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The Hindu : Turn off the stove, fix yourself a cocktail and settle down for a mouth-watering culinary competition as five complete strangers battle it out for the title of consummate dinner party host. It’s a contest where each night, one of the five amateur chefs cooks up a dinner party for the other four at home. At the end of each evening the guests award points for food, presentation and entertainment. The host with the most wins $1,000. Can the hosts rise to the challenge and write themselves into the recipe books? From dressing the guests in pajamas to serving grilled scallops and chocolate fondue in bed and playing a game of “Truth or Dare” it’s all happening in ‘Dinner Takes All’. From table setting which looks beautiful to beginning the evening in a makeshift gallery it’s all about trying to impress fellow guests in the group. ‘Dinner Takes All’ airs on Tuesday at 8 p.m.‘Making It Big’ offers young professionals a ticket to the top of today’s popular creative careers. In each episode, three hopefuls face the toughest challenge as they vie for a reward money can’t buy – mentoring by a high profile leader in their industry. From music video directors to fashion photographers, from pastry chefs to songwriters, the programme features them all. To begin with, fashion photographers vie for a chance to be mentored by New York fashion photographer Joshua Jordan. Next in line are up-and-coming floral designers who must create elaborate floral design for a deluxe dinner party in just two hours. Oscar winning costume designer Angus Strathie will mentor budding costume designers who have to costume actors for a film scene in just two hours. Watch pastry chefs impress with multi-course dessert and advertising copywriters pitch a multi-media advertising campaign. All on Friday at 10 p.m.‘Shear Genius’ which airs every Saturday at 8 p.m. puts together a group of talented hairstylists…More

The Hindu : Sufi fables, childhood memories, love story, history, politics, dialogues, monologues and a short film script which the reader “may choose to read, or not to read”. Saeed Mirza’s “Ammi, Letter to a Democratic Mother” packs in all this and more. The publisher chooses to call it a novel, but categories don’t matter to Mirza. He would rather describe it as “miniatures set in a mural” where Samuel Huntington and Mullah Nasiruddin reside on neighbouring pages.With this book, the maker of the memorable serial “Nukkad” in the early days of television and path-breaking films such as “Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai” and “Saleem Langde Pe Mat Ro” makes a shift in medium. He will not make any more films after finishing the one he is currently working on for Rajat Kapoor. He has abandoned his plans of making a film on Kashmir because “too much blood has been spilt there from all sides and it is impossible to enter that space without feeling like a vulture.”Even as he has moved from visual images to the written word, Mirza remains as deeply political as ever in his concerns. The book comes as a response to the events after 9/11 when people began to use words like “democracy” and “terrorism” without knowing what they mean. He shows how people like his mother lived by the values of liberal democracy without using catchphrases as crutches. But interestingly, much like in his later film “Naseem”, the tone of the book is not of fiery anger but of quiet indignation.MetroPlus spoke to Mirza on his recent visit to the city to launch his book:Why this choice of form that seems beyond categorisation?Is it a novel, an anti-novel, a memoir, a scrap book? I don’t know. But to be able to construct something like this is incredibly satisfying because it’s free. You can meander, take off on journeys, play with…More

