Innholdsfortegnelse for May 8, 2017 i India Today

The successful April 21 test-firing of the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from an Indian warship is significant for several reasons. Indian warships can now strike targets deep inland with breathtaking accuracy. They can, for instance, precisely hit parked aircraft, demolish individual buildings and, yes, even pass the proverbial cruise missile test: fly a missile through the goalposts of a football field. The test from guided missile frigate INS Teg in the Bay of Bengal, which saw the missile hit its target on an island in the Nicobar chain, is significant for other reasons as well. It is the second test of the extended-range BrahMos after India signed the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) on June 27 last year. (The missile’s range was capped at 300 km for non-treaty signatories.)…

The Malappuram Lok Sabha bypoll in Kerala shut the backdoor rather tight on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s attempt to gain a toehold in the state. Malappuram simply voted the way it always has, with P.K. Kunhalikutty of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) polling over 515, 000 votes and romping home with a margin of 171,000 votes. It was almost a repeat of 2014 when the late E. Ahamed beat the rest by 194,739 votes. Although the verdict was more or less a foregone conclusion and neither the BJP nor the ruling Left Democratic Front fancied their prospects, both parties fought vigorously to try and consolidate their respective vote shares. For the BJP, Malappuram was crucial to prove that the party has a future in Kerala. It fielded N. Sreeprakash,…

LACHHU’S WIDE EYES speak of his ordeal as he looks up, face creased with worry like his crumpled green shirt. He tucks his thumb under his fingers, uncertain of which aspect of his year-long ordeal with the Maoists he should talk about. The first response is fear. “We have already been uprooted from our homes,” he stammers. “Don’t ask me about the comrades. We don’t want more trouble.” That Lachhu now sits in Ranchi, nearly 200 km away from his abductors, is no solace. The 16-year-old was a student of Class 5 in Tutiket, in West Singhbhum, at the southern tip of Jharkhand, where he lived in his village home with three siblings and parents, who tilled a small plot. In June 2015, Maoists abducted him and several other village…

WHEN IT OPENED IN April 2012 in a 19th-century house in the Cukurcuma neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkish author Orhan Pamuk’s Masumiyet Muzesi, based on his 2008 novel The Museum of Innocence, had a few dozen ceramic dogs, a tricycle, old clocks, soda bottles, clips of films, lottery tickets, a single earring and 4,213 cigarette butts. The last had been touched by nostalgia and melancholy, as well as by Fusun, the object of the book’s wealthy protagonist Kemal’s obsessive desire. Pamuk’s grand ode to love and memory was actually a call for “small and economical museums that address our humanity”, as he had said at the time. And so if Mithu Sen’s (Sexualised) Museum of Unbelonging is a single vitrine of what the Queens Museum in New York described as “toy-like…

T.M. KRISHNA, 41, CARNATIC VOCALIST IN PORAMBOKE, WHICH means land outside the purview of assessed land records, Magsaysay awardee T.M. Krishna sings “it is not for you, nor for me, it is for the community, it is for the earth”. It sums up his choice of “unusual locations”, like the living museum that is the fishing hamlet of Urur-Olcott Kuppam, to start what he called conversations in 2014 in a bid to democratise Carnatic music. To take it to the man whose ear it had not fallen on thus far. To the people who could not afford his ticketed concerts. For them, he would sing, in the mornings. “I see it as a metaphor for possibility,” says Krishna. “We remain isolated. How can we listen and talk?” Krishna recounts an…

ANITA DUBE, whose work has been exhibited all across the globe, will curate the 2018 Kochi-Muziris Biennale At the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale, artist Anita Dube positioned a ladder beneath a hole in the ceiling. It led to an attic containing a sphere, a long red rope and various geometric forms. Climbing up the ladder into the installation, the viewer was suspended in time and space, halfway into an “attic” that was both a place of the abandoned and the fairytale. For Dube, the work was, like all her art, both personal and political. The ladder made the hidden attic of children’s memories accessible to everyone— creating an egalitarian dream space where viewers confronted both the science of Euclidian forms and the mysteries of the imagination. Selected last month to curate…

