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The Hindu :

Manjima Chatterjee on dissecting marriages in Limbo and keeping the local sensibilities in her prose intact

Manjima Chatterjee’s “Limbo” splits open marriages, drags out the niggles, and lets the characters attack their discomfort. Three couples, three marriages — each through silences and outbursts — reconcile to a life together or apart.

Chatterjee’s “Limbo” captures marriages in contemporary India travelling through new and old relationships, metropolis and suburbs. Her couples are shorn of names and severely entrenched in their gender identities. The oldest couple looks back at 40 years of marriage stuck in an udan khatola (a kind of cable car) over a holy place.

The young, cosmopolitan couple squabbles over dishwashers, maids and remote control. Between the newly-wed suburban couple, dialogues are sparse with the “contemporary woman trapped in a traditional framework and the man caught up in his manhood”.

Chatterjee’s aim with “Limbo” was to look at marriages — men and women, with the focus on manhood and womanhood. “I began with the old couple as I started noticing conversations and peculiarities of marriages — I mean the typical north Indian arranged marriages,” she says.

About her oldest couple, where the man and the woman played defined roles throughout their lives, she says: “There is a choice-less acceptance of their fate with a pinch of humour.”

Her urban couple’s lives and conversations are “controlled by the efficiency of things around them” — so, the dishwasher would do to bicker. “The verbosity of the older couple is complementary to the silences of the contemporary couple. I see them as ends of the arc,” says Chatterjee. The couple in between cultures, Chatterjee says: “is about an India in between”, where the discomfort between the man and the woman is stark and disturbing. If humour is not far away in the other stories, here it is not easy to laugh.

Manjima Chatterjee

Chatterjee has also kept alive a sense…More

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WELL DONE ABBA

Shyam Benegal’s political satire on systemic corruption is the tale of Arman Ali who takes leave from his office to dig a well in his village, but things go out of his hands. Starring Boman Ali as Armaan and Minnsiha Lamba as his daughter, the film also has Benegal’s faithfuls like Rajit Kapoor, Ravi Jhankal and Ila Arun.

HUM TUM AUR GHOST

Arshad Warsi turns producer with this light-hearted film by Kabeer Kaushik, where Arshad plays a fashion photographer who can see and connect with souls. With Dia Mirza for company, let’s hope Warsi will keep his fine form going.

MITTAL Vs MITTAL

Karan Razdan is known to raise topical issues. Here the director is talking about domestic violence amounting to marital rape. Rohit Roy, television star, and Rituparna Sengupta, who has been a rage in the Bengali film industry, play the lead roles.

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The Hindu :

The poignant songs of longing and the rush of love were captured in an evening celebrating Portugal’s Fado music

Transporting minds Sonia Shirsat took everyone to Portugal and back to the Konkan coast

Enchanting melodies from the rich coastal shores of Portugal cascaded from the stage at The Alliance Française recently as music connoisseurs of the city were treated to Portugal’s finest Fado music at the first Indo-Portuguese festival in India presented by the Bangalore School of Music.

The recital had Fado singer Sonia Shirsat accompanied by guitarists Felix Anto and Dinesh Khundrakpam.

Sonia is a prodigious singer with a versatile voice. Rated as the best Fadista in India of all time, the talented singer has toured across the globe. Felix is a reputed musician with an intense passion for different genres of music interpreted on guitar.

Dinesh is an expert at playing the Portuguese guitar and a sensation from childhood.

The concert began with an instrumental duet by the gifted guitarists on a piece titled “Mozart” by an anonymous composer. The serene nuance of the solemn masterpiece filled the air with rhythmic enchantment. Dinesh plucked away at his twelve-stringed Portuguese guitar while Felix accompanied on the classical guitar — both maestros dazzling the audience with proficient confidence and flawless mastery over their instruments.

Sonia Shirsat took centre stage next and rendered “Avé Maria fadista”.

Her voice immediately transported the audience to Lisbon, where Fado is believed to have originated. Closing her eyes, Sonia rendered the traditional urban poor music piece in heartfelt emotion through her quaint, mellifluous voice.

Her favourite “Fria Claridade” followed in harmonious tempo. Sonia emoted the depressive coldness the city lights radiate instead of warmth when one is lonely and her voice exuded ethereal life in this simple lyrical tune. Dressed in the traditional attire of a female fadista with a shawl draped over her dress, the singer explained, between songs, the magic of the…More

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Frederique Lebelley, French writer and journalist launches her book titled “Walking the Path”. The book chronicles her experiences from her time around H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Venue: Odyssey Store, Indiranagar 100 Ft Road

Date: March 27

Time: 6 p.m.

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The Hindu :

Here are some handy tips to ensure your workout regime is not painful

Bad knees and achy backs are common, but not inevitable. “They’re often a symptom of weakness in key muscles that support the activities you do,” says physiatrist Nadya Swedan, M.D., author of Women’s Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation. These protective moves can help. Work up to two sets of eight to 12 repetitions, two or three days a week.

