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The Hindu : For all those who dream of indulging in the fame and glamour of the Festival de Cannes, the world’s most prestigious film festival, here’s an opportunity to make your dream come true. Palador Pictures Pvt. Ltd., the largest owners of World Cinema in India, brings the ‘Ticket to Cannes’ contest being promoted by Indiaplaza.in. The offer is valid for those purchasing World Cinema DVDs in February from Indiaplaza.in. Fifty Collectors World Cinema DVD box sets can also be won.Those who buy two or more DVD box sets of five DVDs each or one set of 10 DVDs are entitled to participate in a simple slogan contest. Five lucky winners will each win two tickets to Cannes while 50 customers stand to win Collectors World Cinema DVD box sets. This is a contest of skill and not chance, with those buying more box sets, getting more chance to fill in the slogan. Winners will be judged based on the slogan they write. The contest is open till February 29 and the winners will be declared on March 15. The three special collectors’ box sets programmed for this contest are the ‘Kurosawa Collectors Box set, ‘Wong Kar Wai Collectors Box set’ and The Collectors World Cinema Box set.The films packaged in the box sets are some of the best awarded films in the world like classics ‘Seven Samurai’ and ‘Throne of Blood’, directed by Akira Kurosawa, ‘In The Mood For Love’ and ‘Happy Together’, by Wong Kar Wai, and the critical and the action trilogy, ‘Infernal Affairs’. Two Ingmar Bergman masterpieces also find a place of honour in a box set. So log ontowww.indiaplaza.in, buy DVDs to get your celebrity gear ready….More

The Hindu : Life’s like thatVery often we crib about the traffic. Narangoli Padmanabhan comes up with some calculations and solutionsCity life, that many feel is “posh” is rather miserable for many others.Traffic jams and other hurdles add to this misery making urban life hopeless for the masses.The BBMNP is trying to cope with the situation building Metro Rail.The process is a time-consuming one and the construction work itself is causing hazardous traffic blocks.I used to travel from Dairy Circle to Yeswantpur which earlier took 30 minutes. Now it takes about two hours.Expensive fuel and precious time and manpower are mercilessly burnt. Was this national waste inevitable? Is there not a way out?Of course there is! But there must be a will. The bus is the means of transport for the ordinary commuters, which can carry 35 to 40 passengers.The road space required for a bus can accommodate approximately one-and-half portion of a car that can carry six on board, or three autorikshaws holding nine, or four bikes which can take eight people. That means on an average, seven passengers only can be accommodated in other conveyances occupying the road space required for a bus. The bus therefore is five times more efficient than other small carriers.I suggest the following measures for an immediate solution: First identify heavy traffic routes. Channelise only buses through it between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Non-passenger vehicles should be directed through other routes.Three and two-wheelers should be directed through link roads and lanes that can hold this traffic. Just three days are enough to draw up a plan for this.Put the plan into practice for a week’s trial run. Reasonable objections and practicable suggestions should be looked into, and modifications made, during the trial run period. Thereafter, the plan can go on a permanent footing.This is a suggestion to reach an immediate solution. Long-term projects like Metro Rail, widening of lanes, construction…More

The Hindu : “They listened to music — without translation; raw, on the rocks.”From ‘Grateful Ganga’ in “The Japanese Wife” collection.Kunal Basu was born in Kolkata but has spent the last 29 years in Canada and the U.S. teaching Management Studies at universities. He has also been a prolific writer with three novels and a short story collection to his credit.If that background makes one expect his literary output to revolve around cultural conflicts and NRI angst reflected in much of the diasporic writing, one is in for a surprise. His last novel, “Racists”, was without a single Indian character. The 12 short stories in the just-launched collection “The Japanese Wife” have people crossing borders and striking relationships in the most unexpected ways: A Maths teacher at a school in Sundarbans marries a Japanese woman through letters. The wife of an American rock star falls in love with a Punjabi businessman of Karolbagh. And a jaded journalist in India suddenly starts getting letters from a young African woman who wants his help to trace her Tamil grandfather.Basu does not want the label of an Indo-Anglian writer and the expectations that come with it to cloud his writing. He says a story is born simply when an idea keeps him awake at night and he gets up to see if he can “fashion a tale around it”.MetroPlus caught up with Basu when he was in Bangalore to launch “The Japanese Wife” with Aparna Sen, who is making a film based on the title story.Excerpts from an interview:The stories in the collection are about situations where “accidents reveal more than the plan” as you put it.The stories are about unexpected things that happen to us within the humdrum of everyday life. The humdrum drowns them out, and yet, they remain with us as dreams and deep memories. In “Father Tito’s Onion Rings” whenever the protagonist is faced with a conflict…More

