Elegance & Beyond
June-July 2013 |INDIA
ERIK MONGRAIN
THE ACOUSTIC SIDE OF THE WORLD
THE COLOURS OF MONOCHROME
FEARLESS FASHION FOR MEN DIVINE INTERVENTION AMISH TRIPATHI ON SHIVA TRILOGY
Paris Weekend by the wayside The Legend of
Shabana Azmi
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Haut.Monde RAISA GUPTA (EDITOR)
JYOTI MANN (ART DIRECTOR) MARKETING AND BUSINESS MAUSAMI G YADAV (CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER) PRACHETA TALWAR (MARKETING MANAGER) RAJASTHAN OFFICE: MRS JASPINDER SAHNI GUMANPURA ROAD KOTA, RAJASTHAN
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CONTENTS FASHION PICKS OF THE SEASON I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice-Cream! Whites and Lights Lacie Lassie Colour Your World Greener Pastures
COOL JOBS
Anshu, based in Delhi is ready to conquer the world with her Paint and Brush. Working under the name ‘Paint Tubs’, she tells us how she wants every wall to be her canvas.
INTELLOCUT
Mausmi Ambastha, Founder & CEO of IntelloCut talks about the major issues faced by the Indian textile and garment industry and how there is a dire need for an advanced and practical software that can optimize the usage of fabric.
WHY THE HATE?
A light on the growing communal differences and jingoism across India, the primary question that arises is why the hate? – Ketan Mittal
DIVINE INTERVENTION: LITERARY SECRETS OF AMISH TRIPATHI The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of The Nagas and The Oath of the Vayuputras, from a non-writer to a bestselling author. A tête-à-tête with the charismatic Amish Tripathi – Apeksha Bhareja
A SILENT CONVERSATION WITH ART
The medium that can speak a thousand words without talking. Art in a completely new style – Ruchika Bajoria
PASSION, SEX, GLORY! Haut Monde celebrates the sensuality in every woman with strong bold and fierce silhouettes and a touch of true elegance Photographed by Manoj Aryan
THE LAZY-BUM PROJECT
Ever thought that even laziness can be a fashion statement? We will show you how! -Photographed by Rajesh Luthra
WHEN METAL MET PRINT
What do you get when two completely opposite genres meet? Flip through to check out the conspicuous combination
CLASS UP YOUR SUMMER
A few must haves for this summer, Style It Up! With the latest collection of bags and shoes Haut.Monde | June-July 2013 |
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THE LEGEND OF SHABANA AZMI
The lady who changed the definition of being an actress in Indian cinema, up close and personal with the legendary Shabana Azmi
GASTRONOMIC PARADISE
Savor every bite as you jump into a pool of pure sumptuousness with Verve’s enticing recipes
MASALA DOSA GALAXY
The authentic taste of south India brought to you in a new avatar By Ishpreet Batra
TWIST THE TONGUE
It’s time to mix it up with some refreshing cocktails; Prakash and Sachin will tell you how.
WEEKEND BY THE WAYSIDE
A stroll on the beautiful roads of Paris and how this beautiful city must be met unarmed and unplanned to make it the most memorable experience of your life By Prachi Ghatwal
SPLENDID SPITI
Where nature’s purity is in harmony with Buddhist chants and amicable natives
SIX SENSES SPA
An indulgence which stimulates all the sixth senses, connect with yourself in the Six Senses spa
ALL ABOUT SHREE SAI ENTERTAINMENTS
From Mr. India Worldwide to Miss North India, the agency that has been providing a great platform to budding models and actors for years
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MEMORIES, FRAGRANCES & FACTS
Sheer aroma magic and a few facts about perfumes and how each fragrance can make you feel nostalgic
ERIK MONGRAINTHE ACOUSTIC SIDE OF THE WORLD From hockey to acoustic guitar, Erik Mongrain flips back the pages from his life, beginning from the age of fourteen
KURU GENESIS The deafening Roar By Rushi Gupta
COLOURS OF MONOCHROME
Who said that the old classic combination was outdated and boring? Check out the colours of monochrome painting some of the trendiest designs of the season
FEARLESS FASHION FOR MEN
From bright yellows to floral to pastels, this summer is all about bold prints and colours for men By Kunal Sharma
TATTOO TALES
A few facts about the art form which is being created for ages and has gradually turned into fashion from being a stigma By Khyati Shah
HYDROGEN, FUELS, CELLS AND SUPERCARS; FUTURE, THE MOTORHEAD WAY
It seems that the dilemma concerning the future for fuel technology is over. Nitin George tells us how Hydrogen is the answer to this issue
FROM APE TO ANDROID, THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE
In barely half a generation science and technology has made a binding progress
COOL SUMMER TIPS FROM BLOSSOM KOCHHAR AROMA MAGIC
How to keep your skin glowing even in the scorching heat. A few tips to keep yourself looking gorgeous as ever this summer
THE MILLION DOLLARS SMILE Ten easy steps to get the million dollars smile you always wanted By Dr. Sanjay Arora
LIVING A POTTER’S DREAM
Three women share their journey and how they left everything behind to pursue their true passion; pottery
THE BEAUTY OF INDIAN CRAFTS By Saumya
I WAS BORN TO BE A PAINTER
Manu Singh talks about how art cannot be taught but is something that is within you
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Editorial
Editorial
Editorial
CONTRIBUTORS
VARUN CHAUHAAN
MEENAKSHI DUTT
RAJESH LUTHRA
Beating at his craft for over 4 years now, Varun has achieved what others in the trade aspire for; a brand already, he is among the best paid fashion photographers in the country today. He is the winner of the coveted iFashion Photographer title (2010) - a contest which saw a participation of over 4,000 photographers from across India. Varun’s works have been exhibited nationally as well as internationally and his creative abilities have left many amazed.
Meenakshi is best known in India and around the world for her streamlined, common sense approach to beauty and style. Her individualistic approach spell her values. “I’m always focused on the complete picture-the most appropriate hairstyle, cosmetics and accessories for each person. Each element should be synergistic to create a unique portrait of total beauty and great style.
“I am a person, who believes in photography being a way to express oneself; in my case it is a window to my inside world– my thoughts, emotions, desires and imagination.” He has explored various types of photography, be it Advertising, Fashion, Glamour, Portraiture, Product, Food, Nature and Architecture. Photography to Rajesh, is an art of observation. It is about finding the extraordinary in ordinary surroundings. Photography is his my passion and his sincerest form of expression.
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Graphic
Graphic
Editorial SHUBHRA BHRAMAR
JYOTI MANN
ANUJ VIJAY GADRE
Shubhra is an aspiring journalist with Honors in English literature who wants to make it big to the media world. A born feminist, she is a thorough writer who is also fond of reading poetry, ballad and acting. She loves meeting new people and exploring new places and silence doesn’t come naturally to her. Besides writing, photography is her major area of interest
Jyoti is fresh out of National Instituteof Design, Ahmedabad and is armed with her skills in Graphic Design and Fashion Accessory Design which she acquired at NIFT New Delhi. She is passionate about her work and looks at it from several different point of views to deliver her best, all the time.
A Delhi based graphic designer who has also dabbled in the field of architecture and photography. He is a confident individual with passion for everything creative. With his experience in both architecture and graphic design he is a designer with a holistic and concurrent viewpoint.
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Haut.Monde Pick Yellow Pleat Midi Skirt, New Look `1675
Denim shorts, Next `1500
Gail Blue Top, Missguided `750
I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE-CREAM! High-street fashion goes next level. Dip yourself into cool ice-cream shades, fashioned just the right way, to beat the sultry heat. Bounce from the likes of fun pinks and innocent blues to crazy yellows.
Pastels it is!
Plastic Belt,
River Island
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Turquoise Ankle Grazer Jeans, F&F At Tesco `1175
Park Avenue Dress, Marks & Spencer `3265
Haut.Monde Pick
WHITES and LIGHTS
Soothe your eyes yet stun the world. Flow in the bountiful beauty of whites and lights, and get your personal dose of paradise. White and summer, is surely an eternal love story!
Leomi Laser Cut Dress, Missguided.co.uk `2100
Juliette Dress, Fever `6300
Off-Shoulder Dress, Lovarni.com `2275
Leather Handbag,, Fifty Plus `5900
Heels, Dune `9675
Heels, Dune `6300
Baroque Shift Dress, Marksandspencer `6725
Boutique Rose Ruffle Dress, M&&Co `6725
Butterfly Maxi Dress, Boohoo.com `2100
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Haut.Monde Pick
LACY LASSIE
Navy Lace Dress, East `8325
Corset Dress, Gemma Collins `3375
Lace Shift Dress, Gemma Collins `5050
Lace is making a major comeback this season. Not limited to lingerie trims any more, lace has gone a long way to conquer the summer trend-charts with elan.
Fashionable and Flattering- Embrace Lace!
All-Over Lace Dress, Amy Childs Collection `5475
Shift Dress, Amy Childs Collection `6300
Sleeveless Lace Dress, Amy Childs Collection `5475
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Longitude Cargo Shorts, Blue Inc. Men’s Red `2100
Bright Green Chinos, Matalan `1850
Kenzo Yellow Chinos, House Of Fraser `12200
Chino Shorts, Next `1850
Chino Shorts, River Island Price on Request
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COlOR YOUR WORLD
Rasberry Chinos, Primark `1000
Staying cool in your skin, yet hot on the style-meter was never this easy. All you handsome trend-setters- grab a pair of brightly-hued trousers, team them with basics and carry just the right attitude; you are set to create the much-awaited buzz around town.
Colours are certainly clever!
Haut.Monde Pick
Ditsy Floral Tools (Set Of 2), Paperchase `1050
Ditsy Floral Watering Can, Paperchase `1050
Geometric Egg Pot, Wilkinson `2450
GREENER PASTURES Splash some water, sling some mud- it is the time to let your hair down and fondle the sun-shine. Here is an exotic collection of garden tools and equipments to make sure that you have a splendid summer.
Let’s have some fun!
