app on my phone, and on a day when I

SIMON REDFERN

‘Bookie’ winners and others: The best sports books of 2014

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nna Krien’s book Night Games is not so much about a sporting event as its aftermath, which involved a number of celebrated Aussie Rules players, a great deal of drink, and an allegation of gang rape, though in the end only one, peripheral, player was charged. Krien sat through the trial and uses the case to explore what the subtitle terms the “dark heart of sport”, in which the line between sexual consent and abuse can be bewilderingly blurred. Sadly topical here as well, this is a disturbing read, but its “painstaking intelligent but above all open-minded examination of an immensely complicated area”, to quote the William Hill Sports Book of the Year judges, made it a worthy, if unexpected, winner.

While Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane dominated the bestseller charts, the most revelatory football book of the year was Bobby Moore: The Man in Full, by Matt Dickinson, which was shortlisted for the “Bookie Prize”.

England’s World Kevin Pietersen Cup winning captain was revered as a cool, decisive leader of men on the pitch, yet Dickinson reveals that off it he swilled lager, suffered from OCD, and was a diffident manager and disastrous businessman before dying, half-forgotten, in 1993. This is no hatchet job, because Dickinson’s balanced account is at pains to credit Moore’s many virtues.

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Annie Zaidi

Poetry: Laozi’s Daode Jing, translated by Thomas Meyer. Meyer renders the Tao-Te Ching (as it is more commonly known) in a long, melodic line of perfectly balanced couplets. His translation is a thing of beauty and wonder, deep in the way the sky is, limpid as a mountain stream, and friendly as a fireside chat.

The strange library

didn’t have the right coins, I was so grateful for it. I’d far rather that than him just buying me a diamond bracelet every Christmas.

What doesn’t kill you makes you different When I was ill with depression (experiencing a nervous breakdown in 2009), I found it impossible to go back to being the person I was. After what I’d been through, I had an insight into pains that were so shocking and awful that a certain innocence went. It was like I had visited an awful country that I didn’t know existed. I don’t want to go there again.

Paradoxically, now it makes the good moments so much more precious; I jump on bursts of joy, like being with my niece and nephew. But it took me a while to get there, this mindfulness, and I still fear that this poisoned, toxic thing might happen again.

Some of my early relationships were pointless I don’t want to be mean, but we had nothing in common apart from adrenalin. I used

to think that door-slamming, passionate rows indicated a powerful connection at work. In one case I was convinced he was the one — that he’d act like a human Polyfilla and fill in my incomplete bits — but we were not capable of being kind to each other. I’ve learnt that love grows slowly over time, and while kindness sounds very dull when you’re in your twenties, it’s the thing I value in my husband.

Social media transcend borders They say social media stop people from communicating, as we’re now more likely to have our face buried in a phone. But I think that’s not the case — it’s a way of expanded communications and I feel very connected to people via Twitter: folk in London or Glasgow, or in Ireland where I live, are all watching Strictly Come Dancing, and finding out that the person from Glasgow is feeling the precise thing I feel makes me feel I’m part of the human race. THE INDEPENDENT

erry Venables’s observation of Moore that “he wasn’t just cool, he was refrigerated” appears in the ninth edition of The Book of Football Quotations, edited by Phil Shaw. It features 1,500 new “nannies” (nanny goats = quotes in football journospeak), including Joe Royle’s considered view of excitable Italian striker Mario Balotelli (then with Manchester City): “Balotelli’s like Marmite; you either love him or hate him. Me, I’m in between.” Kevin Pietersen definitely falls into the Marmite category. After England decided to dispense with his services, one sure bet was that the cricketer was going to air his side of the story. KP: The Autobiography contains a litany of grievances against the national side’s administrators, coaches and, not least, his team-mates, while downplaying his own manifest misdemeanours. For the most part his “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy” tirade should be read for amusement, not information.

The prize for the year’s most misleading title goes to Brian Moore’s What Goes on Tour Stays on Tour (Simon & Schuster, £18.99), as the former England and Lions hooker leaves little to the imagination about what he and his fellow players got up to away from home. While acknowledging that many of their antics were puerile and irresponsible, he claims they were also enjoyable, so if your idea of fun is being tied to a tree and made to sing ChanKP: The Autobiography son D’Amour while your captain pisses on your contains a litany of shoes, this is the book grievances against for you, though perhaps not for the young and the national side’s impressionable. administrators, coaches and, Hard to imagine John Curry as a team player; not least, his team-mates, Britain’s Olympic icewhile downplaying his own dancing champion in 1976 was a loner, whose manifest misdemeanours. year of triumph – he For the most part his added European and “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all world titles to his Olympic gold — was a glorigot it infamy” tirade should ous but brief interlude be read for amusement, in an otherwise deeply unhappy life, according not information. to Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry. Bill Jones’s bleak but beautifully, and sensitively, written biography chronicles an unhappy childhood spent with a distant, depressive father who committed suicide when Curry was 16, and unfeeling coaches: “You will never make it as a skater or a man,” one told him. After the Olympics he set up his own touring show, but by the end of the Eighties he was broke and ravaged by Aids, dying at the age of 44 in 1994. Jones does not gloss over Curry’s faults — he could be viciously cruel and bullying, with a self-destructive streak — but also reminds us of his genius. THE INDEPENDENT

words of wisdom

“In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: ‘It goes on’.”

Robert Frost

Bookbeat 27

the su nday g u a rdi an 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e su n day gu ar d ian | 28.12.2014 | n ew d elh i

Books that we can’t wait to see on the silver screen 2014 was a good year for literary adaptations onscreen, as evidenced by Inherent Vice and Gone Girl .

Aditya Mani Jha takes stock of the most exciting book-to-movie adaptations lined up for 2015.

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mong the several reasons why you should be grateful for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice is that it spawned a beautiful “now a major motion picture” cover for the novel. There, I said it.

For most hardcore litnerds, the idea that a cinematic adaptation might add something useful or artistic to the world of a novel is anathema. But how could you not like the new cover for Inherent Vice, with, among other things, a fabulously stoned Joaquin Phoenix (he played Doc Sportello)? 2015 promises to be another great year for book-to-movie projects; and no, we’re not talking about the Fifty Shades of Grey movie.

For starters, there’s Daniel Espinosa’s Child 44, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Rob Smith. Child 44 was a rare crime thriller that found itself on the Man Booker longlist, and deservingly s o. Th e b o o k f o l l ow s disgraced MGB agent Leo Demidov as he investigates the disappearance and subsequent murders of over 50 children in Stalin’s Soviet Union, a land supposedly free of crime. Espinosa has assembled an exciting cast for the film, with British actor Tom Hardy (Bane from The Dark Knight Rises) playing Demidov. Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman and Vincent Cassel will also portray key characters.

Joseph Delaney’s The Spook’s Apprentice was a smart and funny YA (Young Adult) novel that did not, for a change, dumb things down to a crawl for its readers.

Tom Ward, the 12-year-old protagonist of the book, is the seventh son of a seventh son, a coincidence that enables him to see things that others cannot. Ward’s

Jeff Bridges in Seventh Son.

journey from a simple farm boy to becoming apprentice to a wizard known simply as “The Spook” is chronicled beautifully in Delaney’s novel. The book is being adapted into a movie called Seventh Son, with Sergei Bodrov (Mongol) directing and the ever-so-charismatic Jeff Bridges playing The Spook.

With Bridges’ effortless dialogue delivery and his commanding screen presence, Seventh Son seems like a safe bet for fantasy fans.

Another YA book that makes this list was never supposed to be a novel at all; it was supposed to be a whimsical picture book featuring a lot of strange-looking children. Thankfully, Ransom Riggs’ enterprising editor noted the potential for a cracking story here, and so we ended up with his debut novel, Miss Peregrine’s

One of the many Victorian-era novels that Penny Dreadful tackled so well was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 2015 will see a fresh adaptation of the classic, called Victor Frankenstein, with James MacAvoy playing a young Doctor Frankenstein.

Home for Peculiar Children.

Using the archival photographs as a starting point, Riggs tells us the story of the titular orphanage, where the protagonist Emma’s grandfather once lived; the place that holds the key to his unsolved murder. Ghosts, monsters, time travel and a spunky, resourceful young heroine; Riggs has all the ingredients of a blockbuster here and he brings a playful touch to his handling of this

somewhat routine material.

We had been hearing some very exciting news about this book’s adaptation, and confirmation finally arrived at the end of 2014. Tim Burton will direct the live-action adaptation, while the brilliant Eva Green (Casino Royale) will play Miss Peregrine. On the back of a red-hot season of Penny Dreadful, it will be interesting to see how Green responds to the madcap world of Tim Burton.

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ne of the many Victorian-era novels that Penny Dreadful tackled so well was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 2015 will see a fresh adaptation of the classic, called Victor Frankenstein, with James MacAvoy playing a young Doctor Frankenstein. Daniel Radcliffe will play the hunchbacked assistant Igor while Mark Gatiss (the cocreator of Sherlock, who also plays Mycroft Holmes on the show) will also be seen in a supporting role. The film will be helmed by Paul McGuigan, who also directed The Hounds of Baskerville, considered by many to be the best episode of Sherlock.

If you are a fan of either Khaled Hosseini or Dan Brown, or both... we won’t judge you (for now). In fact, you are in for a treat, because both these authors will see

their recent bestsellers on the silver screen. Inferno sees Tom Hanks reprising his role as symbologist Robert Langdon for the third time, while A Thousand Splendid Suns will be the second Hosseini movie adaptation after The Kite Runner.

A non-fiction adaptation that has generated a considerable amount of buzz is that of A Walk in the Woods, a typically humorous travelogue by Bill Bryson, where the author attempts to walk across the Appalachian Trail along with his friend. The film will be directed by Ken Kwapis and Bryson will be played by Robert Redford.

The 78-year-old Redford was last seen as a comic-book villain in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a film he admittedly participated in just to experience firsthand how SFX works. To be fair to Redford, he also gave us the unusual and riveting All is Lost, where he was the sole actor onscreen, in a film almost devoid of dialogue.

Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn was one of the most acclaimed novels of 2009, being longlisted for the Booker and winning the Costa Prize. His novel is being adapted into a screenplay by British novelist Nick Hornby. Tóibín’s writing style isn’t exactly cinematic and he is not particularly interested in plot progression, so Hornby and director John Crowley have their task cut out here.

There are two separate adaptations of The Jungle Book in the works, the next Hunger Games movie will also be released, which is not to forget the PR hailstorm headed our way when Fifty Shades of Grey finally hits theatres. It’s the relatively lesser-known lit adaptations, however, that could make a big impression on the box office as well as the awards season in 2015.

The best books to gift your children this winter The Lost Whit and Wisty Allgood team up to save their city from an evil magician.

James Patterson and Emily Raymond Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Price: Rs 1,146

You Can’t Make This Up Al Michaels HarperCollins Price: Rs 1,845

Dirty Pretty Things A collection of illustrated short stories with an erotic theme.

Michael Faudet Michael Faudet (self-published) Price: Rs 1,082

Sons of Anarchy Tara Bennett Time Home Entertainment, Inc. Price: Rs 1,906

When Books Went to War How 1,200 titles played their part in World War II. Molly Guptill Manning Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Price: Rs 1,591

DANIEL HAHN

Oliver Jeffers’s Once Upon an Alphabet (HarperCollins, £20) isn’t simple, exactly; yes, it’s an alphabet book of sorts, but for each letter there’s a tiny crafted story, sometimes very funny and always pleasingly odd. “Out on the ocean there is an owl who rides on the back of an octopus (…)” starts one. “Danger Delilah is a daredevil who laughs in the face of Death and dances at the door of Disaster…” begins another.

It’s immensely charming, but you’ll mostly buy it for Jeffers’s inimitable artwork, because this book is a very, very beautiful thing.

Following on from Jeffers’s A-Z, we have a Shirley Hughes January-to-December book, A Year of Stories and Things to Do (Bodley Head, £19.99), a collection of her stories, some popular and others less well known, plus an array of suggested “things to do” for each month, all brought together for the first time into a big hardback, a great gift book to share with someone small. Meanwhile, another fine illustrator, Tony Ross, has contributed to the advent spirit by assembling a treasury of old Christmassy stories, The Nights Before Christmas (Andersen Press,

A page from Once Upon an Alphabet.

£19.99); 24 short pieces each perfect for bedtime readingaloud, from Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” to the opening pages of Little Women, from a 1914 cable about the Christmas Truce to (of course) “A Visit from St Nicholas”, and all of them, naturally, with Ross’s lively, lovely illustrations.

Talking about reading aloud, how about some poetry? Faber & Faber, the publishing home to much of the 20th century’s best poetry, has just produced some attractive reissues of classic collections: there’s

T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (£14.99), with colour illustrations by its original artist, Nicolas Bentley, and Lear’s Nonsense Limericks (£9.99), newly illustrated by Arthur Robins.

They’re both as fresh as ever they were, so many generations later. (And there’s more to come, too: Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie (£6.99), with the Edward Ardizzone illustrations, will follow on New Year’s Day.) Linda Newbery’s The Brockenspectre ( Jonathan Cape, £12.99) is a slim, beautiful piece of writing,

about Tomas, a boy who lives with his family in the Alps. When his father goes missing on a mountain hike, Tomas decides to find him, though he knows it’s dangerous, not least for the shadowy Brockenspectre that looms over the mountains. On his quest, Tomas learns something about Pappi, and also much about himself. With a timeless quality enhanced by Pam Smy’s illustrations, it’s a haunting but ultimately warm-hearted story, and a lovely, wintry gift.

THE INDEPENDENT

Bookworm Alley KATE WILLS

‘Are You There, Twitter? It’s Me, Judy’

D

iscovering Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, under the covers, with a torch, aged nine, was one of those rare moments in life when reading a book feels like a form of telepathy. As if the writer has wormed their way into my brain, swept up my innermost thoughts and transplanted them on to the page in front of me. Americanisms and anachronisms aside (“belted sanitary napkins”, anyone?) here were 149 pages which precisely captured how it felt to be me, at that exact moment. Spoiler alert: confusing and not that fun.

Drop Judy Blume into a conversation with almost any woman of a certain age and I guarantee that you will be rewarded with a similar soliloquy, whether their particular doppelgänger happens to be Deenie (“Scoliosis! Masturbation!”) Blubber (“the smelly whale of Class 206”) or Katherine in Forever (“her Judy Blume boyfriend has a penis called Ralph!”).

Blume has sold more than 85 million books, in 32 different languages, and is also, somewhat incongruously, one of the most banned authors of the 21st century. So cult-like are her fans that they hold an alternative “Blumesday” every year.

Musician and author Amanda Palmer has written a song about her and Lena Dunham has said that “it’s impossible to overstate” the author’s influence on her. It has also been 16 years since Blume published a book for adults, 1998’s tale of friendship and lesbianism-lite, Summer Sisters, which explains why the news that she will publish a new novel in June has triggered a flurry of rapture, nostalgia and “I thought she was dead” tweets.

Blume, who is still alive and now 76, made the announcement about In the Unlikely Event on Twitter this week, to her 1,18,000 followers. Her Twitter biog, by the way, reads “Are You There, Twitter? It’s Me, Judy”.