The Hindu : Thank God, Ayesha Takia did a a food supplement ad in her childhood that masses still connect her with. Otherwise they seemed to be forgetting her. With films like “Socha Na Tha”, “Shadi Se Pahle”, “Dil Mange More”, “Fool and Final”, “Yun Hota To Kya Hota” and “Home Delivery” she was also in the list of “not happening” actors.But her career graph started ascending after she managed to corner admirers with the multi-starrer musical “Salam-e-Ishq”. And Nagesh Kukunoor’s “Dor”, in which she played a young widow, did wonders for her.She was acknowledged as a fine actor who could do serious roles too. But that was only one film. Ayesha seems to be back to what she was doing — a bubbly innocent girl, given to impulses. In Rohit Shetty’s “Sunday” too, she dons a similar garb.The film is a remake of the hit Telegu film “Anukokunda Oka Roju”. Ajay Devgan, Irrfan Khan and Arshad Warsi are Ayesha’s co-stars.Says a 21-year-old Ayesha, who also hosted a T.V programme “Disney” at the age of 13, “Though this film has experienced actors, my role has not been thinned because of their presence. I don’t play a girl standing next to her boyfriend goofing up things. I play a role that hardly any heroine has played.”As Sehar, she is “the most wanted dubbing artiste for animation films” in “Sunday”. She realises that a Sunday is missing from her life. “And on that Sunday, a murder takes place to which she is invariably linked. This role helped me learn dubbing for animated characters. In the introduction scene I had to make at least eight difference voices. When I saw myself on the monitor, I was apprehensive of people’s response to it. But as my co-stars and others laughed and found it really funny, I was slightly assured that the audience would also like it,” says Ayesha.After “Dor”, Ayesha says her…More

The Hindu : Awards in the airRadio Mirchi has announced the call for entries of the fifth Mirchi KAAN Awards, said to be the first and only “pure play radio awards to honour excellence in radio advertising in India”.All radio spots, aired between January 1, 2007 and January 31, 2008, are eligible for entry. “A great Radio commercial demands greater talent and creativity than in any other medium. While creating radio jingles one is limited by the size of the mind and the imagination.” Say the organisers.The jury panel for the awards are Prasoon Joshi, Piyush Pandey, R. Balakrishnan, Ravi Deshpande, Mohammed Khan, K.S. Chakravarthi, Agnello Dias, K.V. Sridhar, Rajat Dholakia, Ram Sampath, Priti Nair, Rekha Nigam, Bobby Pawar, Shantanu Moitra, Ramanuj Shastry, Ashish Khazanchi, Gullu Sen, Prahlad Kakkar, Pradeep Sarkar, Josy Paul, Suguna Swami, Senthil Kumar, Sunil Thoppil, Deepa Krishnan and Ramesh Ramanathan.Radio Mirchi will also sponsor two radio creative hotshots below the age of 30, for an all expenses paid trip to the Cannes Lions 2008, from the agency that wins the Crystal Award.For details and registrations log on towww.radiomirchi.com.The last date for entries is February 22….More