LILLY SINGH, a YouTube sensation with 11 million subscribers, is the author of How to Be a Bawse Numbers don’t lie. 11 million subscribers can’t be wrong, can they? Or 1.8 billion video views? In India this month, Canadian YouTube personality Lilly Singh—yes, that’s a legitimate occupation now; ready yourself in case your child wants to become one—did a series of shows to promote her first book, How to Be a Bawse. With the cheapest tickets priced at Rs 1,500 and meet-and-greet tickets selling for Rs 8,500, the shows were packed with teenaged girls sporting their arturo caps back-to-front, unsuspecting parents in tow. Her YouTube channel, ||Superwoman||, is best known for spoofs of how Indian parents deal with growing children, especially with teen girls of Indian/NRI/Punjabi extraction. Her impressions are…

KERALA KALAMANDALAM There’s a lot to experience at this iconic institution—the 40-year-old koothambalam (traditional temple theatre), an art gallery with statues of kathakali characters and the Vallathol museum. Visitors can see a host of classes including ones in kathakali vesham (acting) as well as the ancient art of koodiyattam KALKA BINDADEEN KI DEOHRI This 200-year-old house has been converted into a museum. It has been the home of the doyens of the Lucknow school of kathak including Lachhu Maharaj. The Deohri showcases artefacts, clothes, ornaments, ghunghroos, photographs and books belonging to the family—which practised and taught on the premises KALAKSHETRA Founded by the legendary Rukmini Devi Arundale, Kalakshetra’s open campus features a massive banyan tree that’s a photographer’s dream. A walkthrough is richly rewarded with a range of sounds and…

Coasting on provenance is kosher for all luxury brands, but a heightened sensibility, increased awareness and incessant information feeds via social media have evolved a new customer that simply wants more. “Hermes is a special category, and probably the only exception to this rule,” admits Ian Bickley, President Coach International, the New York-based handbag and leather goods maker with a history going back to 1941. “At every price point, the consumer is making a purchase that has to enhance lifestyle so that all the brands have had to up their game.” In the capital for the launch of their second India store—the first, in Palladium, Mumbai, was launched in July last year—Bickley makes no bones about the fact that Coach means business, including signing up pop star, actress and reigning…

D oes it really matter what one wears? Or what men wear? It has always been about what women should wear, given the battle-hardened muses and designers like Rei Kawakubo who worked on the principle “that a woman should derive from her clothes the ease and confidence that a man does.” It was an egalitarian premise, which of course has been consistently forgotten in men’s fashion where a man is almost always dressed in stiff suits or in India, in the quintessential sherwani, a wedding look that looks like a leftover from the bride’s trousseau. But fashion moves in mysterious and yet in some cases, progressive ways. That’s what menswear in 2017 promises. The future, if you dare to face it, is more than limiting oneself to gender binaries or…

*Brand Longines High drama marked the beginning of the richest race in the world, the Dubai World Cup 2017 held in the city in late March. The magnificent Meydan Racecourse was the fulcrum of action as the event kicked off. The Longines Dubai Sheema Classic, one of the most important races during the Dubai World Cup, saw the cream of Dubai turn up looking their fashionable best *Boutique Hop A visit to the brand’s boutique at Dubai Mall was one of the highlights of the two-day trip. Here, the brand unveiled its newest timepieces including the Official Watch of the Dubai World Cup from the Longines Equestrian Collection. *The Equestrian Timeline The brand is celebrating its 185th anniversary and with it, its passion for equestrian sports. In 1926, Longines became…

