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The Hindu : Heroes againThe super-charged second season of Heroes premiered on Star World on January 22, 9 p.m. After saving the cheerleader – and the world – season two’s kick-off episode takes place four months after the explosive showdown in New York. As the second chapter begins, the fates of Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), Nathan (Adrian Pasdar), Sylar (Zachary Quinto) and Matt (Greg Grunberg) are revealed. But while everyone tries to move on, a villain begins stalking and murdering the older generation of Heroes. “Season two is not just a continuing serialized storyline,” says Heroes creator Tim Kring. This latest season also introduces new characters, including one played by Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell. “I kept hearing how much Kristen loved the show,” explains Kring. “So we picked up the phone and asked if she was interested [in joining the cast]. And 24 hours later, we had closed the deal.”Introduced in episode five, Bell’s character quickly makes her presence felt.In season two Kring promises to keep fans hooked with more mysteries, bigger shocks and surprising twists. “You can’t believe how intense this is going to get,” hints Kring. “In the second season the story just takes off like a rocket ship. It is a mind blower.” Prepare for a new chapter of secrets, superpowers and sinister evildoers in the all-new season of Heroes returns on Star World every Tuesday at 9 p.m….More

The Hindu : The inaugural auction of Bid & Hammer covering modern and contemporary Indian paintings & works of art was held recently in Bangalore. Previews were arranged before the auction in New Delhi and Bangalore.“Bid & Hammer Auctioneers Private Limited is going to be India’s first homebred full service auction servicing all types of collectors,” wrote M. Maher Dadha, Chairman and Managing Director in the auction catalogue. “Our team of patrons and experts has a combined international experience of over 300 years allied to a deep understanding of the evolving dynamics of the Indian market.” On offer at the auction in the paintings category was a mixed bag of 131 works. prices of individual works ranged between Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 50 lakh (excluding buyers premium and tax).As many as 86 artists belonging to different eras of Indian art history were represented in the event. This included masters like Jamini Roy, Binod Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij, Somenath Hore, M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza, Hari Ambadas Gade, V. S. Goitonde, K. K. Hebbar, Akbar Padamsee, Jeram Patel, Jogen Chowdhury, N. S. Bendre, and Laxma Goud as well as a relatively younger but well-known group comprising Krishnamachari Bose, Nataraj Sharma, Rekha Rodwittiya, T. V. Santosh, Iranna, Pramod Pushkale and several others.In terms of estimates, two 28 inch x 20 inch abstract works by Goitonde were expected to fetch Rs. 50 lakh and Rs. 35 lakh each, while a watercolour (20 x 13 inch) by Raza was to be lapped up at Rs. 22 lakh. Jamini Roy’s tempera on canvas (Rs. 22 lakh), Gade’s landscape with temple (Rs. 30 lakh), M. F. Husain’s watercolour (Rs. 30 lakh) and ink on paper (Rs. 22 lakh), Krishen Khanna’s work titled Emmaus (Rs. 32 lakh), B. Prabha’s untitled oil on canvas (Rs. 24 lakh), and Jatin Das’s painting titled The Touch (Rs. 22) were among the works expected to…More

The Hindu : I had to join the chorus of “Abracadabra”. It probably took a while to shed my inhibitions but for about 90 minutes I became a five-year-old. The setting was a massive auditorium at one of the mega shopping malls in Bangkok and the show was Disney Live’s Mickey’s Magic Show — the act that brings you as close as possible to the legendary cartoon characters.There was a definite buzz of excitement as I was waiting to enter the auditorium. The empty seats soon began to fill with parents who had come with their little ones in tow. The constant chatter of five-year-olds was soon silenced when Mickey Mouse took to the stage.Disney Live is one of the many franchises of the Walt Disney enterprise. It is a show travelling around the world to give audiences a chance to see the characters in real life.Dreams come trueProduced by Kenneth Feld, of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus fame, it merges Disney characters with world-class stage illusions.The show has everything that a child can ask for — colourful characters, a sound-and-light show and lots of magic.The format used for the show really does deserve credit. You have the full line-up of Disney characters that reads Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Aladdin’s Princess Jasmine, Cinderella, Alice and many more.They combine with a cast of stage artists and two stage illusionists – Brad Ross and Alex Gonzalez, to come up with a really creative combination.For starters, you have all the song and dance routines that Disney is famous for but that is given a twist with some slapstick humour.What really takes the cake is the magic. It starts with the simple card trick and then moves on to a little more complicated ring sequence and finally the stage illusions.True to the high-profile nature of the franchise, the stage illusions are of the very highest standard. The…More