The Hindu : The Hollywood movie you were dying to watch ignored your local theatres. The DVD isn’t out yet or is too expensive. So what’s a movie buff to do? Download the movie, of course. With a 256 kbps connection and a free BitTorrent client likeutorrent or Azureus, one can download a 700 MB movie in about seven hours. And millions do it everyday, despite the illegality of it.Sudarshan, a doctor has his computer on and humming, downloading movies 24 hours a day. The hundreds of movies he has downloaded so far are stored on DVDs (his hard drive ran out of space for them a long time ago). The movies are typically 700-800 MB in size, with the video in a letterbox format and excellent audio.Superfundo, Torrentspy, mininova, btjunkie, thepiratebay, and isohunt are his go-to sites for the latest movies. Once the DVD version arrives on Amazon.com, it takes only a couple of days for some dedicated uploader to post the torrent online. Axxo, the legendary and prolific uploader, is Sudarshan’s favourite source for DVD Rip movies.Using a BitTorrent client instead of an old-fashioned p2p client like Kazaa or Morpheus has distinct advantages.The BitTorrent protocol makes the most efficient use of bandwidth, ensuring downloaders do not crowd each other out, and you are more likely to finish the download. A fake file is more easily caught by the torrent community, and viruses are difficult to slip through. A free programme like PeerGuardian will block most dubious IP addresses.Torrenting is not just for new and popular movies. It is especially useful for classics that are hard to find. Want to watch Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” (Det sjunde inseglet) or Jean Renoir’s “The Rules of the Game” (La Règle du Jeu)? How about building a film noir collection, or having all 180 episodes of Seinfeld on a single hard drive? Torrents is your answer.Torrents have one disadvantage:…More

The Hindu : For the many Bangaloreans who work hard all week, a hearty breakfast at Mocha might be just what the doctor ordered. If the English breakfast is your taste, then choose from classic Belgian waffle served with butter and honey and freshly-made buttermilk pancakes.Eggs are served with buttered toast, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and potato wedges. You can opt for anything from scrambled eggs to sunny side up/bulls eye. The extended menu of omelettes is sure to make you opt for more than just one. Italian Omelette Breakfast which is a crescent folded omelette stuffed with sliced white Spanish onions and chicken sausages or Spanish omelette breakfast, open faced omelette topped with peppers, mushrooms, cheese and more. You can also ask for your own preferences and the chefs will cook it for you.People with a taste for desi flavours, can get some breakfast in true ‘Bambaiya Ishtyle.’ kheema ghotala-lamb mince in traditional Indian spices cooked on a heavy griddle, topped with eggs and served with traditional Mumbai pav (bread) to bun maska with cutting chai to oven-fresh buttered sweet buns served with Mocha’s masala chai cutting.So drop into Mocha at a time that is convenient for you and indulge in some hot and yummy breakfast. Call 65357222….More

The Hindu : The fourth Tri Continental Film Festival put together by Breakthroughwas held recently at Alliance Francaise, Bangalore.Divided into six sections viz. Imaginary Homelands, Medium is the Message, Gaze Endangered, Cuba Spotlight, Vanishing Histories and, Triumph of the Will, the festival comprised more than twenty films. “Assaulted Dream” (Guatemala/ Germany/ 2006/ Spanish with English subtitles/ 83 minutes) had its Asian Premiere during the festival. Its German director, Uli Stelzner, used just a small Panasonic camcorder to capture the torturous migrant life at the Guatemalan-Mexican border. A poignant story, it showed how hundreds of impoverished Central Americans held on to the great American dream. The candid camera captured the conditions of these people. “Assaulted Dream” particularly follows Noé, a migrant from El Salvador, who fails to make it to the Promised Land and has to return to the border to become an ill-paid sweeper at a bus station. Shattered and disillusioned, short of sleep and food, and always living on the edge, Noé presents a pathetic sight. The film, is dedicated to Noé, who eventually met a tragic end.Another film which had its Asia Premier was “Independent Intervention” (Director: Tonje Hessen Schei/ Iraq-Norway-USA/ 75 mins. / 2006), an award-winning documentary which focused on the horrors of Iraq war and the role played by corporate controlled media in the US. As a journalist points out in the film, “Truth and conscience are among the biggest casualties of war.”Among other interesting presentations of the festival were “The Devil came on Horseback” (Directors: Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg / Sudan/ 85 mins. / 2007), a compelling portrait of the genocide in Darfur; “Hip-Hop Revolution” (Director: Weea Willams / South Africa / 50 mins. / 2006) about an incredible music-n-dance form which combined elements of protest as well as creative self-expression; “The Hands of Che Guevara” (director: Peter De Kock /The Netherlands / 62 mins / 2007) on a search for Che’s…More