W

hen I interviewed Blume last year, she was as friendly, smiley and wise as I’d always imagined her, and incredibly gracious when I droned on about how I was Margaret, a variation of a story she’s no doubt heard more times than it should be humanly possible for one person to hear the same story from a stranger without self-combusting. She was in the middle of writing In the Unlikely Event, which she had been researching since 2009 (“I’m really, seriously trying to finish it”), and gave me the impression that no one was more taken by surprise by this new book than she was. In the Unlikely Event was, itself, a pretty unlikely event.

“I thought Summer Sisters was the last book I’d ever write,” she said. “I thought it would absolutely do me in. I wanted to burn it so many times, I don’t know how I kept going. It was three very intense years of trying to get it right and then just before it came out I would say to George, my husband, ‘We have to buy that book back from the publisher. We can’t let that book be published, it’s going to the end of a wonderful career’ and instead it was my best, a bestseller. George says I’m like that every time and I’m sure with the new book, should I ever finish it, I’ll be feeling the same way. No, don’t let Tackling “the truth” is it come out. No! No! Help! what makes Blume’s It’s just pure anxiety.”

In the Unlikely Event is books so beloved — based on Blume’s expeperiods, bullying, sex, rience of several plane racism, death — nothing crashes that happened in her hometown of is off limits. And it’s Elizabeth, New Jersey fitting that the woman in the 1950s. “It’s a decade I thought I never, who gave a voice to so ever wanted to return many people’s teenage to, because it was a decade during which I was experiences is finally a teenager. But I’m findrevisiting her own. ing that writing about it is very different to when I was living through it. It was a decade of secrets and a lack of honesty and nobody ever told kids anything. And the stuff that we were inventing because no one was telling us the truth was probably worse than whatever the truth was.”

Tackling “the truth” is what makes Blume’s books so beloved — periods, bullying, sex, racism, death — nothing is off limits. And it’s fitting that the woman who gave a voice to so many people’s teenage experiences is finally revisiting her own. Expectations will be high for In the Unlikely Event — Summer Sisters sold more than three million copies and spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list. But if it even comes close to recreating the magic of Margaret begging god for boobs, my inner nine-year-old is pre-ordering a copy already. THE INDEPENDENT

words of wisdom

“Freedom of expression has no meaning if divorced from the freedom to offend.”

Salman Rushdie

28

Young & Restless

the s u nday gua rdi a n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

He said, she said: Twitter battles that made headlines last year

the modern muse chris barrett

payel majumdar

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ot all news is published in print nowadays (sadly).

Depending on the sort of person you are, you get most (or all) of your news off your Facebook and Twitter feeds, conveniently ensuring that you read only those pieces, and get only the information that you know you’re going to read. More on that later, but here is what you missed on Twitter in 2014 if you were living under a rock, and reading only old-fashioned print dailies like a decent person.

Pete Hutchison’s handmade vinyl

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The Thomson and Thompson Award: Subramanian Swamy vs Subramaniam Swamy Subramanian Swamy is no stranger to negative attention. He never fails to take it seriously, however. In the past, Swamy was one half of a “Clash of the Titans”-style fight on primetime television, which was so inspirational that it motivated people to write music to the words of Swamy and Arnab Goswami’s verbal battle. This time, Subramanian Swamy (as always) had had enough. It turns out that Swamy’s fan page endorsed by him and parody Facebook accounts are so similar, there is no way of telling who’s faking it.

Consequently, Swamy’s fans follow posts on the fake page as ardently as the “real“ one.

Sick and tired of his almostnamesake (an “m” is in place of an “n” in Subramanian), Swamy threatened to sue Facebook if “Subramaniam Swamy” was not banned.

Subramaniam (with an “m”) was quick with his response on a FB post: “Will not file a PIL against Mark Zuckerberg, as he is ready to accept his Hindu ancestry.”

The matter did not end just there. Instead of the parody account, a page titled Dr Subramanian Swamy, a fan page run by some of his followers appeared to be taken down after the complaint. Much fun was poked by the parody account at the expense of Facebook.

Bad Sex Award: Deepika Padukone vs The Times of India With the sheer volume of mind-numbingly simple lists and porn online, it is tough for news websites to keep

Pen & Stink

up. While trying for hits on their page, these websites sometimes resort to desperate clickbaiting measures. On 14 September, The Times of India published a report and a photograph that was dedicated solely to Deepika Padukone’s cleavage, with an addendum that read, “OMG: Deepika Padukone’s cleavage show”.

The actor was extremely angry, and took to Twitter with the response, “YES! I am a woman. I have breasts and a cleavage! You got a problem?”

If you thought the matter ended then and there, you’ll be surprised at the paper’s dedication to keeping its foot in its mouth for as long as it can. They responded with a tweet (which has since been deleted) that read, “It’s a compliment! You look so great that we want to make sure everyone knew! :)”

Sour Puss Award: Anurag Kashyap vs Genderlog We know, we know, Kashyap and his anti-feminist fans have already written this little incident off as bridge under the water. They are bigger than that, and Indian feminists are just “angry, bitter” creatures who think gender violence is a bigger deal than “a bad accident”. Anurag Kashyap gave an interview to The Hindu after Queen’s release on 5 July, where he said

Matters escalated and Kashyap faced brickbats on his comments about rape: “Moving on to when Kashyap wants to redefine rape.

‘She told me it’s like a bad accident…

he was an “anti-feminist” and how Indian feminists, with their rage, did more harm than good. Genderlog feminists did not enjoy Kashyap’s definition of their kind and offered a tweetique of his comments. This is what they had to say: @Genderlog Kashyap: “Why are Indian feminists such angry people?” Short answer: Because seemingly smart men like you say nonsense like this. Long answer: Point number one, feminists and feminism are not two separate entities. The nature of -ism is nurtured by the -ists. Point number two: Anger is not a bad thing. Anger is responsible for most of the social change that we’ve seen in human civilisation. Presumably anger is a bad thing only when feminists feel it? In which case, must point out, not all feminists are angry.

So why generalise? Because some men feel hysterically angry too. A number of them are serial rapists. Should we then generalise and say all men are angry rapists?

Point number 3: feminists may be angry for a number of reasons. There’s this thing called patriarchy that has led to terrible inequalities. We feminists don’t like inequality. We’re the idealistic sorts who believe that we should try to work towards an equal society.”

Matters escalated and Kashyap faced brickbats on his comments about rape: “Moving on to when Kashyap wants to redefine rape.

‘She told me it’s like a bad accident… And people who caused it [rape] should be punished because they were power drunk… in a state of intoxication.’ Yeah, like murder is a really bad fainting spell.

People don’t ‘cause’ rapes.

They do them. A rapist isn’t losing control, like a drunk driver, but establishing that they’re in control.”

Kashyap came out with a wounded reply on a blog named Moifightclub, where he said, “Only physical assault does not constitute violence, emotional blackmail is also violence, mind games are also violations, misusing Nirbhaya laws is also violence and rise in VIOLENCE

AGAINST MEN since those laws have been constituted, was even commented on by the Supreme court... (sic)” News is, Kashyap will next be making a film revolving around rape. Oh dear. Might we suggest gender studies workshops for the director and his scriptwriters, as politely and seriously as possible?

Who Da Award: Suhel Seth vs Viren Rasquinha Suhel Seth had India’s collective Kailash Satyarthi moment when he saw the former field hockey captain and Arjuna Award recipient onstage at the Times Literature Festival sports panel, and expressed his confusion out loud. Rasquinha was incensed, and tweeted, “As my session ended, Suhel Seth comes on stage and says, ‘Don’t know what that bald guy was doing on a panel on sport; what’s he done. It’s so disappointing when I am invited by the Times Lit fest to speak and get dissed on stage by a guy who doesn’t even know who I am... I really do wonder though how Suhel Seth holds forth on everything under the sun and what exactly is his domain expertise.’” Tweetics were quick with their smarta**ery.

The Unreal Times tweeted, “Just in: Suhel Seth and

Maria Sharapova are now friends.”

Powerpuff Girl Award: KRK vs Sonakshi Sinha If attention was a golden snitch and Twitter was a quidditch field, KRK (Kamaal R Khan) would be its Viktor Krum. He doesn’t think twice before distributing kisses as freely as the kissing monster in The Powerpuff Girls to Bollywood actors like Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor, and kicks to “two rupees people”. No one knows for sure who these two rupees people are, and why he keeps plotting their extinction; however, he does know how to annoy the average person enough to get a reaction out of them. One one of his absurd ideas was a tweetathon where people had to retweet if they thought so-and-so Bollywood celebrity had the biggest butt in Bollywood. After several failed attempts, Sonakshi Sinha put up this frankly enjoyable tweet. “Please RT if u think @kamaalrkhan is a woman disrespecting waste of space and deserves to hung upside down and given 4 tight slaps.” Undeterred, KRK recently tweeted about Parineeti Chopra, “Good morning and God save me from this sumo wrestler.

Iska ek dhobi pachaadh and aadmi finished.”

Akshar Pathak

e know that vinyl is back, but now the demand for retro is leading to some extraordinary prices.

As LP sales return to a level not seen for almost 20 years, a small west London vinyl-only record label is busy producing handmade limited-edition albums that sell for up to £2,500. (Rs 2, 46, 938.)

A gangly figure with a remarkably luxuriant beard, label owner Pete Hutchison looks like a man out of time sitting in his small Notting Hill studio surrounded by beautifully restored vintage equipment. The set up includes a BTR-2 reel-toreel tape machine used at Abbey Road Studios on landmark recordings by the likes of The Beatles.

Hutchison’s passion for 33.3 rpm vinyl discs, a format introduced by Columbia back in 1948, knows no bounds. An avid collector of rare vinyl, Hutchison’s hobby took an expensive turn when he developed a taste for classical music after inheriting his father’s collection. In a single year he spent £30,000 (Rs 29, 64 680 approx) on classical LPs and thousands more on jazz, folk and rock records.

One Mozart Dealing in old vinyl is now a seller’s game. box set alone cost him £10,000 (Rs 9,88,000 approx).

Not satisfied with merely collecting rare LPs, in 2012 Hutchison launched the Electric Recording Company and began recreating them. The company faithfully reproduces ultra-rare ’50s and ’60s LPs from the original masters using only vintage, valve-driven equipment.

It’s a time and money consuming process but most costly of all is the recreation of the album sleeves, which involves using authentic materials, typesetting the lettering and printing on a five-and-a-half tonne Heidelberg cylinder press, dating from the ’50s.

The painstaking process means a single product can take up to a year to create. So far the company has produced only seven classical releases. Priced between £300 (Rs 29,646) and £2,500 (Rs 2,47,000 approx), they are limited to 300 copies each.

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he label will begin releasing jazz albums next year and Hutchison is eager to move into rock and pop. “I have requested The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin,” he says, before adding that he is also interested in working with contemporary artists.

With only a handful of staff, the Electric Recording Company has sold £4,00,000 (Rs 3,95, 29080) worth of vinyl to a loyal customer base that stretches from North America to China.

Its patrons are primarily professionals — doctors, bankers and lawyers often eager to buy every release.

“Our distributors get calls from wives complaining their husbands have bought all the records, so we have to space the releases out,” says Hutchison.

Hutchison is also the MD of boutique indie label Peacefrog, which has enjoyed considerable success with acts including José González, Nouvelle Vague and Little Dragon. The profits have been ploughed into his quest for vinyl perfection.

“It was great not to have to seek funding, that has made it both possible and enjoyable. I certainly wouldn’t have done “ It was great not it if it meant re-mortgaging the to have to seek house,” he says.

Using contacts at EMI, funding, that has Hutchison licensed more made it both possible than 80 classical recordings made between 1950 and the and enjoyable. I mid 1970s, a period he considcertainly wouldn’t ers a golden era of analogue have done it if it recordings.

The next stage was to acquire meant re-mortgaging the necessary valve-driven the house.” equipment. “I rang around all the big studios but no one had a thing,” says Hutchison.

He then called veteran sound engineer Sean Davies.

Davies was not only able to help Hutchison locate some of the few surviving examples of the equipment needed, many ravaged by rust, but to refurbish them using spare parts and manuals he had held on to since the 1970s.

The first tranche of releases consisted of three highly collectable LPs of Bach sonatas played by the Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy, all of which have now sold out.

Next was the Mozart à Paris box set that set him back £10,000, a lavish seven-disc compilation of the composer’s Parisian work, originally produced by French Pathé to celebrate the bicentenary of Mozart’s birth. You can pick up one of the Electric Recording Company’s few remaining copies for a princely £2,495.

Having struck a licensing deal with Los Angeles-based Concord Music Group, Hutchison is now looking forward to working with the master tapes from seminal American jazz labels Prestige, Riverside and New Jazz.

In January, the label will begin releasing rare American jazz albums from the 1950s and 1960s by artists including Tommy Flanagan, Hank Mobley, Elmo Hope and John Coltrane, all produced by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder.

At a time when streaming services are becoming more prevalent and the music industry is trying to adapt to a shift in demand from ownership to access, news that vinyl sales are heading north is manna from heaven.

THE INDEPENDENT

Young & Restless 29

the su nday g u a rdi an 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e su n day gu ar dian | 28.12.2014 | n ew delh i

Games people play: The 10 most surprising sports moments of 2014 By our correspondents

The Best Rugby Tackle Award

The friendly neighbourhood streaker has been an on-and-off presence in international cricket matches for a while now, the most famous example in recent times being the second India vs Australia final of the 2008 Commonwealth Tri-Series, where Andrew Symonds, all six-anda-half feet of him, elbowed and brought down a drunk, nude man intent on cart-wheeling across the pitch. A repeat was seen on 23 November, when during a game between Australia and South Africa, an adventurous streaker set off at great speed from the boundary line. Before he could make it to the pitch, though, security personnel used a rugby tackle to bring him down.

Taking a cue from the Indian elephant, they then sat on him until he calmed down and agreed to put on a towel.

pothesised that he’d be good at it, too. Bolt ended up smashing 45 off 19 balls, including three sixes off a Yuvraj over. In a friendly sprint afterwards, Bolt “allowed” Yuvraj to win, and they both ended up celebrating in Bolt’s signature “lightning” gesture. As Ravi Shastri has said about a zillion times, cricket was the ultimate winner.

The I’d-rather-not-see-my-idols-if-Ihave-to-see-Riteish-Deshmukh Award

The Twitter Douchebag Award In February, defensive end Michael Sam became the first openly gay player in American college football. When Sam was drafted by the St. Louis Rams later that year, his emotional reaction was broadcast live on television; Sam kissed his boyfriend Vito Cammisano. What followed next gave the National Football League (NFL) a bad name: several players, like Case McCoy, Derrick Ward and Don Jones, tweeted stuff like “ESPN, you serious?” and “OMG horrible”. Luckily, the NFL took punitive action against some of the more persistent offenders, like Jones, who was promptly suspended.

holiday in July; presumably drowned in a jet ski accident. But, despite a protracted search operation, the bodies were never recovered. Castro was a friend of Ghanaian footballer Asamoah Gyan, who burst on to the world stage at the FIFA of 2010, where he was also the tragic figure who missed the last minute penalty against Uruguay that would’ve made Ghana the first African team to reach the World Cup semis. How did that penalty materialise? Following a clever bit of cheating by our old friend Luis Suarez, that’s how. In any case, reports began emerging that Gyan had murdered his friend, “sacrificed” him in a human sacrifice ritual to improve his performances on the pitch. Yes, that’s exactly what was reported. And we thought the Indian media was bad. (As an aside, there were strong rumours in October on Twitter — where else?