Pride of Bengal Till June 30 A dmire the graphic prints and works of artists whose names are synonymous with the Bengal School of Art. Along with Gaganedranath Tagore’s lithographs on paper and Ramkinkar Baij’s woodcut on paper, there will be works of two other noted Shantiniketan artists—Mukul Dey and Rani Chanda. Taught by artists such as Nandalal Bose and Abanindranath Tagore, painter Rani Chanda’s explorations in printmaking make for an eye-opening revelation to art connoisseurs and laymen alike. AT Galerie 88, 2B Shakespeare Sarani TEL 22902274/ 22835394 Want to tell us about an event? A new store? A restaurant? People doing interesting things? Anything newsworthy? Please email us at: simplykolkata@intoday.com…

Four kilometres east of Saharanpur on the Dehradun road lies Sadak Dudhali, a village of 3,000 people, mostly Muslim. There is also a significant Dalit minority that lives in Sadak Dudhali. There is no history of communal violence here; both Muslims and Dalits worship at the famous nearby shrine to Naugaja Peer, the ‘saint of the highway’ believed to be 27 feet tall. On April 14, Muslims and Dalits in the village celebrated the birthday of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar. But local BJP MP Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma, among others, wanted to lead another procession on April 20, a so-called ‘shobha yatra’, in celebration of Dr Ambedkar’s birthday. Their march would take them through Sadak Dudhali. Police say they denied permission for the march fearing communal tension. Still, on April 20 at…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hint that the government may bring in a legal framework to make doctors prescribe drugs by their generic names has kicked off a debate. Soon after, the Medical Council of India (MCI), the statutory body that regulates medical education and registers doctors, issued a notice to all doctors to prescribe drugs only by generic names. Generics are medicines whose patents have expired; they can be manufactured and sold by local pharma companies at a fraction of what patented drugs cost. Branded products comprise 90 per cent of the Rs 1 lakh crore Indian pharma market. While Modi’s suggestion was ostensibly to lower the cost of drugs and break the nexus between doctors and pharma companies, those in the industry feel it might not pay off. Last…

It was her first real outing since the Valley erupted in another cycle of violence on April 9, the day of the Srinagar Lok Sabha bypolls. And though she didn’t spell it out, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s statements, as she emerged from a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on April 24, clearly reflected her frustration. Mehbooba emphasised the need for the promised “dialogue with all stakeholders”, the mainstay of the PDP-BJP alliance agenda. Also invoking former PM A.B. Vajpayee’s ‘insaniyat, jamhooriyat, Kashmiriyat’ approach to J&K, she stressed on “picking up the thread where he (Vajpayee) left it”. But the Modi government has evidently refused to play ball, forcing the CM to concede that “we have to first create a conducive atmosphere for dialogue, it cannot happen amid…

Two years after the Centre backed out of efforts to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (commonly referred to as the Land Acquisition Act), the Madhya Pradesh government has ame nded a state law to deny cash compensation to those whose lands have been acquired for public purposes in urban areas. The MP Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act, 1973, has been amended to bring in provisions of Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)—an incentive-based programme that allows landowners to sell development rights on their land to a developer who can then use these rights to increase density of development at other designated locations. While officials at the urban development department maintain that the amendment aims to unlock the value of…

During Narendra Modi’s stewardship of Gujarat, the BJP maintained an above average performance in the Lok Sabha polls, but after he was declared the prime ministerial candidate in 2014, the BJP won all 26 seats from the state. Now with the prime minister’s popularity at its zenith after the party’s landslide win in Uttar Pradesh, Modi’s and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s challenge for the coming assembly elections seems somewhat lighter. The party had lost rural Gujarat to the Congress in the November 2015 district and taluka panchayat polls, losing more than 70 per cent of the seats, but it did keep all the corporations, a surefire sign that it held complete sway over the urban masses. So obstacles remain. And a major one is pro-Patel reservation leader Hardik Patel, whose…

