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The Hindu : PRINCE FREDERICK

The metallic beat of the Jawa’s engine is music to Ram Bhat’s ears

Ram Bhat’s philosophy of life has largely been shaped by the songs he listens to. “I don’t always need a music system. I can play the songs in my head. A small trigger is all that is required,” says the musicophile. The metallic beat ofhisJawa’s engine helps turn on the music.

“In the nights, when I cruise towards destinations such asTada and Mamallapuram, I can’t help hearing songs such asSteppenwolf’s ‘Born To Be Wild’.”

With him for two years, this 1960 Jawa (tank-key model) has obviously added spice to Bhat’s life. As he was specifically looking for a Jawa of that period, it was a long wait.

“Between them, my first cousin and uncle had a Jawa, a Bullet and a Beetle. Probably because I had seen much of these vehicles as aboy, they left an impression. I wanted to have at least one of them. When I went to Loyola College — I did not go alone. I rode a 250cc Jawa (tank-key model). As a student of Literature, I had a Utopian view of life. Parked in Woodstock (a popular hangout), the Jawa was used not just by my friends, but also those I hardly knew. One day, the bike got stolen.”

Later,Bhatwanted to own the same model of the Jawa.As he preferred a Jawa with a Madras registration, he had to be patient.

“In southern Tamil Nadu, it is common forestate owners to have a Jawa. Invariably, these Jawas are battered.”

Finally, there was word about someone who was looking to sell his Jawa, which bore a Madras registration plate. The Jawa had been painted black. Even the spokes had not been spared. The dial of the Smith’s milometer was painted yellow. A wider handlebar had been installed. Anyone who bought this machine had a big job on his hands.

However,…More

The Hindu : y>Whatever be our pursuit, let us work on making the journey an enjoyable one, writes BINDU TOBBY

Photo: Vino JohnTake a break Enjoy the freebies fate throws in your way

Surprisingly that pot of gold is still elusive — even after you managed to buy the three bedroom apartment in the upscale residential area, landed that promotion or got that PhD. You hoped that your frazzled nerves would be calmer, but you still wake up edgy, charge breathlessly through the day to restless slumber at night. Only to wake up to another fretful, day ahead, chasing, persisting, pursuing…

Really what is it that we are pursuing in our lives? Do we have a fit on how much closer we are getting that pursuit? Will we even know once we’ve got there? Or will the hot, relentless pursuit persist, forevermore…

“All of us need to have an ultimate end to pursue for various facets of our lives – spiritual, emotional, physical or intellectual,”says T Zacharias, who works as a sales professional in an MNC. He says “For me, my pursuits range from spiritual, professional which may include a planned realistic career graph, intellectual – cracking crosswords, puzzles or doing ‘Sudoku’ or emotional like bonding with my three year old son over a basketball game on weekends!”

Having an actual physical list on paper is the best way to measure the success of pursuits, according to Vidya and her husband Adam – both economists, based in the US. She says “One of the biggest things Adam and I pursue is our love for travelling, being outdoors, and experiencing new cultures. Since our pursuits keep changing and evolving, our lists have helped a great deal both as a great benchmark to revisit in terms of how far we’ve come and also to make decisions and go after them.”

“Most of us end up chasing the short-term pursuits.While these are…More

The Hindu :

Books, musty and brand new, still make for great companions in summer vacations

Photo: V. GanesanBooked for summer Fantasy series are more popular with children

Summer vacation, a decade or two ago, meant travel, visiting grandparents and of course, spending endless number of hours curled up… reading a book. Then came the onslaught of summer camps, gaming consoles and coaching classes. Naysayers predictedthe death of bookworms. But books are still part of the vacation agenda and the good old Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew series figure among the popular picks. Bookstores and children’s libraries are happy to be kept busy catering to children, youngsters and parents trooping in to browse through the catalogues.Build your own library

Ayesha Patnaik, a class seven student, is a voracious reader and summer holidays have made things only better.