— that Ghana’s Michael Essien had contracted Ebola. All in a day’s work.)

Best fettuccine alfredo award

How the mighty have fallen. In February, Oscar Pistorius, the paraplegic sprinter nicknamed “Blade Runner”, shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, claiming that he thought she was a burglar. The Pistorius defence, however, failed to prove this adequately and in October, the South African star was sentenced to five years in prison. The high-profile trial was followed by millions of aghast fans around the world, and Pistorius himself was at the receiving end of brickbats for his “staged” body language and over-the-top histrionics. the ‘Don’t Leave Me Hangin’, Bro’ Award In a rugby match recently — we don’t know which and we have no possible way of finding out — the referee flagged for a foul on a player.

The player acknowledged his error and raised his hand toward the ref for a high-five, to which

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Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Username: @rebeccah) Want to be featured? E-mail us: photos.guardian20@gmail.com

At first, tennis fans in Delhi couldn’t believe their luck. Federer and Djokovic were coming to town for something called the International Premier Tennis League, along with Goran Ivaniševic, Pat Rafter and — we may have swooned at this point — Pete Sampras. It seemed too good to be true. It was, in fact, too good to be true. To start with, the rules were incomprehensible: each “match” had five sets, with men’s and women’s singles and doubles, mixed doubles and “legends’ singles”; there were also super shoot-outs, power points and a courtside DJ. The tennis was disjointed and uneven, which is what happens when Federer partners Bopanna. There were strange injections of celebrity: it’s some sort of divine injustice that Riteish Deshmukh turns up in the same photograph as Federer. And just when people started to understand the format, the tournament packed up and headed to Dubai (which is when we realised it was a multi-country affair).

Best Woodward-Bernstein Investigation Impersonation This one goes to The Sports Media. Ghanaian rapper Castro (real name Theophilus Tagoe) and his girlfriend, Jane Badu, disappeared while on

India completes ‘Mangalayan’, its first successful Mars mission

Uber cab driver rapes 26-year-old woman in Delhi

@kyosu_mem

the Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You award Before Sachin Tendulkar requested the sports ministry to go easy on Laishram Sarita Devi, the Indian boxer who infamously refused to accept her bronze medal at the Asian Games after she was unfairly adjudged to have lost her semi-final bout by home refs, she was practically a national traitor. (Turns out Tendulkar is not just a robot programmed to accumulate unbelievable amounts of runs on the cricket pitch.) Earlier, she’d cried, looked to the Indian authorities for assistance or support, and got squat (allegedly).

Now she has been suspended for a year by the International Boxing Federation. Whether she was correct to react the way she did is a nuanced discussion (we’re completely on her side, for the record). But what’s funny is her sense of entitlement: how can she, as a boxer, expect any help? Doesn’t she know she’s not a cricketer or a Bollywood star? In India, you need to Know Your Place.

The Glass Ceiling Breaker Award

Oscar: Best Actor in a Villainous Role

The Slowcoach-Meets-Speedy Award

In September, track legend and the 100 and 200m world champion Usain Bolt treated fans at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy stadium to an exhibition cricket match. Bolt led one of the sevena-side teams, while the other team was led by Yuvraj Singh. Bolt, a cricket fan, had been expressing his desire to play T20 cricket for a while now, and people (including Chris Gayle) had hy-

the referee just shook his head. Unperturbed, our protagonist gave himself a high-five instead.

We don’t know if that’s the coolest thing ever or the saddest.

Nearly 300 people perish in Kashmir floods

It’s Italian footballer Giorgio Chiellini (because he’s Italian; get it?). 2014 was the year of the football world cup or, as our people are prone to calling it, the “FIFA”. Luis Suarez, an exceptionally gifted Uruguayan footballer and a questionable human being, was busy trying to take on the famed Italian Catenaccio defence singlehandedly in a group stage game. Then, he got hungry (it was a lunch time kick-off). During a set-piece tussle, the bunny-toothed attacker decided to sink his teeth into Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder, leaving a crystal indentation of his fangs for good measure. We can’t quite vouch for the quality of the dish, though, because seconds later, Suarez was pictured clutching his mouth, holding his teeth in apparent pain. Biting isn’t nearly as dangerous as a head-butt, a flailing elbow or a leg-breaking tackle, no way, but it’s just comically weird. Who bites? Maybe he was just teething, some said, but does that explain the two previous incidents where he’d been suspended for biting?

Jayalalithaa becomes first incumbent chief minister to be convicted

Boko Haram murders more than 2,000 Nigerian villagers

Andy Murray hasn’t always been the most likeable or charismatic player on the men’s tour. But a lot of people revised their attitude towards the Scotsman when he announced, after breaking with Ivan Lendl, that he was hiring Amélie Mauresmo, U.S. Open and Wimbledon champion and former world number one, as his coach.

This was an unprecedented move: it’s almost unheard of for a top men’s player to have a female coach. And though the partnership didn’t quite take off as desired — Murray lost in the quarters at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open — the two seem set for a long innings. It’s a lovely twist of fate for Mauresmo, whose abilities on the court were often overshadowed by snide comments (sometimes by her peers) about her physique and sexual orientation (she came out when she was 19).

3D-printed ‘Ekso-suit’ helps paralysis victim walk again

British-Indian author Neel Mukherjee nominated for a Booker

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine, killing 298

Militants kill 132 children at a school in Peshawar

The Mumbai Metro starts operations

Ma, why is Bambi’s mother dead?

Citing films such as Bambi and Tarzan, the authors said that the parents of main characters were found to be more than five times as likely to die in children’s cartoons as they were in films targeted at adults.

NICK CLARK

Forget thrillers like Pulp Fiction and Black Swan. The main characters in cartoons for children, including Finding Nemo and Tarzan, are more than twice as likely to be killed off as those in films for adults, according to a new study.

Researchers studied the top cartoons, from Snow White to Frozen, and dubbed them “rife with death and destruction”, after finding the content was on a par with “rampant horrors” among popular films for adults. “Grisly deaths in cartoons were common”, the report said, including shootings in Bambi, Peter Pan and Pocahontas, and stabbings in Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid.

The research, carried out by University College London and the University of Ottawa, and published in the British Medical Journal, also pointed to potentially traumatising animal attacks in A

A still from The Lion King

Bug’s Life, The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon. Head researchers Ian Colman and James Kirkbride pointed to notable screen deaths including Nemo’s mother, who is eaten by a barracuda within the first five minutes of Finding Nemo, and Tarzan’s parents being

eaten by a leopard. Dr Colman said: “Rather than being innocuous and gentler alternatives to typical horror or drama films, children’s animated films are, in fact, hotbeds of murder and mayhem.”

Onscreen death and violence “can be particularly traumatic for

young children, and the impact can be intense and long lasting”, Dr Kirkbride added. To assess the amount of violence cartoons expose young children to, the researchers analysed the length of time it takes for key characters to die in the 45 top-grossing children’s cartoons released between 1937 and 2013.

They were compared with the violent content in the two top gross-

ing films for adults released in the same year as each of the cartoons, excluding the action or adventure films marketed to children.

The study found two in three cartoons showed the death of an important character, compared with half of the adult films.

Citing films such as Bambi and Tarzan, the authors said that the parents of main characters were found to be more than five times as likely to die in children’s cartoons as they were in films targeted at adults. The researchers said the film genre and year of release had no bearing on the results, adding “there is no evidence to suggest that the level of violence has changed in children’s films since Snow White in 1937”.

In Snow White, the protagonist’s stepmother, the evil queen, was struck by lightning, forced off a cliff and crushed by a boulder; Tarantino would have approved of this tripartite brutality.

THE INDEPENDENT

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Picture Essay

t he s un day gua rdia n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

A young life and a promising career were nipped in the bud when 25-year-old Aussie batsman Philip Hughes (30 November 198827 November 2014) died after he was struck on the back of the head by a bouncer. The shock waves were felt across the cricketing world, and the tributes were moving and emotional.

Joe Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was the burliest of British R&B shouters. His biggest hit was his cover of The Beatles’ With A Little Help From My Friends, later the theme song for The Wonder Years.

th e s un day gua r d ia n 2 0 : s uppl e m e nt to t he s unday g ua r d i a n | 2 8 . 1 2 . 2 0 1 4 | ne w d e l hi

B.K.S Iyengar (14 December 1918-20 August 2014) probably did more than anyone before or after to take yoga to the world. His brand of “Iyengar yoga” lives on among the thousands of disciples he left behind, attempting various aasans from Tokyo to Toronto.

Picture Essay 31

Oscar de la Renta (22 July 1932-20 October 2014) was the couturier the stars preferred. He dressed every First Lady since Jacqueline Kennedy, designed gowns for everyone from Oprah to Anne Hathaway, and himself entered the Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 1973.

Not fade away There were so many deaths that affected us deeply in 2014. Some moved us to anger, like Eric Garner’s. Others, like Game of Thrones’ King Joffrey’s, caused a most unseemly joy. Several were tragic in the extreme, yet managed to bring disparate communities together in shared grief, as in the case of Aussie cricketer Phillip Hughes. In this photo-memorium, we pay our respects to those who, as George Harrison put it, had control of our smiles and our tears.

The fact that someone as supremely talented and beloved as Robin Williams (21 July 1951-11 August 2014) could be moved to take his own life only underscores how little depression has to do with levels of personal success. Yet, few have done as much in their lifetime to assuage other people’s blues.

Boxing champ Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (6 May 1937-20 April 2014) was wrongfully convicted on a triple homocide charge in 1966. His story inspired a Bob Dylan song and a movie starring Denzel Washington. He was finally freed in 1985.

He was, quite simply, the supreme character actor of his generation. Phillip Seymour Hoffman (23 July 1967-2 February 2014) shone in films like Capote, Almost Famous, Synecdoche, New York, Doubt and The Master — and that’s just a severely truncated shortlist.

He was not, by his own estimation, a nice man to know, but man, was he fun to read!

Khushwant Singh (2 February 1915-20 March 2014) wrote about everything from his experiences with women to the history of the Sikhs with the same candour, humour and clarity.

In April this year, it was announced that after 74 years, Archie Andrews (December 1941-July 2014) would meet his end. He died in typically heroic fashion, taking a bullet for his gay friend Kevin Keller. The character continued to live in the “Classic Archie” series; his demise was limited to the “Life with Archie” storyline.

Pran Kumar Sharma’s (15 August 1938-5 August 2014) comic strip about a canny old man with a white turban and his muscular sidekick whose rage caused volcanos to erupt on Jupiter were an inextricable part of childhood for several generations of Indians.

“Put your lips together and blow.” With that dynamite line in To Have and Have Not, Lauren Bacall (16 September 1924-12 August 2014) began her long professional and personal association with Humphrey Bogart, and her even longer relationship with awestruck audiences.

Maya Angelou (4 April 1928-28 May 2014) left behind a formidable legacy as a poet. Her works, which include her landmark debut I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, were political and personal, vivid and incisive. She was also a professional dancer, and even recorded a calypso album.

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Technologic

game gear

t he s un day gua rdia n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

2014: Kings of the console DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR: THIEF

Thief 3: Deadly Shadows, released in 2004, was, along with the Hitman franchise, the benchmark for stealth videogames for close to a decade (until Dishonored came along).

Fans of the franchise were made to wait 10 years for Garrett, the master thief to return, and the result, in 2014’s Thief reboot was far from satisfactory. While the basic mechanics of Thief are in place (sneaking, firing arrows, and stealthily disposing of foes), there are far too many flaws which are simply unforgivable in 2014. The AI is unbelievably dimwitted, story missions are far too linear, and it’s actually the side missions of petty theft that are actually the most exciting. Sure, it looks pretty and the dive-and-swoop mechanic is fun for a while, but Thief is a game that would have shone five years ago. When compared to the current generation of stealth titles, Thief just feels too boring, clunky, and old, to be of any consequence. I’d rank it as my biggest disappointment since Duke Nukem Forever.

OVERALL GAME OF THE YEAR: MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR HOLLYWOOD GAME OF THE YEAR: CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE With the amount of hype (not to mention money) that surrounds Call of Duty titles these days, it’s hard not to compare them to Hollywood movies. CoD took the next step in that direction with Advanced Warfare, by casting Kevin Spacey as the lead antagonist. He does a stellar job with his voice acting, and the in-game character model created for him is truly breathtaking. Of course, the game itself isn’t terrible. Variety had been desperately lacking in Call of Duty for the last couple of years, and the introduction of the new set of EXO skills (limited though they may be), is finally taking the series away from the stagnant mess it had become. Even so, Call of Duty is the videogame world’s equivalent of a Michael Bay film. If you’re in the mood for it, the bangs and whistles are an absolute blast.

Developers have tried, without success, for over a decade, to create a videogame that could do justice to J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, but finally in 2014, we have a winner. This was a hard choice to make, given the number of AAA titles we’ve seen this year, but I believe videogames are defined by the amount of fun you can have with them, and the fun in Shadow of Mordor is endless. Between the Nemesis System (which is detailed in the Innovation of the Year section), the amazingly tight combat system, the fantastically designed open world, and the amazing set of special abilities, there is never a dull moment in Shadow of Mordor. Despite borrowing heavily from Assassin’s Creed and the Arkham series, it’s greater than a sum of those parts, creating a videogame that’s ridiculously hard to put down. It’s one of those games in which I genuinely wanted to complete all the side quests, and extend the experience for as long as possible. A winner, all the way.

Honorable mentions: Assassin’s Creed Unity, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Destiny

WHAT’S THE POINT: GOAT SIMULATOR

Yes, you read that right— Goat Simulator exists, and is by far the most stupidly fun game you’re likely to find this year.

You would think, going by “Simulator” moniker that this is a tactical game about some kind of shepherd, but you would be wrong. Goat Simulator puts you in charge of, well, a goat, that wreaks havoc in an open-world environment.

There’s really no point or objective to the game. You just take your (invincible) goat and run around a neighbourhood populated by unsuspecting (and rather stupid) humans, headbutting everything in sight, and generally wreaking havoc thanks to the game’s ludicrously exaggerated physics.

Headbutt a boulder and it’ll roll into a house and lay waste to the residents. As to why there are boulders lying around residential areas, I have no idea. You can also get run over by cars and trucks, push humans off cranes, and generally destroy everything in sight while never dying. The game is heavily bug-ridden, and the developers have gone on record, saying this is intentional, to add to the game’s hilarity. It’s ridiculous fun for a few hours. Goat Simulator is karma biting humans in the rear as revenge for centuries of mutton biryani.

