PHOTO: AFPWant to try? No? Awww Indians often miss out on flavours of the land they travel to, because of conservative tastes

Cue–set to the peppy tune of a lyre, close your eyes and picture a Greek isle — a sea that reflects a hundred hues of blue, men that boast of Zeus and look like Adonis, comfortable babushkas, and years and years of accumulated ruins. In your summer dress and leather sandals you are lost in all the magnificence of Delphi and you weave in and out of the pillars of the Acropolis of Athens, after a heavy lunch of biryani and butter chicken….

Cue–sound of cassette tape being rewound and you are jolted out of your summer reverie.

I would like to introduce you dear reader, to what I would like to call the “foreign mandi, Indian sabzi syndrome”, which is best explained as the need to eat Indian food while on holiday in a foreign land. Group tours are a convenient way to travel, with an itinerary and tour guide in tow. But turns out it does not matter how exotic your locale and how appealing the local lifestyle, meal times mean a buffet of Indian favourites complete with sweet dish and saunf.

“I don’t want to go on a holiday and eat dal and rice. If I wanted home food I would stay at home. This reluctance to try anything new and stay bubble wrapped in all things familiar is such an incorrigible Indian phenomenon,” says Apoorva Rao, a frequent traveller.

“My first vacation in Bangkok I ate only KFC but on my second time there I made it a point to…More

Muddy Feet is an auxiliary of Wishbone. At Muddy Feet, children are exposed to new environs, involving a whole lot of learning and fun! The Muddy Feet summer programmes will focus on three main aspects of learning for a child. These programmes will help a child hone life skills, sensitise them to natural surroundings and strives to bring out the naturalist within.

‘Rain and rivulets’ is designed for a complete wilderness experience. It focuses on three aspects of outdoors – adventure, wilderness and wildlife experience.

This monsoon, the camp will be held at Kadam Kolli, located about 20 kilometres from Ponnampet adjoining the Brahmagiri range in Coorg. The children will also learn various skills like tree climbing, bamboo lashing and identification of various birds and reptiles. They will also be trained in photography, bird watching, angling, and bamboo craft etc. It will be held from July 25 to 29 and is open to children in the age group of eight to 16 years. Last date to register is July 10 . For more information, call Kaushik on 98861 69698 or visit www.wishbone.in

<FONT …More

Retired cricket umpire I. Sivaram talks of his love for music

What’s the score? I. Sivaram with his veena

Finesse and accuracy come naturally to him. As an international cricket umpire, I. Sivaram excelled at judging the course of play. The job required him to be at his best, every ball and every moment. Slight slackness would mean disaster. Off the field too, he pursued a love that commanded absolute dedication and commitment. His love for the veena is a well-guarded secret.

The ‘dreaded’ finger of the cricket field wove magic on the veena. “Cricket and music are in my blood,” says Sivaram with pride. “My mother taught music at home. So the initiation was natural and easy. My father was a cricketer and also a state panel umpire. I played league cricket (in Hyderabad) but my father advised me to take to umpiring.”

Music and cricket umpiring progressed together. Sivaram made a name for himself in cricket and his sound umpiring placed him among the top names in India. But he could not shut music out. “I was attracted to the style of (late) Chitti Babu and I had the honour of playing the veena in one of his albums. I was introduced as his ‘Ekalavya shishya’.”

Since his mother was a lecturer in a music college in Secunderabad, combining training with cricket umpiring was not an issue for Sivaram.

His maiden album “Maanikya Veena”, released recently, reflects his love for music. “This is my first solo album and, post umpiring, I have been spending more time on music. I would like to come out with some more albums and would also like to devote more time and energy to music. Of course, I will remain actively associated with cricket. I have served it for 40 years now.”

Sivaram, who officiated in nine ODIs (seven Tests and 25 ODIs as TV umpire), sees a similarity between…More

The Purple Heron visits the restored Puttenahalli lake

RED-HANDED The Purple Heron

“A purple Heron is lurking around the island and a whole flock of Whistling Ducks visited our lake,” reveals Arathi Manay excitedly. Success at bringing back life to a ‘dead’ lake in Bangalore should be a happy omen for us living in a city, which seems to be losing its original ethos of a garden city. Thankfully we many have local crusaders without whom Bangalore would have disintegrated into a pile of garbage and dust. Arathi Manay is one such resilient crusader, who is the managing trustee of the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT) along with Usha Rajagopalan, Prasanna Vymathya and O.P. Ramaswamy. The Puttenahalli Lake lies between the Brigade Millenium and South City apartment blocks in JP Nagar.