The many hues of India’s heritage and wildlife, and their unlimited possibilities, came alive at the first india today Tourism Awards held on April 20 in New Delhi. State tourism ministers played brand ambassadors, speaking about the hidden treasures of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, and fervently pitched for more central support for the sector. “Tourism could be a game changer...the government of India has sanctioned Rs 4,800 crore for theme-based circuits across 29 states and Union territories under the Swadesh Darshan Yojana,” said Union tourism minister Dr Mahesh Sharma. “Rs 488 crore have been allocated for spiritual tourism. It will take us about a year or so to complete these projects.” india today and global market research agency Ipsos received 27 nominations for the six award categories—adventure, beaches and…

MITHU SEN, 46, ARTIST, POET AND PERFORMER HER FIRST BABY was Jack. He wears tattered clothing and was a doll she shared with her sister Mou, the one whose name the Museum of Unbelonging (MOU) echoes. “We had Jill too,” says Mithu, “but she died in an operation. My sister told me not to give Jack to anybody.” Part of the muchacclaimed curated project—After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997—at the Queens Museum in New York in 2015, it described Sen’s work thus, “Displayed as a phantasmagoric fantasy, the work comments on the duality of eroticism, charged both with control and liberation.” “Our hearts are museums of memories,” says Mithu. And so there are deities, a dog mating with a human, a terracotta man with a large phallus, puppets,…

Suffering from a huge setback at the box-office, movie producer F.U. Ramsay took a hard decision to slash costs the next time around. That’s how he landed up in Kashmir in the off-season with his seven sons, and rented a houseboat to conduct classes in film-making for his brood. Over three gruelling months, he taught them everything he knew. He’d left Mumbai with his family; he returned with a highly trained film crew that went on to make India’s first horror film, Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (1972). Indian films were never quite the same afterwards, journalist Shamya Dasgupta writes in Don’t Disturb the Dead, a forthcoming book about the Ramsays, India’s first family of horror. While Hindi cinema had previously ventured into Gothic suspense with the likes of Kamaal…

Thanks to Payal Kapadia, India’s presence at the Cannes Film Festival won’t be restricted to the usual red carpet appearances by Bollywood celebs. A student at the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Kapadia will travel with Afternoon Clouds, one of the 16 student short films in contention for the top prize in the Cinefondation category. Shot in 2016, the film follows the relationship between a 60-year-old widow and her domestic help from Nepal. Kapadia’s observations of the equation between her own grandmother and her help from Darjeeling have shaped the film. “While staying with her, I began to notice a few daily rituals and conversations,” she says. “I was interested in the notions of love that two single women have at different ages and points in…

hat are the best private universities for professional courses?”. “Most universities follow a conventional pedagogy, but I want to study two or more majors, where will I find this option?”. These are some of the pertinent questions getting thousands of upvotes and replies on online Q&A platforms such as Quora. As the admission season approaches, tension levels are running high. According to statistics by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), 2017 witnessed a 2.82 per cent increase in candidates appearing for Class 12 exams compared to last year. The next few months will be crucial as over 10 lakh students prepare for several cut-throat competitions to get into colleges of their choice. Here are some of the niche universities across India, which offer competitive courses and innovative, tech-based teaching…

Up Close and Personal *Five favourite design elements Textures, embellishments, architectural shapes, juxtaposition of opposites and colours *Top 2017 trends Architectural shapes, colours and textures *Your style icon French singer-songwriter Françoise Hardy *One lesser-known fact I’d love to be a parent Favourite designers *Hubert Givenchy A true innovator of style *Alexander McQueen An incredible craftsman *Tarun Tahiliani One who understands heritage well *Issey Miyaki Always against the grain. Has a unique voice inclusive is what comes to the mind be it in geography, style or philosophy when it comes to Bibhu Mohapatra. The New York-based designer who grew up in Rourkela, Odisha, had his first brush with fashion when as an 18-year-old he made a dress for his sister to wear at a family wedding. Lighthearted, curious and modest, Mohapatra,…

