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The Hindu :  MY KIND OF PLACETennis star Xavier MalisseWater worldPut me on any beach and it becomes my kind of place. The bright sun, the dancing waves, a deck chair… and I am a relaxed soul. When I went to Florida for the first time in 1997, I couldn’t resist its lovely beaches.Jet, set, goI enjoy travelling to different countries. One of the perks of being a sportsperson is you are on the move. But the game takes away all your time. You hardly get to see and discover new places. Sometime after a match or a practice session, I step out.PlatefulI treat food like tennis, different shots, different flavours make both exciting. But nothing too exotic please.Looking backI have fond memories of travelling as a young boy. I can never forget that trip to Japan when I was 12 for the junior World Championships. It was quite a cultural shock.What’s travel?Getting to sleep on the long flights….More

The Hindu : Channel [v] has been recognised by the prestigious Proggy Awards. The most animal-friendly TV channel was conferred upon [v] for running animal-friendly youth programming that creates awareness and educates the audiences to get more active on animalright issues.Over the last few years PETA and its affiliates have given these awards to those who have played significant role in educating and inspiring people to feel compassionately about the needs, nature of animals while promoting respect and empathy for animals.Commenting after winning the award, Amar K. Deb Head Honcho Channel [v] said: “It is an honour for us to win this prestigious award. We at Channel [v] have always been promoting the cause of animal right issues in India and we hope our contribution awakens the mind set of youth towards the same.”Channel [v] has a permanent PETA page on their website which is choc-o-bloc with features of animal rights and issues. Channel [v] also ran an enlightening spot about protecting dogs from the noise and chaos of Diwali….More

The Hindu : I am off on a bright sunny morning, to the Vallimalai scrub forest. I drive for almost an hour, and I seem to going nowhere. The wind howls across stretches of wasteland on either side of this narrow tar road, and I suddenly spot a very different looking Mariamman Temple painted in bright red and yellow. Freestanding pillars encircle the sanctum sanctorum.Right opposite, on the other side of the road, there is a lot of activity. Labourers are digging a big pond.The Sivagangai district administration hopes to attract more people to the naturally occurring scrub forest in this lesser known place called Vallimalai. Rich in thorn scrub vegetation, the Vallimalai scrub forest is spread alongeither side of the road.Though the dominant vegetation is the Acacia species, what catches the eye is an exotic thorny shrub growing in abundance. It is a dark green cacti plant with a short trunk and its low branches spread like a conifer, quite like a Christmas tree. But move past them carefully because even a slight brush can leave deep cuts into the skin. In fact, a walk through a scrub forest has to be measured. Wild grass and groves of bamboo, thistles and bramble, thorny trees and shrubs surround you. The path is well laid out. What you need are a good pair of shoes, ample drinking water and avoid walking too close to the ant hills which are scattered like mini sand castles. Originally, the scrub forest was a good mix of East Deccan dry deciduous and evergreen forests which retain their leaves through the year. But now the Vallimalai scrub forest is a tropical dry forest, which is fast turning into a stunted thorn scrub vegetation.The forests are getting modified mainly due to human interference — cattle grazing and cutting trees for fuel. It is visible as I walk – quite aimlessly and lost. The terrain turns…More

The Hindu : Commonly observed as the day when the sun begins its northward journey from the zodiac zone of Sagittarius to Capricorn, Makara Sankranthi is one of India’s biggest festivals.Celebrated in a myriad ways across the country, Sankranthi is celebrated in a grand manner in the south. Sankranthi is the time for preparing mouth-watering delicacies like pongal, (rice boiled in milk) in Tamil Nadu and yellu-bella, (a mixture of groundnut, jaggery, sesame seeds and desiccated coconut) in our very own state, which is distributed among neighbours and friends.With elders moaning about “traditions fading out” as Balakrishna V.R., a retired teacher puts it, MetroPlus asks youngsters around the city how important Sankranthi is for them and what they do to make the day special and memorable.Manaswini Rampath, a commerce student, says, “I am eager to celebrate Sankranthi as always. We celebrate the harvest with the season’s newly arrived crop and believe in sharing this with near and dear ones.”Medical intern Krishnaveni opines: “Sankranthi isn’t that big an event for us, although I wish it was.” She adds, “Youngsters are generally not too thrilled about celebrating festivals like these. Yet, most participate in the pujas and celebration mainly not to disappoint the elders in the family.”“Making sugar candies (sakkare acchchu) and distributing them to relatives, with a piece of sugarcane (khabbu) is another custom that youngsters usually assist their parents in,” informs Manaswini.No time for funAlthough there are quite a few teenagers who claim they enjoy the festivity that revolves around Sankranthi, a good number of themthink the merriment is too much of a hassle.According to 19-year-old Mookambigai, “The highlight of the festival for us is the preparation of Pongal and other sweets.” She admits: “Personally, I am not very interested in these celebrations. I feel that the celebrations are a little too overdone.”For newcomer to Bangalore and mechanical engineering student, Anand Ganesan, “Bangalore seems pretty dull and lifeless…More