The Hindu : “A film or a play where the writer is visible can be disastrous,” says theatre and film writer Javed Siddiqi. “The writer should remain submerged, allowing the script and the character to do the talking. In all these years, I haven’t written my own dialogues. I’ve written to suit the diktats of the script and the characters. The dialogues of ‘Umrao Jaan’ reflect the language used in Lucknow in the 19th century, ‘Soni Mahiwal’ had a liberal sprinkling of Punjabi and ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ spoke the language of contemporary youth. Know your words, for they are alive,” he explains.Siddiqi says, “I thought what the world would be like without words. Perhaps the world would be beautiful. Raj Thackeray, whose complaint is about people like me who cannot speak Marathi, would perhaps be happy if we didn’t speak at all.”Having studied Urdu and worked as a journalist in the 70s, he recollects his transition into theatre and cinema. “During Emergency, one couldn’t write the truth. So I shifted to films where I could write everything else but the truth.” His first film as a dialogue writer was Satyajit Ray’s “Shatranj Ke Khilari”. “I remember Ray telling me to use words only when the pictures stop speaking. In cinema, you need not describe what the audience can see on screen. It is a visual medium. So I’ve kept my usage of words to the minimum. In fact, director Subhash Ghai accuses me of being miserly with words,” laughs Siddiqi. He also ascertained how the actor becomes the vital medium to communicate the writer’s message to the audience.Theatre, he feels, allows the viewers to interpret and reinterpret the play over time. “Once a movie or a book is written, you cannot change anything about it. Whereas, in theatre, there is scope for improvisation and reinterpretation,” he says. Of his “Tumhari Amrita,” which is an adaptation of A….More

The Hindu : It’s something innate in most women. An instinctive understanding of situations and people’s feelings.Sujatha Ramanathan, Head of the Department of Sociology, Stella Maris College says, “I think women are more intuitive. I would sayintuition is more a psychological thing. I don’t have a scientific basis with which to corroborate what I am saying. Mothers think of their children more than fathers do and they will know how their children are feeling before they even articulate it.”Author, Psychiatrist and Counsellor Dr. Vijay Nagaswami also agrees that women are more intuitive.“Its not that women are hardwired to be more intuitive than men. Its just that since they are more in touch with their emotions they are in a position to recognise their intuitive capabilities better and more importantly respond to them. Intuition like any other human faculty requires to be honed. And the more you act on your intuitions the more they get refined.Providing a scientific basis to the theory that women are more intuitive Neurologist and Neurosurgeon Dr. Prithika Chary says “Several studies have documented that women are able to get the big picture in a situation, are able to look at things from different points of view, are better at analysing facial expressions displaying various emotions and are quicker at getting the sense of things.This is believed to be due to the thicker corpus callosum (23 per cent thicker in women than men) which enables more cross talk between the two cerebral hemispheres.”The corpus callosumis the largest connective pathway in a human brain.Reinforcing her point about the power of female intuition Dr. Prithika Chary says “Women traditionally know when the men in their life are having a bad day or something is bothering them without having to be told .This is because of their intuitive sense which happens because of their natural ability to better interpret the facial expression and body language and the overall…More

The Hindu : Fashion and film are best buddies and the time gap between screen and street is not all that great. Rani Mukherjee’s unique collared kurta in “Bunty aur Babli” was indeed impressive and the trend thrived for a good deal of time. More recently “Laaga Chunari Mein Daag” popularised patiala salwars. In spite of “Saawariya” not doing too well at the box office, the Anarkali-style kurta is back with a bang.“After years of hibernation, the Anarkali suit has returned, this time in a more fashionable and appealing avatar,” says Anuja Shekar, a sales executive at a clothing store in the city. “Suited for both casual wear as well as for formal occasions, this stunning outfit is truly an attention grabber,” comments fashion technology student, Laila Panjwani. She points out that the Anarkali kurta first returned on the small screen and was later used in some of the movies that followed.Coupled with a perfect fitted churidhaar, the kurta is flared just below the chest and slightly longer than knee length. According to fashion designer, Ameetha Mathew: “The Anarkali suit is best for people with a slim frame and for those who are tall.She adds, “However, it does not always look bad on those who aren’t blessed with a good height.”While many people hanker about exactly matching outfits, the Anarkali kurta looks even better when the kalis (or the pleats) are in a contrasting colour. “Stylized deep necks and triangle cuts are very popular,” says dance trainer, Shilpa Kumar Dass. Sleeveless kurtas are very conventional.It is the Magyar sleeves as well as those that have some patch work on them that look absolutely ravishing.“The materials that are appropriate for Anarkali kurtas, when it comes to grand occasions, are silk and georgette. Kurtas with zari woven into them, embroidered, or embellished with sequins as well as those with brocade kalis are attractive. Jute kali kurtas are suitable for semi-formal…More