“When we came to live here the lake had been dried out with debris and encroached by slum dwellers,” reveals Arathi, “ It would have become a road and so a group of us got together to put the lake onto the government list of lakes to be rejuvenated in Bangalore. However nothing works unless there is a registered body, so we formed the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT) in June 2010 after which the BBMP began to interact with us. The lake area was cleaned up and excavators were used to clear the debris and go down to the original lake bed.”

Arathi believes that unless there is a strong partnership between the government and local residents, nothing can really work, so they are requested by the BBMP to go across and check on the quality of work and the materials being used by the contractors entrusted with the work.

In January 2010, the restoration of the lake began with the lake body being excavated and the soil being humped up around the lake as a bund, which is also used…More

Composer, arranger, performer, educator… Stephen Devassy juggles several hats in his quest to entertain the audience

PHOTO:S.S. KUMARtryst with tunes Pianist Stephen Devassy

Stephen Devassy marries the classical to the contemporary, the Western to the Eastern, and this is reflected in the collage of pictures at his audio engineering school, a mix of music maestros across centuries, continents and genres. The 30-year-old pianist, is today widely regarded as an enthralling stage performer, an innovative arranger of film music and a brilliantly original composer.

Stephen, who hails from Ottapalam in Palakkad district, has been displaying his virtuosity with the keys since his late teens, when he began to receive opportunities to perform and work with the cream of the nation’s music fraternity, including A.R. Rahman, Zakir Hussain, Amjad Ali Khan, Hariharan, Anandan Sivamani, Shankar Mahadevan and Mandolin U. Shrinivas.

But it is only in the last six years, after he began operating from Chennai, that Stephen has evolved into a musician with a clear vision of where he wants to go. Part of this vision is Musik Lounge Studios, a professional recording facility in Saligramam, and the state-of-the-art Musik Lounge School of Audio Technology in Vadapalani (promoted by Hariharan, Sivamani, M. Jayachandran and Stephen’s elder brother, Samuel Devassy).

This infrastructure enables Stephen to generate a staggering amount of arrangements for films and private albums. (In a career spanning around 13 years, he has arranged music for 2,000 songs in various languages).

“Being based in Chennai gives me a strong foothold in the South Indian film music industry,” says Stephen. “Even the songs for Malayalam films are largely programmed in Chennai.” The amount of work in the studios and the easy accessibility to performers encouraged Stephen to launch his school. “Our students experience firsthand the science of music-making. They also get to meet the experts in the field.” His greatest passion, however, is performing on stage. He is,…More

Why do we reach for chocolates during stress?

Photo: AP

Scientists are a step closer to unravelling why some stressed people reach for chocolate, mashed potatoes, ice cream and other high-calorie comfort foods.

A study led by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre suggests that ghrelin — the so-called “hunger hormone” — is involved in triggering this response to high stress situations.

“This helps explain certain complex eating behaviours and may be one of the mechanisms by which obesity develops in people exposed to psychosocial stress,” said Jeffrey Zigman, assistant professor of internal medicine and psychiatry at the Medical Centre.

“We think these findings are not just abstract and relevant only to mice, but are also relevant to humans,” added Zigman, who led the study, reports the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Chronic stress also causes elevated ghrelin levels.

IANS

<FONT …More

M.K. Devarajamma has shaped the future of many a young hockey player from the State, specially girls from rural Karnataka

photo: Bhagya Prakash K.Showing the way M.K. Devarajamma

Guiding the fortunes of rural girls was a passion for her, and M.K. Devarajamma has helped many attain the National and State colours in hockey. After a string of postings Devarajamma was posted to Gadag as Assistant Director, Department of Youth Services and Sports (DYSS) and did yeoman service both as a sports administrator and social services leader. During the floods that ravaged Gadag, she and a band of volunteers helped the victims and was felicitated for her selfless work.

