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The Hindu :

IWAS GAMES Though badly organised, the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports offered a chance for athletes to showcase their true potential

PHOTOs: SAMPATH KUMAR G.p.Fastest Highest strongest Celebrating the triumph of the human spirit

Grit and valour overshadowed their disabilities. The deformities and handicaps they faced were only physical as their mind and soul was always alert and keen on achieving success. The week-long International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports (IWAS) world games held at venues across the city was supposed to be a platform for the differently abled to showcase their talent in sports and games varying from athletics, swimming to wheelchair rugby and sitting volleyball.

Even though the United States did not send a team and Iran pulled out of the event owing to a swine flu scare, the event saw the participation of 634 athletes from 37 countries across the world.

The games saw three world records in athletics field events being broken, that helped showcase class and quality. Boosted by a superlative performance of its swimming team, China topped the medals table and bagged 71 medals (47 gold, 18 silver and six bronze).

The hosts, India, boasted of the largest contingent (167 athletes) and bagged 110 medals, including 32 gold medals.

The opening ceremony was colourful and though the athletes had to wait, they savoured the moments which was chock-a-block with innovative cultural programmes and a fireworks display.

Through the seven-day event, though the transportation was pathetically inadequate, the foreigners and Indians alike bore the brunt stoically, as their complaints failed to reach the organisers, who were conspicuous by their absence.

However, the show and the event went on. The long delay in the closing ceremony had athletes contemplating a walk-out. The Brazilian contingent kept athletes entertained with a fine exhibition of dancing and back-flips, until the much-delayed prize distribution finally got underway.

While some enjoyed the events, many were distressed by the…More

The Hindu :

Italian Chef Michele Tomadin is amazed by the popularity of his country’s cuisine in the city

Photo: K. GopinathanItalian job Chef Michele Tomadin

“I t is a myth that Italian or Continental food needs to be modified to suit Indian tastes,” says chef Michele Tomadin. “I feel good, authentic Italian food, will be popular in India,” he adds.

In the city for European Art of Taste (EAT), a programme supported by the EU and the Italian governmentaimed at presenting and promoting food and wine from Italy, Tomadin whipped up a range of delicious Italian food items at the Metro store in the city.

“In many countries, cheap substitutes often adopt Italian names. They do not match up to the standards. This programme is an effort to spread awareness about Italian food and to ensure that people understand and appreciate quality products.”

Glocal tastes

Tomadin is amazed by the popularity of Italian cuisine. “Pastas and pizzas are favourites world-wide. These products undergo a great deal of localisation in their travels. EAT endeavours to ensure that high quality raw materials needed for Italian cooking are easily available in the local markets.”

The genial chef adds: “Pastas, pizzas and different forms of cheeses are very popular in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore. People are keen to experiment with Italian cooking. As long as they use the right ingredients and the best cooking techniques the results will be good.”

For the health conscious, Tomadin has a piece of advice, “If you gorge on heavy pastas and pizzas all the time, you will put on weight. It may not help your heart either. As long as you follow some moderation, it will not create any major problems.”

The chef is fascinated by the Indian habit of sharing food. “In India, most people buy and share pizzas to sample different tastes.

In Italy, we just gorge on our pizza or pasta preparations, since it is…More

The Hindu : y>Singer and songwriter Uday Benegal tells Allan Moses R. that finding one’s own voice is the clincher on the music scene

Original notes Uday Benegal: ‘We worked the hardest and are proud we overcame the covers mania’

Prepare yourselves for an evening of superlative lyrics and harmonious music as renowned singer and writer, Uday Benegal’s brainchild band, The Whirling Kalapas, spin sensational music accompanied by folk/fusion solo artiste Gowri.

With Uday Benegal on the vocals and guitar, Mahesh Tinaikar picking the guitar, Kenneth Rebello plucking the bass guitar, Jai Row Kavi on the drums and Sankarshan Kini playing the mandolin, violin and percussion, the Whirling Kalappas will present a slice of their whimsical genre of music.

“Mahesh and I have known each other for ages and we’ve always dreamt of exploring and making acoustic music away from the standard rock feel,” comments Uday on phone. “While many people know Mahesh as an electric guitar rock idol, few know he picks the acoustic guitar with unsurpassable charm.”

