News

The Hindu : y>

“I woke up a damp, gloomy day…with a sense of despair and loss…but as I opened my window, then I saw a sight, which rather shook me with delight. ,” so writes Srinidhi. R. in his poem titled ‘Hope at the End of the Tunnel’.

Srinidhi began his schooling in Chennai and moved to Bangalore in 1997 and was a student of St. Mira’s High School, Basaveshwarangar. He started writing down his thoughts early in school. Srinidhi says he was thrilled when his poem was featured in an international site. “I want to seriously pursue a career in writing,” he adds.

(Input by Sudhindr A.B.)<FONT …More

The Hindu : y>

The Oxford Senior Secondary School held its valedictory function recently. The programme commenced with a guard of honour headed by the Principal Ms. Mariamma S Mathew followed by the teachers with various portfolios. The Co-ordinators gave a report of the various activities conducted during the academic year. The prizes were distributed .The Principal delivered a motivating speech. The overall trophy was won by the “Saxons” house. The retreat march marked the solemn occasion wherein the captains had to part with their badges and school flag., in a touching ceremony.

<FONT …More

The Hindu : ASEM BHAT

Inculcating an interest in astronomy among kids.

The United Nations has declared 2009 as the year of astronomy

PHOTO: V.SRINIVASA MURTHYEnthusiasm for Astronomy: Figuring it out.

Ganga, a Std.IX student, waxed eloquent about the principle on which a telescope works. Her lucid demonstration of its working held the on-lookers captive, as it provided them with both information and perspective. This was one of the many models on show at the science exhibition held recently in Bangalore.Dynamic models

The science exhibition “Science in Action”, organised by the Bangalore Association for Science Education (BASE) at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, had over 50 students participating with great enthusiasm.

The objective was to demonstrate scientific principles and concepts through dynamic models to inculcate the spirit of scientific enquiry among students.

The United Nations has declared 2009 as the year of astronomy. “We are celebrating 400 years of its origin, and we decided to exhibit astronomy related principles and activities in our exhibition. This will provide a basic understanding of the solar system,” said C.S. Shukre, Director of the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium.

<FONT …More

The Hindu : y>

Survival first The Real World moves to Denver

VH1, has launched the successful reality show “The Real World” on Indian television. The show premiered on Monday and will be telecast from Monday to Friday at 10 p.m. “The Real World” focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city, each season.

This season, cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships through the city of Denver. The true test of their survival skills come back as hasty hook-ups and deep-rooted conflicts make living together a challenge.

It showcases the uncensored, unedited version of real people’s lives and catches them in the act of being themselves.

Get ready for a season packed full of adventure as the roommates scale mountains, learn to live in the wilderness and discover what it is like to work with children who were affected by Hurricane Katrina in the show.

Catch all the action only at 10 p.m. weekdays on VH1

<FONT …More

The Hindu :

This fortnight at indiaplaza.in

Mamma Mia! The Movie

Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Julie Walters, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

Screenwriter: Catherine Johnson

Composer: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus (based on the songs of ABBA)

DVD, Rs. 599

This is a movie you would either thoroughly enjoy or hate rabidly. You could enjoy because it is too campy or too cheesy and you could hate it for the same reasons. I did not enjoy the movie even though I am fond of ABBA. But that must be just me. Based on the phenomenally successful West End and Broadway musical, “Mamma Mia! The Movie” is a tribute to the Swedish pop group of the Seventies, ABBA.

The movie tells the story of Sophie who has been brought up by her mum, Donna, on a beautiful Greek Island. Mother and daughter run a quaint country inn. Twenty-year-old Sophie is engaged to be married to Sky and wants to find her father.

She chances upon her mum’s diary and figures out three men, Sam, Harry and Bill are possible candidates. Sophie invites her three possible dads as she is convinced she will know who her dad is by just looking at him. Dear Sophie has not heard of DNA testing obviously.

Donna has no clue that her loves from her earlier carefree, hippie days are making an appearance. Two of Donna’s friends, Tanya, a serial bride with a little help from the plastic surgeon and Rosie, a writer, have come for the wedding. There is a whole lot of singing and dancing as important truths are figured out. There is a big, fat, Greek wedding and then some more singing and dancing.

