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The Hindu :

A visit to the paradise called Mukurthi

Photo: By authorROLLING FOLDS Madippu Malai, infinite and untouched

The narrow road to the Upper Bhavani Dam clings to the hills and is overshadowed by tall pines and oak. After a checkpost and a few Electricity Board buildings are the bright copper sulphate waters of the dam. Beyond it is the Mukurthi National Park. The Forest Department’s main interest in the park is to protect Tamil Nadu’s state animal, the endangered Nilgiri tahr.

Parts of the park, such as Avalanche, are open to the public only for conservation. And, I join the British Council’s International Climate Champions, touring The Nilgiris to observe the effects of climate change.

The vegetation in Mukurthi is similar to the Himalayas, with red rhododendron flowers and clusters of wild raspberries. The evergreen sholas wear a shade of greenish-yellow in the noon sun. Wintergreen, bracken and orchids are found beside the narrow road.

Red admirals, blue admirals, chocolate pansies, cabbage whites and dozens of other butterflies hover around these plants. Burnt wattle trees, being phased out by the Forest Department, lie on the banks of the Bhavani.

A few kilometres from the dam, you finally get to see Madippu Malai, with its characteristic rolling folds of shola.

The grasslands seem infinite and untouched, with clear blue skies above. There isn’t much sound, but for the wind, and, perhaps, the cry of a black eagle towering above.

Further down, there is a pine forest, its surface carpeted with fallen, golden-brown needles and acorns. Kolaribetta (2630 MSL) is the highest point in the park. Other major peaks are Mukurthi (2556 MSL) and Nilgiri (2477 MSL). I attempt to scale one of the hills to get ahead of my group. When I’m almost at the summit, a forester yells from down below. When I come down, he tells me that if I get caught in 3 p.m. fog, I would…More

The Hindu : K. JESHI

Children Storytellers Richard Martin and Craig Jenkins speak to K. JESHI on the joys of reading aloud to children, the world of books and storytelling

Photos: K. GopinathanWorking magic Richard Martin says nobody is ever too young or ever too old, stories are for everyone

“T ell them a story,” his colleagues told Richard Martin, a teacher in primary school in England, when he was asked to look after 90 badly behaved children. He made them all sit on the floor in front of him. And, narrated the fairy tale of Cinderella from his memory. For the next 90 minutes, their eyes got bigger, ears got broader, jaws dropped and the last thing he heard was the ringing of the bell.

“That is the magic of a story,” says the vivacious storyteller Richard Martin. “When children listen to stories, some kind of trance happens transporting them to a different world of their imagination, giving them a body-soul kind of experience,” Richard says.

“They print a picture of their own in their minds,” says Craig Jenkins, a storyteller from U.K. “When you tell them about a demon or a monster, they close their eyes and start creating the crazy creature, may be with five eyes and 25 legs,” adds the young story-teller. As a child, Craig’s prized possession used to be his sunshine yellow tapes that housed the western fairy tales. “I used to listen to the tapes and it took me to a different kingdom, so different from the everyday school life,” Craig says.

Richard Martin and Craig Jenkins were here to participate in the HOOs tales, a carnival of stories organised by Hippocampus — the reading library. “Stories add value to imagination, allows the child to get an identity and get them thinking too. Even a simple story of a crocodile and a monkey teaches about relationships and friendship,” says Craig, who…More

The Hindu :

Waiting at airports need not be the royal bore it is made out to be. Here’s how you can make the most of those extra hours

Photo: AFPMake the best of a bad time Spend your waiting time at airports usefully

The dreaded announcement is on: “We regret to announce the delay of flight number xxx from A to B due to a technical fault / bad weather conditions. It is likely to take off at …”

Whether it’s dropped on you like a hand grenade with apologies or is an anticipated one at transit points, the upshot is the same.

Aaargh, the waiting! You can’t find a comfortable seat to wait in. Airport seats, for some reason, are modelled on ones meant for naughty kids on their time-outs. Which is why those who have been occupying them for a longish time have a pained look.

Shop for gifts

But there are ways to kill time, say veteran travellers. Listen to music on your iPod, read a book, and clear junk from the laptop.

“If you have cash to burn, buy a trinket or two for folks back home,” says a frequent-flying consultant. “Makes for a warm welcome-back.” Check out if the airport has a gym. No? Stroll slowly, gawking at the window displays; it’s good for blood circulation.

Time breezes away if the airport has a broadband service. Find the Internet kiosk. Blog, update info on your social networking site, check e-mail, chat with friends. Solve sudoku or crossword puzzles or play online scrabble.

Go on a city tour

Explore the airport. Both Hong Kong and Singapore take you on city tours during long stopovers. Seoul has an art centre where you can try your hand at sketching and painting, for free.

San Francisco International Airport has a mini museum, Dubai International is a sprawling souk. Taste the dates, compare gold prices, check out the freebies.