Unlike Indus Creed’s heavy rock electricity and Alms For Shanti’s Indian funk influence, (Uday was lead vocalist for both) Whirling Kalapas has a fresh, new acoustic sound with a wholly harmonious treatment and lyrical-melody balance.

Also an accomplished writer, Uday comments that his writings are largely influenced by what is around him. “After all, it is my perspective of looking at life.”

Taking shape

Speaking on the song writing process, he says, “Just like other songwriters, I am constantly absorbing ideas both consciously and subconsciously as we live life. Something clicks and the song begins to take shape. Most often it is a progression of chords and a melodic idea that forms first. The lyrics are constructed upon this.”

The transition from Indus Creed to Whirling Kalapas has been a long journey and Uday likes to take it by the gut. “While I was in New York, I noticed a lot of people making…More

The Hindu :

The release of Poile Sengupta’s anthology of plays, Women Centre Stage, also witnessed a retracing of the history of Indian theatre

Photos: Murali Kumar k.A TRIUMPH OVER EVIL Love wins over hate in the end, in the play by Poile Sengupta at least.

Does the mask obscure the real self or represent it? It depends on whether you see it in terms of Freudian analysis or Greek theatre. Award-winning playwright Girish Karnad hazarded a guess at the significance of the white female mask on the jacket of Poile Sengupta’s anthology of plays, “Women Centre Stage”, which he released at the Alliance Francaise recently. He said that in a post-Freud world, “mask” came to mean what hid the “face” – the true self that lies in the realm of the unconscious – while the mask in ancient Greek theatre was a representation, not a camouflage, of the true self. The mask on the book cover, he believed, did not stand for what Poile’s female characters hid behind but what they represented.

Women are the focus of all six plays in the collection brought out by Routledge. Award-winning writer Shashi Deshpande, who was chief guest at the launch, quoted Poile’s opening statement: that her plays “place women centre stage”. It was bold of her to say so, said Shashi, especially in an age when many felt that feminism had become passé. In fact, she said, a couple of journalists had recently asked her in shocked tones whether it was true that she wrote about women in her novels, and Poile had now given her a good line to hand out to such journalists in future: “Yes, I place women centre stage.”

The post-launch staging of one of the older plays in the collection, “Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, So Said Shakuni”, revealed what lay beneath the masks of two “baddies” from our epics. There was yet another reason…More

The Hindu : y>

Pick of the Pageant Root for Pooja

Even as 112 beautiful women from across the world prepare for the Miss World 2009 pageant to be held in Johannesburg on Saturday, India will be focused on whether Pune girl Pooja Chopra, India’s latest ambassador in the beauty queen stakes will be able to make the cut. Behind her lovely smile, Pooja’s story is one of hardship and struggle. Pooja was raised by her single mother. She completed her graduation in Commerce from Ness Wadia College in Pune and was a rage on the modelling circuit with a host of TV commercials under her belt.

Stay tuned for the live telecast of the Miss World pageant at 8 p.m. on December 12 on Zee Café.

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The Hindu :

An exhibition and sale of antique maps and prints is on from Saturday

In this day and age when finding your way anywhere on earth is just a matter of logging on to Google Earth, there is an unbelievable romance to antique maps. Just looking at the intricate lines, the delicate colouring and the strange-place names immediately transform you to another place and time.

Sunil Murthy’s exhibition and sale of rare prints and maps is a chance to own a slice of history. Murthy has over 50 maps.

“The maps and prints of birds, animals, plants and historic places in India and elsewhere are all antique, with the oldest dating back to 1781,” Sunil says.

“Most are engravings and few, lithographs; and many are hand coloured. There are some quaint items such as a map of the rodents around the world and another of the monthly rainfall around the British Isles. All of them are framed and ready to hang, with prices ranging from Rs. 2,500 to 28,000.”

There are maps with fascinating little pictures. For instance there was one with religions of the world – where most of the world was classified under pagans! The overland route to India read like a history book with names — such as Constantinople and Asia Minor that have been lost in the mists of time.

The animals and birds prints are lovely — intricately detailed and marvellously coloured, they again open a window into a time when the fascination of the marvels of nature had not yet translated into staring blankly at the nature channels on telly.

Sunil also has engravings “of masters such as Raphael, Da Vinci and Durer and Gustave Dore originals. There is also a large, two-part beauty of the Roman Empire.”

“It took me almost six weeks of sorting and careful consideration to put this collection together. I sourced most of them from Holland, where I’ve…More