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| Learning To Enjoy Success |
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It has been an eventful year thus far for Rahul Dravid, highlighted by the birth of his second son and a brief return to one-day international cricket. After the comparative turmoil of 2008, when he attracted increasing scrutiny after failing to match his own lofty standards, the runs have started to flow consistently once again.By his own admission, a century against England in the Mohali Test last December salvaged a difficult year. Before Mohali, he had made 669 runs at 27.9 in 14 games... |
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| Amalgam Of Skill And Tenacity |
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The name B L Ramarao may not ring a bell for today’s generation of Karnataka tennis players, but for an old-timer like Vasanth Madhav he was no less a legend. Ramarao, a former State champion and winner of many other titles across India, breathed his last late last month after a brief illness and his death – quite unlike his style of play as Madhav describes it — went almost unnoticed. “He was one of those stalwarts of Karnataka tennis along with B R Kapanipathy,... |
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| A Class Act From A Real Legend |
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Derartu Tulu was more than halfway to the most unexpected laurel crown of her career, her 37-year-old legs churning over the Queensboro Bridge, when she turned to the struggling runner next to her and extended a lifeline."Come on," Tulu said to Paula Radcliffe, the defending champion and world-record holder from Britain. "We can do it."When Radcliffe, with a painful left hamstring, dropped back on the slope of Fifth Avenue, about four miles from the finish line, Tulu... |
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| Huber Living A Dream |
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A nice house in Houston, a husband, dogs, cats, a tennis ranch, even the obligatory motorhome sitting on the drive. The 33-year-old women's doubles world number one is turning out for the US in the Fed Cup final against formidable Italy in Calabria this weekend.Durban-born Huber, who married American husband Tony in 2000, became a US citizen in 2007 and played under the country's flag at the Beijing Olympics, is appearing in the Fed Cup for the US for only the fourth time but has quickly... |
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| Staying Afloat In A Tough Battle |
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When the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was launched 10 years ago on November 10, the sporting landscape was being bombarded by doping scandals with few weapons available to combat increasingly brazen drug cheats. As WADA prepares to move into a second decade spearheading the fight against drugs in sport, the agency has compiled an impressive list of victories and built a formidable arsenal capable of attacking cheats from every angle. "I guess it depends how you define a win,"... |
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| Sunday Herald |
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| See Who’S Looking |
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As a people, we have always been nosy and voyeuristic. In joint families, it was not unusual to find everyone reading a postcard meant for a member of the family. The notion of private space in the western sense — an inviolable sense of individual privacy — has always been lacking in Indian society. We poke our noses in other people’s business without even being aware of it. It’s part of the natural course of things. We want to know why our neighbours haven’t had... |
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| Living 24/7 On Camera |
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Did you find any of the participants to be uncomfortable? Agreed, they were speaking in a hushed tone and using code words to avoid controversies, but all of them seemed to be pretty much at ease otherwise. Which brings us to the question — for celebrities, is being under constant electronic watch a boon or a bane? Responses from ‘Bigg Boss’ and some other reality show participants are mixed. Some love it, some are uncomfortable and for some, it does not make a difference,... |
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| Mosaics &Amp; Moses |
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It had all started in an international travel mart in Delhi. There, we had said that we’d planned to tag Jordan on to a visit to Israel describing Israel, as most Christians do, as the ‘Holy Land’. “But we are the Holy Land” protested Sa’ed S Zawaideh of the Jordan Tourism Board. Possibly, but that depends on your point of view.For Christians, the ‘Holy Land’ is the area in which Jesus spent the three years of His ministry. His life and... |
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| In The Depths Of The Deep Blue Lake |
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Brush has been cut down and carted away to reduce the fire hazard. On the left side of the car a tumbling stream glints silver in the brilliant sunlight. A clutch of motor cyclists — “hogs” in local parlance — speeds past. The men are wearing black leather leggings and jackets and grey pony tails. The women are similarly attired but somewhat younger. The 60s generation of bikers refuses to grow old.At the entrance to Crater Lake National Park, a forest ranger, a... |