“There’s always the urge to outdo the number of books I’ve read the previous year. I try to read more, and even re-read some favourites,” she says. She highly recommends the adventure series of Professor Shanku, a fictional scientist created by Satyajit Ray. Her other favourites are Douglas Adams’ cult science fiction series “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Lauren Child’s “Don’t Look Now” and Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events”.

Upscale and neighbourhood bookstores are ideal places to purchase your novellas and make a small home library. Drop by at neighbourhood library to borrow well-thumbed books. Ardent readers know not to frown at the sight of frayed edges. They are indicators of the popularity of the volumes.

Summers months are also a good time for parents to get back to books. Invariably, parents accompanying children to bookstores and libraries are noticed to pick up a volume or two for themselves. G. Vishnumurthy, owner of a library observes, “In spite of enrolling their children into summer camps, parents feel children shouldn’t miss out on reading. Some youngsters take to books out…More

The Hindu : y>

Food tangles Catch Nigella whip up tasty delights

Join chef Nigella Lawson as she prepares tempting recipes especially for the summer months on Discovery Travel and Living channel. She ventures out of the kitchen and brings a touch of her inimitable culinary style to picnics, barbeques and melt-in-the-mouth puddings. The series will be taking the taste buds on a worldwide tour with simple Italian pasta dishes to Middle Eastern breads; from Prawn and Black Rice with Vietnamese dressing to Moroccan Roast Lamb.

With “Forever Summer”, viewers can indulge in the traditional strawberries-and-cream feel of an English summer afternoon or create their own Indian summer evening at home. The eight-part series “Forever Summer with Nigella” will premiere on Discovery Travel and Living Friday at 10 p.m.

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The Hindu :

Encourage your toddler to eat without a fuss

Photo: Nagara GopalHELPING THEM CHOOSE Children can try adult food after they turn two

From the age of two, a child should eat what the adults in the household are eating. The child will need some help with a spoon and a ready napkin, but that is about it. Many parents corral the child one-to-one with a bowl of food: this results in alot of stress for the parent, and a lot of stupid, boring stories about the moon for the child. According to nutritionists, a better way is to have the child sit at the dining table with the rest of the family and try food in a non-threatening force-free zone.Family meals

Make time for family meals: a family that eats together has a better chance of inculcating acceptance of adult foods in the child. Children have a natural tendency to try the foods their parents are having, so here is one more reason for parents to choose healthful foods: low salt foods, fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, polyunsaturated fats and so on.

Nuts and meat represent a choking hazard at this age, but avoiding them is not necessary.

It is all right if the child insists on having a favourite food: offer bite-size portions of healthful foods on the plate along with a serving of the favourite food.

Do not bribe

Do not offer bribes like chocolates, a favourite TV programme or soft drinks.Since a child’s stomach is too small to run on three meals a day, snacks are essential at this age.

Choosing healthy snacks is very important: fruit, low-fat milk, nuts, unsweetened fruit juice, low-fat cheese and low-sugar jam are ideal snacks for children. After a year or so, you can add hard-boiled eggs to the list.

RAJIV. M

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The Hindu : C.K. MEENA

There’s only one way to enjoy the mandatory big fat Indian wedding — be the curious observer

A friend told me huffily, “I hate weddings.” He wasn’t offering me the reason for his single status. It was a general statement against the botheration – and the perspiration, I may add – involved in the traditional wedding. And since he was obliged to attend one that would take place in his family, one could sympathise.

I don’t know if the wedding season is officially over but I do know that a wedding is not a wedding without sweat. Auspicious months always coincide with summer’s peak. Fans may be whirring at top speed in the medium-budget mantapa, airconditioning units might hum away in the rent-a-lakh-a-day palace, but you must sweat when you sit in your plastic chair, your best clothes sticking uncomfortably to your bottom. You must sweat when you wait in the queue, gift in hand, to congratulate the newlyweds. You must sweat when the hot video lights play upon your sodden frame. You must sweat when you descend the steps to the basement to have lunch. And most of all you must sweat while you’re eating off your plantain leaf. Does the sambar have an added tang? You know why.