Meryl Streep is one of main reasons for making the movie somewhat watchable. As Donna, she sings, dances, falls over, and climbs attics with a goofy cheerful charm that is irresistible.

Pierce Brosnan as…More

The Hindu :

Indian men are an odd mix of the deeply conservative and the half-hearted liberal

Photo: Raju V.BALANCING ACT Much has changed; but the conservative streak in the Indian male continues to be there

The saas-bahu serials, with their painted women who deliver painfully long sermons on emancipation continue to draw eyeballs.

Multiplex films dealing with prickly issues such as wife swapping, living together and love in the times of intolerance, draw their own crowds too. Stars are chastised for wearing what someone decrees is scanty clothing even as our beauty queens land Hollywood films. For every advertisement that shows women to be objects of gratification, there are ads that show them as feisty creatures. That is one angle.

The other one is rather more skewed. Girls talking to boys from ‘other communities’ are humiliated in public. Girls going to pubs are molested. Girls walking down ill-lit roads are harassed. Athletes, sportspeople, if they happen to be girls, are constantly derided for the length of their skirts. The going really seems to be tough for the women.

However, the girls/women aren’t taking it lying down. They are out protesting, silently and loudly, using just about anything they can for props, be it rolling pins or items of underwear. They have their men’s support, they claim. But, do they?Subservient position?

Myth, history and religion have all allotted to women a subservient position and make it clear that a ‘good woman’ must observe and respect that position. It is decreed that a good woman knows her position in the scheme of things. Which makes women who think and act outside the box something of a rarity.

Traditionally, too, Indian men have, by and large, settled for wives chosen by their mothers. Later generations would play the field, butgo home and marry mom’s choice.

That, avers Shiva, in his mid-twenties and working in an IT firm, is no longer so. “Now…More

The Hindu :

Hindi thriller 13B has no blood and gore, says actor Madhavan

Couple tales Madhavan and Neetu Chandra in 13B

If spooky thrillers have meant ghosts, blood and gore until now, “13B” begs to be different. “It will be one of the spookiest supernatural thrillers made in India,” promises actor Madhavan.

The BIG Pictures’ Hindi film will also release in Tamil as “Yaavarum Nalam” with different co-stars and a story that’s slightly tweaked from the Hindi counterpart.

The premise of “13B” came from director Vikram, says Madhavan. “We lead fast-paced lives where there’s very little time for family and intimate conversations. We’re lonely in a crowd and turn to television for support. I have friends who switch on the TV while sleeping in hotel rooms to beat loneliness. Vikram explores the idea of what will happen if television takes over our lives.”

Young couple Madhavan and Neetu Chandra, with their family, move into a new apartment and in a matter of time are hooked on to a TV soap that runs a similar story of a family that’s setting up home. A quirky twist of fate causes incidents in real life aping those in the serial. Eight years after his debut in Mani Ratnam’s “Alaipayuthey”, Maddy teams up again with cinematographer P.C. Sreeram. “The film is what it is today because of him. People are petrified of him because he seeks perfection, but he’s an absolute darling.”New ideas please

Madhavan is now busier with Hindi films (he has six in hand) than in Tamil (two films) and he explains, “The Hindi film industry is going through a phase where there’s scope for new ideas and the audience is loving it too. It’s a great time for actors like me.” He cherishes the experience of working in “Mumbai Meri Jaan”. “Along with the script, I also take into consideration the clarity of thought of the director before…More

The Hindu :

Black and white images capture a city in architectural ruin

CAPTURED IN RUIN Shahid Datawala’s frames and angles are striking

Gaping holes, peeling walls, buildings under construction, abandoned half-constructed buildings, dilapidated structures taken over by roots, rickety railings, concrete monstrosities in Mumbai against a muddy sky, stray birds or ugly brick and mortarcovered by leaves. Shahid Datawala’s “Shadowboxing” by Tasveer captures the sharp contrasts and sometimes, the coexistence of the two. His frames and angles are striking, concrete jungles standing tall next to a sea of slums, under a cloudy sky.

That’s exactly what this Mumbai-based photographer intends to do “as he delves into the pith of the city’s schizophrenic architectural agglomerations” as curator Gitanjali Dang puts it.