The Hindu : Being mumMotherhood brings out a gamut of thoughts in Suchitra SathyanarayanMotherhood is a curious phenomenon. Both intensely personal, and part of the collective. Otherwise firmly self-entrenched, angst-ridden, cynical, pessimistic women find the surge of maternal hormones whirring dormant or somnolent parts of their brains and hearts to life.Life may be treacherous, unfair, impossible-to-fathom, meaningless-in-the-cosmic- scheme-of-things, but lo! One suddenly wants to do something about it. In minuscule and anonymous ways.One is galvanised into action in spurts. Closet writers find that requisite spark of fatalistic madness needed to dash one’s thoughts off to newspapers, in the throes of that same clarion call. Life seems like an endless stream of circumstances that can be bettered. For the children, our own, yet not our own, those “sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself”.The autowallah whose meter runs at neurotic speeds, needs to be reasoned with. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t want to hear you out. He was a kid once, and his mother probably fed him tuttus of mosaranna before he ran off to play with his friends. The “Swachcha Bengalooru” person who comes to collect your garbage, with sore-covered hands, needs to be outfitted properly by the government to mitigate the risk of disease, for similar reasons. A teacher who is spotted thrashing a child probably went to one of those nightmarish, box-like schools as a child where Maria Montessori and her “Era of the Child” were unheard off. Having fallen out of his state of oneness with the universe, he has now deteriorated into a helpless pawn of the gestalt, whose attention needs to be drawn patiently, but firmly, to his act of cruelty.When one hears Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General denounce globalisation and consumerism, one is pinched and provoked, but one still wants to buy one’s kid a few, if not “every toy in the world”.The implications of the education process, of…More

The Hindu : Shanthi is frightened. She is two months pregnant and woke up one morning to find a small amount of blood on her underclothes. She is extremely concerned about the health of the baby. One of the more frightening yet common experiences in pregnancy isvaginal bleeding. This may vary from a small amount of spotting to heavy bleeding with clots and cramps. In pregnancy, even a small amount of vaginal bleeding can be alarming. Though bleeding may be a warning sign of an abnormality, it is not always a serious complication. Many pregnant women experience light vaginal bleeding at some point during pregnancy, particularly during the first three months.Bleeding in the first trimester (1-13 weeks)Though it is not normal to bleed early in pregnancy, it certainly is a common occurrence. In most cases, women who experience slight bleeding in the first trimester go on to have a normal pregnancy. There are some signs and symptoms which may indicate that the bleeding is of serious concern.Common causes of early pregnancy bleeding include:Implantation bleeding There might be a small amount of spotting or bleeding very early in pregnancy, about 10 to 14 days after fertilisation. Some women actually mistake this light bleeding for a period and may not realise they are pregnant.Cervical changes In pregnancy, the cervix becomes soft and congested. There may be light spotting or bleeding after contact to this area, such as after sexual intercourse or a pelvic exam.Miscarriage Bleeding in the first trimester can be a sign of miscarriage. Miscarriage occurs in 15 per cent to 20 per cent of pregnancies, most often during the first 12 weeks. Bleeding in the first trimester is always considered to indicate a possible miscarriage. It is called a threatened abortion. Once you are examined and an ultrasound scan shows a good heart beat in the foetus, it shows that the pregnancy will continue normally.Ectopic pregnancy In some…More

The Hindu : Today is the 150th birth anniversary of Mother Teresa, but don’t think it is Mother Teresa of Kolkata. This is someone closer home: born in Madras, she worked in Kerala and founded two of south India’s famous colleges — Ernakulam’s St. Teresa’s and Bangalore’s Mount Carmel College.This is Mother Teresa of St. Rose of Lima, the founder of St. Teresa’s Convent, which runs the above colleges as well as has convents, schools, colleges, old-age homes, orphanages and training centres across the world in places as far away as Sudan and Argentina, in addition to over a hundred convents and allied institutions in India with a total of 821 sisters and 34 novices.Hagiographical literature is so clichéd, it gives readers little sense of the lived experiences behind the recorded accounts. However, Mother Teresa’s life and work, like that of all saints, is a thrilling tale of courage, determined hard work and cheerful acceptance in the face of relentless poverty, suffering and loneliness.She was a mere 29 on April 24, 1887, and only two years into the religious life of a Carmelite, when she was called upon to leave an already established mission at Aleppy and travel to Eranakulam and set up St. Teresa’s Convent. The Rev. Joseph Kelanthara aptly describes her work as “magnificent”, and the account of her accomplishments as reading “like an epic”.Her letters provide a further glimpse: “No one would believe the utter poverty we are in. The last habit worn by Sr. Beatrice had 19 patches… I always place the sisters’ personal wants in the last place and they most cheerfully accept the arrangement, laughing and joking at one another’s patches”.Instances of Mother Teresa’s far-sightedness are many: her emphasis on attending to the living conditions of the people came almost three quarters of a century before the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the social aspects of religious work; she began an industrial…More