Cuff rotation“Playing sports and working out can put your shoulders at risk,” says orthopaedic consultant Nicholas DiNubile, M.D. “Strengthening the rotator cuff muscles that stabilise the joint can keep shoulders safe.”

Tie one end of an exercise band to a doorknob. Hold the other end in your right hand. Bend your right arm so your elbow is against your side and your forearm lies across your abdomen; the band should be taut. Keeping your elbow stable, rotate your hand away from your abdomen while pulling the band across the front of your body. Hold for three seconds, then return to the starting position.

Complete a set, then turn around. This time, starting with your forearm away from your body (and the band taut), pull the band in toward your abdomen. Once you’ve worked the muscle in both directions, switch arms.

Wrist extension“Elbow pain usually comes from movements at the wrist,” explains Dr. Swedan. “So, strengthening the forearms helps prevent injuries such as golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow.”

With your right elbow bent at your side and palm down, hold a light weight of about a kg. Tilt your knuckles up toward the ceiling, hold, and release. Similarly, rotate your wrist to the right and left to strengthen it in all directions of motion. Complete a set, then switch arms.

The superman“Even active people neglect their lower back,” Dr. DiNubile points out. “This exercise can help prevent injury.” Lie facedown on a mat, arms straight ahead, palms down….More

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Nirantara Narmada is an evening of dance organised by Kala Sindhu in memory of guru Narmada on her death anniversary.

Venue: Shivaratreeshwara Centre (JSS , Jayanagar 8th Block)

Date: March 27

Time: 6 p.m.

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The Hindu :

Being active for an hour a day puts the brakes on weight gain

Photo: R. RAGUPlaying with grandchildrenA moderate-intensity workout that also spells fun

An hour a day of moderate-intensity exercise will prevent weight gain in normal-weight women, middle age and older, according to a new study.

“Moderate intensity means brisk walking, casual cycling, ballroom dancing and playing with the grandchildren,” says Dr. I-Min Lee, lead author of a studypublished in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

On the other hand, those who engage in something more vigorous — such as jogging, playing tennis or swimming laps — can get away with 30 minutes a day and no weight gain as they age.

The findings did not hold true, however, for overweight and obese women.

Despite the dozens of commercial and even medically supervised weight-loss programmes, people who lose weight still tend to gain it back.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to prevent the weight gain in the first place so you don’t have to worry about sustaining the weight loss?’” Lee says. And though research has addressed ways to help overweight and obese people lose weight, it has not focused as much on how to prevent weight gain over time in normal-weight individuals.

To find out what levels of physical activity are needed to successfully maintain weight, Lee and her colleagues followed 34,079 women, who averaged 54 years at the start of the study, for 13 years. The women reported their physical activity and had their weight checked every three years.

Overall, the participants gained an average of 2.6 kg over the 13 years, considered average for the general population.

Women in the two lesser categories of exercise gained more weight than those who exercised 60 minutes a day, the study found.

There was no difference in weight gain between the two less active groups.

“The successful weight maintainers kept a normal BMI (body mass index) over a long…More

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Urban Solace offers a place for all those who can play a musical instrument or sing. It also offers an English breakfast along with appam and stew between 9 a.m. and noon.

Venue: Urban Solace, Indiranagar

Date: March 28

Time: 4 p.m. onwards

Contact: 25553656

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“I am a mother and a wife and I love to cook but hate washing up. I own over 200 cookbooks and counting…I love history and food history and I am very interested in period and medieval cookery as well as modern. I am a Cuban-born American citizen married to an Englishman whom I met on a trip to London while living in Italy. I get around.”

Join in the “culinary adventures of a self-taught cook and gourmet wannabe” as she waves her skillet over a range of desserts and dishes steeped in the comfortably blended multi-cultured world she inhabits.

Her Cuban meringues for instance. “My parents made meringue… and I was mesmerised by the process… You take egg whites and through the magic of incorporating air into them you make a big white cloud… (I) decided I would use the way I knew best, which was also the quickest. The Cuban way, or at least the way Cubans do it! Cubans like meringue…a lot. As a matter of fact, Cuban cakes are not iced in buttercream but meringue.”

Of course there’s plenty of easy everyday food: from wicked heart-of-darkness chocolate brownies to fluffy doughnuts.

“There is nothing quite like the amazing taste of just-out-of-the-oil doughnuts that have been just glazed or just rolled in sugar. My husband was helping me with the glazing and rolling and I can’t tell you how many we ate before they even made it to the cooling rack! It was some good bonding time with excellent team work.”

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There will be a Carnatic veena recital by Shubha Santosh.

Venue: Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira, Banashankari 2nd Stage

Date: March 28

Time: 5.30 p.m.

Contact: 26710766

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