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| Articulations |
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| At The Core Of Faith |
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William Dalrymple is already a legend. Days before this interview, friends volunteered enthusiastic accounts of their own encounters with him. “He is bound to be late. Take a book,” said most. On the given day, as I walked into the lobby of the 5 star hotel he likes to give his interviews from, I found he was early and waiting, trouble shooting for the oncoming Jaipur Literary Festival on his Blackberry. Before we could start, he chose his spot under the autumn sun, sprawled... |
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| Africa At A Glamorous Juncture |
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In the wealthy neighbourhoods of Lagos, Nigeria; Nairobi, Kenya; Luanda, Angola; and the like, ladies of leisure, successful businesswomen and middle-income housewives make up an attractive demographic that, in the past, relied on international fashion magazines for style and beauty information. But in the last few years, while Conde Nast, Hearst and Hachette Filipacchi were expanding throughout Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, a handful of African publishers were busy staking claims... |
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| Men Are Incorrigible! |
| It is easy to do that as both our husbands are correct in their demeanour. They neither smoke nor drink. They go to the office in the morning and come back in the evening and spend some time at the club. So, we are anxious to find chinks in their armour of goodness.I go to my friend’s house or vice versa. Usually, the friend starts with the preamble, “My husband is the limit. Whether it is hot or cold he always wants the fan on. I simply cannot stand it. It makes me... |
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| Entertainment |
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| Never Out Of Sight |
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Do you want to make it big in the world of reality shows? Here is a checklist that will help you gauge your suitability for participating and winning such a show — you need to have a scandal in your life, you need to have some police cases filed against you at some time or the other (if you have spent some time in jail, even better), you need to be an unpredictable person with plenty of mood swings and have the ability to abuse or threaten fellow participants and break down emotionally... |
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| 21st-Century Mr Fox |
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The last time I saw Wes Anderson, seven years ago, he was wearing a tight, beige corduroy suit. He’s still wearing it today. On the previous occasion, though — a Q&A for his film The Royal Tenenbaums — it was accessorised with plastic-framed glasses and a preppy scarf. Now the glasses have gone, there’s a stripey tie, and the hair is longer and more luxuriant. He looks less geeky, as if he’s been spending more time outdoors. Does he go hiking in his corduroy... |
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| In A World Less Superficial |
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Phantoms in the Brain (National Geographic) draws one by its interesting description. How would you feel if you were convinced that — your wife was an impostor, or that your right arm belonged to your husband — it goes. And there you have the charismatic neurologist Dr V S Ramachandran taking viewers on a dramatic journey through the human brain, seeking answers by examining a range of bizarre neurological disorders in perfectly ordinary people. A recent episode had him... |
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| Digging Out The Positives |
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Though YMI has not been able to leave much impression on either the box office or the critics, Chandra is a contended man, contended that at least he has made a film that has been able to take up a number of social and socio-political issues in one single film. The film speaks about the lives of 12 different people, representing various strata of the society in Mumbai, in a single day, and while the incidents that occur in their lives are seemingly unconnected, it turns out that all of their... |
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| Tele Buzz |
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Dangerous stuntsLooks like Ratan Rajput has seriously got into the skin of her onscreen character Lali (Agle Janam...). She insists on doing all the stunts on her own, right from snake charming to bullfighting. But this time it nearly cost her life. There was a bullock cart race being shot where she fell down and injured herself badly. The sequence was such that Lali had to run along with the bullock cart in which Shekhar was riding against his brother Rannvijay. After the brothers begin the... |
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| Art & Culture |
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| Hi-Tech Hunt For A Lost Leonardo |