The Hindu : “I’m not entirely sure if it was meant as a compliment…,” said a friend. Naturally, as well-meaning friends, we told her that that unless and otherwise you’re a brooding male, you should never internalise your feelings, and that you must share, freely, any/all especially embarrassing/sad moments with your friends; besides, we assured her, it would be very cathartic.“A few of us from our pilates class were having coffee after our lesson,” she then continued, “when our instructor – I’ve met her just a couple of times in my entire life – told me that I was such a resilient person, that even if my husband were to die, I would easily bounce back and cheerfully go about my business! Whatever did she mean by this?”“Was she,” she fumed, “by chance, implying that I’m just a great big, unfeeling, ever-grinning ape?” The rest of us present could only laugh in reply. Oh no! We didn’t find the image of our friend as an ever-grinning ape terribly amusing; rather, it was the fact that this was so typically woman – drawing a character sketch of somebody within five minutes of meeting them – something that most of us present hadbeen guilty of at some point or the other, while men (and we have this from the horse’s mouth) mostly never do….Men, it seems, wouldn’t care to conclude from somebody’s chipped fingernail that he/she was perhaps highly indifferent about appearances. They wouldn’t, apparently, bother inferring from somebody’s smile if he/she has had a happy/troubled childhood, just as they wouldn’t wonder whether a person they met in the pub has a deep/dark secret that’s possibly stifling their creativity.Women, on the other hand, can and do, all this and more…They can tell, within minutes, if the person is happily married (or not), if his/her boss is a pain in the region just below the lumbosacral spine, if they’re the sort…More

The Hindu : When the Latin Grammy Awards was going to be launched in 2000, Jose Feliciano told the organisers that he wasn’t happy with the idea. “They were angry because I felt that Latin American musicians may lose their position in the American Grammy Awards.”Jose Feliciano, the visually-challenged Latin-American guitarist and multi Grammy award-winner was here in the city to perform at the Johnnie Walker One Tree Hill Music Festival 2008 at Ambedkar Bhavan.Jose, known for his soaring rendition of the theme song of “Mackenna’s Gold”, “Old Turkey Buzzard, “wanted to come to India my whole life. I have listened to some Indian music.” The spirituality struck him the most. “I performed in Mumbai and Goa, and the experience was fulfilling,” says Jose.For Jose, the 62-year-old Puerto-Rican born artist who stylised The Doors “Light my Fire”, life has been hard. “I was born in a shack with a tin roof with no electricity. I have had a life that has seen the poorest of the poor.” But the legendary and inspirational Jose admits cheerfully, “If it weren’t for those desperate circumstances, and if I had everything at my beck and call, I would not have strived to better myself.”It all started for Jose when he was three. “I used to accompany my uncle on a tin cracker can. Jose was four or five years old when he moved on to the harmonica, after which his family immigrated to New York City. “I started learning Braille and taught myself the guitar.” He feels, “It has been a life not without struggles, but it has been a wonderful journey so far.”Jose treasures three moments in his life – when he won six Grammy Awards in 1968, playing for the Pope and the birth of his three children. “I’ll always remember them.” Jose is always composing music. His latest album is “The Soundtrack of my Life”. “I always listen to…More