TRIPPY GAME OF THE YEAR: STICK IT TO THE MAN Technically, this game doesn’t qualify for the 2014 awards, considering it released in December 2013, but we’ll make an exception. Stick it to the Man is one of the craziest and funniest games of this year. You play the story of Ray, a lovable, bumbling protagonist whose brain is hijacked by an alien being, which manifests in the form of a pink spaghetti arm on top of his head — that trippy enough for you? The two-dimensional platformer has a gorgeous paper-cut-out animation style, and oscillates between solving hilarious puzzles, and quick chase sequences.

The spaghetti arm lets you swing effortlessly between platforms and also allows you to read the minds of every single non-player-character, in order to find clues for puzzles. The writing is absolutely top-notch and the game has a number of laugh-out-loud moments along the way to a happy, feel-good ending.

IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT: DARK SOULS 2

INNOVATION OF THE YEAR: NEMESIS SYSTEM - SHADOW OF MORDOR

OLD SCHOOL GAME OF THE YEAR: WOLFENSTIEN – THE NEW ORDER You can’t get any more old-school than Wolfenstein. Often regarded as the “original” first person shooter, Wolfenstein has evolved over the years, keeping abreast with visual technology and game design, but still stays true to its roots. The New Order is exactly what you’d expect from a 90s shooter— tons of big guns, linear corridors with hordes of pissed-off Nazis, and of course, med-kits, the original technique of in-game healing. It’s the perfect formula for mindless shooting, especially when coupled with a gorgeous visual engine and seriously tight gunplay. There’s rarely a dull moment in Wolfenstein: The New Order, making it our pick for not just the best old-school game of the year, but the best shooter of the the year as well. Also, you get to shoot Nazis on the moon. What could possibly be more fun?

I reviewed Shadow of Mordor a few months ago, but couldn’t get into the gritty details of one of 2014’s greatest gameplay innovations— the Nemesis System. In the open-world of Mordor, your ultimate goal is to get all the Orc Chiefs to do your bidding in order to overthrow Sauron. However, none of the warchief interactions are scripted. Each warchief is randomly generated, with a random set of skills, abilities, and fears; but what makes things even more interesting is the fact that they remember battles with you and seek revenge. For instance, if you burn an orc alive and he somehow survives, he will hunt you down while you’re in the middle of an entirely different mission, and often appear out of nowhere, adding a variable of uncertainty. What’s more, the next time you see him, his face will have burn-marks and he’ll remember. With Shadow of Mordor’s amazing combat system, you’ll often lose sight of the story itself and spend hours hunting down Orc chieftains who have defeated you and risen to prominence, or creating chaos in an dynamic, constantly-evolving battlefield of foes who start to grow on you.

EERIE GAME OF THE YEAR: THE EVIL WITHIN It should come as no surprise that a game by Shinji Mikami is bagging this award. As the creator of the iconic Resident Evil series, you’d he knows his survival-horror games inside out, and The Evil Within is exactly what we’ve come to expect from him. It’s set in a dark, but oddly beautiful zombie apocalypse, with the walking dead wielding chainsaws, amongst other things. The pacing and combat design makes for ridiculously tense battles, especially given that med-kits, stamina, and even weapons are in short supply, and upgrades are hard to find without some risky exploration. The hallmark of a good survival horror game is not just cheap thrills, but the sense of foreboding, and a constant fear of dying, and that’s where The Evil Within really shines. There are enemies and traps lurking behind every corner, and if you try to blindly run away from a foe who’s overpowering you, it could well end with your leg being blown up by a landmine. The game does look and feel a LOT like Resident Evil, but not in a bad way. It’s an old-school formula that works really well for the survival horror genre. Tense battles, tight shooting mechanics and some gorgeous visuals make The Evil Within the quintessential Mikami title— best played with the lights off, of course.

There are some games that offer a stiff challenge, and there are some that are just downright impossible. Dark Souls 2 (and its predecessor) fall into the latter category. The Dark Souls franchise has something of a cult following purely because of the amount of skill and pure determination it takes to survive in the game. Those who have completed it look down at quitters as lesser mortals. In Dark Souls 2, you play the role of a nameless soldier who must hack and slash his way in third person, through an unforgiving world filled with all manner of undead creatures, from sword-wielding skeletons (who look easy enough to kill but aren’t) to behemoth bosses. During the course of your journey, you will die, several hundred (if not thousand) times, but here’s the catch— every time you die, you leave behind all your accrued experience and ability in the spot of your demise, and have just one chance to reclaim it. If you fail, you’ve effectively lost all your abilities and have to start from scratch. Combat is brutally intense, and completely reliant on timing and patience, and an understanding of the weight and power of the weapon you wield. Weapons deteriorate, and magical power is scarce. Dark Souls 2 is probably the most challenging and unforgiving game of 2014, and you can pat yourself on the back if you’ve managed to reach the end.

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th e s u n day g u a rd ian 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e su n day gu ar dian | 28.12.2014 | n ew delh i

Tech recall 2014: Merry Christmas and a hacking new year able). Google was far from their usual minimalist self in their launches of two new additions to the Nexus family, a revamped OS, Android One and Google Cardboard.

Google Cardboard recently received a bump in fan following when Google Street View added a Google Cardboard mode. This means that Google I/O takes home the trophy in 2014.

sanshey biswas

Awesome Acquisition

Lenovo buys Motorola from Google “On 27 January 2014 Google and Samsung signed a wideranging global patent deal which will last a decade,” reported Gordon Kelly of Forbes. As part of the deal, Samsung agreed to tone down TouchWiz and refocus on core Android apps instead of replacing them with their own apps. Two days later, Google announced the sale of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo; both agreements had been working in parallel.

If Apple Inc. buying Beats by Dr. Dre was interesting, the background of the GoogleMotorola deal was epic, with a mash-up of deceit and retribution. Google showed up at the battlefield where Samsung was preparing to attack with Tizen OS and showed them who was boss. As a result, Samsung’s home-grown Tizen — the Android clone — lives on as a smartwatch device and all the upcoming Android devices make their gratefulness apparent with “Powered by Android” animation on start-up.

design to die for

Yoga Tablet 2 Pro Lenovo Price: Rs. 49,490 Design can’t just be about aesthetics. The device has to stand its ground against competitors. In the case of tablets, the dominance of the iPad has reduced experimentation by its competition. Unless, of

Omair Ahmad

Growing the future

A

couple of years ago, my wife came back from a trip to her office headquarters in the U.S. Since she was working with Microsoft at that point, one of the attendant pleasures of the trip was observing the awesome new technologies that Microsoft was working on. So she was the first person who could say she had seen a 3D printer at work.

Just describing it working sounded so cool, that I did a bit of research about what it was. I had heard the term a while back, or maybe read it in The Economist or some such publication, but had not paid much attention to it. At the end of it, though,

best new idea that didn’t quite catch on

Apple Pay One technology that got us interested and almost became a thing was mobile payments. When Google came up with Google Wallet, it was expected to change the way we pay. To a great extent it did manage to do that, as Google Play started hosting content ranging from apps, newspaper, magazine, book, music and movies. But it failed to penetrate the real world, like paying for, say, a meal in a restaurant. This year, Apple decided to venture into the field of payments, with a well-devised strategy of partnering with major card provides and banks as well as leveraging their popularity to convince stores and outlets to accept the mode of payment.

The system seems too distant a dream for India but for it to cross shores, it has to prove it’s likeability in the American market first (something it is yet to do).

Fitness friend

Vessyl Mark One Price: $117 While people are getting hooked onto wearables from Jawbone, Fitbit, Garmin and Android Wear devices, Mark One chose to take the road less travelled. Vessyl is a sipper that keeps count of your calorie intake from liquids (the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Education Survey stated that beverages were the top source of calories). Vessyl detects what you’re drinking, how much of it you’re drinking, and communicates it to the smartphone app. The app keeps track of your intake to help you lose weight, stay hydrated, prevent jitters from excess caffeine, time beverage intake to avoid waking up for loo breaks, curb sugar intake and help build muscles with optimal protein intake.

FULL SPECTRUM

Security Breach

course, you get the former host of Punk’d on your team.

Ashton Kutcher didn’t just have a different idea about tablet design, he took it just far enough for the Lenovo tablet to create an identity that’s not just appealing but also practical. The tablet looks and feels like a magazine, with a round edge on one side. The engineers managed to pack in an impressive JBL speaker unit, projector, kickstand and 9,600 mAh battery. The retractable kickstand sticks to the body, while the neat cut-out for the sub-woofer lets you hang the tablet on the wall. Overall, the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is a beauty.

The power button, ports and volume rocker populate on one edge while the projector button takes up the other.

With a 13.3-inch display that’s sharper than HD, this tablet can replace your PC if

BLOG SURFER

an Android OS on an Intel Atom processor meets your daily needs.

Biggest Bummer

Nexus 6 Google and Motorola Price: Rs 44,000 Nexus 6 is a really good phone. A bit on the higher side in terms of price, but some of the features, like the 15 minutes of charging for six hours of usage, are really nice but not unique. Despite running on Android Lollipop (5.0), which supports 64-bit processors, and having the greatest UI overhaul since Android 4.0, the device falls short in several aspects. The design just got too big for easy usage with a 6-inch screen that is ideal for reading ebooks and gaming, but not for one-hand usage.

Despite the fact that its OS supports 64-bit processors —

which would mean massive improvements in gaming and the speed at which apps load — the Nexus 6 continues to use a 32-bit processor that doesn’t leverage the OS’s abilities. Considering the successful upgrade that Nexus 5 was, Nexus 6 lacks the excitement it should have created on launch.

paranoid android

Elon Musk When Stephen Hawking told the BBC that he was worried about advancements in the field of AI (artificial intelligence) because the human race, limited by slow biological evolution, would eventually be supressed by a self-improving entity, people took his words with the seriousness they deserve. When Elon Musk said the same, however, it was kind of weird.

Elon, who made PayPal and

Tesla into billion dollar companies, has also invested in Vicarious, a AI company.

In that light, his tweet (“We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes”) definitely makes him the paranoid techie of the year.

Crucial keynote

Google I/O 2014 Companies have been very busy in 2014 with the three tech giants — Microsoft, Apple and Google — dabbling in everything from wearables to OS. We saw Microsoft releasing the technical preview to Windows 10, which is ideally a point of singularity for their phones, tablets and PCs. Apple went all guns blazing with the first batch of iPhones with larger screens and confirmations of the first wearable by the company (iPod Nano does not count as a wear-

TweetDeck @derGeruhn 2014 saw Tor being tormented, SSL being fooled, Sony extorted and passwords stolen from Instagram, iCloud and more. The most interesting event of the year, however, was one that barely lasted for a day but was so simple and effective, we had to award it the best security breach of 2014. After a user realised that TweetDeck wasn’t treating the tweets composed in a dialogue box as just text, the user drew a heart in the tweet using HTML code. This let users send popups to anyone on twitter at will. Things got really interesting when @derGeruhn picked up on the exploit and wrote a selfre-tweeting tweet using JavaScript and set off a chain reaction. By the Twitter managed to fix the problem, accounts of BBC and White House had been affected and @derGeruhn had already gathered over 40,000 retweets.All in 140 characters.

Silhouette slits You cut with a knife, you don’t cut into a knife. Or so we thought. Li Hongbo, from Beijing, China, decided to redefine our worldview by doing exactly that, and now we’re left wondering what’s real and what isn’t. He cuts into a butcher’s knife, creating monochrome, 2D silhouettes of everything from animals, man and even skeletons to life. Head over to his page to view his mind-bending installations and sculptures. www.cbal.com.hk

FoldaRap, a RepRap Project 3D printer.

I thought how interesting could it be? I was wrong, largely because I just had not exercised my imagination.

Basically 3D printers are somewhat like a common printer, in that a printer prints a number of dots on a piece of paper.

The old dot matrix printers used to punch little rods against a ribbon which would impress the paper with colour, inkjet printers spray ink, and LaserJet printers use electricity to imprint ink on the paper. Dot matrix printers had a very low resolution, something like 60 to a 100 dots per inch (dpi), while inkjet printers do some hundreds of dots per inch, and LaserJet can do something like 2,500 dpi inch at their highest resolution. In other words you are laying colour down. But imagine if you could put so much colour that you could pile it up on the paper? In a sense this is what 3D printers do. In 1986 Charles Hull patented “stereolithography”, a means to do exactly that.

Hull designed a way that a machine could work with photopolymer (light sensitive plastic). A laser would focus on the liquid polymer, solidifying a single layer in the design, and then work down another layer, solidifying that, and on through a series of multiple iterations until the solidified polymer had built the design. While this sounds like a painfully slow and boring way of doing things, it opened up a whole new way of thinking. The process is now generally called “additive manufacturing”, in which one thin layer is added to another to build things up, just like a person would build a house, a layer of brick at a time. Since then, different methods of 3D printing have come up: some involve the printing, layer upon layer, of treated polymers, others involve extruding plastic heated to a certain temperature and binding it. In fact many 3D printers are now commercially available, costing about a lakh onward (though much cheaper ones cost a few thousand rupees but are of limited functionality), with their plastic cartridges, using material like that found in Lego blocks, that you can use in your own drawing room.

M

ore interesting — as well as far more expensive 3D printers — can extrude metals, concrete and even chocolate. The Imperial Machine & Tool Company has used this technology to build lighter metal nuts for artillery pieces. They used additive manufacturing to build metal nuts that had small gaps, like a honeycomb, so that they remained strong, but were much lighter. This allowed the engineers designing the A laser would M777 Howitzer to make a much lighter artillery piece focus on the liquid which, in turn, makes it much polymer, solidifying easier to carry by helicopters. a single layer in the In 2006 the US issued its first patent for “bio-printing” or design, and then a process to print biological work down another products, such as skin tissue, or heart tissue. Now, instead of layer, solidifying the difficult process of grafting that, and on through skin from one part of a body to a series of multiple another, you can conceivably print it instead. This would iterations until the make cosmetic surgery easy, solidified polymer and burn victims, or acid attack victims could have their had built the design. skin perfectly replaced, although of course the nerve damage would have to be repaired. But maybe that is only a technological step ahead, when we learn how to print those too.

Maybe the most intriguing part of the 3D printing revolution is the RepRap Project. The RepRap Project is a British initiative pioneered by Adrian Bowyer, a lecturer at Bath University.

His idea was to design a 3D printer that could build most of its parts itself. In other words, a successful RepRap machine would be a self-replicating machine that could make endless copies of itself, of course with the necessary basic material.

The RepRap project is an open source one, and it has driven many of the advances in 3D printing in the last few years because of the excitement it has generated and the ingenuity it has inspired. What it leads to, all of us will soon see.

Omair Ahmad is a Delhi-based writer, still making up for being a failed science student. His last book was Kingdom at the Centre of the World: Journeys into Bhutan (Aleph, 2013).

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Masala Art

the sunday guardian 20: supplement to the sunday guardian | 28.12.2014 | new delhi

Stories yet untold: The year in non-fiction film

The end of the Dhoom series is (sadly) nowhere in sight

tanul thakur

Earlier this year in November, it was reported that Aditya Chopra would launch Shahrukh Khan’s son, Aryan, in Dhoom:6. Those who don’t care about Aryan’s acting debut (everyone), could only think: What?! There’s going to be a Dhoom...

