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The Hindu : Not many sixteen-year-olds can use the phrase “The world is my oyster.” Perhaps, Sharmila Nicollet can imagine the world is her oyster. At this point in her life, she can surely think she has the ability and the freedom to do anything orgo anywhere. And that is thanks to what golf has given her till now.Some six years ago, Sharmila loved to play any game. She was a State level athlete performing well in hurdles and long distance running.She played basketball in her school at that time, Bishop Cotton’s and later at the Bangalore International School. She also played tennis, went horse riding, swimming and was a promising skater to boot. Around this time the Karnataka Golf Association had a programme run by the Asian Junior Golf Academy and Sharmila’s mother persuaded her to take a shot at golf.The chief coach at the AJGA, Rick Jones, was impressed with Sharmila’s natural ability when he saw her hit the ball a very long way with her very first drive shot. He predicted a great future for the 10 year-old.Sharmila too was curious about golf. Very soon she began to take the game seriously and with Sujai Ghorpade as her first coach, golf became the only priority. Her swimming coach was reluctant to let her go and tried hard to retain one of his promising stars. By the age of 13, Sharmila was playing competitive golf and the early years passed in gaining experience and learning to handle pressure while competing.Lessons learnt“I learnt a lot about humility in the first couple of years,” says the teenager with a touch of maturity now. “I had to make a lot of sacrifices in order to play golf. I had to give up horse riding, the sport I liked second best, because I could not risk a back injury. My studies too had to take a back seat to golf…More

The Hindu : Today is Mother Tongue Day and we do a check on the importance given by youngsters in the city to their mother tongue. Although a whopping majority of teenagers think that knowing one’s mother tongue is vital, most confess that they don’tconverse in their mother tongue.Ishan Verma, a business management student says: “I know my mother tongue but speak in the language only at home. This is mainly because this isn’t my hometown, so there aren’t many people I can converse with in my language.”Medical student Hemanth Balakrishnan has no qualms about communicating in his mother tongue. Unfortunately, these youngsters are a part of the small minority that is all out to keep one’s mother tongue current.There are others like 19-year-old student Ritesh Pereira who while acknowledging the importance of knowing one’s mother tongue, does not know any other language apart from English! Considering we study in English-medium schools and live in a cosmopolitan set up, do youngsters today think it is “uncool” to talk in their mother tongue?Says Deepthi Desai, a fine arts student: “It’s not that I am ashamed of identifying with my native place or speaking in my mother tongue. It’s just that English is a universal language. One doesn’t become cool if he uses words like catharsis or anthropology!”Out of placeWith Bangalore being the hottest destination for students from across the country, does the trend give rise to situations wherein newcomers feel left out when others in the group are conversing in the local language?Jibin Jose, a student of law says: “I feel left out sometimes as I am a non- local. However, when I meet somebody else from my place in a similar situation, mother tongue is the common factor that forms the basis of a new friendship.” Leading to more isolation!However, Gurpreet Singh, a sound engineer begs to differ. “I have been living in this city for over six…More

The Hindu : I had red eyes and new glasses,” declares Samit Basu. He spent most of the past decade creating the world of Kirin, Zivran and Maya, managing epic battles across different worlds, reining in gods, monsters and grotesque creatures.The young author who burst onto the scene with his sci-fi/fantasy fiction, “The Simoqin Prophecies” in 2004, has nowwound up the final part of The GameWorld Trilogy – “The Unwaba Revelations.”With three novels published in the past four years, amidst a flutter of short stories, newspaper columns and comic strips, it is no surprise Basu’s work schedule has been “insane.” “My eyes have miraculously survived these years.”“A lot of sleep has been lost in it,” says Basu of “The Unwaba Revelations”, which he calls the most “well-written” of the trilogy.Writtenbetween the ages of 21and 28, “The Simoqin Prophecies”, “The Manticore’s Secret” and “The Unwaba Revelations”have taken away chunks of Basu’s 20’s. Looking back, he says, the journey was fun.“These books are largely about what I really wanted to do,” says Basu. Until he came along, the genre of Indian fantasy fiction had remained largely untouched. That threw up new challenges for the novice writer. “I think my writing was essentially a few years ahead of its time,” says Basu.There were no parameters or guidelines when it came to placing and marketing this genre.“It would have been nice not to be the guinea pig,” jokes Basu. But he adds in the same breath, fantasy fiction had the “charm of attempting interesting things.”“When I started out, I did not know about the partitioning that happened in Indian writing in English. I read anything that came to me and was not aware that readers had this perception about what they read. In the beginning, I did not have a ‘wise plan’ as to what to write. I just wrote. I did not study English literature and was not aware of the…More

The Hindu : Out of placeSixty years ago in the struggle for independence, Indians from all over India came together and joined hands. Sixty years hence, it is a different story. The concept of the nation has its flaws no doubt, but when it comes to migration of workers in search of better job opportunities and a better life, crude forms of regionalism seeps in. While some states and communities fight for independent nations, in the “One India”, we become cruel and racist towards our own people. We physically and verbally abuse them – telling them that they have no right to be in this place. So it looks like as usual, nobody is observing the Constitution of India which states that an Indian has the right to move around freely within any part of the country. We complain that they take away our jobs and trample our culture, but why do we overlook facts that they contribute to the state’s economy and most often than not, there are no takers for vacancies.It was started by Bal Thackeray who said Mumbai is only for Mumbaikars, and now Raj Thackeray has taken the movement to the next level. And when Mayawati names three streets in U.P. after Marathi leaders, Raj Thackarey is only too happy. And ironically, there were no reported protests against V-day this year in Mumbai.The outsiders are well- qualified for jobs outside their State, they have every right to move around. In fact, they are contributing to the economy of the State they work in. I am a Kannadiga and I am happy to play host to my non-Kannadiga friends.Vinay KumarSoftware engineerI am from Orissa and I have not faced any restrictions from local people yet. I have made friends with both non-Kannadigas and Kannadigas and we get along very well. I don’t think that it is right to punish outsiders like the way they did…More

