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The Hindu :

An adventurous Chaitanya Datla won the NGC’s docu-reality series, Mission Navy

Photo: Sampath Kumar g.p.RIDING THE HIGH WAVES Chaitanya Datla was pushing her threshold point

Life was very normal for her, leading a monotonous life and working as a HR executive till one day she decided to seek some adventure. And Chaitanya Datla went on to challenge her physical, mental and emotional limits to emerge the winner of the National Geographic Channel’s “Mission Navy: Lehron Ke Sartaj”.

Dressed in a striped shirt and trousers and a crepe bandage on one of her ankles, she sits down to narrate her adventure. “There were 50,000 civilians who applied for this docu-reality series. Finally five were chosen. It was not easy and I had to really work hard for this,” says the 28-year-old Chaitanya, who is said to be the first woman to sail on an Indian Navy warship. “It’s not about being a man or a woman but about being an individual who perseveres with his/her dreams.”Stress tests

“I’ve always had a fascination for adventure and armed forces. I also participated in NGC’s ‘Mission Udaan’ three years ago, reaching the finals. When I read about Nat Geo’s project, I just applied and one thing led to another,” says this winner, who had to undergo physical tests, run races, take on stress interviews, underwater rescue missions and tasks and also do a 10-metre jump!

“It sounds tough I know, but I thank my school Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry. It gave me a chance to try all kinds of sports. I also thank my parents and my office for all the support. For this docu-reality series we had training in the Naval Academy in Goa for three days. Our day would begin at 5 a.m. and goes on till 10.30 p.m.”I have evolved

“Sometimes it was like hell but I enjoyed every bit of…More

The Hindu :

Is there a way to end abuse?What are the options for women?

Photo: Parth SanyalSAFE NOWHERE Women must learn to protect themselves

You start training your daughter when she is in pigtails and pinafores. As she walks to the beachfront with her pail, you pull her back and whisper: “Don’t allow anyone near you. Don’t talk to strangers. There’s a ‘goodtouch’ and a ‘bad touch’.

Watch out!” And, watch out, she has to, all her life, in Trentbridge or Tokyo, Cairo or Kolkata.All talk, no action

When she cringes in shame after every episode of harassment, all she gets is official consolation in future tense: ‘The guilty will be punished. Meantime, don’t ‘invite’ crime.’ A kind society tells her: ‘You can’t stop them, but you can protect yourself. Buy a pepper-spray can, earn a black belt in karate.’ Help the ‘women’s protection’ movement grow; research and invent newer gear. Join campaigns; light candles for molestation victims.

Cairo now has a Veil Your Lollipop — ugh! — campaign to stop harassment.

The VYL project, asks women to wear a veil, and SMS incidents of sexual abuse.

The online mapping is supposed to empower women, provide security police with data on ‘hotspots’ of sexual harassment, and eventually help form legislation.

On this, Sarah, a blogger, says: “We know that veiled girls get harassed, grabbed, touched, and some even get picked up. In a recent group harassment case, all the girls molested were veiled. How about a call out to the harasser rather than the harassed?”

“Every woman should know how to protect herself,” writes Jim Fenske, who’s spent over 45 years in hands-on education in the U.S.

His safety manual ( www.familyprotectiontech.com) includes: arm yourself with a gun / folding knife; be alert; walk purposefully in the street; stay away from dark and deserted lanes, narrow alleys; don’t walk alone.

At the parking lot, get into the car quickly and drive away;…More

The Hindu :

Community pillow fights to create harmony

The world over, children are united by a tendency to use pillows as weapons. Bedtime pillow fights bring siblings closer. Now, pillow fights serve a larger purpose — creating a sense of community among residents of a city. Community pillow fighting has been around in the West for a long time, but gained media attention only in this decade.

On October 6, 2006, over 10,000 pillow-toting revellers ‘fought it out’ at Atlanta (Georgia). This remains the largest gathering of pillow fighters, according to the Guinness Book Of World Records.