The Hindu :  Beat streetSYSTEM,CDSeal is back; and rest assured…without any trace of vengeance. His new album “System” is a good set of eleven rather plain tracks, which will find its place only in the collections of those die-hard Seal fans, who want to be reminded of his good’ol dance numbers such as Crazy and Killer.“System”, being his fifth album, has him collaborating with producer Stuart Price of ‘Confessions on the dance floor’ fame. If he thought that Price will be his ticket to a comeback and some fame, then he was simply being delusional. There’s nothing exceptional about the album and is unlikely to create any ripples (let alone waves) except with DJs who might be interested in mixing it on the dance floor with hopefully favourable results. His throaty yet soulful voice is definitely a saving grace; but how far can one go on a good and at times even talented set of vocal chords, and some largely repetitive dance melodies?Seal definitely has given ‘the road not taken’ a miss, and a far miss it is. He has stuck to his same dance-pop club sound, exported straight from the 90s, a few of the tracks seem to have been inspired by his most popular song ‘Crazy’. Having forayed into pop, non-dance and partly R&B tracks in the middle of his career, he is back to square one with his up-tempo dance tracks.The tracks seem robust with lyrics which try to be deep and meaningful in some vague, modern way, leaving it neither danceable to nor fit for the easy-listening category.The duet with his supermodel wife Heidi Klum titled “Wedding Day” is a brave, easy-to-make-fun-of and rather silly attempt. Mrs. Seal seems to have gone all the way to please her more musical and better half, but you have to be a hard core Seal fan if you want to appreciate the melodies that are supposedly reflective…More

The Hindu : Nigella Lawson, celebrity chef and food writer says her working with food was “completely by accident. Although I didn’t like eating when I was a small child, I got quite interested in cooking as I got older.” Nigella’s culinary odyssey began with a “restaurant column for the Spectator. When I was writing the column, I used to find that cooking was a very good way of letting my thoughts simmer. I then did a television show and it kind of took off, but it was never a really planned career move.”Nigella whose shows “Nigella Bites” and “Forever Summer with Nigella” have been super popular, finds the bond between culture and food fascinating. “What is very interesting about the human culture was we all used food to signify that an occasion had importance in our life.”The mum of two is an advocate of “unplanned cooking. I just open the fridge and see what I have leftover or what’s there and I can just cook in a very relaxed way.”With the flowThe super chef’s “Nigella Express”, being aired on Discovery Travel and Living, tells the secret of eating healthy on the go. As she says: “I spent quite a bit of time in Italy when I was growing up and I still go there every year. In a way, that suits modern life because Italian cooking is generally pretty fast. It relies on things that can be assembled very quickly, which can be helpful. I cook pretty widely because I just enjoy playing with lots of different ingredients.”Ask her if there is a food she does not like and the Oxford graduate (with a degree in Medieval and Modern Languages!) says: “I am a greedy person that there is nothing I really dislike. The only thing I dislike is soy milk, but that’s the only thing I dislike.”Nigella differentiates between a cook and a chef when she…More

The Hindu : Pankaj Kapur is extremely patient with young journalists. A child-like smile lights his face when one compliments him. He takes it graciously with a gentle ‘thank you’. He makes a mild salutation when a boy hands over a cup of tea to him.A glance at Kapur’s roles in films and TV serials makes one wonder if he has been a kind of activist at any point of time. “No, never. Neither social nor political.”“It’s an urge to say something I believe in, that I pick and choose my roles – roles that satisfy me at the three levels; aesthetic, justice and conviction. Through my character I try to make it convincing. I feel responsible for my roles,” he says.That’s what he has done in Rajkumar Santoshi’s “Halla Bol” too. He plays a dacoit, Siddhu, who lays down arms and starts doing street theatre to create awareness. Says Kapur, “I had been attached to street plays during my early theatre days. The film is important for me as it emphasises the importance of speaking one’s mind when one sees injustice being done inone’s surroundings. See in Harbhajan’s ban case, when the entire nation spoke its mind, ICC had to eat a humble pie. That’s the power of halla bol,” he asserts.“I haven’t so far had any such testing times. But being an artiste I try to do so through my roles. This is the reason I am continuing with the serial “Office Office” that is successfully running for seven years. And because this serial has a huge mass base, it is earning great money too.”Kapur was seen very little over the past few years. With “Dharam” he established his strong stature once again. “I had decided to sit at home rather than doing roles just for money. I waited for good roles,” he says.If such films give him creative satisfaction, the content on television upsets him…More