The Hindu : Shyam Benegal doesn’t mince words. Talking of films and history, he says, “Ashutosh has been stating that ‘Jodhaa Akbar’ is a work of fiction. There’s more intolerance today. We’ve had several costume dramas before. And Akbar’s wife was named Jodha Bai in Mughal-e-Azam; no one complained back then.” he asks. The director also spoke about his projects.The life of Buddha: Currently working on a film about the life of Buddha, Benegal reveals, “It’s an Indo-Sri Lankan project. Right now, we are in research mode, talking to scholars in many countries where Buddhism is followed. We will then work on the script.”Hrithik as Buddha? Benegal feels Hrithik Roshan is apt for the role of Siddharth. “I’ll approach him once the script is ready,” he says. “Hrithik, in media reports, has said he’d like to do contemporary roles and Siddharth might be like playing Akbar. I think he hasn’t understood what the film is all about.”The Spy Princess: The ace film-maker will also make a film on Noor Inayat Khan, a Tipu Sultan descendant who worked as a British secret agent in France. “‘The Spy Princess’ will be shot in France, England and Germany. Lord Meghnad Desai and his wife are working on the third draft of the script. We’ll soon be looking for funds and the cast.”Comic capers: Benegal’s next release “Mahadev ka Sajjanpur”, he describes, is a “comic satire. The setting is a contemporary Indian village that has television, telephones and other gadgets. The only problem is illiteracy. The hero writes letters for the villagers, becomes their confidant and is also manupulative.” The film stars Amrita Rao and Shreyas Talpade.SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO…More

The Hindu : The Gateway to Hollywood is now open with the exclusive premiere episode of “Gateway” – India’s first reality TV show on filmmaking on February 24 at 10 p.m. only on PIX.You can be witness to the discovery of India’s next great filmmaker who will one day create cinema history in Hollywood.Watch the saga of 18 aspiring filmmakers who put in their blood, sweat and tears in their tryst of making movie magic. The show features ace Hollywood Producer, Ashok Amritraj, as the ultimate judge, and movie maestros Anurag Basu and Rajat Kapoor as his Jurors. The well equipped panel will make sure the bar is raised and push the contestants to deliver their best. This is India’s first ever reality TV show on filmmaking, organisers say.Gateway will air on Sony PIX every Sunday at 10 p.m….More

The Hindu : You’ve got an e-gram!The IT revolution has almost sent telegraphic services packingPhoto: V. SudershanLivewire A telegraph office might have a desolate look now, but in earlier times it was one of the fastest tools of communication.Remember the last time you received a telegram from a relative? It must be years and years since someone knocked at your door to deliver a telegram and you opened it with loud heartbeats and trembling hands, loaded with apprehensions or excitement ora bit of both.The advancement in Information Technology in recent years has weeded the telegram out from our daily lives. In the age of mobile phones when anyone — just anyone, from close relatives to VIPs — is just 10 digits and a push-button away, who would bother to go all the way to the telegraph office, fill up a form and wait to get the message across?The waiting time depended on many factors, including your fluency in filling up the form (though the readymade sample messages were always displayed on a large board in the telegraph office), and the operator’s fluency in coding the message, and then the proficiency of the operator at decoding the Morse code at the other end.Still aliveBut no more such hassles. Although the telegram has faded away from our day-to-day life and nobody uses it for sending greetings to near and dear ones or informing them about his or her arrival, it has not died altogether.The once ubiquitous telegram is alive, sans Morse, and married to the computer. There are about 25 telegraph offices in the Capital, some of whom work round the clock. Most of these are still housed in colonial buildings, but apart from the pre-Independence furniture, there is nothing that can make the over-60s nostalgic.An example can be seen here where Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then President, Indian National Congress, reads an important telegram.The old machine, commonly known as ghirr-gitt…More

The Hindu : Cathy Spagnoli is a seeker. Of stories. And then, she is a storyteller. Cathy recalls her story-hunting expeditions to South, South East and South Asia and America.In her website she writes that she has “slid through Indonesian rice fields, sipped sake with Japanese epic singers, met with Korean monks in high mountain temples, hiked the Himalayas with Tibetan dancers, marvelled at Kamishibai Festivals, and shared tea with warm-hearted Southeast Asian refugees.”Stories vary from place to place, she says. In India, there are on family, in Japan on war, in strife-torn Laos on harmony and in America, on heroes — individual successes. “Almost every Asian country has one epic tradition and almost every country, folk stories,” she says. One running theme through all cultures is smart alecks.If we Indians have Tenali Raman and Birbal, Korea has Kim Sondal. At the InKo centre, after a stint at Hannam University, Korea, Cathy was to share tales from Korea.“In Korea, till recently, people did not respect their stories. They thought the stories were not modern enough. Now they are rediscovering their stories.”Stories, she says, are who we are. So, we should never lose them.Therefore Cathy encourages her students to tell their own stories through “family story boards”. She pulls out one made by her student, from her bag. It unfolds to about 10 squares and in each square, the student illustrates one important event in her life.The board is among the few props she uses to tell stories. Another is the Japanese kamisibai cards. “An oral story teller uses voice, gestures and few simple props.”One of Cathy’s favourite storyteller is T.S. Balakrishna Sastrigal, a Harikatha exponent. “Amazing,” she terms him.A good story is difficult to pin down, because it varies from culture to culture, Cathy says. “But a good storyteller is one who knows the right story to tell and how to tell it.”ASHA S. MENON…More