Bird Tea-Lights, Marks And Spencer `500 Each
Mosaic Birdbath, House Of Bath `2525
Plant Tray, Monsoon `335
Hunter Original Tall Wellington, Get The Label `6300 Linea By Calligaris Bright Bistro Chair, House Of Fraser `13375 Each
Purple Pansy Pot, Sainsbury’s `675
Cool Jobs Anshu, based in Delhi is ready to
conquer the world with her Paint and Brush. An extremely talented artist, she provides wall designing solutions through art murals and installations. Working under the name ‘Paint Tubs’, she wants every wall to be her canvas that she can paint in vivacious hues of imagination. She loves to create quality art on her clients’ walls and million dollar smiles on their faces.
Tubes and tubs of colourful paints, brushes, pens and pencilsall ready to draw magic on the walls that come their way. Seems like a free spirit is determined to revamp a bare wall into something bright, loud and alive. W
e can’t deny the fact that each one of us wants our home to reflect our soul, to define what we truly are and what we genuinely believe in, to echo our ideas, desires, culture, sense of style and taste. And, the walls of a room mirror the mood and ambience of an abode more than anything else. Getting the walls painted with bright colours or textures is something that everyone does, but customizing them to reflect one’s sense of style with refined art, is rare. Very few people with enhanced sense of aesthetics actually go that extra mile to add that touch of personalization to their homes. Paint Tubs comes to the rescue of these fun art-lovers and hears out all their needs to provide them with extraordinary customized pieces of absolute beauty. Paint Tubs lets your imagination take shape, to create a reverie on your wall with dabs of colour and illustrations. You can even get those luxurious paintings or creative artworks that you own, framed to perfection or get a super collage created with them for your wall space. Anshu recollects, “Art was the main subject of my graduation college, but it just wasn’t enough. I took calligraphy and art workshops but something was still missing.
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It all started in the second year of college when I tried my hand at making a life-size mosaic tile art installation and surprisingly, it turned out great. There has been no looking back since. Initially, I got clients from Chandigarh, but gradually, with more and more people recognizing my art and being able to relate to it, requests from the tri-city as well as Delhi started pouring in. I couldn’t have been happier. Working with colours always delights me.” Anshu feels that being a commercial artist changes the genre of artwork at times and limits it to ad campaigns and designing. However, she forbids straying from the path of creating original art and keeps the innovative streak alive. The miracles that she creates on the walls keep inspiring her clients every time they look at it. The fact that there is no replica of what they own is a very special feeling in itself and that’s what drives Anshu to go on creating magic. My job starts with letting my clients know that what they want doesn’t really have to burn a hole in their pocket and can be customized within their budget. Communicating with the clients is, thus, extremely important. For me it’s their desires that give shape to my art and thereby, the final product. She believes that nothing is impossible. If you don’t like something, it can be changed, and changed for the better. “Some people find the idea of having an artwork scattered throughout the wall, distasteful. What they don’t realize is that it can be easily substituted with either canvas paintings or mixed media artworks. Even simple photographs can be made into an attractive collage with a subtle touch of art here and there, to make it way better than before.”
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WHY THE HATE? Unlike parliamentary bouts, which can be resolved by a few chairs being broken, religious discrimination has been ostracizing the common man without any hope of being resolved, since time immemorial. As tragic as this issue might be, the nation must rise above this hatred. By Ketan Mittal
T
“Sir, chai.” (Sir, tea)
“Hmm, sun, sir bolna kisne
sikhaya?”
(Who taught you to say, sir?)
“Saab, bas aise hi.” ( Just like that)
“School jaata hai?” (Do you go to school?)
“Nahi saab, kaam kaun
karega?” (No sir,
who will work if I go to school?)
“Maa-baap?” (Mom-dad?)
“Saab, vo nahi hain. Dangon
mein…”
(They are no more. In the riots…)
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his is Javed, one of the many kids who work at the tea stalls near my office. His 13 years of existence, essentially, sums up our failure as a society. His parents were killed in the 2001 Godhra riots and after that, instead of going to school, he has been serving tea at shabby tea stalls. Probably, that is what he is going to do for the rest of his life. His, is just one of many such stories where innocent lives were completely ransacked because of no fault of their own. Lives were torn apart in the name of God. As he walks back, I can’t help but wonder how different his life had been, if there was only one God. Wait, there IS only one God. Then what went wrong? How did we take something as pure as faith and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction? And, just to bring to light the scale of mass destruction - in Independent India, more people have died due to communal violence than due to
terrorism. That should give you an idea of the magnitude of epidemic we are dealing with here. So many lives lost, families destroyed, property damaged and existence traumatized, all in the name of religion. It makes one wonder if it had been a safer planet without any religion. Don’t get me wrong. I am not against the faith that a religion facilitates. The fact that religious differences lead to massacres and riots is what bothers me. Each one of us is free to have our own belief system; but, all hell breaks loose when a person’s/group’s religious beliefs, destructively, interfere with that of another person/group. How can we let a man-made concept like religion drown out our basic humanity? How can one interpret the insightful holy books so wrong as to bring violence in the name of religion?
Society
C ommunal violence garners widespread media attention. 24x7
Photo Courtesy: Manyu Bahmani
coverage is provided, but as soon as things simmer down a little, they go back to obsessing over what this certain celebrity had for breakfast. Javed was just 1 year old when the Godhra riots happened; good for him that he does not have any memory of them. However, it’s not the same for his sister. 12 years, and she remembers every single detail. No amount of government compensation (which never really came) can erase those scars. She still has nightmares, people animals attacking her locality, with blood-soaked swords, uncontrollable insanity and gory eyes.
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Author
Divine Intervention Literary Secrets of
Amish Tripathi By Apeksha Bhateja
From an atheist to a believer, from a non-writer to a bestselling author- this is the journey of Amish Tripathi, unfolded. The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of The Nagas and The Oath of the Vayuputras are making the rounds wherever you go and now I know why. Amish Tripathi is a charismatic writer but more than that, he is an eloquent conversationalist, as persuasive in dialogue as in words. In a tête-à-tête with the writer who brought the Hindu deity to this era, I discovered an author, a Shiva devotee and a mythology fanatic.
Mythology is such an unexplored theme in fictional novels. How did you think of writing about the subject? The Immortals of Meluha initially started as a philosophical thesis. I started to write the theory of what evil is and eventually, it got converted into an adventure to convey fiction.
story, 4000 years ago, the language was Vedic Sanskrit. But today, sadly, we don’t speak these languages. We speak modern Indianised English. We think in English so Lord Shiva acted like a man of this age and spoke like us too. With the choice of my words, I am not being less Indian; I am being more Indian.
famous one is Shiv Puran. So really, no one knows the real version. What is more important is the philosophy behind the text. Philosophy in a book is much more important than the story. It has always been the case. So I’m not surprised at all that there have been no protests because there was never any need to raise objections.
Why Lord Shiva? What is it about him that fascinates you? I’m a worshipper of Lord Shiva so I go to Shiva temple every Monday and I chant Om Navah Shivah and the Maha Mritunjay mantra. Needless to say I am his follower but also, he was the best hero I could find to narrate the philosophies of evil. I mean, who could do it better than the destroyer of evil himself?
Did the thought of hurting the sentiments of Shiva devotees ever cross your mind? In a country like ours where everything is dissected, you never know when something innocuous turns into a controversy. Do you ever think people would protest your version of the story? I honestly don’t think there is any reason to protest. Anyone who reads the books, whether they like it or not, can tell that they have been written with love and devotion to Lord Shiva. The point is that philosophy is constant even though stories differ. There are many Shaivite purans in the Hindu mythology – Shiv Puran, Linga Puran, Skanda Puran, Agnee Puran, to name a few. They are all very different from each other and God knows which one is right. But the most
A follower of Shiva yourself, you turned atheist for a while and then found faith again. Would you like to share the story with our readers? I am not sure if you’d remember because you are so young but in early 1990s, riots broke out in Mumbai. I lost faith in religion because I considered it to be the root cause of the bloodbath. In those days, my father used to tell me that the people involved are religious extremists so I shouldn’t blame religion for something a few were responsible for. I didn’t understand it then. It was when I started writing about evil that I rediscovered my lost faith. My family has always been religious and Lord Shiva helped me find that belief again.
You have used instances of the past in the book but your version of Lord Shiva swears and behaves like a man of this age. Did you ever consider that people might not like it? Well, for thousands of years we have been modernising myths. The myths of Lord Shiva in the ancient era were written in Prakrit. In the time of my
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Author
So how long did it take you to finish the books and how did you carry out the research? Though I am a voracious reader, Meluha was my first writing project so it took a lot of time, 5 years to be precise. My second and third books took a year to a year and a half. I don’t research when I’m writing because it distracts me but anything that I do when I am not writing is my research. I read a lot of books from different genres; non-fiction, spirituality, science, economics and philosophy form a part of my research. I also love traveling so all of that helps me learn. But you are not a foodie. (Laughs) No, I’m not a foodie. I eat whatever is on the table but I don’t indulge in food. Ironically, my wife is an awesome cook but her talents are wasted on me. So where does your family fit into all this? Do they review your books before you send them out? My family is obsessed with reading. We are all avid readers and thus, everyone is very closely involved with my writing. I take advice from my wife, parents, siblings and in-laws and they always give me ideas. It feels like a joint project with my name on it. You must have noticed that I give them acknowledgment in all my books.
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You distributed the first chapter of Meluha for free; a special trailer of Nagas was premiered in multiplexes and Vayuputras had its own music track. This is something that has never happened in the Indian market before. How did you come up with these marketing ideas? I can’t take credit for the marketing ideas entirely. Most of the ideas came from different people that I know and I am really lucky that I had these smart advisors who helped me market my book. I was also fortunate that I listened to their fresh ideas. Giving the first chapter of ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ for free was actually my wife’s suggestion, then a friend gave me the idea of making the trailer and the CEO of my ad agency suggested the music video for ‘The Oath of the Vayuputras’. You have resigned from your job for good. Did you like your job? Yes, I am a full-time writer now. I did not resent my job. It helped me meet my responsibilities and it was a good job. But it wasn’t exciting, not as much as my writing career. Still, it helped me meet my responsibilities, so I only put in my papers when I realized that I could make a living out of my writing career. It wasn’t a reckless decision that one fine day I woke up and decided I wanted to leave everything and write. I attempted to
do both – I took care of my family and also did what I liked simultaneously. So have you planned your next book? Is it going to be mythology-centric too? I have signed a deal with Westland Press for my next book but I don’t know what the story is going to be. Of course, it will be related to history and mythology as that is my area of passion; this is what I want to write. I read in one of your interviews that you had a hard time finding a publisher. No one was convinced that the youth could explore any other genre other than romance, much less mythology. How did you finally manage to get one? I didn’t. It was rejected by every publisher I went to. They said it is a religious book and such books don’t sell; youngsters aren’t interested in it. So I self-published the first book with my agent. The next two were published by Westland Press. You have reintroduced the youth to Lord Shiva. I think that’s incredible. Why do you think it is so popular with the youngsters? I am not anyone to reintroduce Lord Shiva. He is one of the most popular Gods on Earth and he needed no introduction. My books are a very, very small contribution to his glory.