“The best place to be…More

The Hindu : y>Hit the coast with your cameras

Providing a great opportunity for photography enthusiasts, “Photography OnTheMove” organises a photography workshop in Chennai and Puducherry. The workshop will take you from a fantastic farm in Chennai into sun-splashed Puducherry, with a stopover to take a peek into traditional South Indian homes. The workshop will be held from April 1 to 4 and will cost Rs. 16,000. This includes food, stay and travel. It will be instructed by Hellmuth Conz.

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The Hindu :

Joss Stone – Colour Me Free

Audio CD – Rs. 395

A fter successfully standing tall in a free-spirited album two years back titled “Introducing Joss Stone”, the Grammy Award winner makes her self defining attitude all the more clear in her latest album, “Colour Me Free”.

Convincingly soulful and full of life, Joss brings alive the African-American music of the 60s and 70s through her contemporary retro style. More connected to her lyrics, she shows proficiency in her earthly groovy vocals; almost like she’s singing about her own experiences.

Screaming “Don’t tell me that I won’t. I can. Don’t tell me that I’m not, I am,” over a heavy bass funk groove, she begins “Free me”, the first track, with a fresh lease of confidence and colour. Typical of her style, she unleashes a string of superlative free-flowing music. Her free voice screams, jolts you out of reality and blows you onto her freedom trail.

Following on the heart-pounding, raw emotive soul notes, she goes on to sing “Parallel Lines”. Moving on to newer groovy sounds, she screams out how she “needs to keep her lady” in “Lady”. Vibrant and energetic, Joss’s voice takes a sensual high as she accompanies the trumpet’s fill-ins.

Softening her tone, but never letting off her assertive voice, she sings to the piano’s well-keyed bluesy “4 and 20”. Hitting each note with gusto she gives “just one day to prove you love me and make me believe” accompanied by melodic backup vocals.

Uncharted territory

The well-bred Rhythm and Blues artiste delivers more of her retro romp saying life is just a ‘Big ol’ game to me”. Venturing into uncharted territory, the protest “Govermentalist” has a deep sense of funk with American rapper Nas lending nuance to its political conspiracy.

“Incredible” breaks down all that was stopping Joss from herself as she rages out a volley of truly incredible harmonious lyrics, accompanied by brilliant guitar…More

The Hindu :

There’s another angle to compatibility that’s being considered these days. A medical horoscope can make or mar a marriage

Photo: MuRALI KUMAR K.PERFECTIONNeecia Majolly and Jonas Olsson gave an elegant performance

Music enthusiasts in the city were in for an evening of bounteous music as Neecia Majolly and Jonas Olsson presented ‘An evening of art song’ and Gayathri Parthasarathy presented ‘A tribute to Chopin’, organised by The Bangalore School of Music at The Alliance Française.

A brilliant pianist, conductor, singer, teacher, composer and a prodigy from the age of six, Neecia Majolly also directs two of India’s finest choirs — Madrigals, Etc and the Camerata.

A Western classically trained singer, Jonas Olsson is one of Sweden’s renowned soloist and choir singer. He also covers an array of romantic music in his repertoire as a baritone singer.

The music began with “Vittoria, mio core” by Giacomo Carissimi, Italy’s most prolific composer and father of the oratorio genre. With a victorious smile on his face Jonas celebrated the emotional victory of the liberated lover, while Neecia’s fingers elegantly keyed the simple secular cantata.

This was followed by a set from Biblical songs Op. 99 by Czech composer Antonín Dvoøák. The song cycle, based on various Psalms taken from the Czech-language Bible of Kralice, were presented in flowing musical rhetoric by the duo. The five pieces including “Clouds and darkness”, “Lord, thou art my refuge”, beckoned heavenward in magnificent glory.

“Jungfro Blond och jugfru Brunett” by Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar followed. Neecia and Jonas performed the dance symphony written in rhythmic style to perfection.

Dreamy progressions

The highlight of the first half was Austrian composer Franz Schubert’s Erlkönig, Opus 1 (D. 328). Based on a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the ballad is one of Schubert’s most challenging compositions with strict meter and regular four-line stanzas. German composers Felix Mendelssohn’s “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges” (On Wings of Song) and Robert Schumann’s…More

The Hindu : LATHA ANANTHARAMANANANTHARAMAN.

A 100 years after Leo Tolstoy’s death, his prose remains modern

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need, said Cicero. Last monsoon, finding a fur of white fungus on my cloth-bound Everyman edition of “Anna Karenina”, with cleansing sunshine several weeks away, I did the unthinkable. I sold the book with the old newspapers. I still owned a fungus-free paperback edition of the book, which is my only excuse.

A month later, after talking over Tolstoy with a friend, I reread “Anna Karenina” for the first time in decades. I had long been irritated with the author for no fault of his, simply because superficial critics often compared this bearded Russian in a baggy smock with the incomparable George Eliot, my lifelong favourite. It was apparently considered complimentary to say that Eliot’s work had a “near Tolstoyan” breadth.