A maze of hot tin roofs weighed down by bricks, burn next to a distasteful multi-storeyed building plugged in by air-conditioners. Or a book-opened building opens its wings to the sky. Palms and a dense peepul-tree burst with leaves next to chalk-white and grey tiles.Against the sky

Shahid Datawala captures the ironies of hard material pushing its limits against a sky, trees and birds.

Exposed concrete and a roofless top opens out into the white sky and a towering coconut tree. Or a punctured hole has iron rods jutting out and a plant takes root in some uncovered mud.

Entire floors are empty, leaving you gaze upwards through the frame. An abandoned structure has iron rods stick out like a nest of sticks with a bird flying just above. Or a large-sized Shiva idol sleeps, leaning again a construction project.

The streamlined, planned geometry of the characterless, lifeless structures finds difference with the old Mangalorean and Parsi bungalows.

Datawala’s images reflect both the haunted new and old buildings and the pace of nature around.

“Shadowboxing” is on till March 10, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Saturday at 26/1, Sua House, Kasturba cross road. Call 22128358.

<p…More

The Hindu :

The recently-launched Sukham Ayu by Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain is a layman’s guide to Ayurvedic food

Photo: R. RavindranRight recipesJigyasa Giri (left) and Pratibha Jain

Shrikand studded with almonds and laced with saffron. Fudgy coconut burfi bright with beetroot. Fenugreek parathas twanging with powerful spices.

Ayurvedic food? No wonder the country’s diving into the science with such enthusiasm. Thanks to the influence of decades of western diets, it’s become only natural to believe that health is about deprivation. No sugar. No oil. And definitely no ghee.

Then Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain released “Sukham Ayu: cooking at home with Ayurvedic insights.”

Authors of the popular “Cooking At Home with Pedatha”,the duo spent the last two-and-a-half years researching, writing and cooking to create this book. Bright, friendly and practical, it’s a layman’s guide to Ayurvedic food. “We found that there are thousands of books on Ayurveda, and lots of good writing. But for a common person you have got to break it up,” says Jigyasa.

Though both authors now expertly use the vaata, pitta, kapha terms, they reallytripped upon the idea for this book. They met Dr. Prakash Kalmadi, a doctor of modern medicine turned Ayurvedic doctor in Mumbai. He runs KARE, the Kerala Ayurvedic and Rejuvenation Establishment, at a retreat in the Western Ghats. Dr. Kalmadi was suffering from cervical spondylitis till he discovered Ayurveda. His life was transformed. Swept up in the enthusiasm of rediscovering this traditional Indian science of healing, Dr. Kalmadi converted his weekend farmhouse into KARE. Then, his team began working on recipes for the retreat. Documenting them in a book was just the next logical step.

“People always say you are what you eat,” says Dr. Roli Rangappa, Chief Medical Officer of KARE, adding, “but really, according to Ayurveda, we are what we digest.” She talks of how indigestion is really the root cause of disease. The solution? Demystifying food.

The book,…More

The Hindu : y>Sreevidya. N wonders if parochial elements have taken over cosmopolitan Bangalore

Recently I visited Gandhi bazaar with a friend. As we were parking the car, another car was moving out. One of the occupants said something to my friend in Kannada.

My friend replied in Hindi and said he does not follow Kannada, since he is not from Karnataka. The men, without any provocation, got out of the car and started abusing us.

The ensuing commotion resulted in a huge crowd and even some police officials arriving at the scene.

However, nobody came forward to support us and instead many people claimed that if a person is living in Karnataka, he needs to know the local language. Some miscreants seemed ready to attack us. We decided to get into the car and leave.

However, the miscreants continued to follow us, abusing us relentlessly and even instigating passers-by.

We managed to escape them eventually. But the incident had me wondering whether Bangalore is safe for outsiders? Has this cosmopolitan city been caught up in the maze of narrow-minded and convoluted thinking? These elements also hijack occasions such as Rajyotsava to further their parochial agenda.

As Indians, we must be proud and must make efforts to create a united culture, while according complete respect to different languages and regions.

We must make efforts to live up to the principles of equality and freedom enshrined in the Constitution and not let the parochial elements win the battle.

Do you have anything to say? About the state of the world, the city, your angst?

Dash off your piece with your photograph. Email it tobangmetro@gmail.com or post it to MetroPlus, The Hindu, 19 & 21, Bhagwan Mahaveer Road (Infantry Road), Bangalore 1.

<FONT …More