The Hindu : The word cherry refers to both the tree and the fleshy fruit (drupe) that contains a single stony seed. Cherry belongs to the family Rosaceae, genus Prunus, along with almonds, peaches, plums, apricots and bird cherries. The cherry is generally understood to have been brought to Rome from Persia.The cherries selected for eating are derived primarily from two species — the Wild Cherry, which has given rise to the Sweet Cherry to which most cherry cultivars belong, and the Sour Cherry, used mainly for cooking. Besides fruit, cherries have attractive flowers, and are commonly planted for their flower display in spring.Several Asian cherries are particularly noted for their attractive flowers.The Japanese sakura, in particular, is a national symbol and is celebrated in the yearly Hanami festival.Cherries contain anthocyanins, the red pigment in berries, which help reduce pain and inflammation. Anthocyanins are also potent antioxidants.Cherries contain high levels of melatonin. Research has shown that people who have heart attacks have low melatonin levels.Besides being an anti-oxidant, melatonin has also been shown to be important for the function of the immune system.There is considerable interest, at present, in the use of fresh cherries or cherry juice to treat gout, a painful, inflammatory condition affecting the joints.Culinary usesCherry tastes sweet and sour. It is used in many desserts, drinks, cookies, cakes, pastry, shakes, ice creams, pies, jams and jellies as flavouring. It can be used for gelatine desserts, punch or sherbet, and has been added as an ascorbic acid supplement to other fruit juices.The fruits may be made into syrup or, with added pectin made into jelly, jam, and other preserves.Now, for a recipe.Chocolate Cherry SmoothieIngredientsUnsweetened, frozen pitted cherries: One to one-and-a-half cupsLow-fat vanilla soy milk: 1 cupCranberry-raspberry juice: quarter cupChocolate hazelnut spread: one tbspNon-fat vanilla yoghurt: half cupMethod: Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree them until smooth.RISHI MANUCHA…More

The Hindu : Going placesLourd Vijay, the brain behind Lourd Vijay Dance Studio, is first Bangalorean to be invited Hong Kong to Judge The Asian Open Salsa Championships. This tournament was held on February 15. That’s not all the man, responsible for putting the Indian Salsa on the international arena, will also teach and conduct workshops in Taipei between February 18 and 22. For city based dance freaks too Lourd Vijay has something lined up. This time he is inviting Giju, a renowned salsa dancer and instructor in the international salsa scene to teach at his studio. Giju is the principal dancer of SalsaMania, based in San Francisco, and is also a singer and the first artist to release a Hindi album successfully collaborating salsa with Indian-pop. He will be accompanied by another accomplished salsa dancer Kristen Nolan, who is well known for her impeccable spinning techniques.In order to prepare dancers for the Cha-cha auditions, Giju will be conducting boot camps and also teach Cha-cha to aspiring dancers who want to get on to the international video. The Boot Camp starts in Bangalore on March 1 at Lourd Vijay Dance Studio. All workshops will be followed by Auditions and Social Dancing. For details call the studio on 9845239123. You can also emailinfo@lvds.in orlourd@indiasalsa.com….More

The Hindu : Meter downSoftware engineer Anoob Fasaludeen is clearly frustrated with the auto drivers of the city“There is no free lunch”. “Ill got ill spent”. These are proverbs which don’t hold good for the Maharajas of Bangalore; no insult meant to any one. I am talking about the autoriksha-wallas (whom I will refer to further as AWs). They are essentially the bosses of the day.The mode of operation varies as per the whims and fancies of our dear drivers. After 9 p.m. it’s one-and-a-half times the meter fare reading which is totally understandable but at dawn they start asking three to four times the fare; no meter-fixed charges. I can’t deduce any logic behind this deal. During holidays, they reap very little in the early mornings. And this our dear AWs compensate by getting more during the late hours of the evening. I remember some tourists cursing the tampered meters and talking of instances of the meter getting “stuck” — these are the usual scenes. If these are the problems people face within the city, in the outskirts the story is not different.Here, the minimum charge starts at Rs. 50 — reason being that AWs gets customers only from afternoon and so on. No one apparently takes the autos in the mornings!Another question I hear very often as a software engineer is: “Why are you fighting for Rs. 30? You software engineers get paid like anything.” It’s high time that all people in the city got together and fought against this menace. These AWs will probably not even be adversely affected by the various one lakh-rupee cars available.They take pride in the vehicle that is fancied by the Angelina Jolies and Brad Pitts of the world and almost all visiting queens, who want to take pictures riding in them. All AWs must undergo compulsory hospitality training at least.Do you have anything to say? About the state of…More