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The Hindu : y>BMW 330i to be launched soon

BMW India is looking to spice up its 3-series range with the launch of the 330i, which will eventually replace the 325i as the range-topper in India. The 3-series flagship will come with a larger three-litre, in-line six-cylinder engine that develops a potent 258bhp, which should propel the sporty saloon to 100kph in under seven seconds before hitting a top speed of 250kph. In fact, the 330i is powered by the same engine as the 530i that’s currently on sale in India.

The 330i comes packed with an ocean of equipment and safety features. It gets front and side airbags for driver and co-passenger, engine immobiliser, cruise control with brake function, ABS, automatic stability control (ASC), EBD, and hill-start assist to name a few. On the inside, it features automatic two-zone climate control, multi-function leather steering wheel, an on-board computer, steering adjust for reach and rake, CD player and auxiliary points for an MP3 player with six speakers.

While the 320d forms the bulk of 3-series sales in India, the 330i will appeal only to a handful of enthusiasts and is unlikely to sell in huge numbers. BMW India’s decision to launch the 330i is more strategic. Firstly, BMW wants to take on the Audi A4 3.2 V6 petrol but, more importantly, it wants to flesh out its range and offer options at various price points. Prices haven’t been announced yet but we expect the 330i to cost a little under Rs. 40 lakh or a couple of lakhs more than the 325i, which is expected to be discontinued.

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The Hindu :

Lathika George, the author of The Suriani Kitchen… says that cooking and memories go hand in hand

Sharing recipes Lathika George’s book has fascinating illustrations as well

Her book is a gastronomic adventure through the “smoky country hearths” of Kerala, specifically the culinary rich kitchens of the Syrian Christians.

“The Suriani Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections from the Syrian Christians of Kerala” written by Lathika George, a “Suriani” (as Syrian Christians are known), is a delectable collection of 150 time-tested old favourites; recipes that have been handed down for generations; recipes that symbolise the heritage of a people whose culinary roots have been influenced by placid backwaters, lolling paddy fields, the bountiful sea and the hilly rubber country of central Kerala.

A memoir

But Lathika’s cookbook is so much more than an ordinary cookbook. It is, in fact, a memoir; a memoir of a rich cultural tradition.

Interspersed among scrumptious traditional recipes ranging from meen pollichatu, to vepilakatti, to mooriyearchi roast to achappam, are platters full of recollections: tales of journeys made and meals eaten, kitchen tricks, historical notes, folk tales and most of all vivid anecdotes of life in a hearty Syrian Christian clan.

“Although we lived in Mumbai, my mother, Thangamma, made sure that my siblings and I maintained a bond with Kerala. And apart from regular visits, the best way to do that in her book was through the food of our forefathers,” says Lathika. “Food and memories are interconnected. Most of us have everlasting memories that are evoked by the foods that we prepare or eat, don’t we? I wanted to make the cookbook more personal. Hence, the stories. Besides most cookbooks in the West are done this way,” adds the Kodaikanal-based author, a landscape designer who specialises in hill station gardens. She got the idea for the book from her daughter, Rajni George, who works in the publishing industry in New York.

The book…More

The Hindu : y>The Chevrolet Cruze Automatic works well as a diesel luxury car with its attractive looks, strong performance and high levels of comfort . Ameya Dandekar reports

Putting an auto box in the Cruze diesel was bound to happen. For one, the 148bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine from the Captiva has abundant grunt and can well afford to give away some of it to a power-sapping torque converter. And, with a diesel engine under the hood, you don’t mind losing a bit of efficiency as well. That’s the theory at least. GM has done well to provide a six-speed automatic to the Cruze too.

With the automatic’s torque converter taking some of the edge off the turbo lag, cruising in city traffic is accomplished in a relaxed, easy manner. With this box the Cruze has lost some of the turbo kick previously experienced with the manual gearbox. In contrast, the Cruze auto accelerates in a far more linear manner and upshifts are relatively quick. This makes progress and acceleration much more effortless. So it’s fine if you plan to drive it in a relaxed manner. But if you are in a hurry, it can get a bit soggy. It’s sluggish when you want a kickdown, taking way too much time to downshift, and this is really frustrating when you need a quick burst of acceleration that you know the motor can otherwise provide. This is accentuated by the fact that the box upshifts rapidly, keeping fuel economy in mind.