The 47-year-old has now been forced to be “just a hockey coach”, she claims, upon her request for a transfer back to Bangalore.

Going for gold

Devarajamma took to hockey after a stint with athletics and kho-kho in a school at Somwarpet in Kodagu district. After some good performances in high school and college (Mangalore University) in 1983, she made it to the State team for the nationals held in Bangalore the next year. At the Coimbatore Nationals in 1986, she was part of the gold-medal winning Karnataka team.

After the Sangroor (Punjab) and Thiruvananthapuram Nationals in the next two years, she gained a berth in the India camp ahead of the second Indira Gandhi International tournament in New Delhi. After that experience the centre forward chose to do her NIS at SAI South Centre on the advice of friend and coach Prabhakar. Devarajamma passed with flying colours and was inducted to coach the junior Indian team in 1989 at Lucknow.

Coaching soon became her focus and she joined the Youth Services Department as coach and took charge of the Sports School Kudige (1989-93) boys’ team. “A.K. Kavin, Sunil Benjamin, M.B. Bopanna and Pursha were all part of the first batch that I coached and went on to represent…More

Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO, Bharat Blood Bank, who talks of the efficacy of an online blood bank

‘Are you ready to save a life?’ — This is the first question that pops out of the home page of Bharat BloodBank.com. Blood donors, of any blood group, are just a click away. The website has a vast database of donors across the country. In an emergency, all one has to do is log on, and enter the location and the required blood group of the patient. A list of willing donors around the area, with contact details will be generated.

Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Consim Info Pvt Ltd, that runs Bharat BloodBank, talks to MetroPlus in an email interview. Excerpts:

What is an online blood bank?

Online blood banks have an important role in promoting blood donation. They make it easier for blood banks to collect, process and distribute blood and blood products. They help people in need of blood get in touch with those who are ready to donate blood. They maintain a live and accurate database of donors categorised by blood type, locality, contact details, etc.

How does your website work?

Donors across India can register themselves on the site after going through the basic requirements for donating blood. You can find donors by state, city and blood group. They will have to provide their contact information like residence, office or mobile number and email address. A person can register his or her friends by entering their e-mail addresses. As for the recipients, they can search for donors near their locality. The website also gives tips and information on blood donation and names of other blood donation banks. The services offered by the site are free and the information will not be used for commercial purposes.

How has the response been so far? Is there enough awareness?

The awareness about online blood banks is growing. Bharatbloodbank is an initiative…More

Actor-filmmaker Satish Kaushik shares his mid-career perspective and exciting outlook for the future

LOOKING AHEAD Satish Kaushik

Satish Kaushik is hard to box and categorise. From stand-up comedy on television and sensitive celluloid portrayals to mainstream film direction and substantive theatre — he’s done it all. Kaushik was in New Delhi recently to promote the film distribution company (UV News) he has set up in partnership with long time associate Pramod Sharma.

“I’m excited by the trend of new age, crossover cinema and feel the time is right to get into distribution on a pan Indian as well as international scale,” he says.

Born in a village in Haryana, Kaushik grew up in the bustling Delhi. In 1972 he enrolled in the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD) in the Capital. He went on to get a diploma from the Film and Television Institute (FTII) in Pune.

“In 1983 (after FTII) I began work as a dialogue writer for Kundan Shah’s ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ followed by assisting Shekhar Kapoor in ‘Masoom’. This was also my first film as an actor and a big learning experience,” he recalls. However, the movie that gave him a peg in public imagination was the immensely popular 1987 release “Mr. India”. Kaushik’s rendition of Calendar, the delightfully eccentric housekeeper who manages a bunch of rambunctious orphans, won many hearts.Character roles in other films followed at fairly regular intervals. However it was not until much later that he got a “truly meaty role to dig one’s teeth into”. In the 2007 British production “Brick Lane”, Kaushik turned in a finely layered performance as Chanu Ahmed. Based on a novel by Monica Ali, the film gave him an opportunity to breathe life into the persona of a Bangladeshi immigrant in 1970s Britain. Film direction is a sphere where Kaushik has had mixed results. Although he’s tackled a range of genres, from…More

Sports like pigeon flying, cock-fighting and kite-flying are losing their popularity

Change on the horizon With altered worldviews

Entire civilisations have vanished in the sands of time. And along with these civilisations, vanish their culture, traditions and sports. They were eventually reduced to stories passed on from one generation to another.