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If you believe, as Maurizio Seracini does, that Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest painting is hidden inside a wall in Florence’s city hall, then there are two essential techniques for finding it. As usual, Leonardo anticipated both of them.First, concentrate on scientific gadgetry. After spotting what seemed to be a clue to Leonardo’s painting left by another 16th-century artist, Seracini led an international team of scientists in mapping every millimeter of the wall and... |
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| Forgotten Soviet Art |
| From Moscow to Murmansk, many works extolling the collective will and honest labour were simply thrown away or stored forgotten in dusty attics, as the tide of ‘perestroika’ swept through the former Soviet Union.All that may be about to change, however. A new and remarkable exhibition in Berlin is displaying the first-ever collection of 300 classics of the genre. And, according to some art specialists, it may be the beginning of a revival of interest in a form that up to now has... |
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| Dreams And A Touch Of Zen |
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Well, Keiko Mima gives you this experience — all in the frame of a few square feet of plane space of paper touched by watercolours. In any case, that is what an artist worth his salt is supposed to deliver: Experiences.Not that Keiko Mima had ever thought of delivering anything as concrete as that. Her mind frame was quite simple; to connect with nature. Keiko Mima’s paintings in her latest series of works, like her ‘Lotus in the Late Summer Morning’, are far from... |
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| Indian Royals In London |
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Billed as “the first exhibition to comprehensively explore the extraordinarily rich culture of the maharajas,” ‘Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts’ opened at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum recently. The stylishly put together exhibition explores a number of themes relating to the concept of royalty in Indian kingdoms, from the beginning of the 18th century, when the decline of Mughal power accelerated following the death of Emperor... |
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| Understanding The Power Of Line |
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It stood out among many works — most of them colourful paintings. The artist has depicted an attractive woman’s face using pen and ink method. He has employed the cross hatching technique reminiscent of classic printmaking application to denote the shaded areas. Thin fine lines are methodically applied to bring about tonal variations in which the artist seems to have succeeded very well. Though moderate in size, this work on paper has achieved a quality that is seldom brought... |
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| Book Reviews |
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| Sari-Rippers |
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A few years ago, I saw this joke T-shirt which featured an elaborate print of a king and queen embracing, visible through the window of a palace, all drawn in Rajasthani-painting style. The punch line below read, ‘Your palace or mine?’Reading through the Kama Kahani series reminded me strongly of that image. The same detailed attention to describing exotic Indian settings, coupled with a cheap reliance on clichés while composing the story. All of the blame cannot be laid on... |
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| In An Uncompromising Quest |
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Mrinal sen: sixty years in search of cinemaDipankar MukhopadhyayHarperCollins, 2009, pp 316, Rs 399It has been seven years since Mrinal Sen made a film. His last film, Amaar Bhuvan (This, My Land) was in 2002. Since then, the ageing maestro has been lying low, presumably not able to undertake the physical rigor that filmmaking demands of a director. Sen, along with Satyajit Ray and Ritwick Ghatak, forms the trinity of great Bengali filmmakers that took Indian cinema to great heights. Both Ray... |
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| Without Dramatic Tension: Flipping Through Lifeless Pages |
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Empire of the moghul: raiders from the northAlex RutherfordHachette, 2009, pp 436, Rs 495I love a good historical novel. I particularly relish the kind in which the hero (or heroine) comes to a strange land and makes good. And he can only do that by adapting to the local customs, so that the alien culture conquers him in the end. The archetype of this novel is James Clavell’s Shogun — though of course I don’t know how accurate a Japanese reader would find it. Naturally I am... |
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| Reaching Out To The Clouds |
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Mussourie across the agesGanesh SailiRupa & Co,2009, pp 146 , Rs 150Reading Mussourie Across The Ages evoked memories of my visit to Dehra Dun and Mussourie, a few years ago. The winding roads, the verdant landscape, the breath-taking view of the Himalayas:Mussourie Across The Ages is a compilation of essays, personal reflections, and the memories that the author and other travellers have encountered in this picturesque hill-station. Included are also accounts and stories by Andrew... |
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