OES A BOWL LAYERED with curd rice, tempered with curry leaf granola, citrus oil and topped with cauliflowers and pickling spices sound exotic? How about a spice pot with potatoes, English peas, mint and tamarind? While the former is a fresh take on traditional curd rice, the latter, of Indian chaat. Lending a twist to these Indian dishes are Michelin-star chefs Sriram Aylur (53) of Taj 51 Buckingham Gate Suites and Residences London, and Srijith Gopinathan (39) of Taj Campton Place restaurant at the eponymous hotel in San Francisco. In a rare collaboration, the duo create a degustation menu that is progressive, local, yet Indian at heart. While Aylur blends his expertise in south Indian coastal food, Gopinathan adds his version of California-inspired Indian cuisine. The twin pop-ups were held…

J ACQUES TORRES IS certainly building up good karma. After all, what can be more life-affirming than making humanity happy by feeding it chocolate every day? Torres, who is affectionately known as New York’s Mr Chocolate, creates a massive 200 tonnes of artisan high-end chocolate in his 40,000 sq foot factory in Brooklyn. I met this modern-day Willy Wonka in his natural habitat— a huge chocolate shop in Soho to which is attached his latest sweet gift to New York City—an international chocolate museum which has just opened in Lower Manhattan. Ever the charming Frenchman, the celebrity chocolatier seated me at a table in his chocolate shop which was already buzzing with people and music at 11 a.m. in the morning, for a chocolate fix. He brought me a cup…

This suite on the second floor of this vast hotel is a non-space. A nomadic space for one who has come to understand hotels. It is a liminal space. Some of us belong here with no arrival and no departure. There is an exaggerated present and that’s what luxury is all about. In a suite on the second floor of Andaz, a Hyatt range of boutique hotels, there are windows that look out on a swimming pool and glass and concrete buildings of no particular nationality. The hotel could be anywhere. That’s the luxury of this new heaven. Writer Elizabeth Grosz once said what is it to reflect upon a position, a relation, a place related to other places but with no place of its own, a position in-between? The…

SWEET SOMETHINGS ON A SWEET NOTE HUBER AND HOLLY W ITH ITS RANGE OF PREMIUM frozen desserts, Huber and Holly have given Amdavadis yet another reason to fall in love with ice creams. The brand initially created a line of premium ice creams at Havmor five years ago. Owing to its success, it’s now a standalone Continental café. It is impossible to choose from the array of flavours on offer here—from salted caramel and rose pistachio kheer to the flavour- of-the-month, chilli guava. To give an added burst of flavours to the ice creams, one even has the option of adding exotic toppings, such as poached pineapple, mango passion jujubes, and eggless macaroons. Or, if the choice proves too difficult, try their ice cream cakes and desserts, which are now…

There’s apparently a new endangered species in town. In 1973, the government launched Project Tiger to protect the big cat from almost certain extinction. Numbers had dropped below 2,000, and it seemed already too late to reverse the tide. But conservationists argued that if the tide could not be turned back, it could at least be stemmed. Nearly 50 years later, Hansraj Ahir, Union minister of state for home, has decided something similar must be done to ‘save the cow’. India’s cow population, according to the livestock census of 2012, is nearly 123 million. But Ahir has decided it’s never too early to take precautions. He has called upon the environment ministry to set up a programme to protect cows, which, since the 2007 census, have only grown in number…

It may have saved Chandigarh city from being despoiled forever. On April 12, the Delhi High Court handed down a 169 page judgment setting aside clearances granted by Punjab to Tata Camelot, an overambitious highrise housing project that would have obliterated Chandigarh’s majestic northeastern skyline of the Lower Himalayas. The Rs 1,800 crore project was part of a 2007 deal between Tata Housing and a cooperative society of 90 Punjab politicians. Members included former deputy CM Sukhbir Badal, Chhattisgarh governor B.D. Tandon and former Union minister Preneet Kaur. Nineteen highrises with 2,100 luxury apartments were planned on 53.4 acres, allotted to the MLAs’ society in 2001. For their relatively paltry Rs 5 lakh initial investment, the Tata deal was to get society members Rs 82.5 lakh and an apartment each.…