6? We are still getting over Dhoom:3, and that was more than a year ago. Will this series never end? Will Dhoom:25 star Aryan’s son’s son’s son?

S

omewhere around the halfway mark of Nisha Pahuja’s documentary The World Before Her, 24-year-old Prachi Trivedi, one of the two protagonists of the film, opens up about her father. “Do you get angry if he hits you?” asks Pahuja of Trivedi.

We’ve been told that he’s occasionally hit her in the past; “hitting”, in fact, would not be wholly accurate.

Twelve years ago, she lied to him for the first time; he found out, and burnt her feet with a scalding iron rod. But she doesn’t hold that against him.

“He’s given me birth; he has all the right,” she says. “Knowing that I am a girl child, he let me live. In a traditional family, people don’t let a girl child live. (…) So when this thing comes in my mind na, I feel like crying many times.” In less than a minute, this scene says more about Indians’ eternal confusion over the definition of traditional and modern than some narrative features have managed to say in their entire runtime. You can dismiss disturbing fictional films by shrugging, “Oh, it’s just a... ‘film’.”

Documentaries, on the other hand, don’t allow an escape. They corner and confront us, and say, this really happened. You can’t reason with or resent life. It is what it is. It’s also precisely the reason that documentaries, at their finest, often trump most narrative features.

Besides The World Before Her, three other stellar documentaries hit the screens earlier this year — Nishtha Jain’s Gulabi Gang was based on Uttar Pradesh’s rural women activists rallying for women’s rights; Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar’s Katiyabaaz explored Kanpur’s power crisis, and Beyond All Boundaries, by Sushrut Jain, was centered on India’s victory in the 2011 Cricket World Cup. These documentaries, for the most part, eschewed talking heads, needless exposition and title cards to propel their stories and, as a result, resembled fictional films. Equally notable is the fact that all the four documentaries, to varying degrees, are about Indian women negotiating their place in “New India”. Both Gulabi Gang, through a hot-headed vigilante, and The World Before Her, with its Miss India aspirant and Hindu nationalist, directly dealt with the identities of Indian women, but even Katiyabaaz, a film on wilful bureaucracy, included a subplot detailing the challenges of the state’s first women IAS officer, and Beyond

WhatsApp bots tried to kill Dilip Kumar, failed

Something’s really wrong with our country when it comes to greying film legends.

We just don’t want them to live. We nearly killed Dilip Kumar. Kumar was unwell for a while, which prompted some users on film-related WhatsApp groups to circulate rumours about his death. The rumours were spread twice this year, but the second time around they reached the point where Saira Banu, Kumar’s wife, had to issue a public statement saying the actor was fine.

Despite our best efforts, bhai remained unmarried As a nation, we are obsessed with Salman Khan.

We watch his films; we call him bhai; we wear Being Human tees, and we have been waiting for him to get married for a while now. This year, he was not only linked to a Romanian actor Lulia Vantur, but repeated “reports” about bhai’s marriage resurfaced online. Calm down, India; can you give bhai his space? In case you have forgotten, he still has to get that pesky court case off his back. (Forgot? So did we.

Bandra something, footpath something, SUV something.)

Clockwise from top left: Posters of Beyond All Boundaries, Gulabi Gang, The World Before Her, Katiyabaaz.

These documentaries, for the most part, eschewed talking heads, needless exposition and title cards to propel their stories and, as a result, resembled fictional films.

All Boundaries, for almost one-third of its runtime, told the story of an impoverished teenage girl preparing for the trials of the Mumbai under-19 women’s team. With the exception of Gulabi Gang, the stories of these Indians aren’t typically “newsworthy”, but their emergence in well-made documentaries suggests that some Indian filmmakers are willing to take the extra step to bring India and Indians, without embellishments, to theatres.

Moreover, three out of the four documentaries released in the year have been made by women filmmakers — a refreshing departure from Bollywood, which still remains

male-dominated (only five current mainstream female directors come to mind: Zoya Akhtar, Anusha Rizvi, Gauri Shinde, Reema Kagti and Farah Khan). In the last couple of years, discourses on women’s rights and feminism have intensified in the country, as they should, and these documentaries adeptly encapsulated the national mood. This change, quite sadly, has come about because of a horrific crime — the Delhi gangrape incident on 16 December 2012 — and its ramifications helped bring The World Before Her to theatres. In late 2012, Pahuja’s documentary had toured around the world, and she thought the film’s journey was over. But after the infamous rape case, Pahuja said that she “realised [her] responsibility as a filmmaker, and that the film needed to reach a lot more people”.

Pahuja, born in India, bred in Canada, returned to her country of birth to make The World Before Her. Her observational filmmaking (in many scenes, the camera plainly watches young dismayed faces of Hindu nationaliststo-be and Miss India hopefuls with a lot of empathy) and penetrating jour-

nalism are poignant reminders of the effectiveness of a director making a film on her country. It is difficult — if not completely impossible — to truly understand India, and this exercise can become unwieldy if you are not Indian or, rather, don’t belong to India. In the past, some foreign writers and filmmakers have, with mixed results, tried to capture and understand the beast that is India — ranging from Katherine Boo’s meticulously researched and beautifully written non-fiction book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers (a rare feat), to Danny Boyle’s widely celebrated but mediocre attempt in Slumdog Millionaire. And that has been the norm. We don’t really document our stories, which is why our narratives, for the most part, have been at the mercy of foreign correspondents, who have often missed the point. And one can’t blame them entirely; the larger question is — what are we doing with our stories?

Indian documentaries don’t scream commercial viability, which makes their marketing prospects poor and, consequently, don’t really inspire confidence in aspiring filmmakers. But, thankfully, the unrelenting odds haven’t deterred this filmmaking community. The year also saw some yet-to-be-released but nevertheless fine documentaries. I Am Not Offended took a close look at the burgeoning culture of stand-up comics in the country, placed within the context of growing cultural intolerance. Goonga Pehelwan brought to fore the plight of aurally challenged champion wrestler Virender Singh, who had been denied a fair chance to compete at the Olympics for more than a decade. Placebo, a hybrid documentary that examined the lives of four Indian college students trying to understand the notion of success, competed at The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in November. It remains to be seen whether these documentaries will eventually make it to the big screen, but the fact that they exist is reassuring, because these films signify that there are people out there who care about their stories — our stories — and they obsess enough about them despite the crippling odds.

We like stories; it’s difficult to remain indifferent to them but, think about it, not many storytellers can back their riveting accounts by the footnote, “You know, this really happened.” Documentary filmmakers can. Take your victories as they come.

Idris Elba could be the next James Bond ROSE TROUP BUCHANAN

Idris Elba could be the next James Bond, according to the latest Sony Entertainment leaks. The 42-yearold British star, best known for playing Nelson Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom and starring in HBO drama The Wire, is allegedly under consider-

Idris Elba.

ation as the seventh incarnation of Ian Fleming’s iconic spy. A leaked email from Amy Pascal, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s motion pictures group, apparently states: “Idris should be the next Bond,” according to The Daily Beast.

Pascal was emailing Elizabeth Cantillon, the former executive vice president of production for Columbia Pictures —

which distributes the Bond franchise.

Elba has previously said he would play Bond. During a Reddit AMA in September he responded to a fan’s question of whether he’d be willing to take the role, writing: “Yes, if it was offered to me, absolutely.” Daniel Craig, who is currently filming his fourth appearance as Bond in Spectre, has voiced his desire to leave. The Independent

rani Mukerji - 1, ridiculous rumour mills - 0

Alimony makes the world go round Following the split between Hrithik Roshan and Suzzanne Khan, reports emerged that Roshan had to pay his ex-wife alimony of Rs 400 crore or, as Roshan would have called it, 2.87 times Bang! Bang! (we did the math). The rumours ticked off Roshan, who tweeted, “Fabricated news articles. Demeaning my loved ones. Testing my patience.” The last line, quite ironically, holds true for some recent releases starring Roshan. (Krrish, stop hiding in that corner.)

The rumours about Rani Mukerji’s marriage died only when the actress eventually got married (brownie points for tenacity! #GroupHug. Not really). What could the next possible rumour about her have been once she got married?

Her pregnancy. The actress, however, was pretty zen about it (that’s what 18 years of being in Bollywood does to you). “The rumours about my marriage started even before I actually got married, started seeing my husband,” Mukerji told PTI. “If the rumours of [my] pregnancy come true then, great, very soon I will become pregnant also. Because these rumours will somewhere reach the universe, and the universe will make it happen.” Well played, Mrs Mukerji.

Masala Art 35

the sunday guardian 20: supplement to the sunday guardian | 28.12.2014 | n ew d elh i

WORDS

HOLLY

“A stutter can be like a straitjacket.

I struggled with vowels.”

Looking back at an exceptional & delightful year at the movies Not every film needs to be groomed for a place on a top 10 list. Sometimes, you just want a well made, beautifully acted drama, comedy or genre picture that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator or look like it was made with a cellphone camera and first-time actors.

— Emily Blunt opens up about her childhood stutter.

video drome “Even at my most successful, I just wanted to be home.”

— Russell Crowe hopes that the commercial success of his directorial debut, The Water Diviner, will fulfil his ultimate career goal: to be back in Australia.

“People always look for something to complain about.”

— Christopher Nolan on being reminded that Interstellar had passages of inaudible dialogue.

“I’m shocked and thankful that I’ve gotten away with everything.”

— Michael Keaton on life before Birdman..

Abhimanyu Das

be kind, rewind

2

014 was an exceptional year for cinema. Despite the vagaries of an ever more risk-averse industry, the cornucopia of auteurist masterpieces, relatively adventurous blockbusters and challenging arthouse fare has made the creation of seasonal top ten lists even more pointless and reductive than usual. A further layer of redundancy is added by this year’s resurgence in production of that endangered species in Western cinema: mid-budget films for grownups. Not every film needs to be groomed for a place on a top 10 list. Sometimes, you just want a well made, beautifully acted drama, comedy or genre picture that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator or look like it was made with a cellphone camera and first-time actors.

These films might not hit the sublime peaks of the year’s best but they count as the sort of work that used to form the backbone of the film industry.

Tilda Swinton and (right) Tom Hiddleston in Only Lovers Left Alive.

So we get not-quite-flawless yet artistically significant efforts such as Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy’s scuzzy neo-noir about a sociopathic news cameraman, or Whiplash, Damien Chazelle’s punishing portrait of a drumming student, his teacher and their mutually enabling madness, or Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier’s bloody stab at the most morally centered revenge thriller you’re likely to see.

Workhorses one and all, these films (and many of their midsize ilk) provided some of the most satisfying theatre experiences of the year.

Other 2014 gems include efforts in list-resistant genres such as action and horror.

There was John Wick, Chad Stahelski’s note-perfect revitalisation of the “this time it’s personal” subgenre of action filmmaking, a riveting meld of comic-book-y world building, ferocious set pieces and a purified-in-fire Keanu Reeves. Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent gave

us The Babadook, possibly 2014’s most unsettling horror film, in which it’s never clear whether the titular spectre is supernatural in origin or the creation of a mind unraveled by death, loss and regret.

Sublime in a more grounded but no less impressive fashion was Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, an impressive cinematic experiment that charts a transformative decade-long stretch in the life of a boy and his family. The hook, as we all know, is that it was filmed over 12 years, using the same actors throughout. The result is an often revelatory feature that captures many universal truths about growing up along with some culturespecific ones about coming of age in 21st century America.

Almost as concerned with parenthood as it is about boyhood, it sees Patricia Arquette mount what might be the most compelling and heartbreaking evocation of single motherhood committed to film.

Equally grounded and boasting existential stakes that are just as grand is the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days One Night. It stars Marion Cotillard as a factory worker who recovers from a nervous breakdown only to discover that her coworkers are being forced to choose between their annual bonuses and keeping her on the workforce, leaving her with one weekend to sway their votes. Anchored by the directors’ trademark observational style and Cotillard’s naturalistic blend of determination and vulnerability, the film begins as a socioeconomic allegory about the beleaguered working class and ends up a rousing celebration of individual wellbeing as fostered by community solidarity. Contrast that with the acidic misanthropy of David Fincher’s brutally cynical adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Casting aspersions on everything from the institution of marriage to cable news to contemporary

society’s addiction to tragedy porn, Fincher’s formal control translates Flynn’s perverse melodrama with nary a false step.

Paul Thomas Anderson continued his hot streak of masterpieces with the shambolic Inherent Vice, taking Thomas Pynchon’s dense procedural plot and using it to deconstruct a tradition of L.A. noirs that stretches back to the 1970s. Crawling with double crosses and conspiracies, it’s of a whole with films such as Chinatown and The Long Goodbye, casting a longing look back at the fading promise of countercultural thought while glancing fearfully forward at a bleak and uncertain future. Joaquin Phoenix’s Doc Sportello is the hapless everyman, bounced along by tidal forces entirely out of his control.

Science fiction cinema also made a strong showing this year. The supremely entertaining and undeniably smart Snowpiercer — Bong Joon-Ho’s dystopian allegory about class warfare — made a lot of waves but the superior work came from Jonathan Glazer, whose chilly Under the Skin was unlike any sci-fi film I’ve ever seen. A throbbing accumulation of atmo-

sphere and dread, it follows Scarlett Johansson’s alluring extraterrestrial around Scotland as she lures unsuspecting men into a bizarre trap for reasons that remain unclear.

A surreal, abstract and darkly beautiful film that boasts some genuinely unique imagery, its exploration of sexual dynamics is given a nigh-on apocalyptic cast with a third act flip in power relations. It turns out that even the most indomitable of alien powers can be brought low within the confines of the fatally flawed human body.

Finally, if someone — say, my editor — put a gun to my head and asked me to pick a 2014 favourite, I’d choose Jim Jarmusch’s melancholy vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive. An ecstatic celebration of human achievement paired with a lamentation of our tendency to let it all fall to ruin, the film remains Romantic with a capital R as Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton’s impossibly sexy bloodsuckers find solace in each other’s arms amidst the ruins of civilisations past. Jarmusch posits true love and good taste as the only forces capable of delaying time and entropy. As another year draws to an end, it’s difficult to argue.

What the Sony cyber-attack taught Hollywood cancelled the Christmas release of the film that apparently prompted the attack Hackers had made threats towards any cinema that showed The Interview, a comedy about two US television journalists sent by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

A day after Sony’s capitulation, Paramount studios vetoed screenings of its 2004 comedy Team America: World Police, which several cinemas planned to show in place of The Interview. In Team America, Kim Jong-il is impaled on a spike and revealed to be an alien cockroach in disguise.

In The Interview, his son and

James Franco and Deth Rogen in The Interview.

successor is killed in a rocket explosion.

Another North Korea-set film was scrapped this week by production company New Regency. Steve Carell was set to star in Pyongyang, a darkly comic thriller based on a

graphic novel, which was slated to go into production next March.

President Obama said on Friday that Sony had “made a mistake” in capitulating to the hackers. “We cannot have a society in which some

dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” he said. “If somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary they don’t like, or news reports they don’t like. Even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended.”