Author I would love to say that I have figured it out but I don’t know what is the real cause of the success of my books. Some people say that it’s because the story is fast-paced; some say the story is good while others tell me the marketing initiatives helped. I believe that they were well received because of the blessings of Lord Shiva. I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. No really, I was the wrong person to write these books – I was an atheist and had never written before. I dedicate my books to Lord Shiva. It all happened because of Him. The fact is that you are a bestselling author now. Karan Johar is making a movie on your book. How does it all feel? It feels surreal. I did not even think I would get published.
You know it’s really tough to make it big as a writer in India. You have experienced it too. Would you like to give the aspiring authors a word of advice? I don’t know if I should give them advice but I do have a few suggestions. Firstly, don’t write for money. If your purpose is to earn money, don’t get into writing. There are other possibilities for you where you can make money – IT, banking, and marketing. In writing, everyone is not lucky. A few people do get to make money but most people don’t. A good reason to do it is when you have something to say. Write for your soul. Secondly, you must always write with the honesty and purity of the heart. You should not think about what the critics, editors or even readers might say. Be truthful to your work. Chale na chale, that’s up to God. Once you are done with your writing, it is the right
time to put on your marketing hat. Turn into a pragmatic guy and think how you can market your book. It is a fallacy to think that a book can sell itself – it can’t. How can someone buy a book if they don’t know it exists? So my last suggestion is that once you finish your book, devise a marketing plan and promote it properly. Okay, I think we are almost done here. One last question. Who do you think should play Lord Shiva in Karan Johar’s adaptation of the book? I have been asked this before and I never answer this question because Dharma Productions should announce the actors. I mean I am a fan of your books and whenever I think of the character, Hrithik Roshan comes to mind. As the author, who would you like to see playing your version of Lord Shiva? (Laughs) That’s just another way of asking the same question. Let Dharma Productions announce it, although I will let them know your thoughts.
And with that, my conversation with Amish came to a close. For a bestselling author, he sure is a down-to-earth, modest guy who thanked me when I said I am not touching Vayuputras because I’d hate to see the story end. I liked him before I talked to him but now I am inspired, awestruck and charmed. I wish him all the luck with his future endeavours and hope he continues to unravel mythology for oblivious people like me.
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Artist
A silent Conversation With art
By Ruchika Bajoria
Ruchika is passionate about food, art, cooking and writing. Before she takes the corporate world by storm, she has decided to indulge in her obsession with literature and art. In her spare time, she is a poet. In this edition, she introduces the novice to psychedelic art.
We’re all born artists.
Sameer Hazari is a professional artist specializing in interactive fine art, portrait making, psychedelic art and colour theory. His work has been showcased in London and he has collaborated with numerous artists to create artwork for their albums. He also teaches fine art in New Delhi
Our first scribbles on a pad are unintelligible scrawls and squiggles. Adults can’t read them or make heads or tails of them, but to a child, every experience, emotion and object that inspires awe Sameer’s art can be best described as is brought to life via scribbles. That is how I see art. Unlike everyone who says that art bold, flamboyant and evocative. is merely a means of expressing what the Strong splashes of colour and bold artist feels, I think of it more as a medium to strokes mingle fluidly with soft inspire a silent conversation between the strokes to create multi-layered, creator and the viewer. Art that fails to evoke an nuanced images. You would think emotion in the viewer fails its purpose. This is why, when I look at art, I tend to focus more on that with such vibrant colours the responses it evokes from its viewers, and more and psychedelic patterns, the particularly, I challenge it to communicate with me. first thing to catch your eye “A painting is a silent poem” was a done to death would be, predictably, the expression by my art teacher. If you’re looking for a colours. Instead, what read that focuses on techniques and influences on the artist, then I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. ensnares you and sets him Today, we’re focusing solely on the silent conversations apart are the compositions. I’ve had with the works of Sameer Hazari.
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Artist
Weirdo” doesn’t capture my eye because of its
bright hues or the checkered pattern -- though I have to admit that the piece might not be as stupefying without them. It isn’t even the multiple faces that make me do a double take. What holds my attention are the eyes. Those penetrating, dark irises with their incongruity and depth mesmerize me. The subtle emotions they create on the multiple faces and the way they transform from one expression to another, even though they are fixed, are the focal points. And then, after a considerable amount of time passes, I notice the multiple faces and the vivid hues.
You could almost stop there due to the sensory
overload, but then, this isn’t a painting to see in passing. It demands a deeper examination. The softening of the shades around the eyes, the blurring of the dyes to create subtle facial lines, the pattern that is glaringly similar in its colours and completely different in its pigments, the painting exposes its secrets languorously! It’s as if Sameer was aiming to capture an emotion fleeting across his subject’s face and became fascinated by the transformation. You can see the transition from thoughtfulness to realization. I often wonder if the man in the painting is in fact smirking at us as we pore over it.
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Artist
‘Duality’ is a painting with a deep complexity.
Even with the bright colours and the blatant composition, it is the white that shines through. The hands folded into a humble greeting, try in futility to draw focus away from the composition and towards the multi-hued tissues. The eyes capture my interest ever so softly. You’re beguiled into thinking of the subject as a tranquil boy in servitude, but then there is the green glint in his red pupil which you don’t notice and yet, you can’t ignore.
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This seems to hint at the real character beneath the guise of servility. Here, the eyes truly act as a mirror to the soul. When you finally make the connection that beneath the soft skin and the folded hands lays a person quite different, the realization is unsettling. The painting epitomizes how your eyes can be misleading.
Artist
‘Duality 2’
is a painting that continues in the path of its predecessor. Again, it’s the eyes that capture my interest; there is a glint that I simply can’t ignore. A steely determination and strength is communicated in an instance. However, even with the steely glint and the sharp angular features, this man doesn’t look threatening. There is a certain kind of softness to his expressions, and his lips indicate a man who laughs often. When I look at a number of Sameer’s portraits, I’m convinced that the key to his creations lies in the eyes.
‘Radiance’ is another brilliant example of how
he uses the eyes to communicate numerous human emotions. It’s unnerving for us to have to accept that a section of society faces brutalities far worse than we can imagine. Yet, this portrait forces you to face just that. A woman, hardened by circumstances is not rare, but to have it accentuated is. The pursed lips and defiant gaze are further accentuated by the barely suppressed anger. The yellow hard hat only hints at the psychological effect of the painting. It is easy to be overwhelmed by his portraits and artwork that explores the entire range of human emotions but to discount his landscapes and abstracts would be blasphemous. Haut.Monde | June-July 2013 |
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Shoots “When I think of you, fireflies in the marsh rise like the soul’s jewels, lost to eternal longing, abandoning my body.”
-Izumi Shikibu
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Shoots
Passion, Sex, Glory!
Evoke glamour with a touch of true elegance. Strong, bold and fierce silhouettes celebrate the sensuality in every woman. With a fresh laid back vibe, bring out the sophisticated beauty in you by teaming mute monochromes with bold electric colours, and tone down the gaudiness of the much-hyped neons. Photographed by Manoj Aryan Designer: Minakshi Shangle
Shoots
“The fragrance of your skin is sweeter to me than the perfumes of a million roses..�
-Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff
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Shoots
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Shoots “And to my lips’ Bright crimson rim The passion slips, And down my slim White body drips The shining hymn..”
-D.H. Lawrence, “Mystery”
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Shoots
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Shoots “It was like a horse, really. The trick was not to grab, but to caress.”
-Lucy Gordon, “Tuscan Tycoon’s Wife”
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Shoots
“Now come the whispers bearing bouquets of moonbeams and sunlight tremblings.”
-Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams
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Photographed by Rajesh Luthra Styled by Sreedhar Jasti Concept Developed by Raisa Gupta and Sreedhar Jasti
THE LAZY-BUM PROJECT
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I wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, Eyes half-open I do my chores at a very slow pace, I am a drowsy little tortoise in this life race, Ace-pace-mace-shace.. YAWWWNNNNNNNN!
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Red Suit by Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna Tee Shirt by Evolv Scarf by Roberto Cavalli for SBJ- House of Luxury Shoes by Zara Hat ( Stylist’s Own)
Mens
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Shirt by Evolv Neon Pants by Zara Shoes by Zara
Mens
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Tee Shirt by Daniele Alessandrini for SBJ- House of Luxury Shorts by Evolv Shoes by 40 Savile Row for SBJ- House of Luxury
Mens
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Blue Blazer by Zara Blue Trousers by Zara Shirt by Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna Shoes by Zara
Mens
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Grey Structured Suit by Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna Shoes by Franceschetti for SBJ- House of Luxury Cap by Zara
Mens
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Polo Shirt by Zara Hat by Zara Trousers by Evolv Shoes by Zara
Mens
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WHEN METAL MET PRINT
This season sees a budding romance between metal and print. Metal is not just meant to dazzle nights anymore and prints are not just meant to paint the day. The roles have reversed, there is some massive power play. We certainly are a new-age, the
REBELLIOUS NEW-AGE!
Photographed by Rajesh Luthra
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|
Styled by Sreedhar Jasti
Top with matching Bikini Inners by Hemant and Nandita Pants by Hemant and Nandita Earrings by ayesha Cuff by Kazo
On Uliyana:
Dress by Hemant and Nandita Earrings by Forever New Shoes by Enroute at Montenapo
On Vidya:
Women’s
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Products This suave cranberry lingerie set teamed with a pretty organza ruffled shrug is an extremely practical garment with that dream-like feel. I am a Dreamer!