The Hindu : Traditionally to most mothers-in-law, the son-in-law has and always will be a special member of the family. Waited on hand and foot, his every need taken care of, treated with love and reverence - love because he was given the daughter’s hand in marriage, reverence because of the privileged position he enjoys, rarely spoken to but with gestures and acts of kindness doing all the talking, he is considered a gift .The mother-in-law in contrast remained the butt of popular jokes, was caricatured as nosy and interfering and her occasional visits were regarded with some dread. Today’s mothers-in-law and their sons-in-law however are a different kettle of fish. The love and affection is pretty much intact.Sudha MahendraIt’s an easy, open relationship that exists. There is no standing on formalities, the communication is more direct and there are shared activities too.Kaushalya Thadani and Dhaulat NichaniDhaulat Nichani 60, a businessman, says of his 76 year old mother-in-law Kaushalya Thadani: “She is a very good friend. Benevolent, philanthropic by nature you ask for something and you will get it.(the moon included )We talk about a lot of things - worldly matters, children, spiritual topics etc. She is also one of the best cooks in the world. She doesn’t drink anymore but used to keep us company at one time.”Kaushalya Thadani says in a voice choked with emotion, “He is like a son to me ..When I gave my daughter in marriage I told him - whatever she is, she is yours and he accepted her.He is lots of fun and I share anything - happiness, sorrow andalso seek moral support from him. Since I live overseas we talk every week and we meet once in two years.”Renuka Sasikumar and P. Ramesh KumarFrom the day he got engaged Renuka Sasikumar says her son-in-law Ramesh Kumar addresses her as Mummy. “He said there are so many aunties in the world…More

The Hindu : Video watchThis fortnight at seventymm.comA Man for all SeasonsCast: Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Robert Shaw, Cardinal Wolsey, Orson WellesDirected by Fred ZinnemannScreenplay by Robert BoltDVDIn this age of sensory overload, “A Man for all Seasons” seems almost like a still centre. The still centre reminds one of T. S. Eliot and his “Murder in the Cathedral” which talks of a dispute between the State and the churchwhich ends in the horrific murder in Canterbury cathedral. The year was 1170 and the principal players were King Henry II and Thomas Beckett.“A Man for all Seasons” tells the story of another clash between state and the church, another Henry and another Thomas. It is the time of King Henry VIII and he cannot get his counsellor, Sir Thomas More, to agree to his divorce of his queen Katharine and marriage to Anne Boleyn. Henry was desperate for a son and though all the lords and clergy agreed to the divorce and remarriage, Henry sought Sir Thomas’ seal of approval, which Sir Thomas was unwilling to give as it would mean going against the church.The movie based on Robert Bolt’s play of the same name, follows Sir Thomas More as he steadfastly refuses to say “yes” to his king. But canny lawyer that he is, he maintains a silence that smartly frustrates any attempts by the king’s advocate, Thomas Cromwell, to bring charges against him.The movie is rather talky with long stretches where characters discuss finer points of law. But the dialogue is razor-sharp and brings to mind all those courtroom dramas of yore before jump cuts and zooms and fade outs changed the grammar of cinema forever.The film does away with the Common Man of the play, who worked as a kind of chorus to the events of the play.The cast is uniformly superb. Paul Scofield reprises his stage role as Sir Thomas More. His…More

The Hindu : Images of a stylishly dressed, hep, girl riding around in a bicycle with the neighbourhood kids flashed through my mind as I waited for actor Nadia Moithu in the hotel lobby. The place was abuzz with film stars exchanging pleasantries over breakfast.Right on time, she emerges from the dim lit corridor, swathed in a lilac dupatta, looking every inch like ‘Girlie,’ the character she played in her debut film “Nokkethadoorathu Kannum Nattu”.“It is great to be back among the Malayalam film crowd here, after a long time. Though I visit Kerala often, I have not been able to catch up with my colleagues in cinema. My visits are mostly personal, since both my parents have their families in Kerala,” she says in her simple but chaste Malayalam.Kerala born MumbaikarThe Kerala-born Mumbaikar was introduced to films by Fazil with whom she had three consecutive hits.“Fazil Uncle”, launched me simultaneously in Malayalam and Tamil. “Poove Poochoodava”, the Tamil version of ‘Nokkethadoorathu’ was my first Tamil film. I then worked with him in ‘Poovinu Puthiya Poonthennal’. He is one person I would love to work with again. We, in fact, even had discussions on making a sequel to ‘Nokkethadoorathu’”, she says.No film lover can forget Nadia’s astounding debut as the exuberant teenager opposite Padmini and Mohanlal.She went on to give many a hit in Tamil and Malayalam including “Shyama”, “Vannu Kandu Keezhadakki”, “Panchangni”, “Uyire Unakkaga”, “Paadu Nilave”, “Nilave Malare” and “Anbulla Appa”. Nadia with her stylish looks and cosmopolitan attitude soon went on to become the symbol of the resurgent middle class girl.As one of the blogs on her rightly notes, “The so-called middle class heroines of the 80s always had a miserable time. They either lived for their family, or were slaves to their ever-dominating husbands.” Until Nadia came into the picture riding a bicycle, with a smile on her face, a song on her lips and…More