In community pillow fighting, there are rules about how to raise a crowd. There has to be an element of suddenness to the gathering. So, pillow fights are compared to flash mobbing (where people assemble all of a sudden and indulge in harmless, but wacky activity).

As it thrives on secrecy, pillow fights are not openly advertised through posters or other publicity tools. Often, word is spread through social networking tools such as Facebook. Since last year, an International Pillow Fighting Day (IPFD) has been observed.

The date keeps changing, but it is always on a Saturday. Last year, March 22 was IPFD. April 4 was this year’s IPFD. Kiruba Shankar, who heads the Indian operations of Wikipedia, says not one Indian city has had a pillow fight. “Can we rectify that?” he asks. To know how to organise a pillow fight, visit pillowfightday.com

PRINCE FREDERICK

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The Hindu : y>Aparana Vinod feels it’s timeBangaloreans protested against auto drivers

Like many denizens of this IT city, I work in an IT park and commute to work by auto everyday. But the thought of impending fights with auto drivers who demand much more than the metre fare or refuse to go by the metre tires me even more than the numerous trafficjams in the city.

The auto drivers feel that we, the “IT people”, work for foreign clients, sport i-Pods and carry jazzy mobile phones and can easily afford to pay Rs. 250 for a ride from Indiranagar to Koramangala.

Does that mean anyone who earns more than the auto driver becomes responsible for his upkeep? Does enabling his livelihood have to mean getting cheated and shunted into a vulnerable position? Are the authorities not aware that many ordinary tax-paying citizens are at the mercy of auto drivers who abuse, jeer and behave disrespectfully?

Recently, I was verbally abused by an auto driver when we faced a roadblock on the route I had directed him to take. Since I could speak Kannada, I managed to get out of the uncomfortable situation, with help from some motorists. The incident left me bitter and wronged. It also left me wondering if this happens to most people in the city, who are forced to depend on this mode of transport, in the absence of a good public transport network. That the Government cannot provide a teeming city of more than five million a safe, trusted and economical mode of public transport is both shameful and disturbing.

If the current situation persists, we will very soon have an auto mafia holding this city to ransom. Many people I spoke to have confirmed that such situations are not uncommon.

Yes, an auto driver’s life is hard. Alarming levels of air pollution, noise and traffic, day after day can be harrowing. But the attitude…More

The Hindu :

Manuela Requena’s fascinating Spanish cookbook intertwines a love story with recipes

PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.SIMILARITIES Manuela feels Spanish food is much like Indian food

Manuela Requena lost her sense of smell and taste, like her character Rose in “Sangria — A Recipe for Love”. The Spanish immigrant who lives in Brisbane, Australia, was at Zara — The Tapas Bar to talk about the culinary journey of her Undercover Utopia published book. Though the ethnicity of Rose, the protagonist is not mentioned — she lives in Australia and meets Isabel, a Spanish gypsy in the local market one day, as she has run out of cuisine ideas for a habitual meal with friends. Says Manuela: “Spanish are passionate like the Indians, and the magic of their cuisine is felt when they prepare their food with love.” For her, personal touch is important, as the cook has to connect with the food. The book took two and a half years to take shape. So, in this part-fiction, part-recipe book, Manuela cooks a tantalising tale of family, love and happiness, with 25 diverse recipes. “The emotions carry into the recipes which are quick, easy-to-make and healthy. If I can make them, so can everyone!” says Manuela, who considers her mother the queen of the kitchen. “I didn’t want readers to be overwhelmed with large number of recipes, so I chose 25 from each course and to suit diverse palettes.” She finds that in Australia, the cultural and culinary representation of Italians, Greeks and Japanese is stronger than the Spanish. “We look forward to our family dinners every Wednesday night where nobody can cancel! But Australia is a melting pot of multiculturalism. It has an all-embracing culture where knowledge about different cuisines is greater.”