Welcome to a harmonic connection between humans and technology. From lines of aero dynamism, reflectivity and morphing of metal surfaces- a new romanticism is derived. This new world has a combination of futuristic elements; like hybridization of natural and mechanical products, geometrical shapes and surfaces in pure forms. Humanoids it is!
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Photographed by Charu Dutta Styled by Sohiny Das Designer: Suman Nathwani Available at 5, Sardar Shankar Road, Kolkata- 700026
Products Leaver laces, flat chiffon and net make for an uber classy appeal. Seduce Temptress Seduce!
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Cover Story
The Legend of
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Cover Story
The moment the lights dim in a theatre, camera rolls on a set, Shabana Azmi moulds herself into the character she is portraying. Nothing else matters – it is just her and her passion, ‘acting’. And then the applause reverberating in the theatre or the director’s cut on sets gets her out of her reverie and she is Shabana Azmi again – a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a social activist and a beautiful human being. While interviewing Shabana Ji, we discovered that there is so much more to the actress – her story does not start with her acting career and it does not end there either.
Lights. Camera.
Shabana! Talking about her life, we took a path down the memory lane with her. Hit with a powerful wave of nostalgia, Shabana Ji recalled the days of her happy childhood. She was born in a communist family; she did not have materialistic goods that account for a life of luxury but she had more, so much more. Until she was 9, she lived in a 225 square feet room with her parents and brother in a commune where 8 more families lived and shared the common bathroom. Later, her family moved to a small cottage in Juhu which although did not even have an attached bathroom, but was always bustling with legendary poets like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Josh Malihabadi, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Jigar
Moradabadi and Begum Akhtar. There was something about that small cottage that drew the biggest poets of that era to their residence – money wasn’t everything, Shabana Ji and her brother Baba Azmi realized. Early in her life, she learnt to value human ties, something that cultivated her growth as a woman, as an actor and as a social activist. Her father, Kaifi Azmi, was a progressive poet who often entertained communists and their place was used by the party members for meetings. Filled with commotion and activity, her home was peopled by intellectuals who were committed to India’s pluralism and composite culture. Shabana Ji described them as the people who danced to the tune of a different drummer. Her mother Shaukat Azmi, she stated admirably, was an actress with Prithvi theatre. Shabana Ji accompanied her to the theatre and sometimes even performed on stage in group sequences. With her mother performing on the other side of the curtain, she would often fall asleep backstage with the smell of greasepaint in her nostrils. As a child, she was taken to Chaupati to see the lights on Republic Day and Independence Day because these days were celebrated with just as much fervour as Eid, Diwali, Holi or Christmas. Recollecting her memories of Gokul Ashtami and Ganesh Chaturthi, she affirmed, “It was a very happy childhood in spite of the fact that we had absolutely no money whatsoever. That was the last consideration.”
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Cover Story
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Cover Story “Unlike other actors in her time, Shabana Ji did both commercial and parallel cinema and she was the first one, except for Shashi Kapoor, to take such risks at the time when non-commercial films were considered the roadway to failure.” Shabana Azmi started a new journey to create her identity when she landed up in one of the best colleges in Mumbai for dramatics - St. Xavier’s. Along with Farooq Sheikh, who was her senior at Xavier’s, Shabana Ji founded the Hindi theatre group at Xavier’s, which previously had a drama club in English. They won every award at inter-collegiate level festivals and it was then she realized that she wanted to pursue acting further. Her father, who had always been supportive of her, encouraged her and advised that she should put her heart and soul into whatever she chose to do. ‘Meet standards of excellence’, an advice that she has followed all her life, whether it was a movie, play or her social work. After graduating from Xavier’s, Shabana Ji joined the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Her parents would send her Rs. 250 every month and the institute granted her an allowance of Rs. 250 as well, making her the richest girl in her class. She was awarded a Gold Medal for academic excellence when she graduated and before she knew it, she was shooting for her movie, Parinay. She had already signed three movies while she was in FTII, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas' Faasla being the first one. However, the first movie that was released featuring Shabana Azmi was Shyam Benegal's directorial debut, Ankur.
She has an uncanny ability to add life to every character that she plays; whether it was chewing betel in Mandi or shaving her head for Water, she has always gone an extra mile to depict her character with finesse and visible sincerity. Her natural flair has resonated on screen, so it’s hardly surprising that she is considered the best actress of her generation. Away from the glitz and glamour of Bollywood, there was a woman taking giants leap to take cinema to the next level. In her magnificent portrayals of strong women characters in Mandi, Kandhar, Masoom, Arth, Godmother, Shabana Azmi made her place not just in Bollywood but also the much neglected parallel cinema. “I have been at the right place at the right time. I was lucky enough that when parallel cinema started, I was there with Ankur and it led to the beginning of parallel cinema in India.” Unlike other actors in her time, Shabana Ji did both commercial and parallel cinema and she was the first one, except for Shashi Kapoor, to take such risks at the time when noncommercial films were considered the roadway to failure. She then went on to take the international media by surprise and charmed foreign lands with her spell bounding acting talent. She was the first one to work in the National Theatre in London, which is the ultimate dream of every theatre actor.
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Cover Story
“Somewhere along the way, she found the love of her life. Javed Akhtar fit perfectly in the puzzle – he was the piece that was missing.”
Somewhere along the way, she found the love of her life. Javed Akhtar fit perfectly in the puzzle – he was the piece that was missing. “Life with Javed Akhtar has been nothing less than an adventure,” she says. A couple that has been together for 20 years, falling in love was inevitable. “Javed and I had such similar backgrounds that ideally we should have had an arranged marriage. We had the same world view which is very important. Also, we happened to be each other’s best friends so Javed keeps saying that Shabana and I are such good friends that even marriage couldn’t ruin our friendship.” Shabana Azmi is known for her versatility as an actor and her depth is evident on screen. She has never stepped away from taking a risk if she believes in it. “I have been brought up to be fearless,” she points out. Talking about her character in Water, she recalled that it was the time that her step-son, the successful actor, director and singer Farhan Akhtar, was getting married when she shaved her head. She was completely bald at her son’s wedding, which flabbergasted her mother but the guests at the wedding thought she was very cool with her bald head and long loop earrings. The bride Adhuna Akhtar, a hair stylist herself,
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believes that her mother-in-law stole her thunder by making such an amazingly dramatic appearance at the wedding. Although she tries to stay clear of controversies, like any other actor in this country, but Shabana Azmi did witness her fair share of them. Her role in Deepa Mehta’s Fire which depicted the first act of lesbianism in Indian Cinema did not go down very well. Recalling the protests against Fire, she clarified that the audiences didn’t raise any objection against Fire – it was running peacefully for three weeks in theatres when out of the blue, Shiv Sena supporters stomped the theatres and destroyed the property to gain political mileage. It was re-referred to the censor board but not even a single cut was imposed by the board and the movie came back to the theatres just as it was. Shabana ji also told us that people from different sexual orientation complimented her on her depiction in the movie and expressed, that it was liberating. This is one of those things that define an actor – earning the respect of your audience, giving them a different outlook and making a difference in their lives, however small it may be.
Cover Story Shabana Azmi with Javed Akhtar
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Cover Story
with father Kaifi Azmi and mother Shaukat Kaifi
“After repeated futile pleas to the government, Shabana Ji along with Anand Patwardhan went on a hunger strike for five days to demand alternate accommodation for slum dwellers. The supporters were literally on the pavement, fighting for the rights of the subjugated slum dwellers with Shabana Ji right in the middle.�
with brother Baba Azmi
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with mother Shaukat Kaifi
Cover Story
With Abba.
Another chapter of her life started with an NGO called Nivara Hakk (Right to Shelter). Watching Anand Patwardhan’s Bombay Our City, Shabana Azmi realized that demolishing slums was not a solution to the existing problems because they were paving way for more slums, degrading their life further. After repeated futile pleas to the government, Shabana Ji along with Anand Patwardhan went on a hunger strike for five days to demand alternate accommodation for slum dwellers. The supporters were literally on the pavement, fighting for the rights of the subjugated slum dwellers with Shabana Ji right in the middle. Ultimately, Shashi Kapoor pleaded their case to the then Chief Minister S.B. Chavan and they succeeded in winning shelter for the needy. That was one of her many wins. Meanwhile, Shabana Azmi’s father returned to his village Mijwan and discovered that the village was frozen in time – there were no roads, electricity, tube wells and it even lacked basic amenities. His work intersected with Shabana Azmi’s social cause. He wanted to make
employment available in the village so that people did not have to move to the city and live in dreadful conditions. In 2002, he passed away and Shabana Ji took up where he left. Her father set up a strong foundation in the tiny village of 4,540 people by establishing a college, a computer centre and making people independent by promoting crafts like embroidery. He single-handedly worked for the village despite being paralyzed and later, Shabana Azmi took up his cause. “Once I asked him that don’t you feel frustrated when change doesn’t happen at a pace you want it to? He calmly explained to me that if you are working with sincerity and truth then the change will come, even if it does after you are gone. There is lots of work that I want to do with Mijwan because it was the dream of my father and now it is my duty to see that I make it international.” Shabana Azmi has been able to take Mijwan to newer heights with her hard work and dedication. Manish Malhotra has adopted the village and now Naomi Campbell and Priyanka Chopra are wearing clothes embroidered in Mijwan, which has uplifted the village profusely.
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Cover Story
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Cover Story
“The change has to come from within us; it needs to be self-regulated. Don’t listen to diktats of so called morality brigades that ask you to dress a certain way.”