One such repository of tales is Old Delhi. Walking through the by-lanes of the Walled City, one gets a glimpse of the royal past, in which, besides other aspects of life, sports too played a fair role. Pigeon flying, cock-fighting, ram-fighting, kite-flying were companions of the nawabs and maharajas in their leisure time. With changing ethos, especially relating to human-animal relations, these sports are no longer in the reckoning, but those associated with such sports speak ever so fondly about their memories.

Ustad Chunni, an erstwhile but still highly revered trainer of fighter rams (locally known as mende), reminisces about the tricks of the trade. “The fighter-rams were brought from Ludhiana, Sialkot and other parts of Northern Punjab and Jammu. The daily diet of a ram includes one litre of milk, almonds, compote, grams among various other things.” Ustad Chunni, now in his 70s, says it was the growing animal activism that sounded the death knell for such sports. He and other akhada owners decided to shut shop. From more than eight akhadas, the number gradually declined, and as of now, the scene is absolutely bereft of any players. The same goes for cock-fighting. It is another sport which has been played since centuries, probably from 320 A.D, but is losing its force, due to greater social awareness, activism, and betting. In fact, betting was what caused quibbles. “When we made the poultry collide, we did it just for fun, but as youth came in, they gambled, haggled and fought,” complains Mohammad Younis, a 65-year-old cloth seller who had to sell his fighter…More

International cyclist Mahita Mohan on her wheel of fortune

PHOTO:S.GOPAKUMARAll smiles Mahita Mohan

Most people would only have faint recollections of their first bicycle but for Mahita Mohan, the memory of it is crystal clear.

“It was a maroon BSA Ladybird cycle, which my parents, P.K. Mohan and Valsamma V.D., gave me when I was in the third standard,” she says. She also recalls her brother, Santhanu P. Mohan teaching her how to pedal her bicycle. “He was extremely protective and would hold on to the cycle until I felt confident enough for him to let go.” And soon, there was no stopping her. She was pedalling her way to the top.

Athletic kid

An international cyclist, Mahita is a familiar face on the cycling scene. She has won several National medals and came in sixth in track pursuit at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

A native of Kerala’s Thodupuzha, Mahita’s ride to the top began when she was a child. “I was an athletic kid and loved to ride my cycle. I would often head for my school ground (NSS Higher Secondary School, Manacaud, Thodupuzha) to practise and would also ride to school and to nearby shops. I was particular about looking after my cycle and would clean it as soon as there was a hint of dirt on it.”

Although she would participate in her school cycling events and other local competitions, the competitive streak in her took shape when she realised cycling, her first love, could be a profession.

“Back home, one only heard of cricket, athletics and the like in the news. I never knew cycling was an event in the sporting arena.” It was Chandran Chettiar, a cycling coach from the Sports Authority of India who encouraged her to enter the field.

“He was my first coach. He told me that I could make cycling my profession and that was it. The rest…More

Piaa Bajpai talks about her projects and reasons for the slow going

On a new high Piaa Bajpai

The bubbly and vivacious Piaa Bajpai’s Tamil movie “Goa” is releasing in Telugu with the same title next week. The actress who walked away with the sympathy of the audiences as Saro in “Rangam” (“Ko”) has worked in only six films altogether and says that she may be going slow, but the going is strong. “There may be actors working in five films a year, but where are all of them now? I don’t want to rush for the sake of money and regret later,” she says.

Fresh from the success of her latest film, Piaa prefers learning from others’ mistakes and says she will not disappoint anyone provided she is given a good role and a good director.

With nearly five new film faces being introduced almost every Friday in the south, Piaa believes that unless there is that something special in a person, it’s difficult to remain in people’s memory.

She had made an insignificant debut in Siva Nageswar Rao’s “Choodalani”, and now she will return to Telugu films only to work in something spectacular and when she is capable of demanding a good role.