If Italian and French cuisine is cheesy and sedate, then Manuela finds Spanish food fiery and passionate. “Yes, our kitchens do get…More

The Hindu :

This week at indiaplaza.in

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson

Maclehose Press

Rs. 495

The second in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, and rumoured to be the best of the three, “The Girl who Played with Fire” is good reading. Published in Swedish in 2006 and in its English translation this year, this book has Lispeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist among others, from the first book, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, now already a film. When Larsson died in 2004, he had finished three books in this series; the third – “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” – is scheduled to release later this year. In life, Larsson was a crusader against right-wing extremism and racism in Sweden and the Millennium series, in addition to being taut thrillers are also regarded as commentary on Swedish society.

The Math-obsessed Lisbeth Salander is an unusual character, and she’s what gets your attention first thing, but I found that in parts the book gets a little slow and tedious, and the fact that it is large and heavy does not help, but certainly worth a read.

Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?

Ki Rajanarayanan

Blaft

Rs. 350

A collection of folk tales from Tamil Nadu, collected over seventy-five years by the author and translated by Blaft regular, Pritham. K. Chakravarthy, “Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?” is an interesting collection. The stories in this collection contain a “gallery of conniving goddesses and jealous husbands, pious sparrows and randy mice, jewel-crazy girl ghosts and angry star demons”. The book has a comprehensive introduction and is divided into seven sections: birds and beasts, god and goddesses, rajas and ranis, peys and pisaasus, husbands and wives, friends and family and naughty and dirty.

Don’t be under the impression that the tales here can’t be very different from those in circulation, whether in the conventional collections or in random telling and retellings, because…More

The Hindu : y>In this age of specialised summer camps, how many really further interests without leaving a hole in the pocket, asks K.C. Vijaya Kumar

Photo: Raju V.GET A GOOD CATCH There are many cricket camps: some have an academic approach, while some just are part of the money-spinning game

A summer tradition of long train journeys to grandma’s place and lazing around with village pals seem to have ebbed away. In an age of weekend breaks juxtaposed with shrinking annual vacations, parents seem to have opted for the easier way outof making their children join the innumerable summer camps that crop up, just as April eases in.

Topping the list of summer camps is the ones that are dedicated to cricket. As the Indian team and its band of larger-than-life heroes like Sachin Tendulkar strut around, the obvious spin-off is the parental desire to have their children slip into similar roles. Gopal Ramaswamy, an avid club cricketer who is also proud of his son Shreyas Gopal’s exploits in junior cricket at the State-level, has his distinct views on the mushrooming of summer camps.

“There are three types of parents who send their children to summer camps. The first one consists of those who just want their children to have some physical activity during the summer months. The second category includes those who strangely believe that their son will be the next Sachin Tendulkar without understanding the required effort. The third group consists of people who understand the game, believe that their kids do have the talent that if well might help them progress into the higher levels,” Gopal says.

Cricket and its monetary yield can often blur an academy’s perspective. “More heads does mean more money and the commercial element does creep in. A coach may want to tell the parent that the child may not have it in him or her to become a good cricketer…More

The Hindu : y>

INDULGE The Oterra boasts three fine dining restaurants

The Oterra located in Electronic city claims to provide the perfect balance between the world of the international business traveller and the human urge to connect with oneself. The rooms are spacious, well furnished and equipped with a mini-bar, electronic safe, Wi-fi connection and an LCD web-based interactive TV. The Oterra boasts three fine dining restaurants that promise to host a variety of culinary delights.

Situated on the first floor of the tower block, the business centre is available for use throughout the day. It offers secretarial services, word processing, fax, scanning, lamination, spiral binding, high speed wireless internet and video conferencing services. The Oterra is the only hotel in India that offers a helipad for guests’ private helicopters and airport shuttle services.

For bookings and reservations contact 30030303 or visitwww.theoterrahotels.com for more details.

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