Studios have the same arguments about art and money as the rest of us

A razor-sharp thriller, almost faultless in execution Ugly

enough, the rest of his films have largely failed to come together as a whole. There’s absolutely no doubting that, in parts, they have glittered with flashes of unrivalled brilliance but, eventually, also buckled under the weight of disparate characters, subplots and motifs. Most Kashyap films exhibit the vigour of a 100m sprinter running a 400m race; you admire the intensity, but object to the naiveté.

Ugly’s protagonists belong to the carnivorous world of Bollywood’s underbelly — their aspirations and dwellings have nothing in common (one particularly fascinating scene has a female protagonist telling her friend to step outside the house so she can change clothes); these characters are cunning, manipulative, dishonest, discourteous, and always fixated on swinging things their way — in short,

took over Disney Animation, he established a similar group there, and was rewarded with a string of hits including Frozen.

Keen to establish a story trust of its own, Sony this year tried to recruit Phil Lord and Chris Miller, writer-directors of The Lego Movie, to lead its animation division.

But they declined the offer, and in emails cited the fact that Sony recently moved its visual effects outfit, Imageworks, to Vancouver for financial reasons, leading to an exodus of talent. “It’s too hard to do great work [at Sony],” Lord wrote.

THE INDEPENDENT

cinema scope tanul thakur

Director: Anurag Kashyap Starring: Rahul Bhat, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure Can you question a filmmaker for being ambitious? Most might dismiss that question as reductive, even rhetorical.

Because who can find fault with ambition? That’s exactly what you need to turn a mediocre film into a great one. Anurag Kashyap, now nine films old with his latest release, Ugly, is the kind of director whose films sear with ambition: they don’t compromise audacity, genuflect to a current political mood, fabled text or, when the need arises, even runtime. But wanting, doing and achieving are smoothly interlinked only in an ideal world. Kashyap has made only two movies in the past that have worked in their entirety: Black Friday (his only film that remained loyal to an existing source material), and Gangs of Wasseypur II, which relied on its prequel to introduce key characters and central conflict; strangely

In one document, a Sony employee lamented the “blah-ness” of some of the studio’s product, singling out “mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films” .Yet Sony is also a studio willing to take commercial risks, on films such as Moneyball, The Social Network, Zero Dark Thirty – and, let’s face it, The Interview.

Every studio wants its own Pixar “story trust” The success of Pixar is thought to be largely a product of its “story trust” of directors and other filmmakers, who consult extensively on every film the animation studio makes. After Pixar impresario John Lasseter

the absolute worst humans can be. This motley bunch is pitted against wilful, sadist, miscreant police officials who are convinced of the wrong answers even before asking the right questions. These sordid worlds meet because of the abduction of a 10-yearold girl (Kali). The central tension is riveting — a child at the mercy of adults who don’t know any better, and who are weakened because they keep letting their egos get in the way. In Ugly’s world, misanthropy is presented as a virtue — an essential lifeskill that helps you endure fellow sociopaths. They are all so caught up with saving themselves that rescuing Kali doesn’t seem like any sort of priority; it comes almost as an afterthought. It’s a harsh reality, like so many others in the film, that stares back at you silently, menacingly through the film.

Ugly is densely populated with characters, all vying for your attention. Each has his/ her own unique motivations, flaws and quirks. And they are all tied together in a plot that, at its crux, unfolds like a conventional police procedural drama. Balancing several well-developed characters in a gripping, galloping whodunit gives rise to a riveting game between Kashyap and his audience: he teases mercilessly, ensuring you’re so caught up in the story that you are completely devoted to unravelling the final outcome by yourself.

But then he also continues to introduce so many new characters and plot points that at some point you want to give up, and surrender to his whims. Kashyap maintains this ingenuity comfortably for the first three-fourths of Ugly’s runtime, which makes the film a sheer joy. For a change,

he seems determined to tame his ambitions, which has let him down so many times in the past. Here, he’s content to let go of his Filmmaker hangups, and let the story take centre stage because a film like Ugly, breathless in its pursuit, demands some slowing down on the director’s part. The more serious, psychological underpinnings don’t fade away because the story by itself is so rich, thrumming with profound insights about the human psyche.

And then, in the last 20 minutes, it comes back.

Kashyap refuses to let his story just be; he gets fixated on shoehorning disjointed plot diversions that would have sparkled as standalone short films, but don’t necessarily contribute to the bigger picture here. They also superfluously convolute the set up, imbuing the film with an esoteric quality that

is at odds with its otherwise razor-sharp narrative. Even the ultimate revelation crops up in a haphazard hurried fashion and, worse, the protagonists’ final fates are abruptly brushed aside, as if they were inconsequential sidekicks. We’re not asking for a neat summation of their ultimate fates, but we have stayed with the characters long enough to want to at least be offered a hint at what their futures might look like. The film, bizarrely, doesn’t believe it is important enough to stick with its characters till the end.

But by this time the film seems more focussed on presenting a consummate morbid, depraved world that offers no solace to its people. Most won’t doubt that worldview, but that world — in all its bleakness — doesn’t just exist by itself; it’s held together — or debased — by its people. One can’t exist without the other.

CINEMA SCOPE

Call it good timing or a chilling coincidence, but one of the most high-profile movie releases of January 2015 will be director Michael Mann’s thriller Blackhat, in which a brilliant hacker helps the United States authorities to pursue a cyber-criminal who hacks a Chinese nuclear reactor and a Chicago stock exchange with devastating results. The premise alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of Hollywood executives, following the recent cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Last month’s cyber-attack, the largest ever on a company on U.S. soil, crippled Sony’s computer systems, reducing some workers to using pen and paper. It also exposed the company to vast leaks of sensitive data, including employees’ details; financial records; and private emails between executives and other Hollywood players. In the process, the data dump provided a rare porthole into the mechanics of the film industry. This is what we have learnt.

Hollywood is more terrified of North Korea than you are O n We d n e s d ay, S o ny

CINEMA SCOPE

TIM WALKER

G-Style

G-Style

36 th e su n day g u a r d ian 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e su n day gu ar dian | 31.07.2011 | n ew tdhe elh s un i day gua rdia n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi 37

Weird fashion trends that we’re happy to leave behind in 2014 igh fashion has a complicated relationship with underground fashion; it takes turns deriding and adapting to it. Here are some local and international fashion trends that found mainstream acceptance in 2014. The question we’re asking here is, why?

a new trend — adding “man” to fashion accessories associated typically with women.

The “man bun” or “man satchel” come to mind. Celebrities such as Russell Brand and Justin Beiber have been seen endorsing manleggings in the past. (Russell Brand donned what looked like a deep necked kurta-tee on top to match his basic black leggings.) While this trend has been ridiculed in the past, it found a foothold in the mainstream this year.

Facekini

Hitler chic in Bangkok

payel majumdar

H

that light up every time the bass drops. Yes, you read that right. It gives you the strange impression that your fellow festivalgoer is getting electrocuted from time to time.

There is nothing wrong with flower headbands, but there is nothing right either, especially if you have faux plastic flowers and fake wires entangled in your carefully styled messy hair. Horns, the kind that go for Rs 20 a pair at India Gate, have the same effect. They need to go, pronto. Dear Indians, nothing cool about horns unless Yamraj is sporting it.

Wearing buckets that are still wet from the alcohol you have consumed from them — cute, but no. Girls, leave those oversized glasses at home. They are embarrassing.

It began with Chinese middle-aged women who abhorred the sun but loved beaches.

Reminiscent of masks worn by Mexican free wrestlers called Luchadors, these masks cover their entire face except for the eyes, nose and mouth. They are usually worn with a full body wet suit or a full sleeve T-shirt. While it started in Qingdao, China, where women were protecting themselves from UV rays and jellyfish stings, things started becoming bizarre when Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld deemed it worthy enough to merit a photoshoot of its own. Sophisticated swimsuits

by Armani, Alexander Wang and Michael Kors were teamed up with this Chinese summer accessory — the facekini.

ANTONIA FILMER

Chronometers by Bremont; Bollywood love tale in London

darker make-up. This trend has seen a surge during anime-cons, with cosplay characters parading around in petticoats, and more disturbingly, in children’s fashion.

Flowery beards

Meggings In what seems to be a throwback to the punk movement (think swastika tees), Führerinspired apparel and accessories are a rising trend in countries like Japan, South Korea, Thailand and China — one that’s drawn strong disapproval from western countries.

The trend spiralled out of a Ronald McDonald sporting a Hitler moustache. Hitler McDonald is a transvestite, with cherry-red hair and a stern expression, doing a Nazi salute. Hitler appears yet again in a pink panda costume with the Nazi armband. Caricatures of Michael Jackson, Che Guevara and Kim Jong II were also seen this year.

Festival fashion Festivals are where you give your imagination wings when it comes to clothes. Many patrons at this year’s NH7 — purportedly India’s happiest festival — took this to heart and sported synthetic wings, lime green and neon yellow in colour. Joining the ranks of strange things that look acceptable only under the influence of intoxicants are battery-controlled LED tees

london eye

Gothic Lolitas A quick survey of the editorial room brings back an overwhelming result: none of the men here would like to sport a pair of meggings, or man leggings. The name is part of

A popular trend in Japan, China and South Korea over the last three or four years, this trend seems here to stay. Lolita fashion originated in Japan, a trend based around Victorian-era clothing. Gothic Lolita is its darker cousin, characterised by red lipstick and

It’s the ultimate hipster statement, where you let your yin feature on your bushy yang by putting flowers in your beard. We’re divided on this one: while it looks beautiful on Pinterest, we’re not sure we want to be walking around with a person whose face is smelling of roses. Pierce Thiot (that guy on Buzzfeed who ritually puts gummy bears, lego and raw noodles in his beard) may have been behind this. But if you want to go ahead and tackle this trend head-on, there are many ways you can do it. Start with string daisies, lilies and violets, and work your way up to the biggersized roses and dahlias.

5 shots to knock you out in time for the new year You could always plump for your Jägerbombs and tequila shots, but we’d also advise you to branch out a little and try these novelty shots.

Buttery Nipple

Three Wise Men

This one is the elusive mermaid of shots. While it doesn’t knock you out in one go, you will inevitably end up having many of these, and by the end of it, it will leave you pretty wasted. what you need: Butterscotch schnapps 15 ml Bailey’s Irish Cream 7 ml

What you need: Johnnie Walker Scotch Whiskey Jim Beam Bourbon Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey

Pour butterscotch schnapps into the shot glass and top with Irish Cream.

Liquid Cocaine The name is self explanatory. what you need: Jägermeister liqueur 10 ml Cinnamon schnapps 10 ml Peppermint schnapps 10 ml

The green fairy was Oscar Wilde’s favourite poison (quite literally). This potent alcohol has patrons who’ll tell you there’s no other way of consuming it except having it neat, but this shot is a fun way to do it. what you need: Sprite 30 ml Absinthe 30 ml Rock glasses 2

1

15 ml

Measure and pour all three in a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake, stir and serve in a shot glass.

Tequila shots with watermelon-lime jello what you need: Lime gelatine 1 packet Orange liqueur ½ cup Chilli infused tequila ½ cup limes 15 Salt, for sprinkling Muffin tin Bring one cup water to boil. Add the lime gelatin and stir until gelatin dissolves. Pour into a liquid measuring cup and mix in the orange liqueur and tequila. Meanwhile, cut limes in half lengthwise and scoop the flesh out. Pour the gelatin mixture into each half in the tin. Place the muffin tin in the fridge until set. Cut each half into two wedges, sprinkle with salt and shoot.

Pour Sprite in one glass, and absinthe in the other. Light absinthe on fire, and after a couple of seconds, pour the flaming shot into the other glass.

Keep the empty glass upside down on a napkin. Slide a straw between napkin and glass and inhale the vapours before taking the shot.

Pour into a cocktail shaker with ice.

Shake well. Strain into a shot glass.

Pray quickly.

the luxe list

Absinthe Fire shot

15 ml 15 ml

3

4

Bollywood finds love in London Ajay Bhuyan is in London shooting his fourth movie, Phir Se, starring Jennifer Winget and Kunal Kohli. Ajay’s box had office success with the Hindi film Amit Sahni Ki List, a Woody Allen-style, compact romcom staring the well-known standup comedian Vir Das; his other two films inTelugu have not been as huge.

This time, in conjunction with Kunal Kohli Productions, Ajay is confident that he’s onto a winner. Kunal wrote the script and raised a big budget to film most parts in London.

In this story of two divorcees who find love in London, Kunal plays a successful ad man and Jennifer Winget plays a vet from small-town Amritsar. The delightfully smiley and engaging Ajay says, “Miss Winget is a brilliant actress and only ever needs one take.” Suffering from the penetrating English cold, Ajay, who is from Hyderabad, is wrapped up like an Artic explorer. He confirms that people have been friendly in London but the authorities are a stickler for rules; each London Street needs a different filming permit. Not that different from India, really, except that some permits there are from opportunistic charlatans who hold up municipal shooting till some “miscellaneous expenses” are paid. Even the official Indian regulations are not always sympathetic to the filmmaker. In one instance Ajay needed to recreate a credible London restaurant scene in Mumbai, for which he needed many foreign extras, but the regulations said the cast needed to be 25% Indian. Luckily, he was unaware of the fuss till it was all over.

The Phir Se launch will be in Mumbai in July.

1 Peekaboo medium suede tote Fendi Price: $6,809 (Rs 4,31,315 approx) Available at: DLF Emporio, New Delhi

6

2

Bremont Chronometers and Time for Destiny Giles and Nick English’s father was a devoted aeronautical engineer. Euan English loved mechanics and built planes, boats, watches and clocks for fun. The family business was restoring aircrafts and his boys were always tinkering in the workshop with him. Nick and Giles were sponsored through university by the Royal Air Force. In 1995 , Euan and Nick were practising for an air display in a 1942 Harvard WWII plane, when Euan was killed in a fatal accident.

The brother’s intuition told them to follow the history of British time innovation. Greenwich Mean Time sets time for the world, Rolex was founded in London, 60% of model movements are attributed to British watchmakers, John Harrison invented the marine chronometer in 1760 (it was this revolutionary instrument that was given to Captain James Cook, who would map the world and enable the seeds to be sown for the British Empire).

As their surname was English, it was impossible to trademark their first product line, but destiny intervened. Three years after the death of their father, the English’s were flying an old biplane over France when bad weather forced them to land in a French field. Ordinarily, their plane would have been dismantled and taken into custody for clearance. But the field belonged to an 80-year-old WWII fighter pilot, who was very sympathetic and hid their plane in his barn till the weather improved. His name was Antoine Bremont.

And so the luxury watch line of Bremont was born. Presently, 20% of Bremont business is for U.K. and U.S. military.

All Bremont watches are strong and some perform at 80,000 feet above ground and have been tested to -46 degrees and at 2,000 metres marine depth. The Bremont design expertise and ethos comes into its own in the factory in Henley where the components are made and assembled. It would be hard to beat the elegant appearance of a Bremont — the faces are simple, some of the backs are transparent and sparkling with gems and a skeletonised decorated rotor.

Queen Elizabeth II has a Bremont clock in the back console of her Jaguar: Bremont make the dashboard clocks for the CX75 and for the XJ Platinum Concept. Bremont have a partnership with Ian Callum, Director of Design for Jaguar; the next joint project is a limited edition of six special lightweight E types with matching Bremont watches made from the same Jaguar aluminium. Bremont has plans to open in India in 2015.