A woman of substance, Shabana Azmi believes that women should be made a part of development. Safety of women and equality of opportunity are two major changes that she would like to see in the country as the member of the Rajya Sabha. A supporter of the MARD campaign introduced by Farhan Akhtar, Shabana Azmi is hopeful that it will bring a change in the mindset of the people. “They have reached 1 million people in such a short span of time. They are going to colleges and schools and the HRD ministry to say that we need gender sensitivity in school. If you look at school books for children aged 3 or 4, you will notice the stereotypes. Where’s the father? He’s in the office. Where’s the mother? She’s in the kitchen. Why can’t the be father in kitchen, and the mother at work or why can’t they both be in the office or kitchen?,” she enquires. Moreover, she has observed gender disparity in the film industry too. The lady who advocates women’s right applauded the fact that Shah Rukh Khan announced that in all his movies, the leading ladies would be accredited before him. “I requested him to extend that further because if you really want to make
a difference, then play a secondary role in a woman-centric woman. Today, no male actor is ready to do that because that reduces the commercial capabilities of the film, with a few exceptions of course. But if a top star were to do it, then others would follow suit. Even the gender imbalance that you see in the industry would then begin to fade.” Enlightening us further, she proclaimed that there is a fine line between celebrating a woman’s sexuality and objectifying it. This is the line that actresses themselves have to define, and voyeurism and vulgarity is what she warns actresses against. “The change has to come from within us; it needs to be selfregulated. Don’t listen to diktats of so called morality brigades that ask you to dress a certain way. Very recently, I heard that Priyanka Chopra said that she will do an item number but she will scan the lyrics and the clothes. She is taking that decision. That’s what we are talking about!”
than 120 movies. She pointed out that technically, our industry has come a long way. We have the best technicians and the technology has improved by heaps and bounds. Where we still need a lot of work is on the script. “The acting standards have improved too. Some 10-15 years ago, mainly representative acting was required – raise your eyebrows and you’re surprised; laugh and you’re happy; cry and you’re sad. This doesn’t happen anymore.” Dil Chahta Hai was the first time we saw an actor undergoing a transformation for a character and now every actor is experimenting to justify his character. When you look at Shabana Ji, you see a positive aura around her. Her conviction makes you want to believe that things will change for the better. Conversing with her was a high point for us; it was an empowering experience that we will cherish in our hearts, all our lives.
Nearing the end of the interview, we asked her about the changes that cinema has undergone ever since its inception, as we are celebrating 100 glorious years of Indian cinema. She has been a part of the industry for a long time and acted in more Haut.Monde | June-July 2013 |
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Masala Dosa
Galaxy
Feeding your taste buds is one thing, but how many people feed their imagination and all the 5 senses while they eat?
Ishpreet Batra believes, to
experience the ultimate in food, we need to activate more than just our taste buds.
Here’s How...
S
Ishpreet Batra is a Food Experience and Interaction Designer from IIT Guwahati. She has a unique perspective of viewing mundane daily routines as being full of art and sensitivity. Her current research focuses on exploring ‘Food as a Material’ to create experiences.
itting in the middle of the room designed to research on ‘The aesthetics of food and exploring it as a material’, I could see a Galaxy-like figure in the Dosa (my choice of food for the research), placed on a plate in front of me. I wondered how I had always savoured a Dosa for its crispness and its appetizing aroma. But, in that instant, I savoured the visual aspect of it- the beauty and the grandeur of a Dosa. The spiral lines along the top porous surface resembled the Milky Way, with the tiny pores looking strikingly similar to the millions of stars in the sky above. It was almost a replica of the Galaxy, but with fumes of mouth-watering aroma. The beautiful texture and colour of the porous sheet of rice batter (called crepe, all over the world) is a delight in itself.
The famous Masala Dosa is a paper-thin pancake made from rice and lentils, cooked to lacy perfection on a hot griddle. What creates the flavour is a spiced concoction of mashed cooked potatoes and fried onions, served with a liberal dose of authentic coconut chutney and sambhar. Dosa is a flavoursome souvenir from the South to the rest of India and now the world, as it is rated 4th on the ‘10 Must Tries Around the Globe’ by the Huffington Post. This amazingly yummy porous thin crepe inspired me to start my research on food aesthetics. I couldn’t agree more when the critics and judges said, “It creates an intimacy and a certain bond between the dish and the people eating it. It is more about exploring the dosa as a medium for communication.” And, I can bet on the fact that it doesn’t end with the dosa; many more delicacies from around the globe will be explored in the time to come.
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Food
E
ating food is arguably one of the most appealing experiences a human being goes through. Taste, aroma, temperature, the visual celebration and texture- every aspect together makes for an incredible and unforgettable experience. The irony of this eating experience is that we do it every day, multiple times, without realizing how it makes every moment special. Often, we cherish the memories of the time spent with our near ones, many of which are connected with food. For instance, had it not been for those yummy cheese burgers and cold coffees served in the college canteen, the gossip sessions with friends would not have been so exciting; those heart-to-heart conversations with dad at breakfast, about men and relationships, would not have been so special had mum not made those delectable aloo parathas that morning; even more, a cup of cutting chai from the nearby tea stall can sometimes weigh your heart down more than a love note, because your ex-girlfriend loved it so much and a sip of it brings back a million memories. This is how strong the ‘relationship’ is between your brain and the food you eat.
Food is as sensory
and sensual an experience as say, Sex. Fbecause ood is as sensory and sensual an experience as say, Sex. Sex, it connects the body and the soul in a higher spiritual
level. Similarly, food provokes the senses, all 5 of them. You can touch, smell, see, taste and hear food (think, the blistering sounds from a sizzler). There is no other medium in this whole world which gives you the same kind of sensual evoking as food, well except as I said Sex, of course. Think of the visual delight created by a bowl full of fresh vegetable salad, the fulfilling experience when you smell a plate of fresh seekh kebabs, the auditory orchestra associated with crispy nachos in your mouth, the way your mouth waters while you pop in a piece of dark chocolate and the sumptuousness you feel while the chocolate melts in your mouth, wrestling impatiently with your mouth’s fluids, battling victoriously its way down to your tummy. This is how all the 5 senses come alive while we eat.
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Food
What’s equally important is the
ambience. The experience of food is incomplete without the ambience it’s served in. It’s the surrounding that completes the splendid experience. The two are inseparable. What makes a restaurant your favourite? Is it only because you love the taste of the food they serve? Think again and you will realize that apart from the food, what makes you end up there every weekend might just be due to the presentation, or the ambient lighting, the plush fabric of the comfortable couch, the crochet table cloth you feel between your fingers deftly or the citrusy smell of the lemongrass air freshener they use. To my knowledge, it has to be the combined effect of everything that surrounds you while you relish your food in that restaurant; that is what completes your experience and makes you visit the place more often than others. I believe everything, the garden where the vegetable is grown, the market it is being sold in, the cook who actually cooks it, the platter it is being served in to the table cloth on the table on which it is being served – everything together makes for the true and absolute experience. And yet, there are times when a home-made cake and candle light dinner is what you choose over your favourite restaurant, for that special evening. That is, again, because of the underlying emotions and values attached with it. Something like the entire system you define in thermodynamics.
Food defines us. In
fact, what we eat is what we are! Food defines us. What you eat, where you eat, how you eat and
with whom you eat, everything counts. In fact, what we eat is what we are! Food has a certain kind of undeniable power, a power that is unexplored, mysterious and captivating. It can create experiences which are not limited to just taste but miles beyond it. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” Happy eating!
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Twist the Tongue Welcome to Pankaj and Sachin’s chemical laboratory- the trade secret lies in garnishing with a smile, mixing with passion and keeping up that quintessential flair.
Drink responsibly!
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Food
Ingredients
Majestic
1 2 3 4
50 ml Tequila Corralejo Reposado 50 ml Smoked Pear Puree 10 ml Homemade Vanilla and Chilli Syrup 2 dashes of Peychaud’s Bitters 30 ml Sparkling Wine
Add the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with cube ice.
Except sparkling wine, shake thoroughly until the cocktail shaker is frosted from outside. Double strain the cocktail in a chilled Champagne Flute and top it with Sparkling wine. Garnish with a Red Chilli and a Vanilla Pod.
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Fairy Tale
Ingredients
Food
45 ml Bombay Sapphire Gin 20 ml Yellow Chartreuse 2 Basil Leaves 15 ml Lime Juice 30 ml Egg White
1
Take a fresh Basil Leaf and slap it to release the oils from it.
2
Drop it in the cocktail shaker, add the Egg White and give it a dry shake (shake without ice) if you want extra froth to the cocktail.
3 4
Later, add all other ingredients and fill the shaker with cube ice. Shake thoroughly until the cocktail shaker is frosted from outside.
5
Double strain the cocktail in a chilled Champagne Saucer.
6
Garnish with a Basil Leaf.
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Weekend By The
By Prachi Ghatwai
Wayside
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Travel
What is the best way to explore Paris? Does one arm oneself with a foot-long city map and surrender the soul to the government’s version of what a tourist should do? Must one read up on socialism and a little Rosseau in order to strike up an intelligent conversation? Or is it best to leave the works to the bubbly, a Chablis or a Bordeaux perhaps?
Prachi Ghatwai is the sorts who would give her day job to travel like crazy, save penguins, adopt a Lama and master all the languages of the world. Her fine intentions are applauded by all and sundry, except those who point out that she, anyway, doesn’t have any day job to speak of.
T
his is what I have to tell youthe ‘to-see list’ and the ‘to-queue up for’ list are best balled up and tossed to the winds. For Paris must be met unarmed and unplanned. The ancient Gallic spirits , those tricky, unseen folk who give Paris its signature je ne sais quoi charm, never turn up when bidden but if you’re lucky, they’ll sidle up besides you when you’re least suspecting it. As you turn to throw a last, lingering look at the Seine, an idle moment by the esplanade, or perhaps years later, a memory might come tumbling out and lift you back into Paris and you’ll be swearing for a while you really could hear the wind song in the boulevards of ChampsÉlysées. We were in a similar fix, me and my friend, held hostage right in the middle of Paris by a city map that made little sense, when the wind came rushing down on us and settle matters for once and for all. Out it plucked the map off our hands and into the Seine, and we, nouveau visitors to Paris stood freed. The two days from there were all left to destiny, and not once did the ‘to-see list’ resurface.
I
t was destiny after all that had made that weekend in Paris possible. The two of us were best friends, the kind who fight a lot and make it all up within the space of seconds (surest test of friendship) and had dreamt of visiting Paris together for a long time. That year found us interning in the two cities that are farthest apart in Germany. Both of us had been declared basket cases at planning trips and one of us had seen the insides of a German Police Station very recently, so the stocks were not really in our favour. But destiny, that wonderful thing struck and much to the distrust of our friends, we left for Paris, cooing à bientôt and au revoir in our snootiest accents. It was one of those times when fate assumes all responsibility and you can happily sit back and let it all wash over. PARIS- To me, the city always conjures up the heady feeling of a childhood romance. I had read so much about the city and its glorious past, been inspired by the French Revolution in the mildest of lifedecisions ( Liberté, nothing short of Liberté!), been swept off my feet at the sound of Edith Piaf’s magnificent songs and watched Midnight at Paris thrice- basically the life story of every Francophile.