It’s also only mildly inspiring when driven in manual mode. Sure, in manual mode it hangs onto the selected ratio until you prod a shift. This is a good thing when you are in a corner, but otherwise the manual mode is a bit too lazy and safe to be effective. We also missed paddle shifts on this car.

However, the auto box hasn’t seriously blunted the Cruze’s…More

The Hindu : y>

Ustad Shafqat Ali Khan’s picture was used instead of Shafqat Amanat Ali’s for the interview, ‘Voice has no borders’, (MetroPlus, March 1). The error is regretted.

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The Hindu :

Book With This Is Modern India , Tom Parker and his partners hope to change the West’s perception of India as just an exotic land

A CHANGING WORLD The site of the world’s largest multi-site wind farm in Kutch

I n 2007, journalist and photographer Tom Parker was like any other foreigner taking home the usual snapshots from India — naked sadhus at the Kumbh Mela, dhobis at the ghat, cattle on the streets — and looking out for exotic elephants and mystical snake-charmers. Until he realised there was a lot more to India than the images foreign media took back to reinforce stereotypes.

Now, Tom, a reporter for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service (He also contributes to Sunday Times, The Guardian, GQ, GEO, TIME, Wired and Esquire) has spent over two-and-a-half years in India, working on “This Is Modern India”, a project that intends to showcase the country as it is today — emerging industrial giant.

During his time here, he has travelled extensively from the Himalayas to the deepest Indian mines, and has amassed a definitive portrait of industry in India in all its fascinating beauty, as his website http://www.thisismodernindia.com suggests.

Study of contrasts

“I’ve lived in and around South Asia for eight to nine years, and when I visited India to cover the Kumbh Mela in 2007, I realised that there’s so much going on in this country, but, we were still taking back the clichéd images,” Tom reveals.

Point out that the website still has some of those regular images of sadhus and dhobis, and Tom explains that the project initially began as a study of contrasting images from India.

Soon, he and his partner, social entrepreneur Robert Stephenson, teamed up with investment banker Amardeep Sharma and Anthony D’Costa, a professor in Indian studies and research director at the Asia Research Centre, Copenhagen Business School, with bigger plans for the “This Is…More

The Hindu : y>Forget taking a flight to Dubai and shopping for Gucci at a plush mall. Going on a holiday, trekking, covered in grime and gasping for breath, is the new cool! SHONALI MUTHALALY walks you through the details.

PHOTO COURTESY: CONNECT WITH HIMALAYAPHYSICALLY CHALLENGING Mentally satisfying

Sweaty hikes through punishingjungle, challengingclimbs at gruesome heights,endless roads on steamingmotorbikes.Vacations have changed.”We have spent three days andnights in the jungle, walkingthrough tough terrain, swimmingthough deep waters andclimbing over high rocks,” saysPeter Van Geit, founder of TheChennai Trekking Club, trying toexplain what drives the almost-6,000 members of this rapidly-growing club to constantlychallenge themselves this way.He talks of the joys of exploringthe unexplored. “We discoverplaces never visited before,” hesays, discussing how they discovernew routes with maps and aGPS device.Think getting lost in the jungleis rough? Factor in backpacksholding camping gear, clothesand food, which usually weighbetween eight and 10 kg. “Remember,a 10-day trek requires30 meals.” After all, the team hasto be completely self-reliant duringthe journey.Intense treks require training,endurance and stamina. Althoughthere are plenty of optionsfor beginners, Peter saysmost members work on improvingtheir fitness, so they can try amore challenging trek each time.He says: “Fifty per cent is in themind – you must have the mindset,the power to push ahead.”Gaurav Punj, founder of ConnectWith Himalaya, agrees. “It’sonly the first day that people findit difficult. More than physicalexhaustion, it’s their mentalblocks that they need to workon.” Gaurav’s expeditions rangefrom relaxed yoga holidays inRishikesh to intense exploratoryclimbs on the Kohlai glacier,trails over the Chang-thang plateauto the Tso Moriri Lake andKinner Kailash camping expeditions,in the middle of the greaterHimlayan range.Holidays get monotonous”Over the last two years, I’venoticed that people who hadbeen vacationing abroad nowwant to travel within India, onadventure trips,” says Gaurav,explaining why he gave up life inthe Californian corporate worldafter a degree at Berkley, to trekfor a living. “Most holidays arevery similar in structure, whetheryou’re in Greece or Thailand- city sightseeing, hotels, food.People…More

The Hindu :

Singer Richard Marx on the story behind his iconic love song

Wherever you go

Whatever you do

I will be right here waiting for you

Whatever it takes

Or how my heart breaks

I will be right here waiting for you

T wo decades after it released, this song from Richard Marx’s second album, “Repeat Offender”, is what people best identify the singer with. The song also, invariably, figures in the list of all-time greatest romantic solos.