5

4 Cream Brocade Embroidered Sherwani Dhruv Vaish Price: Rs 1,90,000 Available at: C-1/A Green Park Extension, Delhi

2 Embellished goat hair and feather cape Marni Price: $6,782 (Rs 4,29,605 approx) Available at: www.neta-porter.com

5 Galactic 36 Automatic Breitling Price: On request Available at: All premium watch sellers

3 Jodha Ring Price: Rs 2,19,611 Available at: www. caratlane.com/jewellery

6 Elitaire console Elitaire Price: On request Available at: Crown Interiorz Mall, Mathura Road, Faridabad, Delhi

G-Style 37

th e s u n day g u a rd rdian ian 2 0 : s u p p l e m e n t to th e su n day gu ar d ian | 28.12.2014 30.07.2011 | n ew delh d elh i

town Sushi to soon become a rarity, says world’s most renowned sushi shef & about Karen Attwood

Tuscany visit

San Gimignano, The Imperial Hotel, Janpath T: (011) 4111 6451 As you find yourself getting torn between bidding goodbye to the fond memories of 2014 and ushering in the New Year, savour the heart menu with delicacies like grilled scallops with beet root sabayon and caviar; butter potato-braised leekstruffle oil with parmesan cheese and salmon-baked pumpkin with ginger and lemon grass sauce. The menu will be served on 31 December and 1 January.

Meal for two: Rs 13,000 inclusive of taxes

The Mediterranean food cruise

T

he world’s most renowned sushi chef, Jiro Ono, predicts a bleak future for the Japanese speciality because of increasing difficulties in sourcing ingredients, because of overfishing.

“The future is so bad,” the Michelin three-starred chef, 89, who still works night and day in his restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district, said.

“Even now I can’t get the ingredients that I really want.

I have a negative view of the future. It is getting harder to find fish of a decent quality.”

Although long celebrated in Japan, Ono came to global attention when he became the subject of the US documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi in 2011.

Despite being showered with accolades, he insists he is still trying to achieve perfection. His advice for young sushi chefs is “to learn patience”. “Training is about learning patience,” he says.

“You can learn technique

A sushi platter.

Despite being showered with accolades, he insists he is still trying to achieve perfection. His advice for young sushi chefs is “to learn patience”. after you have mastered patience.”

He is uniquely qualified to know. He was apprenticed

shams naqvi

India’s biggest auto maker Tata Motors has had an eventful year for its passenger car portfolio. It all began at the Auto Expo in the beginning of the year where we first saw two brand new cars — the Bolt and the Zest.

It took the company over six months from then to launch the sub four-metre sedan Zest in the market. The car has been a roaring success, beating another popular rival, the Honda Amaze, in sales for the last two months. To support the car, Tata Motors also launched a brand new campaign called Horizon Next that focused on design, technology and drive to show this new car in a comprehensive light. Now the campaign finds a place in the hatch version of the car called the Bolt, which we drove in Udaipur earlier this month at a pre-launch event.

Merry New Year

Fio Cookhouse & Bar, Nehru Place T: +91 98992 28666 Fio Cookhouse has a season-special menu with less than a week to the New Year. Relish a post-Christmas treat with mulled wine served with succulent roast turkey and some special Christmas pudding to add to the festive mood. On till 28 December.

Meal for two: Rs 3,500 plus taxes

Design

The deep Orient

Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor in an Elie Saab dress at this year’s Stardust Awards ceremony in Mumbai on 14 December.

’Tis the season

Akira Back, JW Mariott T: (011) 4521 2121 Kick back and unwind this season in the chic ambience of Akira Back with their luxurious Sunday brunch. The special menu includes live counters such as robatayaki grills, a sushi counter, exclusive bento boxes serving favourites such as Miso Soup, Tempura and Edamame.

Meal for two: Rs 5,500 plus taxes (with alcohol)

year, food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto said the occasion was the “first time in history that the President of the US has had something prepared for him and eaten it immediately after it was prepared”.

Since the visit — during which Obama ate every piece of sushi, according to Ono’s son Yoshikazu, despite reports he ate only half — Ono’s customers are 70 per cent foreign guests. The restaurant, which only takes reservations one month ahead, always books out instantly. No one answers the phone, so it is almost impossible to call for a reservation. The best chance of getting a last-minute table is by going through the concierges of Tokyo’s top hotels, such as the Palace Hotel or the Ritz-Carlton.

And if you are one of the lucky few to get a seat, it would be wise to take Ono’s advice: “Delicious sushi is only half the responsibility of the chef. It is also half the responsibility of the person eating the sushi.”

the independent

Tata Bolt: A tech-friendly car

Zerzura, Qutab Hotel T: +91 95600 49517 This Mediterranean-themed hotel has fresh additions to celebrate the festive season. Mansaf, Kibbeh, crispy pita and chicken shawarma tapas, Turkish gozleme and Turkish pizzas, as well as live stations offering hot mezze, kebabs of the day and imam biyaldi will be available here. Conclude your meal with desserts such as Greek honey cake, Egyptian basbousa and Turkish baklava. On till 25 January.

Meal for two: Rs 6,000 plus taxes (with champagne)

Oasis, Vivanta by Taj, Surajkund T: (0129) 4190 000 Oasis will be serving a warm brunch on 28 December amidst the picturesque surroundings of Surajkund. You have a choice from their mezze station, Mongolian live station, exotic vegetables, meats, grilled yakitori station with unlimited beer, liquors, sparkling wine, cocktails and mocktails.

Meal for two: Rs 3,600 plus taxes

aged eight (“I was at elementary school but there was no time for homework. I have been used to standing all day

since then”).

Ono received Japan’s prestigious Medal with Yellow Ribbon for dedication to his profession last month. His restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro was the first sushi restaurant in the world to obtain three Michelin stars, in 2007, when the Tokyo edition of the guide was launched.

Unsurprisingly, he retained

the honour this month when Tokyo kept its crown as the gourmet capital of the world with the most starred restaurants. This comes a year after Japanese food (washoku) became the second cuisine, with French, to make it on to Unesco’s cultural heritage list.

Despite its status, Sukiyabashi Jiro is a modest restaurant in the basement of a business building at the entrance to Ginza Metro station. Customers have no choice over the 30,000 yen (£160) menu, and are served a set 20 pieces, which differ depending on the best ingredients sourced that morning at the famous Tsukiji fish market.

“I have been to the conveyer-belt sushi restaurants as well,” Ono admitted recently.

“I try everything. It is important to constantly research.…

If you don’t have an intense focus to get to the next level, the value of your work will diminish.”

When Barack Obama ate at the restaurant earlier his

The first thing you invariably do is compare the Bolt to the Tata Indica because every new hatch from Tata Motors in the last decade has been christened the Indica or the Indica Vista. But take a closer look, and this is different from its predecessors. Eyecatching creases run along the profile of the Bolt and the blackened C pillar gives the

Tata Bolt during the test driving session in Udaipur.

roof a floating design. With the elongated headlamps and the honeycomb grille, the front scores over the rear.

The rear design lacks finesse and the tail lamps when lit, present a lumbering picture.

However, you have to give it to Tata Motors for the fact that even though the Bolt is a hatch version of the Zest, it’s got a distinct look, which is not common among other car makers. From the inside, the Bolt has an all-black theme and the quality of buttons is far superior than any of its predecessors. Barring the boot, the space is generous both on the front as well as rear seats.

Technology The Bolt is by far the most advanced Tata car in India when it comes to technology.

The star is a touchscreenenabled Harman sound system. The highlight here is the

navigation system that runs through a Smartphone app for which the company has an exclusive tie-up. Just like the Zest, the AC and audio settings can be controlled by touch. Other user-friendly features include Bluetooth connectivity, an SD card reader and parking sensors.

The only variant made available to us to drive in Udaipur was the 1.2 litre 90 bhp Petrol Revotron. It runs on a five-speed manual transmission and the star on the Zest, the automated manual transmission gearbox will not be an option initially. The gearbox has been tweaked a bit for better ratios and enhanced performance.

Unlike any other hatch in the market, the Bolt comes with three driving modes — Eco, City and Sport.

Drive Depending on where you’re

driving and the kind of performance you want from the car, you can switch the car into these driving modes.

Eco mode promises better mileage, while in the Sport mode the car is much faster off the blocks. However we could achieve the same top speed of 140 km/hr on both driving modes. Officially, the company still hasn’t revealed the top speed or for that matter, fuel economy figures of the Bolt.

The highway to Mount Abu from Udaipur is a fantastic road to drive on. The Bolt offers a planted, cushy drive and body roll also has been taken care of. However, it’s very difficult to find the perfect driving position because even at the lowest seating position, the seat remains high. Also, the missing dead pedal makes the drive a bit cumbersome, more so on the highway when the left foot has no place to rest.

The verdict The company is changing its long standing brand perception. The Zest has managed a very healthy petrol-diesel ratio and Tata must be hoping that Bolt does the same, if not better. The car will be launched in early 2015 and if the pricing is aggressive, there’s some strong competition ahead for established players like Maruti Swift and Hyundai Grand i10.

38

Lazy Break

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller

the sunday guardian 20: supplement to the sunday guardian | 28.12.2014 | new delhi

Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau

Wizard Of Id by Parker and Hart

B.C. by Johnny Hart

Duplex by Glenn McCoy

Sanity Preserve by Veena Ganesh Rao

Take a spoonful, continue working.

Veena Ganesh Rao is a lawyer based in Bangalore, who doodles at work to stop herself from jumping out of the window. Not that she needs much help; the window is welded shut with reinforced glass.

The sunday crossword Up & Running by Gray and Shack scribble space

Foxtrot by Bill Amend

Last Week’s Solution

Grand Avenue by Breen and Thompson

kakuro Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The aim of the game is to fill all the blank squares in the grid with only the numbers 1-9 so that the numbers you enter add up to the corresponding clues.

Kakuro puzzle grids can be any size, though usually the squares within them have to be arranged symmetrically.

If two’s company and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?

Solution scribble space

Nine.

Answer:

Peanuts by Charles Schulz

mind

games

Jumble puzzle magazines available at penn

TREESO

Lazy Break 39

the sunday guardian 20: supplement to the sunday guardian | 28.12.2014 | new delhi

DOANUR

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Unscramble these six Jumbles, one letter to each square, to form six ordinary words.

Jumble puzzle magazines available at pennydellpuzzles.com/jumblemags

NIDLAS

FAITNN

©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

CRONEE

RULPEY

TREESO

Horoscope

VEENUSandal SANDAL Veenu

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

21 march - 19 april

20 april - 20 may

21 may - 20 june

21 june - 22 july

23 july - 22 aug

23 aug - 22 sept

Using your c u r r e n t strengths to make your future more secure in the year ahead will acquire prominence. Setting the stage for something that will strengthen your position and increase your opportunities to grow the way you desire in 2015 will be particularly useful.

For some of you, this could take the form of discussions pertaining to a certain line of action you’ve tried out in this year that’s ending and now want to follow more seriously.

However, no matter what you do or take up, it would be in your interests to monitor your year end thoughts regularly and objectively instead of just letting things flow.

In business and financial matters, keep your moves under wraps.

A good week for preparing a blueprint of action for the year ahead, particularly if you’re looking at high profile results. Happily, more than one thing you desired, more than one situation that was d r i f t i n g w i l l a c q u i re j u st the shape you wanted. If your final year-end choices and decisions are hard rather than soft ones, there’s no way you can miss out. A tip: guard against looking at the pros and cons with only the short-term implications rather than the long-term ones as a yardstick.

Right now, its in your power to create the certainties. In business and financially, your planning will prove to be a major factor in increasing profits.

Networking will bring you quite a few benefits, as will foreign exchange dealings.

Thinking positively and objectively about what you’ve achieved in this year that’s ending will usher in several gains for you in the new year. Ideas which you had been nurturing for a while will now acquire a different texture as new factors and considerations enter the picture. Incidentally, it would be a good idea to identify the “negatives”, add them up and ensure that they become “positives”. In the process, you’ll be able to fine-tune a system where the latest developments, the latest know-how, the latest buzzwords will be on your agenda for the new year. As a result, some vital issues which had been in a suspended state will head towards a resolution.

Financially and in business, you’ll be able to enhance your market standing.

New strategies will set you off in a new, more fulfilling direction for the coming year. This includes taking up a couple of appealing tasks which don’t call for a long term commitment. Balancing your priorities and time frames will not be easy and yet, you’ll find just the right solutions. However, the knowledge that certain difficulties exist and the consequent search to overcome them could take its toll on you unless you make a determined effort to make a concrete plan to tackle them in 2015. One good way of doing so would be to take competition and new challenges head on. In business matters, ingenuity, especially in using your contacts wisely, coupled with a bold approach will go a long way towards taking you closer to your targets.

Fleshing out new action plans will fortunately be much easier than you’d expected. As a result, you’ll be able to handle tasks which are on your plate smoothly and efficiently.

This in turn will enable most of you to focus on matters linked to the long-term potential.

More and more clarity is likely to come to you by reviewing the year that’s ending. However, instead of committing yourself to anything in a hurry, try and use the week for exploring all aspects thoroughly, as the outcomes will be far better if your groundwork is strong.

Besides, it would be worthwhile to make sure you have more than one trump card up your sleeve. This applies to the financial sphere as well, especially if you’re thinking of new ventures.

If you’re thinking of making a new start or cutting away from old structures, go right ahead, Virgos.

Because this week, your inspiration levels will be high.

However, these very gains will place you in a position where people will tend to resent your success. In a way, it’s been quite ironic, hasn’t it, that whether you’ve done an excellent job or an average job, your critics have remained active? Happily, your consolation will be that in the coming year, at least one influential person will size up your efforts in the correct perspective and your standing will rise in places where it matters. Business-wise and financially, you’ll be on a good wicket, but be cautious of double dealing.

Libra

Scorpio

Sagittarius

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

23 sept - 22 oct

23 oct - 21 nov

22 nov - 21 dec

22 dec - 19 jan

20 jan - 18 feb

19 feb - 20 march

Fro m h e re , f ro m t h e re , you’ll get a byte of interesting news and you’ll put two and two together. Your sense of timing has always been good, Librans, and in this instance too you’ll lose no time in putting what you learn to good use in planning for the year ahead. Generally too, many of you will find that circumstances will place you in a position which will contribute to enhancing your prestige.

Besides, talk of a new opening which holds considerable promise or a couple of encouraging happenings will strengthen your motivation to push ahead. In business and financial matters, you’ll be able to push through some shrewd deals.

Going by past trends in judging new possibilities will be somewhat unsettling initially.

However, new considerations will soon make you more dynamic and you’ll gamely evolve new approaches even as some of your opinions change colour. Fortunately, this growth oriented period most of you are passing through gives you the leeway to adopt new lines of action and thus increase your rate of notching up gains in the coming year. Learning from this very useful experience, you’ll proceed to work out a detailed agenda. You’ll also find “quick fixes” for more than one situation. In business, relying on your hunches will ensure that there’s no way you can go wrong.