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Travel
As we started off from Mannheim, the grey spell of
weather we had been having disappeared and instead, the sky burst into a blossom of gentle clouds. The sun came out in good humour in a little while and the larks took it from there. Needless to say, the omens were all good. However, the TGV that was to pick did not believe in heeding any omens and turned up a good four hours later (so now you know Europe too is run by humans). We passed the time with a motley of fellow travellers. A whole lot of advice was stewed, when they discovered we were nouveau travellers; even an American declared himself an expert on everything French (“except the girls of course, can’t understand them”). My friend and I exchanged nervous looks; the two of us had the talent of getting lost anywhere, so how were we to do Versailles, Tuileries and Louvre within the space of four hours as this advisory committee was instructing us to. The train finally arrived and made up for its delay by switching to its flying gear. So, we soared faster and faster by the fields of rippling corn and sunflower that passed us, till it was all reduced to a great Van Goghesque blur of a landscape. Not many people in the train seemed to notice the living art that streaked past our windows; over my shoulder a mother was chiding her daughter for blowing her nose on the seat of the TGV and not far away two men were foaming over a battle over football (what else). Ordinarily, the slightest civilian noise leaves me despairing but this was different. The jabbering was in French, the language that can melt any sound into music; and anyway I am a terrible hypocrite when it comes to the great country of France and its peculiar, lovable ways. Soon the yellow and blue of the country began to wear off and the fields began to fade. The TGV dropped a gear and definite forms began to take shape, suburban Paris glided past- rows of neat little apartments with pretty flower boxes over the windows, deserted roads and a great splattering of deliciously rude graffiti. And then finally the TGV grunted and came to a halt, and we were tipped out into the Gare du Nord or the North Station, Paris. A blessed day awaited us as we walked out of the station. Sunshine crackled over the post- Baroque splendour of the station’s exterior. The facade of the Gare du Nord has an interesting story- the original facade did not satisfy the town planners and it was transplanted to another city, as a cafe-owner informed us later.
That’s the secret behind all the beauty of Paris, everything has to be ‘perfect’. They pluck and pull apart anything that doesn’t make you sigh with pleasure (Carla Bruni included).
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aris’s town planners who are on the lookout to blast off anything out of sync with the architectural golden ratio may as well pay a visit to a certain McDonald’s at the end of the Rue de Dunkerque. We were famished but refused to look at the offending blister of a global menace. Besides, we had been recommended the Artisan Boulangerie though we weren’t sure where it really was. An hour of needling in and out of back lanes later, the cafe still evaded us and it soon became apparent that were in fact, quite lost. We had wound up near some sort of an abandoned tenement. Now I had seen movies unlike Nikita and had no reason to believe that armed Frenchmen do not burst out of a seemingly isolated place. Ronald McDonald suddenly began to seem a lot like a friend we had committed great wrong against. Then down the street appeared a man who also wore the universal look of one who’s terribly late for work. But once we explained him our predicament in our crumbly French, the dear man escorted us personally, all the way to the Artisan Boulangerie. Whoever said that the French are self-obsessed and rude must find this wonderful gentleman; he should be passing a street called Chatel at around eight in the morning (unless he got fired that day). The Boulangerie turned out to be well worth the trouble. It was a quaint affair, tucked away in a corner, rattling with the pleasant sound of coffee being ground for the day’s first brew. What took our breath away was the wonderful world that lay on display- macaroons, sublime in several shades of spring, the gateau (French pastry), crowned with almost an inch thick icing and demure bow-tied pralines. We decided to have a little of everything for petit dejeuner and staunchly ordered the trickiest names on the menu, our accents trembling over crêpes caramel au beurre salé . but our waitress only gave us an encouraging grin and had us seated. The coffee did its magic and we were soon transformed into thinking and smiling creatures. Over the agreeable
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Travel company of freshly roasted coffee, crepe and a cheesecake fit for kings, I looked up and took in my first proper mental image of Paris. It was just like I had imagined, everything had, as they say, the je ne sais quoi (or ‘i can’t place it’ charm) about it. On the opposite side was a street full of apartments, decked in their lovely eighteen century facades, every French window hung with curtains and flower boxes and lamps as beautiful as can be. It was all very stirring and I whipped out my Moleskin- I find a quick sketch often serves as the best memoir- and when I squinted back at the roof, a group of small kids were waving down at me. “Bonjour!”, I shouted from my café side perch. They disappeared from the window and were soon skateboarding their way towards us. A lot of halfunderstood babbling ensued between us. They admired my sketch and insisted I add them to it. Then in a spectacular turn of events, they decided I was rolling in the riches enough to buy them all some breakfast, Marie Antoinette versus French Peasants style! Fortunately our waitress popped out of the cafe and sent them packing. But I was so charmed by the little children that we called them back and shared what remained of our repast.
After breakfast, we sat poring over the city maps,
trying to grasp meaning in the great spaghetti-shaped mess of a metro network. I would lose my heart to every other place on the map that had the slightest ring of poetry or history. Meanwhile, my friend insisted on following the advice we had been cascaded with, earlier in the day. Our friendly waitress came to our aid and we finally picked out Disneyland to head to. I was mollified because on the way we were to pass Clichy Victor Hugo, Madeline and Musee de Orsy. Music mushed into words, I tell you. The Paris Metro is never too far off from any place and sure enough we found the signature Art Nouveau entrance-one of the most famous examples of public architecture, waiting right around the corner. The Metro is very important to Paris, the very veins spread out far and wide below the great city and keep it ticking. The hundred years have stripped it off quite a bit of its old glamour and most people no longer bother to buy tickets, preferring to leap over the ticket-style (not us, we’ve had our fair tryst with the law in Europe). There was a constant ebb and flow of commuters about and all sorts of people melting in and out of it. That’s when, in this dinghy netherworld that was such an unlikely place to realize sweeping truths, I fully understood what a cosmopolitan city really meant. The middling crowd suddenly became individuals, with separate identities, cultures and beliefs.
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A pair of Prada clicked past, followed by the swish of an Abaya even as a printed-head wrap, the African Gele sailed through the crowds. This is the rich diversity that Paris deserves to be proud of. Very soon, our Metro came clunking by. The journey to Disneyland was a long one but the landscape was breathtaking all along. Shiny, pointy buildings rose here and there- BNP Paribas, AXA and all the other makers of France’s strident economy. A fiddle and a boom box went off somewhere in the train. It was a modern-day bard, ripped jeans and a soft, dopey smile in place; he struck up a wonderful melody and lent a soundtrack to the rest of our journey.
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isneyland arrives- the trademark candy-coloured turrets and roofs twinkle at us from above. Now the Disneyland in France has a Western theme which means that they have tried their best to make you believe you’re in the rugged cowboy territory of Wild Wild West. But soon Shrek, Snow White, Woody and all the rest of the giddy chaps swarmed up to us, assuring that it was all as Disney, as could be. The place was simply enormous and we got lost within a few minutes, finding ourselves, by no definite intention of ours, aboard a suicidal sort of ride through the Rocky Westerns. We were fired at by highwaymen, pursued by every other type of gangster, even as mines exploded left and right, our train always missed death by a hair’s whisker. When the ride finally halted, two very victorious girls got off, flushed with an Indian Jones kind of bravery, and could not shake off mean cowgirl airs for a long, long time that day. We took the train back to Paris and by the time we got to Champ De Mars, twilight was afoot and Paris was in the midst of a change of colour. While the skies held their own séance and soaked the city in all sorts of magical splendour, we walked along the esplanade by the Seine watching the artists and buskers as they tried to pull in the day’s last buck. I was arrested by the sight of a particular artist wrapping up his day’s business. He was an old, old man in a duster coat with thick fingers that must have held pencils and brushes all their life. A potential last customer appeared before him but she haggled for too less and for too long and the old man
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Travel simply turned his head away, an odd expression on his face. It was heartbreaking in some ways and in some others, inspiring. The street is the perch of the artist and everyone, Renoir and Matisse and Van Gogh and so many others must have had their moments by the curb, as paupered as the old man and yet, monarchs of their rightful realms. By the time I came out of my reverie, the sun had gone down and the last bits of dying light were being carried away by the Seine. We had a customary tiff, my friend and I, over what to do next. Our maps had been long since whipped off by the wind and no longer were we in the mood for monuments. I longed to keep walking on and on for a while, but she wished nothing but dinner. So we arrived at a compromise- to walk as long as we could before we spotted a really good bistro. We plodded along the Champs de Mars slowly, the canopy of horse chestnut trees fanning us gently. I was looking at the bits of sky that clung to the chinks in the trees, feeling rather dreamy, when all of a sudden, a comet went shooting past! And then, another! Holy shit, diamonds seemed to be flying somewhere in the sky! But of course, as we discovered, it was the Eiffel bursting into light. It was a spectacular sight to behold, the lights turning up slowly in tiny explosions and spreading all the way to the top like a slow fire. We immediately forgot our dinner plans, our step turned light and we milled into the serpentine queue to see Paris from atop the Eiffel. The wait was excruciating, our stomachs soon put up a steady protest but when we finally did reach the top, our breaths dropped all the way three hundred meters below. A fabulous galaxy of glittering lights lay before us. Domes and church spires and skyscrapers and avenues and old, old artists returning home, all lay below us.
We were still dazed when we returned to terra firma and sought restoration at the nearest bistro. Our maître d’ was a splendid sort and recommended several heavenly things that would cure our, what he called the ‘Eiffel Syndrome’.