The Hindu : Seated on the floor before the stage, their friends looked eagerly for them and waited in anticipation for their performance.Some were aurally challenged, some were physically or speech-impaired. But what held them together was high drum-beat energy that played out their stories.Staged at the Centre for Film and Drama and organised by Masrah and Voices, “Dhamaroo” was performed by Nalak Ghante, an energetic bunch of youth from the Association of People with Disabilities.Put together over a three-month workshop, “Dhamaroo” told the larger-than-life story of a road-side sweeper whose schedule runs from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was an insider’s look into the life of a physically-challenged sweeper and his companion, the broom.Using a gamut of languages from Kannada and Hindi, to Tamil and English, the youngsters in bright, colourful kurtas took the stage and simply bowled the audience over with their capacity to communicate their feelings and ideas.It moved from being humorous to hilarious, from sad to miserable by just using simple, demonstrative gestures, body language and vivid expressions. It didn’t take too long to be engulfed by their world.With minimalist props, the actors used the stage to enact their stories – which they themselves played out without using many devices.From playing a bullock cart to taking a piece of chalk to swiftly draw a hopscotch spot, the acting was so spontaneous, engaging and captivating that you couldn’t help but be drawn into it almost immediately.You had to keep up with their energy when they danced to the drum-beats, pacing around on the stage while the sweeper thought aloud.From a playing goli in all the sights and sounds that a game creates, you didn’t need words to express their actions. The imitations of a typical classroom scene, where the students heartlessly recite sentences repeatedly elicit loud laughs from the audience. It was uproarious to see the absurdity of school-life being played out before you…More

The Hindu : Flu (avian influenza), now sweeping through West Bengal, raises troubling questions:will it alter the taste of chicken?Will eating eggs or chicken put me at risk? First, the good news. Even in an outbreak zone, bird flu poses little risk for the consumer eating well-cooked meat and eggs. The bird flu (H5N1) virus cannot survive beyond 70 degree Celsius.Influenza is not something to sneeze at. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed more people than World Wars I and II combined.If bird flu spreads among humans, the death toll could be much worse. Bird flu follows an aggressive course in most infected humans. Cough, breathlessness, multi-organ failure and death are the most common effects. Currently there is no vaccine or cure. The annual vaccine against human influenza will not prevent bird flu. Who is at risk?Direct contact with infected poultry- especially during slaughter and preparation for cooking, or surfaces and objects contaminated by poultry faeces, is now the main route of human infection.How can I safely prepare food for my family? In truth, no special precautions are necessary. The universal precautions for handling poultry- infected or not- are enough.Use a separate cutting board and knife for meat. Do not let the juices of raw chicken drip on other foods in the fridge. Wash hands with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds before and after handling raw poultry and eggs. Wash cutting boards and utensils with soapy hot water. Hard-boil eggs. Cook chicken to 74 degree Celsius or higher. How do I detect infected birds? This is the tricky bit. Illness in poultry ranges from mild symptoms like ruffled feathers and a drop in egg production to serious illness and death. Infected birds can even be asymptomatic.Avoid sick, dying and dead birds, especially wild and migratory birds.Can drugs help? Not really. Oseltamivir (a.k.a Tamiflu) and zanamivir (a.k.a Relenza) have only marginal benefit in the…More