Even though some of the favourable influences may dip a little this week, you’ll still be in a strong position, Sagittarians. Most importantly, you’ll still be in a position to call the shots and even better, the efforts you put in to prepare fresh ground for the year ahead or viable alternatives or standbys will bear the sort of fruit you expect, plus some that you don’t. The fact is, new ideas will continue to take root in your mind and open up a string of possibilities for you. But guard against getting caught in an awkward situation. In business and financial matters, applying new information will enable you to acquire a better grip on situations and ensure satisfying growth.

B a c kg ro u n d information will be not just an eye opener this week, but could well provide you with the fuel to power your way to a new position of strength or eminence. Of course, your own well stocked arsenal of qualities and skills will play a role as well — your knack for, instance, of promptly identifying factors which can be turned into strengths. One thing is certain: year-end dimensions will provide many of you with new perspectives at different levels. In fact, most experiences at this juncture will have immense value and longterm potential for coordinated progress at more levels than you had envisaged. In business, better than average gains will be yours to savour.

Apart from the few stray bits that will b e d i ss a t i s fying, you’ll find that you’re able to utilise the time this week more or less in accordance with your preferences. In fact, you’ll be able to come up with some very good ideas and strategies to strengthen your position. Most of the things that you had queued up for implementation will go through with a minimum of hitches or no stumbling blocks at all. That sounds really good, doesn’t it, as a stepping stone to the new year? You’ll also come to grips with choices you’d been subconsciously avoiding facing. In business and financial matters, profits will be on the rise and you’ll have little to actually worry about.

M o re t h a n one person will think you have what it takes to deliver the goods this week and you’ll be particularly at home in group situations that demand skillful articulation of thoughts and projections about what should be done and what you can do.

Besides, useful new insights will come to you through meetings which will take an unusual tangent and provide you with food for thought. On some counts, of course, you’ll be a bit miffed. The pinpricks are likely to include people not turning up or living upto time frames despite giving you assurances, or not sending you what you want. In business matters, the week is suited to being more ambitious.

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

DOANUR PRINT YOUR ANSWER IN THE CIRCLES BELOW FAITNN RULPEY

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

PRINT YOUR ANSWER IN THE CIRCLES BELOW

Answer :

Answer :

STEREO INFANT ISLAND ENCORE AROUND PURELY After the Jumble puzzle maker said he was at a loss for words, he said —

STEREO INFANT ISLAND PURELY ENCORE AROUND After the Jumble puzzle maker NO PUN INTENDED 9, 2014 said he was at a loss forMARCH words, he said —

NO PUN INTENDED Quick crossword no. 11,306 quickword 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10

11

12 13

14

15

16

17 18

19

20

MARCH 9, 2014

Gems

COLOURS

Steeped in myths and legends, countless beliefs and fascinating tales are related about the mysterious powers of gems and precious stones. Since ancient times, gems and precious stones have been associated with the zodiac signs and even in these digital, hi-tech times, continue to be credited with possessing immense power to bring good luck, good health and happiness. Here, based on your sun sign, are the gems that will support your efforts in 2015.

Colours are known to exert powerful effects both on people and their surroundings.

Here, based on your sun sign, is a guide to colours that will enable you to make the most of this week.

21 22

23

24

Across 1 Severe addict's practice (5-7) 9 Arctic dwelling (5) 10 Kind of cattle (7) 11 Solemn promise (4) 12 (A temple to) all the gods (8) 14 Head honcho (at the kennels?) (3,3) 15 Kiss and cuddle (6) 18 Intense joy (8) 20 Bribe — stopper (4) 22 Lug warmer (7) 23 Musical drama (5) 24 Everything possible — British film (3,4,5)

Down Peak of an incline (7) Press (4) New York's “tube" (6) Part of what a batsman protects (3,5) 6 Silly (5) 7 February 2 in the US (when things repeat themselves?) (9,3) 2 3 4 5

8 Corporal punishment (3,2,3,4) 13 Capital of the 50th US state (8) 16 Lavish (7) 17 Irregular (6) 19 Smooth pulped food (5) 21 Hockey on horseback (4)

Want more? Access over 4,000 archive puzzles at guardian.co.uk/crossword.

Stuck? Then call our solutions line on 09068 scribble space 338 248. Calls cost 60p per minute all times.

Service supplied by ATS. To buy the new book of Quick Crosswords vol. 4 for £6.99 incl. p&p, call 0870 836 0749

ARIES: White Sapphire TAURUS: Blue Sapphire GEMINI: Ruby CANCER: Pearl LEO: Yellow Sapphire VIRGO: Red Coral

LIBRA: Diamond SCORPIO: Opal SAGITTARIUS: W hite Coral CAPRICORN: Emerald AQUARIUS: Cat’s Eye PISCES: Yellow Tiger Stone

ARIES: Deep yellow TAURUS: Pink GEMINI: Black CANCER: Red LEO: Peacock blue VIRGO: Maroon

LIBRA: Moss green SCORPIO: Purple SAGITTARIUS: Magenta CAPRICORN: Deep red AQUARIUS: Sky blue PISCES: Lemon yellow

VAASTU GUIDE

Powerful Numbers

Vaastushastra or the Science of Architecture was accorded great importance in ancient India. Today, Vaastu Shastra and its benefits in ensuring a happy, prosperous, peaceful life have been rediscovered. The term ‘Vaastu’ is actually derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Vas’ (dwell) and is similar in many ways to Feng Shui, the Chinese science of placements and balance. Objects and their placing, shapes, materials, colours, directions are also an integral part of Vaastu. Here, based on your sun sign, are the best directions to be facing this week when networking for the year ahead.

Indian astrology bases its calculations basically on nine planets. It is interesting that the numerical system also has nine numbers as the base, with the rest being repetitions. In numerology, each of these nine numbers has an occult meaning or significance. There are various methods of numerology which can be applied to improve our lives. While some numerologists go by date of birth numbers alone, others go by name numbers and still others rely on a combination of the two. Linking numbers to sun signs also yields interesting results. Here, based on your sun sign, is a ready reckoner of good dates for January 2015.

Solution No. 11,305 W I N T R A A E F U C H S F R P L I E G E E C C A P T I S S Q U E L L N A A D D O N N E C D O R M E

Y

C H I N T Z C O O E I A R U N U P P S Z H T H E R E B Y A R R A I N C O O K N A W C H D U T C H O A H E O B V I A T E K E N Z R C R E E P Y

ARIES: West TAURUS: South-east GEMINI: North-west CANCER: South LEO: East VIRGO: South-west

LIBRA: North-east SCORPIO: West SAGITTARIUS: South-west CAPRICORN: North AQUARIUS: South-east PISCES: North-west

ARIES: 2, 5, 8, 14, 23, 26 TAURUS: 3, 6, 9, 15, 28, 30 GEMINI: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 24, 29 CANCER: 2, 4, 9, 11, 18, 22, 27 LEO: 1, 3, 5, 10, 14, 21, 28 VIRGO: 4, 6, 8, 15, 17, 22, 26

LIBRA: 3, 5, 7, 9, 14, 21, 25 SCORPIO: 2, 6, 8, 11, 15, 20, 26, 29 SAGITTARIUS: 1, 4, 5, 10, 14, 18, 23, 28 CAPRICORN: 2, 6, 9, 11, 15, 20, 24, 29 AQUARIUS: 1, 3, 5, 12, 19, 21, 30 PISCES: 2, 4, 8, 11, 17, 22, 26, 29

sudoku fact of the matter

1612 Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing. But who has that kind of time? Enter random digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit.

40

Finalé

t he s un day gua rdia n 20: s up p lement to t he s unday guardi an | 28. 12. 2014 | new delhi

Still Life

Amogh Pant

I spotted him near gateway of India; a street hawker. His smile was so very infectious that I couldn’t help but remember these lyrics from a Louis Armstrong song When You’re Smiling: “When you smilin’, When you smilin’/ The whole world smiles with you, / When you’re laughing, When you’re laughing, / The sun comes shining through” Curated by Reed Harrison and Arjun Raj Nirula as part of the These IndiansTM project. (Follow These IndiansTM on Instagram (instagram.com/theseindians) and Facebook (facebook.com/theseindians)

it's a wacky, wonderful, weird world

a idnay the life

Karthik (25) Scuba Diver, Havelock Island, Andamans

‘I should be in Papua New Guinea next year’ Q: Where is your hometown? How long have you been living in Havelock?

A: I belong to Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh. I have completed my MBA from Andhra University in Vishakhapatnam. I have been here for about 10 months.

Q: After completing an MBA, how did you decide to become a scuba diver?

A: I was working in Delhi with a travel company. I came for a holiday to Havelock in March this year. Like most visitors, I went scuba diving and liked it so much that I enrolled myself for diving courses. I got my Diving Master rating, got a job with Barefoot Diving School and sent in my resignation saying “Don’t expect me back”. I have been taking advanced courses since then. The divers here are all very talented. From national cyclists to interior designers, we are a bunch of scuba enthusiasts from various walks of life.

Q: What are your plans for the future?

A: Scuba diving has huge scope. Our diving school is affiliated to PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), which is a renowned Australian organisation. With this sort of accreditation, one can be a scuba instructor at the most interesting places around the world. The only requirement is to learn an additional language. I can understand Japanese and am learning Spanish. If everything goes well, I should be at Papa New Guinea or at Caribbean islands by the end of next year.

Q: What is your best memory of these last 10 months?

A: I went fishing at a nearby island recently. While we were there, a group of about 40 dolphins gathered around us and one of them suddenly jumped as high as five metres.

It was a treat to watch. When we go for deep sea diving, there are chances of spotting mantas and sharks.

Terrorists face their victims’ relatives in Iraqi reality show ZACHARY DAVIES BOREN

The confessions of convicted terrorists are being broadcast on an Iraqi reality TV show in which they are also forced to face the relatives of victims. In the Grip of the Law, which is produced by the state-run Al Iraqiya channel in cooperation with the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, has been launched as part of a media effort to attack the Islamic extremist group Isis and garner public support for the Iraqi forces that were humiliated by Isis this summer. Every Friday, the show’s host, Ahmed Hassan, who has reportedly become a target himself, quizzes convicted terrorists in shackles and bright yellow prison jumpsuits. The relatives of victims of terrorist attacks are then brought before the prisoners, often either in a rage or on the verge of tears. One of the men to

feature on the programme is 21-year old Haider Ali Motar, convicted one month ago for helping to carry out a string of Baghdad car bombings on behalf of Isis. The crew began filming at the scene of one of the attacks for which Motar was convicted, with a sizeable military escort in tow. Soldiers shooed away interested bystanders and drivers frustrated by the consequent traffic. After being pulled from an armoured vehicle, a shackled Motar found himself faceto-face with the seething relatives of the victims of the attack. “Give him to me — I’ll tear him to pieces,” one of the relatives roared from behind a barbed wire barrier. A cameraman pinned a microphone on Motar’s bright yellow prison jumpsuit as he stood alongside a busy Baghdad highway looking bewildered by his surroundings. “Say something,” the cameraman said

A still from In the Grip of the Law.

to him. “It’s a mic check!

Just count: 1,2,3,4...” Host Hassan quizzed Motar, before bringing out one of the victims, a young man in a wheelchair who lost his father in one of the attacks; the convict began weeping, as the cameras rolled. Iraq has seen near-daily car bombs and other attacks for more than a decade, both before and after the withdrawal of

U.S.-led troops at the end of 2011. But the central message of the show, the filming of which began last year, is that the security forces will bring perpetrators to justice. The episodes often detail the trail of evidence that led security forces to make the arrest. Police allow the camera crew to film the evidence — explosive belts, bomb-making equipment or

fingerprints and other DNA samples. Hassan told The AP: “We wanted to produce a program that offers clear and conclusive evidence, with the complete story, presented and shown to Iraqi audiences. Through surveillance videos, we show how the accused parked the car, how he blew it up, how he carries out an assassination. We show our audiences the pictures, along with hard evidence, to leave no doubts that this person is a criminal and paying for his crimes.”

All of the alleged terrorists are shown confessing to their crimes in one-on-one interviews. Hassan said the episodes are only filmed after the men have confessed to a judge, insisting it is “impossible” that any of them are innocent.

“The court first takes a preliminary testimony and then they require a legal confession in front of a judge,” Hassan explained. “After

obtaining the security and legal permission, we are then allowed to film those terrorists.” Human rights groups have long expressed concern over the airing of confessions by prisoners, many of whom have been held incommunicado in secret facilities. “The justice system is so flawed and the rights of detainees, especially those accused of terrorism (but not only) are so routinely violated that it is virtually impossible to be confident that they would be able to speak freely.” Donatella Rovera, of Amnesty International, told AP in an email. “Many of these terrorists feel a lot of remorse when they see the victims,” said the senior intelligence officer overseeing the shoot, who declined to be named since he often works undercover. “When people see that, it makes them think twice about crossing the law.” the independent

Only small fries with Tokyo Macs

Orangutans are ‘non-human persons’, Lingerie maker Ceiling collapses to expose obsessed says Argentine court in landmark case warns customers undergarments thief in China

TOKYO: McDonald’s (Japan) has embarked on the emergency measure of only offering small-sized French fries to customers as a protracted labour dispute at U.S. West Coast ports has contributed to long delays in imports. The fast-food chain said it was importing more than 1,000 tonnes of frozen fries by air, which began arriving earlier this month and had begun routing another 1,600 tonnes through ports on the U.S. East Coast. These steps alone, however, are not sufficient to prevent a shortage of fries.

BUENOS AIRES: An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognised the ape as a “non-human person” unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported last week. Animal rights campaigners had filed a habeas corpus petition (a document more typically used to challenge the legality of a person’s detention or imprisonment) in November on behalf of Sandra, a 29-yearold Sumatran orangutan at the Buenos Aires zoo. In a landmark ruling that could pave the way for more law-

suits, the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) argued the ape had sufficient cognitive functions and should not be treated as an object. The court agreed Sandra, born into captivity in Germany before being transferred to Argentina two decades ago, deserved the basic rights of a “non-human person”.

TOKYO: A Japanese lingerie maker is recalling more than 20,000 brassieres after complaints that underwires suddenly poked out, sometimes while women were wearing them. The Japanese division of lingerie maker Triumph International, which has made a name for itself with concept lingerie such as a solarpowered bra and an “Abenomics” bra that honoured Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic revival plan, said they feared injuries. “We are sorry for the bother, but we ask customers to stop using the bras immediately,” the company said in a statement.

Yulin: A Chinese man who stole hundreds of pieces of ladies’ underwear had his secret exposed after an emergency exit ceiling where he had been storing his hoard collapsed, state media reported.

The man, surnamed Tang and in his 30s, admitted to having mental problems since he was young and that he did not know how long he had been obsessed with women’s undergarments, reports said.

Police in the city of Yulin

said they found more than 2,000 pieces of panties and bras in the roof where he had stuffed his collection.

Residents in the housing complex where Tang lived had complained about the mysterious vanishing of their undergarments.

Tang used a master key for the apartments in the complex to sneak in and steal the underwear when residents were not there, media said this week. reuters