The Hindu : The Bangalore Hospice Trust, “Karunashraya”, is hosting a jazz-fusion concert by Asia Elektrik on January 18 at Ambedkar Bhavan, Millers Road.It will be an enchanted evening with renowned musicians Louis Banks on keyboards, Sivamani on percussion, and Niladri Kumar on the sitar.The Bangalore Hospice Trust, (Karunashraya), is a charitable trust that has been helping patients deal with cancer. For the last 12 years, the trust has worked at improving the quality of life of such patients, and helping them deal with dignity and acceptance with their illness.Managing trustee, Kishore Rao says: “We believe that this is the most crucial stage in a patient’s life, when he or she has suddenly lost the security and comfort of a hospital, since no further treatment is possible. The entire burden of care now rests with the families, who are more often than not, ill equipped financially and emotionally to deal with the situation.”For more details, contact +919740810281 or +919880846173….More

The Hindu : Nestled deep inside the Western Ghats in south-western Karnataka, Kudremukh is an ideal getaway for the weary urban traveller.Lodged in a bowl formed by a ring of hills, the picturesque hill station is named after the nearby Kudremukha (literally, horse-face in Kannada) peak in Chikmagalur District.Picturesque walkwaysIt’s one of the ironies of Kudremukh that you can’t see the Kudremukha peak from the hill station.You need to head out to Samse on the road to Kalasa to actually see it. There’s a trail leading out to the peak (1,892 metres, or 6,214 feet high) from around here.Kudremukh is easily accessed by road from Mangalore, just about 110 km away along particularly good roads, including the ghat (hill) section through the Kudremukh National Park, the largest declared wildlife protected area (600 sq km) of a tropical wet evergreen forest in the Western Ghats.Straight routeI drove down from Bangalore, a good 350 km. It’s a relatively straightforward route to Kudremukh: Bangalore to Hassan, Belur, Mudigere, Kalasa and Kudremukh.But my hosts in the Kudremukh Iron Ore Co. Ltd. (KIOCL) had warned me that the Mudigere Road was particularly bad and asked me to take the Hassan, Chikmagalur, Balehonnur route.An early 7 a.m. start from Bangalore gives one the option to take in some of the historic sights along the way: the towering Gomateshwara monolith at Sravanabelagola, and the Hoysala temple towns of Belur and Halebidu further down in Hassan district.We reach Chikmagalur late in the afternoon; after a quick meal (there’s only biriyani available at the Planter’s Retreat, where we stop for lunch).The road really begins to climb only now, winding its way past coffee estates by the dozen; it goes down again, only to climb a little further on.The pattern is repeated, so much so that it’s hard to say whether you’ve gained elevation or not. There are rolling coffee greens and dense forest on either side.At Balehonnur…More

The Hindu : Joseph Banowetz is a genteel old man with an amiable smile. But his veined fingers flew dextrously and effortlessly over the piano at the celebrity piano recital, organised by the Bangalore School of Music, Dockers San Francisco, State Bank of Indiaand Radio Indigo 91.9 FM.Performing German Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) “32 variations in C minor” was definitely the highlight of the evening. And the two-time Grammy nominee took the packed audience through his pieces with interesting anecdotes and musical facts and observations.He enlightened music lovers about transcriptions – “where it was common for every performer in the early 20th century to make them.” It was only at the end of 1915 that transcriptions were removed from the musical face by music critics and schools, to come back in favour later.His rendering of “32 variations in C minor” was grand for it captured various moods – from the sombre and sullen to silent persuasion and calm. Every variation was performed with a flourish by Banowetz’s swift and nimble fingers. The mood ignited was like a fast-forward movie scene to disaster that closed with dramatic, baritone notes. He joked: “Don’t panic – I know you all must be thinking you’ll be here all night listening to 32 variations.” But staccato, sweet sounds of music flowed into the next variation – varying from the playing to the dramatic and dead-serious – touching on all the moods.Austrian Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) three movements of Sonata in A Minor, Opus told the great musical genius of the composer who wrote it by the age of 31.“It touches on dark corners; it is unsettling and carries with it, the symbolism of death. It is frightening and suicidal,” said Banowetz of the pieces which were written when Schubert came to know of his fatal illness – syphilis.While the first movement in Allegro Giusto moved from being long and short – as if “death…More