When the singer came to India, to perform at the Rock’n India concert the other day, he revealed the story behind it. “In 1988, my wife (actor Cynthia Rhodes of “Dirty Dancing”, then his girlfriend) was in South Africa shooting for a film. I wanted to visit her but the South African government refused to grant me a visa because they thought I was going there to protest Apartheid. I didn’t see Cynthia for three months. This was before Skype and Internet chatting,” Marx recalls.

Song across the sea

“I got really depressed. I wrote the song in 20 minutes. It was the easiest song I wrote. I made a tape of it and shipped it to South Africa. She got it 10 days later,” he says. A couple of the singer’s friends heard it and suggested he make a record of it. “People were reacting to it so strongly. I have so many letters with people telling me how the song affected their lives. Had so many soldiers dedicate the song to their loved ones. Cynthia and I used to say how it was our song and now it’s everybody’s song. It’s an honour.”

Richard Marx’s first visit to India was three years ago, for a promotional event in Mumbai. He says of Indian artistes: “I know what many of us in America know. People here know about American artistes because of the amount of press and publicity an artiste gets. It’s the same…More

The Hindu : y>

Showing the way Marcela Quijano will conduct a tour of the exhibits

The Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan is organising a design event, ulm: method and design. A number of path-breaking projects from the design academy in Germany would be showcased at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath from March 6 to March 28 from 10.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. The exhibition will be inaugurated on March 5 by Rolf Saligmann, Consul General of Germany in Bangalore.

A conference on “Look Back – Look Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in India” will be organised in collaboration with National Institute of Design on March 7 at Taj West End. Marcela Quijano was born in Bogotá, Colombia and has been living in Germany since 1972. She trained as a goldsmith in Pforzheim and studied design at the Berlin University of the Arts. She teaches history of art and graphic design at the Graphic Design College. Marcela will conduct a guided tour of the exhibition on March 7 at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The tour is open to all and there is no fee. For more information, visit www.goethe.de/Bangalore or call 2520 5305/6/7/8.

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The Hindu : PRINCE FREDRICK

The Singer Nine Roadster survived WWII and propped up its company’s sagging image

Photos: R. Shivaji RaoSINGER ROCKS Najm Musvee (top) and his son Faizaan have been made more popular by this Singer

Following World War II, all leading British car manufacturers had to make a fresh start. To reclaim their pre-War positions in the industry, they had to produce cars that would meet consumer aspirations beyond the domestic market. Thanks to the Minor designed by Alec Issigonis, the Morris Motor Company passed the acid test.

In contrast, the Singer car company managed to stay in consumer consciousness by continuing with a pre-War model, the Nine Roadster. It was re-launched without any changes. Singer persisted with the same design and dimensions until 1949, when it began to treat the Roadster to one improvement after another, and re-introduce it as different models.

Despite having just a three-speed gearbox and a top speed of 65 mph, the original Nine Roadster (1939 to 1949) did not do too badly. What it lacked in power, it made up in style. Najm Musvee was taken up with the graceful lines of a 1947 Singer Nine Roadster, which had been wowing people in Bangalore for many years.

Sulaiman Jamal, a key member of the Karnataka Vintage & Classic Car Club (KVCCC) and an uncle of Najm’s wife, told Najm he had spotted a roadster for him. As he clinched the deal over the Nine Roadster just a day before a colourful KVCCC rally, Najm took part in the pageant.

That was seven years ago, and the two-door car has since become an integral part of the Musvee household. Najm’s sons Faizaan and Amaan have grown up believing Sunday is dedicated to driving vintage cars. “We take the Singer out every Sunday,” says Najm.

Recently, the Roadster surprised the Musvees by lasting the entire course of the punishing Chennai-to-Puducherry rally without any hiccups….More