A low violin played in the backdrop, the tinkle of wine glasses and cutlery all around and it was all very splendid. We lay in our plush seats for a while, wiping the final crumbs of a particularly decadent framboise crepe and wallowing in the wonderful, rare feeling that life cannot get any better. The next day we visited the Champs-Élysées, the splendid boulevard and strayed off beyond. A web of lanes away, we discovered a boot sale in progress. The words En Vente or For Sale is probably a spell in French for it seemed as if all the women of Paris had turned up to its call. A girl by a counter caught me by the elbow
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and gave me the old silken sales talk. But she was quite persuasive and I found myself agreeing to try on a pair of jeans that were very obviously two sizes smaller for me. A trial later (in a wine cellar that her friend owned), I realized that this was no ordinary pair of denim; I was in fact the bearer of nothing less than the second cousin of the Travelling Pants. The deal was sealed and Paris had a new believer in the power of En Vente that day. Music welled up somewhere in the distance, sylvan sounds in the city. We found ourselves, pulled in its direction and walked into a crowd. In the centre was a man or a wizard, whose dreadlocks whipped back and forth as he made music out of something- an instrument the likes of which I had never seen. It looked like a mini-UFO. This was no ordinary music; it was the kind that would probably play at a soiree in elves land or a commune of tree spirits. We were too dazed to even applaud properly but the wizard grinned good-naturedly at us and held us his instrument for everyone to see, a new invention from Switzerland, he told us; it was called a ‘Hang Drum’- a steel drum punched in at places to create those lovely overtones.
We finally drifted off, though the hang drum kept
playing in my head all day. We passed the Palais De Garnier and mooched along the Boulevard des Capucines. It was a Sunday morning and there was the unmistakable lack of purpose about. Yet one could see how the buskers , artists and musicians were up and about on their jobs. For a moment I thought I could see why Paris was so revered for its commitment to art. It wasn’t just the museums, art galleries and famous studios, it was also all these people, the ones by the curb, who would sculpt, push and shape their art till the world took notice. Later still, the Louvre knocked us clean out of our minds. We met Magritte and Renoir and all the fine men of their day and age, so drunk were we on art, it struck us pretty late that we had a train to catch that evening. The rest of our time transpired in such a hurry that it is only fragments of those last moments that I can recall. A dance on the sidewalk to a beat box, a couple sharing a cigarette while solving the day’s crossword, a Senegalese family singing together on the train, that last Metro rideonly broken visions. But even as the TGV blew its last whistle, and we tossed ourselves into it, I managed to throw one last look at Paris and for a split second, a very tiny moment really, something between me and the city parted open. A cleft in time long enough for a Gallic spirit to show up. A spirit that looked hauntingly familiar, like an old, old artist by the Seine perhaps, that bade me goodbye.
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plendid Spiti
Riding into nirvana, the untamed explore!
Life is wonderful but what makes it worth it, a bike ride amidst the spectacular Spiti Valley. Colorful Spiti- where bright dashes of white clouds shine upon the crystal blue canvas, the deep gorges blend well with superlative mountains, the vast green meadows contrast artistically with the snow clad peaks, the complexities of the matrix are untangled at the hair-pin curves of the road and nature’s purity is in harmony with Buddhist chants and amicable natives. By Gaurav Kaushik
3 PM on the clock. The scorching sun behind the glass window, the lackluster computer screen on the study table and the monotonous surroundings, had ganged up against me to drag me into hibernation. I was pulled back into the matrix with a phone buzz and a magical word from the caller – SPITI. Oh the raw, ruthless, virgin land of Spiti! A land where the blues of sky, the whites of snow, the greens of meadows, the browns of peaks and the reds of monks come together - Splendid Spiti! When the mountain calls, nothing can stop you. So, ignoring the money crunch that month-end brings to life, I gladly agreed to explore the beauty of Lahaul and Spiti Valley for the second time, accompanied by my two classic comrades (Saurabh and Nitin).
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ROUTE
How to reach
The district of Lahaul and Spiti (L&S) in Himachal Pradesh is accessible from:
1) NH21 - Manali to Rohtang Pass to Kunzum Pass to Kaza, and 2) NH22 – Shimla to Pooh to Tabo to Kaza The Valley is accessible from NH21 during May – September and from NH22 during April – October.
Travel The barren land, harsh weather conditions and scattered small units of remote villages, make L&S not only the third least populous district in India, but also a surreal escapade from the mundane urban lifestyle, for the explorers and nature-lovers. “You have to get lost before you can be found”, as “The brumous mountains whisper a sacred sound, Wind wails into a shiver with haunting pines, Eternal paths walk into seclusion. The cold bites to inflict a scar deep inside,
Nerves go numb in the Northern White” - Vikshipt The 550 kms ride from Chandigarh to Kaza via NH22 started at 0400 hours on a fine Friday morning. Feeling the morning breeze on the skin, three Royal Enfields’ cruised smoothly on the even tarmac and we crossed Narkanda in no time. From Narkanda, the descent started towards Rampur, a town set on the left bank of the Satluj River. Most of the traffic was left behind at Rampur, when we entered into Kinnaur Valley riding towards Karcham
En Route Karcham, we crossed a stretch of road that was built by creating a cavity in the mountain with steep chasm on the other side (showcased on History channel as one of the most difficult roads for a drive). Admiring the marvel of human engineering and nature’s magnificence, we rode ahead.
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We rode ahead. We knew we had reached Kharo, when
archam is located at an intersection from where the road forks towards two valleys – one straight towards Spiti and another on the right, towards Sangla. Combating against the small boulders and big bumps on the difficult roads of Karcham, we kept riding ahead. The road to Sangla Valley concludes at Chitkul village – the last Indian village on the Indo-Tibet border. Situated on the banks of Baspa river, Chitkul provides a peaceful getaway for travellers looking for a relaxed vacation, in the lap of nature.
Ascending on the pin
curve loops, we reached the Sumdo check post at 1930 hours. Our bodies had cranked up but our souls were satisfied, as we rode under the crimson canvas soon to be covered with twinkling stars, along the splendid mountains and grand gorges. As we crossed the 13 kms milestone for Kaza, I thought I was hallucinating. I could see a light-play on the pitch-dark roads. The freezing wind was working on my senses. Suddenly, all of us stopped our bikes
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we saw Deepika Padukone, with a bottle of cola, smiling from a billboard. Last year, we had stopped for a quick tea break at the same place and shared our overwhelming experiences about the journey until then. That billboard brought back all those memories. It was nostalgic, but I was glad we were crossing that point once again, making many more memories of a lifetime. We devoured our meal and started again for the rest of the journey. By that time, the sun was ready to say goodbye to the snow peaked mountains at the Nako Helipad.
and looked at each other; we did not say a word. We just started our bikes and moved on. I could not figure out what had happened. But, I did not try hard to decode; I was too tired to think. Around 2300 hours, we reached Kaza. Jamaica, the housekeeper showed up as soon as we parked in front of his guesthouse. We had informed him about our arrival, in advance, when we had stopped for a meal at Kharo. That night we slept like the dead. 19 hours of riding on those merciless roads, had worn us out.
Travel But the next morning, we woke up to the wonderful panorama of the valley. The physical discomfort had rushed out of the same window, from where we could see the vast clear blue sky with floating white clouds that looked like cotton fluffs and the splendid mountains, standing valiantly.
We had decided to scale up Kunzum pass; we started from Kaza at 0900 hours after a sumptuous breakfast {Kaza – Rangrik – Losar – Kunzum Pass – Kaza}.
As soon as we crossed Rangrik, the landscape changed. From the high-rise mountains, we were now zooming past green meadows with
snow covered peaks in the background. At Losar, we discussed about the tough lifestyle of the civilians with a veteran. He talked about agriculture, education and
the hardships of winter. We strolled in the village for a while and found some young guns helping their mom with the daily chores.
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Interacting with the locals, I realised that probably their tough lifestyle was the reason behind the intrinsic humility among the natives; whereas, we are high headed and pushy because we can afford to do so, as life is too easy for us. The amicable nature of Himachali people, has always fascinated me. They are beyond the fallacies of the urban life. Moving towards Kunzum, we passed by three nonnative riders who were on their way back. Post the customary wave of a rider’s ritual, one of them yelled –
‘Not Possible’. We could not figure out the ‘Not Possible’ greeting, until Kunzum La was 5 kms away. The road to Kunzum La was closed, and there was an impenetrable wall of snow on the road. Didn’t Jamaica say it was open? One intriguing gaze at him and he said sheepishly – “It is a bit of an off-road and we have to go up from here”. We looked at the “up” Jamaica mentioned and then at the tourist van with their occupants looking at us in disbelief.
“A man got to do, what a man ought to do.”
We explored the beautiful temple on Kunzum La top. It had an engraving which read, “Om Mani Padme Hum” (The Sanskrit Mantra associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion). After all the fun, the toughest part of the journey began. We had to trek for around 2 kms to reach the mountain top, to get a vantage point for the complete valley. I realized another facet of human psyche in those 2 kms. It is very easy and exciting to watch adventure treks on our idiot box in our cosy
homes, contemplating what fun it would be. However, walking those steps at such height with low oxygen and pressure is one task you will need to be well prepared for, beforehand.
Out of our comfort zones, ‘Life Awaits’!
@ Kunzum La – 4600 meters
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Travel Crossing the snow,
huffing with a heavy head and a sluggish body we finally made it to the top – The view was beyond description, the feeling beyond the reach of writing. We just stood there, awestruck with the enchanting beauty of Mother Nature. I could totally understand what XXX meant when he said, “The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”
Kunzum pass is the entry
pass to Chandra Taal lake situated at an altitude of about 4,300 meters. The Mountains overlook a lake on one side, and a glorious cirque presents a view on the other. The lake derives its name from its crescent shape and is accessible from late May to October every year. After spending a soothing afternoon, we decided to return. At around 20:30 PM, we were somewhere near Rangrik, when Nitin
applied a sudden break, almost avoiding a crash. Something flashed in front of me, a dash of white. As we returned to Kaza, Nitin finally started talking about that dash of white. There was no way we could have avoided a discussion on paranormal activities over dinner, that day. Jamaica claimed that even the local people had witnessed some strange activities near the bridge that night (the one that we crossed while coming back from Rangrik) and
his kitchen staff had left early because of it. While everybody else was into that Para-physical mode, debating about hallucination and the abnormal, I concentrated on my dinner (my most dreaded fear is dying hungry). After a delicious meal, it was time to doze off.