H e did not mince his words. “I am Amit Shah. I have come here to uproot the Trinamool Congress,” the BJP president had thundered to a 200,000-strong crowd in North Kolkata in December 2014. Shah was responding to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s disparaging reference to him as some “Haridas Pal (average Joe)”. Since that day, Shah has been assiduously chipping away at the TMC’s base in West Bengal, making three trips so far—most recently on April 25—holding closed-door meetings and addressing rallies. “The BJP has identified 12 states where it’s weak and needs to improve its tally of MPs,” says West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh. “Amit Shah is touring these states to strengthen the party organisation.” Ghosh is confident Shah’s efforts will ensure more BJP MPs from the…

When she became chief minister in December 2013, Vasundhara Raje promised to reclaim and clean up the Dravyavati, a rivulet aka Amanishah nullah that had become a reeking drain along its course through Jaipur city. Originating in the Nahargarh hills, the rivulet has a sixth of the city’s untreated sewage and large amounts of garbage dumped into its already shrunk channel owing to rampant encroachment. True to her word, Raje has ensured the allocation of Rs 1,672 crore “to bring back the lost grandeur of Dravyavati” by October 2018, just in time for the state assembly polls expected later in the year. The CM is determined to showcase the venture like Ahmedabad’s much-talked-about Sabarmati Riverfront project. Flagged off by Raje last August in the presence of the then Tata Group…

I t is 42 degrees Celsius in the shade. This is the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, and wildlife expert Kartikeya Singh, at the behest of the local MLA, is gearing up for a trip to Chhatarpur. His mission: to select a site for the possible capture and relocation of the Nilgai. These animals, native to the area, are known to ravage the crops of local farmers—crops that are especially dear to the poverty-stricken communities of this region. Since December, Singh—who runs Wildlife and Forestry Services, possibly India’s only private wildlife management consultancy—has helped the MP forest department capture and relocate 27 Nilgai from the farmed fields of Mandsaur district. The animals have been released into a nearby sanctuary, under the department’s alternative plan to deal with the human-animal conflict.…

SUBODH GUPTA, 53, ARTIST I DON’T THINK about what I collect. I just collect,” says artist Subodh Gupta. Like the root he bought in Kochi or the figurine in a little antique store. A gold-plated potato, used utensils, entire kitchens bought from slums, boats but no river, and statues and figures from his native Khagaul in Bihar and elsewhere. He has built massive structures in steel and brass, played around with cowdung. The associative power of his works is what gives them the scale they have attained. He might buy his utensils in wholesale markets, but they have lost their particularity. There is rural and global, nostalgia and industrialisation. You can capture the tension only if you have had that prolonged struggle with self and identity. Yet, he won’t indulge…

Museum Bhavan DAYANITA SINGH, 56, PHOTOGRAPHER AND ARTIST SPACES WITHIN SPACES. MUSEUMS within museums. Compact and foldable, they are entire worlds in themselves. Together, they are a vast realm of memories going back to 1981, when she started photographing. And so there is a Museum of Little Ladies and a File Museum, a Museum of Men and the Museum of Photography, Museums of Factories, Furniture and Vitrines, as well as a Museum of Chance. Dayanita Singh’s Museum Bhavan is a mother museum, holding within it nine smaller museums. Her museums give birth to other museums. But she is quick to add that they aren’t mating. Her journey began by asking herself the question: could the museum itself be not just a venue, but a form in itself? “I am making…

