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The Hindu :

Konkona will be travelling the world with her play, and has six releases this year!

HOUSE FULL Konkona’s career is on a high

Not getting a subject she loved kept Konkona Sensharma away from theatre for a good four years. But last year, when her friend Atul Kumar approached her for “The Blue Mug”, a play based on neurologist and author Oliver Sacks’ “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”, she finally broke that self-imposed sabbatical.After last year’s showing inBangalore, Konkona was initiallyunsure whether shewould make it for this year’sall-India tour. But call it luckor her love for theatre, Konkonahas set aside time for”The Blue Mug” to performnot only in the country, butalso abroad. The tour, whichbegan in Mumbai, will go toHyderabad, Chennai, andother places including Bangalorein the domestic circuit.Internationally, the play willbe staged in Dubai, Muscatand 13 cities in the U.S.Konkona may be elatedwith the response to her playthat also stars Ranvir Sheorey,Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoorand Sheeba Chaddha,but clearly does not want togo overboard with her happiness.”I did not get any badresponse. Well, actually, I gotonly favourable reactionsfrom whoever watched theplay. I hope that means it isgood; or possibly, they werebeing polite!” she laughs.Says Konkona: “When westarted staging the play lastyear, the characters themselvescreated the story. Butnow, the script is largelylocked. In fact, Ranvir and myportions are mainly very conventionaltext, while the otheractors have a bit ofabstractness in theirs.”Besides the play, Konkonais busy reading scripts andwaiting for the one with a”wow” factor to come herway.She has six back-to-backreleases this year, beginningwith the comedy with AjayDevgn, “Atithi Tum KabJaaoge”. There’s also “RightYaa Wrong” with Sunny Deol,”Mirch” with Raima Sen, ShahanaGoswami and ShreyasTalpade, “Sunglass” withMadhavan, NaseeruddinShah and Jaya Bachchan,”Itee Mrinalini” with hermom, Aparna Sen, and MiraNair’s short film with beauRanvir Sheorey.

HARSHIKAA UDASI

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The Hindu : y>The month-long fantasy, IPL, rolls out tomorrow, complete with its share of controversies, cheerleaders and of course, cricket, writes K.C. VIJAYA KUMAR

Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.ROOTING FOR THE HOME TEAM Have fierce city loyalties started taking shape yet?

For children these days, memories of summer vacations may no longer be about long train journeys to grandmother’s village. The Indian Premier League has slowly but surely weaved its way into our regular summer fix. The Twenty20 cricket tournament with its mix of big hits and the peripherals that include Bollywood glitterati and cheerleaders, is here to stay with the late evening time-slots capable of giving the death rattle to sluggish serials on the idiot box.

The tournament is all set to roll tomorrow with the inaugural game pitting defending champion Deccan Chargers against Kolkata Knight Riders at Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium. It’s going to be 45 days of frenetic cricket with eight city-based teams, including Royal Challengers Bangalore, vying for the top spot when the championship eventually concludes on April 25.

The days leading to the current edition have triggered an advertising spiel that nudges us to watch the games at the ground but a few shadow-lines remain. The controversy about the non-inclusion of Pakistani players and the resultant verbal tangle between Kolkata Knight Riders’ owner Shah Rukh Khan and the Thackerays in Mumbai illustrated that cricket, cinema and politics can all be part of an exasperating mix.

However when the tournament starts, relief must be the primary emotion among the stakeholders of the IPL as the tournament returns to India after its South African detour last year. Fierce city-loyalties, as evident in the European football leagues, may not yet have crystallised among Indian minds. But last year during the Champions League, Bangaloreans were rooting for Ross Taylor and the overwhelmed New Zealander said that he felt at home. But some cricketing deities will continue to be…More

The Hindu :

The rapid and inescapable loss of avenue trees is not a healthy sign

PHOTO: P.V. SivakumarNurture and careTree canopies play a vital role in stabilising the pollution levels

“As a child we would go for walks with my dad along the Golf Course Road listening to vivid stories and looking up at every avenue tree and its flowers, along that whole signal free corridor,” recalls Arun Patre a consultant with Arghyam.

“Today every tree has gone with the road-widening exercise. Further up at Minsk Square the shade of the avenue trees made waiting at the long traffic signal bearable. in the shade of the canopies. There is nothing left there now,” rues Patre.

We tend to take avenue trees for granted . They were always there, giving us free shade from the midday sun with their large, shady branches making a canopy across the road. Now, as you drive or take a walk anywhere in Bangalore, all you see is the rapid and inescapable loss of avenue tree cover and the blazing sun beating down on you.

The walk way on M.G. Road had an avenue of trees, which sheltered so many of us as youngsters, from sudden monsoon showers. People living in Jayanagar, Sampige, and Margosa Roads in Malleswaram have lost their large old avenue trees in the name of city’s infrastructure upgradation. Sheshadri Road from Majestic to Nrupathunga Road is another road where the avenues trees have been chopped down and carted away as timber. A campaign is currently on www.savenandaroad.com, where the residents of South Bangalore are up in arms about the Metro being sanctioned to run through the Nanda Road. This would eat away the famous boulevard of avenue trees.

Feeling the impact

Recently, Harini Nagendra, a DST Ramanujan Fellow and Urban Ecology Coordinator at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) conducted a research on the impact of…More

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Cracking the whip Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

While cricket fever takes the nation by storm, Star Movies brings a series of blockbusters with the ‘Super star league’ from March 14 at 11 p.m., after the IPL matches. It will feature actors such as Tom Cruise, Nicholas Cage, Harrison Ford, Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl.

Movies such as “Danny The Dog”, “Con Air” and “88 Minutes” will be aired. There will be chance to watch “Pretty Woman,” the movie that propelled Julia Roberts into superstardom, “League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, which had Naseeruddin Shah strange turban and all jousting with Sean Connery, Mel Gibson’s epic on the life of William Wallace, “Braveheart”, Harrison Ford’s fourth outing as intrepid archaeologist-adventurer in “Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull”, “Armageddon” where Bruce Willis saves the world from a rogue asteroid, high octane action thriller “The Transporter 3” and the overheated noir, “Original Sin.” The movie fest will conclude on April 29.

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