“Goa” is a story of three youngsters who aspire to marry foreign girls — Piaa happens to be a Goan girl. She quips, “My song is still on top ten even after a year.” Soundarya Rajinikanth had produced this romantic comedy which turned out to be a major hit in Tamil Nadu.

Y. SUNITA CHOWDHARY

<FONT …More

GM India will launch the Beat diesel next month and expect it to be a game-changer for the company. The baby Chevy will be the first diesel in its class, which could give it a first-mover advantage in the A-segment which forms the bulk of the market.

In fact, the Beat Diesel will be the first three-cylinder diesel engine in India, the first diesel under one litre and, according to company sources, has the best ‘torque-per-litre’ and ‘bhp-per-litre’ figures in the industry.

It produces a respectable 58.5bhp and 15.29kgm of torque at 1750rpm from its 936cc engine which in a compact hatch promises sprightly performance. However, the key question that’s yet to be answered is: how fuel efficient the Beat Diesel really is? According to the official Indian Driving Cycle figure, the Beat Diesel gives 23.99kpl which is about one kpl behind the lndica eV2. However, in real-world conditions, which involve slower average speeds and more stop-go driving, the Beat diesel could have an edge.

<FONT …More

Advantage Toyota Apart from new, appealing features, all the good things on the Etios has been carried over in the Liva

The Liva retains the now-familiar face of its elder sibling, the Etios. The design philosophy does have some nice touches here and there that add a bit of flair to the Liva.

The hatchback is at its best when viewed from the rear three-quarter angle where the well defined shoulders and chunky C-pillars add considerable muscle to the design. Viewed side-on, the Liva looks spades better than the Etios saloon and the short rear overhang gives the Liva a nice, well-proportioned silhouette. The large 15-inch wheels on the higher V and VX variants (lower J and G versions get 14-inchers) add to the car’s balanced stance. Observe closely and you’ll notice the raised suspension that contributes to an adequate 170mm of ground clearance. Roving eyes will also lock on to the ribbed roof which, like on the Etios, is one of the Liva’s many rigidity-enhancing and weight-saving measures.

The Liva follows convention with MacPherson struts up front and a torsion beam axle at the rear. Fit and finish is good as is the norm with all Toyotas. However, the feeling of being in a car that is extremely light and built to strict costs is something that you can’t shake off; a feeling reinforced by the 920kg kerb weight, making it the lightest hatch in its class.

Measuring in at 90mm shorter than the Etios saloon, it is hard to make out the difference between the two cars unless you look up the spec sheets. The interiors are decidedly spacious.

Ingress and egress is made easy thanks to the large and wide-opening doors, and the rear seat is…More

Lucky Lobster can be called a political play

LIFE’S PLAY Lucky Lobster

That Swar Thounaojam hails from Manipur was an inconsequential detail in the context of her debut “Fake Palindromes” staged this January, but a matter of inescapable significance when it came to her second play, “Lucky Lobster”, staged at Ranga Shankara last weekend. Try as she might to universalise it by refusing to name places or characters, it ends up addressing those for whom the ‘North-East’ blurs into a single amorphous entity. Like the Kashmir ‘situation’ we often talk of the Manipur ‘situation’, which we reduce to Maoists, army bullets, naked mothers and Irom Sharmila. The playwright avoids such clichés and, through the narratives of women who run a market in Imphal called Ema Keithel, draws attention to the history of her troubled state. The four teenagers on stage who ask questions classroom-lesson-fashion represent various social groups at different points in the play: the ignorant audience, a bunch of outsiders documenting the oral histories of the local people, and the new urban generation that doesn’t care for the past and lives entirely in the present.

There is a problem with history lessons, though. In the hands of the wrong teacher they can be tedious. Why does the director/playwright choose to make her lead actors read out (or pretend to) long sections of text for a good half hour or more? And make the schoolchildren look conspicuously bored out of their wits for the entire length of the play? And, to cap it all, make them move about continuously? This is hugely distracting. Not only does the spectator, who has at most two eyes, find it difficult to take in seven things at a time, but the restlessness on stage also infects her. Occasional, relevant movements to break an actor’s monologue can be justified: for instance, when Lakshmi Krishnamurty, who convincingly plays the…More