They say you cannot step into the same river twice. In the case of books, the reader is the river. When I was in my teens, I found the lovers Anna and Vronsky to be the core of the novel. Now, in my forties, I was more interested, like my friend, in Tolstoy’s observations on the customs and morality of 19 {+t} {+h} Century Russia. With half my mind on the coming harvest, I paid more attention to Levin’s farm work than to his insipid romance with Kitty. It happened that he was scything grass just as I was scything grass. He lamented the lack of intelligent labourers to work his land just as I lamented the lack of any labourers at all. Most resonant of all was the way he despaired at his urban visitors, who marvelled and exclaimed at the freshness of the countryside without understanding how to live in it, or with it.

This year is the centenary of Leo Tolstoy’s death. There will be articles and…More

The Hindu :

There’s so much more to be done if the Lord of the Jungle must roar again

Photo: BY AUTHORA sight to behold At Ranthambore National Park

The walkie-talkie of our guide was suddenly on high alert. Messages continuously ran back and forth. Our Gypsy changed tracks, swerved onto another path, forged ahead with every new update.

The collective adrenalin in the jeep was pulsating at wild levels. Our eyes and ears peeled, we searched the jungle with anticipation. The sudden alarm call of a sambhar elevated our hopes.

The frequency of the alarm calls increased; patience prevailed. Then she emerged — this majestic, breathtaking beauty of our jungles! She sauntered out of the woods, heedless of the humans gazing at her in admiration from a multitude of jeeps and canters. The cameras whirred non-stop as she ambled across her jungle path with familiarity.

Striking a pose

We soaked in this magnificent vision for three to four minutes. Then, as if on cue, she turned and posed beautifully, before disappearing into her mysterious abode.

To see a tiger in an Indian jungle is something! This was my first sighting after several disappointing trips to various Indian jungles; needless to say, T-17, at the Ranthambore National Park was my dream come true.

That night, over dinner and a splendid campfire at Ranthambore Bagh, the discussion was naturally on tigers.

After the initial animated exchange of our adventures earlier in the day, the topic moved on to the dwindling tiger population in our jungles. All agreed that despite continuous efforts by various conservation communities, the census figures for tigers were far from encouraging; somewhere, poachers had gotten an upper hand. Not surprising, considering each time a dead tiger’s parts exchange hands, the value goes up 10 times.

Improved efforts

As John Seidenstilker, senior scientist at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, had identified, unless the price of a living tiger significantly exceeds that of a…More

The Hindu : y>The programme seeks to encourage school children to highlight the historical treasures

INFORMATIVEA heritage walk at the historical Lodhi Gardens

Fox History and Entertainment channel, in association with programme partner, INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage) invited the national winners of the nationwide school engagement programme, “My City My History” to a heritage walk at the historical Lodhi Gardens in Delhi. Enroute, the group saw the tombs of many sultans such as Muhammad Shah Sayyid, Bara Gumbad, Sheesh Gumbad, Sikandar Lodi etc.

“My City My History” was launched to encourage school children to highlight the historical treasures in their respective cities. The five winners have an opportunity to present their stories on Fox History and Entertainment. The channel will shoot a 15-minute short film with each winner at their chosen historical location, which will be showcased on the channel in March.

Renowned artist, Anjolie Ela Menon was the chief guest and felicitated the winners of the initiative. For more information and programme details, log on to www.foxhistory.com/mycity.

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The Hindu : y>

The fire at the Carlton Towers in the city claimed nine lives, with three victims jumping down from the smoky building in sheer panic. MetroPlus asked city residents what could have been done to save lives in the accident and the steps that should be taken to prevent any more such tragedies.

Most people blamed the owners for altering the original building plan and felt they should be held responsible. Some felt the government must take immediate steps and ensure that all office complexes have fire fighting equipment and fire exits running around the complex, rather than inside the building.

Many people felt that a mechanism must be put in place that conducts frequent checks on safety norms in building complexes across the city. Many felt that employees and residents of all the high rise complexes must take adequate care to ensure that they are aware of all emergency escape routes. Builders and owners not complying with safety norms must be punished. We sample some responses

It is the lack of maintenance and blatant flouting of safety norms that resulted in people being killed in this mishap. We need a better disaster management system in place. Regular inspections must be carried out to ensure that all norms are being followed.

GangadharContractor

It is a shame that innocent people lose their lives because of the greed of a few people. Preventive measures must be taken immediately to ensure that such incidents do not happen again. Functional fire exits and safety equipment must be made a norm.

Dr. Bhatt Doctor

The need of the hour is to ensure that the people staying in any complex must be made aware about the fire exits.

A disaster management plan must be drawn out for all high rise complexes. In this case, the greed of the owner is responsible.

Mahanty Security officer

Such incidents can be easily averted, if the authorities and the owners…More