The muhurtam is generally at the crack of dawn, adding weight to the theory that the key to a successful wedding is maximum discomfort to all parties concerned. Naturally you aren’t going to clock in at 6.21 a.m. because your primary objective is the festive oota. You wander in past noon, make a beeline for the wishing-line, and head purposefully towards the feeding trough. These days, even kalyana mantapas often offer hotel-style buffets. So you walk into a traditional south Indian wedding and sample gobi manchurian or palak paneer, chaat or noodles along with the rotis and curd-rice. One tradition that holds firm,…More

The Hindu : y>

One of the mandate of National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) is to promote the development of the Cinemas of India and in keeping with the mandate the NFDC will conduct Screenwriters’ Lab 2009, a two-part screenwriters’ workshop forwriting and selling original Indian screenplays, in association with Binger Filmlab, the Locarno International Film Festival and the Entertainment Society of Goa.

Screenwriter’s Lab 2009 is designed to prepare screenwriters’ with original Indian stories for working with the international filmmaking market place. It aims at improving a completed screenplay in its final stages and to increase the international marketability of the same.

The workshop will be conducted by Marten Rabarts, Artistic Director, Binger Filmlab, aided by experienced international guest mentors.

To participate in the workshop the participants need to submit an entry form with a screenplay in classic format, Log-line, one page synopsis with screenwriters’ CV in English.

A letter of intent and a DVD of previous work (if existing).

The applications are available online atwww.nfdcindia.com. Oremailwriters@nfdcindia.com for the application form.

The application must be sent to NFDC before June 10, 2009.

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The Hindu :

Sam Miller celebrates the Capital in his book

Photo: Sandeep SaxenaPulling Apart Sam Miller systematically explores Delhi on foot

Delhi, the city of Sultanates and Mughals, of Djinns and Sufis, of poets and courtesans, is now also a city of cybercafés and shopping malls, of Metros and multiplexes. It’s the past and it is the future. It is also my home,” writes Sam Miller.

This London-born journalist might be a migrant to the Capital, but he loves the city. He first came to Delhi in 1990, as the World Service TV and radio correspondent. He returned in 2002 and has never left. Today he is Director, Media Development (South Asia) for the BBC World Service Trust. His wanderings and exploration of Delhi have culminated into “Delhi Adventures in a Megacity”, published by Penguin Viking.

Miller today lives in Panchsheel with his wife Shireen and two children. With a journalist’s curiosity and deep-sea diver’s belief in proximate treasure, he has discovered his neighbourhood and the city. When he first came to India, Miller was partial to Mumbai and Calcutta. He recounts, “I liked the big buildings here. And all the green made it pretty. But I couldn’t get a feel for it. It was difficult to walk.”

On returning to Delhi, Miller found that both he and the city had changed. The city had become more welcoming and he was more settled. He would walk the city after dropping his children to school.

A self-anointed flaneur (a French word for someone who wanders aimlessly through cities), Miller chose to discover the city on foot. Walking took him off the beaten track and beyond the street side facades. Familiar with Hindi and married to an Indian, Miller enjoys his dual position of an “insider and outsider”. He also has a “love-hate” relationship with the city. He is bothered at the overpowering aggression and the targeted harassment that women…More

The Hindu : y>

Nissan is all set to move forward with its India plans which includes launching eight new models by 2012. Leading Nissan’s charge will be the all-new Nissan Micra for which India is the global production base. It is expected to be launched by May 2010 and this Swift rival will come in both petrol and diesel engines. An all-aluminium, three-cylinder, 1.2 petrol motor will make its debut in the Micra and this lightweight state-of-the-art motor is expected to give class-leading fuel efficiency. Renault is likely to provide the diesel power with their 1.5-litre (K9) engine, which currently powers the Logan. A saloon based on the same platform that will compete head-on with the Dzire will soon follow the Micra.A range of imports which include the Teana, Murano Crossover, X-Trail and possibly the 370Z sports car.

The entire sales and marketing of Nissan products has been outsourced to Hover Automotive India, which will in effect act as Nissan’s national sales company.

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