Saasha Ramsay, the daughter of horror film specialist Shyam Ramsay, is charged with continuing her family’s legacy. In Phir Se Ramsay, a series of shorts available on the youth-focused YouTube channel 101, she brings the screams, the flickering lights—and some gore too. The result, sadly, is not all that frightening. On the other hand, what the banal works most certainly do showcase is that Saasha has inherited her family’s penchant for camp. “Thoda skin show karna padta hai (one needs to have a little sex appeal),” says Shyam Ramsay in one of the rare watchable introductory shorts, where the co-director of cult horror films like Purana Mandir and Purani Haveli shares his thought process. “Relaxation ke liye hum filmon mein daalte hain (we put in sex appeal because it helps…

When you can peep down a wooden deck at water which is richer in marine-life than your average aquarium, witness bone-white sand glimmer on a full moon night and gaze at emerald blue waters for as far as your eyes can see, chances are, you are in paradise. Or Maldives. The clutch of islands offers vagaries of a castaway holiday, without the hardship. Profoundly beautiful, the low-lying coral islands of Maldives in the Indian Ocean offer nothing short of an embodiment of paradise. Lying gracefully in the stunning embrace of shallow lagoons and reefs, these resorts are ideal for divers and snorkelers. Beach bums are also welcome. Four Seasons LANDAA GIRAAVARU Opt for the Four Seasons hospitality, for rubbing shoulders with jet setters in the Indian Ocean. Experience the upscale…

No one can accuse the Ducati XDiavel S of being genial. Even at standstill, this ‘cruiser’ motorcycle from the Italian stable has the mien of the Hound of the Baskervilles on a leash. Press the ignition, and it snarls menacingly, making the crowd part like the sea for Moses. Fear, trepidation, and awe sum up the standard reaction to the XDiavel S, which, given that ‘Diavel’ roughly translates into ‘evil, like the devil,’ is rather appropriate It’s the only concession the XDiavel S makes, but it’s a big one: the mountain of torque—that lovely visceral grunt which imparts ride-ability much more than sheer power—bears down on the rider at as low as 5500 rpm, with a chunk of it coming at just 2000 rpm. What that means, basically, is not…

1 Crafty Ideas When it’s too hot to head out, bring out your creative side with art and craft workshops at pH Designs. They have a variety of classes on offer—from hand block printing, origami, pop-up cards, dream catchers, foam sheet craft, paper lamps to even learning how to doodle. You can take your pick and do one or join the entire course. At pH Designs Studio, 1st floor, Pratharna flats, near Vrajbhumi Complex, C.G. Road, Ahmedabad 2 Threads Count When Oscar-winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran had to put together the look for Hook, the principal character in the 2015 Warner Bros film Pan, she picked outfits by Ahmedabad-based brand Moral Fibre for they are “hand woven, which gives them both a look and a feel that is difficult to…

CANINE HEAVEN IF THE SUMMERS have you itching for a fuss-free haircut, imagine what it must be like for our furry friends. Kashika’s Pampered Paws is a pet management company that organises all kinds of pet related activities that could be a great bonding session for you and your furry friend. Not only do they run an aquatic centre but also organise pet pool parties for dogs to splash in with colourful props and toys. “Taking your dog swimming has multiple benefits. It gives them the much-needed exercise which most dogs are sorely lacking, especially during the summers as we owners tend to avoid outdoors. Exercise and play time with other dogs is also good for their nature and mental wellbeing— after all dogs need to socialise too,” says owner…

The Oberoi Grand’s restaurants have long stopped being just the hotel’s known restaurants and have become a part of the city’s lore. Just like most diehard foodies have a soft corner for biryani or daab chingri, almost all gourmands can recall La Terrasse’s Smoked Hilsa or Lobster Thermidor. No wonder then, when La Terrasse shut down in 2016, it left quite a gap in the city’s culinary scene. Threesixtythree, an all-day dining restaurant that has opened in this space has been the talk of the town from the word go. The space looks more welcoming with the flood of light coming through from the 400 sq ft skylight. To do true justice to the food, one needs to dine twice here. Once to try the gargantuan buffet menu and once…