4,166 meters. Other than its architectural mastery, Kee Gompa had a calming feel to it. We roamed around the monastery and talked to some monks about the rituals. They were extremely generous and allowed us inside while the Morning Prayer sessions were going on. It was that moment, when I We had planned to visit Kee felt at peace with myself. Gompa and Shipki La while The chants, the aroma and detouring, on the third day. the overall feel were aweKee Gompa is a Tibetan inspiring. Buddhist monastery, located on a hilltop at an altitude of
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ix enses pa
The Alpina Gstaad Switzerland
A Spa is where ‘magic’ happens. It is a place where one loses sense of time and connects with one’s inner self. It is a place where one finds calmness and serenity.
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Travel
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rom the moment of arrival at the reception area of the Six Senses Spa at The Alpina Gstaad, Switzerland, there is a promise in the air that elevates the senses. As the delicate Six Senses incense wafts throughout, stress seems to disappear and a calming influence takes over the bustle of urban life. This enchanting spa infuses the spirit of the surrounding environment with an Eastern flair. Natural materials and design features evoke a refreshing sense of place. The Spa journey begins the moment you breathe in the signature scent of lemongrass. Serene music soothes your ears, while ginger tea revitalises the senses. Stress simply melts away; here, there is no rush, it is the time to relax and set oneself free. The 2,000-square meter spa houses a wide array of facilities including a floatation room, a hammam, an Oriental room and a cave room dedicated to couple’s treatments and packages. There are also treatment rooms dedicated to specialist therapies such as Ayurveda, colour therapy and colonic hydrotherapy. Other facilities include a salt room, a swimming pool, a variety of relaxation rooms, a juice bar, a gym and a studio for Yoga, Pilates and Aerobics. There is also a Kids Spa featuring a swimming pool, a salt area and a spa menu focusing on specialised children’s treatments. The wide selection of Asian therapies is complemented by result-driven treatments from product houses including Biologique Recherch, ila and QMS. Ayurvedic treatments, specialist therapies such as Moxibustion, Chakra Balancing and Reiki, colonic hydrotherapy and beauty services are also offered. Their holistic approach to wellness goes beyond spa pampering. They offer a variety of wellness activities, personal training sessions, educational talks and relaxation techniques to help you on the way towards a healthier lifestyle. Group and private Yoga classes, Meditation and Pilates are ideal for achieving body and mind balance, whilst various fitness classes provide a low impact exercise to stretch, strengthen and tone muscles. The Six Senses Spa is home to a-state-of-the-art fitness centre equipped with the latest cardiovascular, strength and weight training equipment, including the innovative Kinesis apparatus. Professional fitness instructors are always on hand to provide support and guidance, and to assist you in achieving your personal goals.
Energising, cleansing and soothing- this spa is your personal slice of heaven!
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Indulgence
Memories,
Fragrances & Facts “Perfume follows you, it chases you and lingers behind you…Perfume makes silence talk.”
T
he sweet smell of wet grass combined with a divinely scent of musk! Oh, how it reminds me of June 6th, 2011. I had just stepped out of office after a long day of tiresome work and there he was, standing by his black Royal Enfield, in a sky blue linen shirt. His hair back brushed, wet, his skin glowing fresh like just out of a bath and those dark intense eyes staring right through my soul. That moment, the world stopped revolving for a second! And, that smell, wet and musky, still lingers in one corner of my brain. Days have passed, years to be precise, but that smell always reminds me of that day he went down on his knees to propose. That smell, it is irreplaceable! It is amazing how our mind tends to remember some of the most important moments of our life with a particular smell.
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Time passes, but it leaves a sweet reverie behind. That is how fragrances influence our lives. Next time you lay your hands on a bottle of perfume, remember it would be the scent people would remember you with. Fragrances drive the human mind crazy, make it do weird things, make it remember long forgotten days, make it connect like a single thread holding on to something. One spritz of Chanel No.5 is all it takes! But, how do you know it is only Chanel No.5 that is meant for you? Choosing a perfume can be quite a task. Sniffing between unending perfumed paper strips and coffee beans till your mind numbs to the point where you can’t figure out jasmine from orange, can be irksome at times. Again, what smells awesome on your friend might not smell as good on
Indulgence
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you. The smell you loved while testing the perfume at the store might not be what you would emit all day round. That is, I suppose, the best part of a perfume. It smells different on everybody, every minute. It reacts with your body odour, changes with your body temperature and is affected by your surroundings. And, that is a relief because even if a bottle of the legendary Chanel No. 5 sells approximately every 55 seconds, it would always provide you with the individuality you look forward to.
There are a few things one should keep in mind while buying a fragrance. All perfumes fall into certain family groups. A fragrance family is a group of aromas that are similar. Some of the most common families are Citrus or Fruity, Floral, Woody, Spicy, Green, Oriental, Ozone/ Oceanic etc. Often, you would want to stay with a certain fragrance family while choosing your perfume. That is because it stimulates your olfactory receptors or simply because you relate it to certain memories. For instance, Katie Holmes will always remember her wedding day by the sweet scent of Clive Christian No 1, the perfume she used on her big day. When you go out to buy a perfume, ask your shop attendant to show you perfumes belonging to the family you like the most. Then, come the notes. Every perfume, as you would know, has 3 sets of notes. The top note, the middle note and the base note. The notes unfurl over time. The top note is what you smell immediately after you spray it on your wrist leading to the deeper middle notes. The middle notes form the main body of the perfume and mask the initial impression of the base notes which bring depth to a perfume.
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The base notes do not appear until 30 minutes after application. Based on how strong the notes are, how concentrated the concoction is and how long the fragrance stays, perfumes fall under either of the categories: Eau Fraiche (3% or less perfume oil) Eau de Cologne - EDC (2 - 5% perfume oil) Eau de Toilette - EDT (4 - 10% perfume oil) Eau de Parfum - EDP (8 - 15% perfume oil) Soie de Parfum (15 - 18% perfume oil) PARFUM (15 - 25% - also sometimes referred to as Extract or Extrait) Perfume Oil (15-30% perfume oil in an oil rather than an alcohol base) PARFUM is generally the most concentrated form you can buy, and hence, the most expensive as well. So, now that you know the A to Z of fragrances, go get that bottle of pure heaven you have been eyeing forever.
Some of the best perfumes you can own are: Clive Christian Imperial Majesty: One of
the most expensive brands! People love this luxury perfume due to its limited production. Priced at a sky high rate of $215,000, it is like owning a Bentley.
Bvlgari White Tea: In a faultless blend of
ambrette, white pepper, musk, woody amber and white tea, Bvlgari White Tea is nothing but a piece of Zen.
Tom Ford Café Rose: Sparkling notes of rose
blended with exotic saffron, rich coffee, and the designer’s signature patchouli; this is a perfect Ford formula for smelling sexy.
Gucci Premiere: Bottled in gorgeous gold, this
perfume is a luxurious combination of bergamot and blackberry settled in the musky aroma of patchouli and sandalwood.
Chanel Coco Noir: The jet black bottle that it comes in emits pure mystery with an elegant combination of citrus, floral, and musky notes.
Hermès L’ambre Des Merveilles: It is quite a
surprise how this fragrance is so feminine without any hint of floral. In a cocktail combination of sweet vanilla and woody labdanum, it conveys sex appeal and confidence.
Santo Domingo by Oscar De La Renta: This fragrance might just remind you of a vacation packed in a bottle. The exotic notes of mandarin, cedrat, and bergamot are mixed with skin-warming patchouli and tobacco. Acqua Di Gioia Essenza by Giorgio Armani: In a smooth blend of mint, lemon, jasmine and cashmere woods, this fragrance is slightly masculine, very sexy and absolutely cool.
There are millions of fragrances you can choose from, but only a few of them are going to leave their traces in one corner of your mind, only a few of them would bring back long lost memories, only a few of them would remind you of that special person in your life or that unforgettable evening in Paris!
Burberry Body Rose Gold: The versatility of this sensuous fragrance makes it suitable for day to night wear. The notes remind you of peach, freesia, rose, vanilla, and musk.
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Music
ERIK MONGRAIN THE ACOUSTIC SIDE OF THE WORLD “Starting from the streets and ending up with a deal from a huge music label, Erik Mongrain has made it large with his impressive knowledge and skills on the acoustic guitar. Releasing three albums, he has gained success and fame, all over the world. YouTube videos, Live shows- he has seen and done everything. He also appeared on a British music talk show and gives exclusive guitar lessons on JamPlay.com.”
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F rom Hockey to Acoustic Guitar, Erik Mongrain at a mere age of
fourteen, found his niche in life. Nirvana’s ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ from their third album ‘In-Utero’ awoke the music monster inside him. Buying all of their albums and listening to grunge music all-day long, lit a fire in him urging him to play all those tracks on his own, which resulted in a world-class guitar player that he is today. He learnt all the basics by himself on a beaten up classical guitar, which he received from his uncle, within a relatively short span of time. He never underwent any formal training and learnt each and every technique on his own, relying on the greatest tool of all‘Willpower’! Initially, Guitar-gods like Kurt Cobain, Kirk Hammett, John Frusciante, Jonny Greenwood and their respective bands were his prime influences but all of this changed as soon as he discovered J.S. Bach and of course, his classical guitar. Passing through that phase, he was left awe-struck when he further discovered legends like Don Ross, Preston Reed and Billy Mclaughlin, from whom he learnt that a six-string guitar can be played in styles and techniques he could have never imagined. They were a huge impact on him and he still looks up to them in some ways. Above all, it was Michael Hedges who single-handedly transformed everything he thought about the guitar- his textures, his rhythm, his vision and his approach on the fret
board; he refers to Michael as the pinnacle of his musical life and still looks up to him every time he holds the guitar. Hailing from Canada, Erik has a style which is very uncommon in the country. Considering there are a very few acoustic guitar players, there is not as much of a demand as compared to the raging pop culture in Canada and the rest of the world. But thanks to social websites like YouTube, Erik has gained immense popularity across the globe. His infamous YouTube hit ’Airtap!’ has more than six million hits and is still considered to be the highest viewed acoustic guitar video along with Andy Mckee’s ‘Drifting’. His much advanced technique of ‘Lap-tapping’ which he picked up from a street guitar player in Montreal, left the viewers speechless. Though, he felt that technique limited his creativity and he never really composed with it much. In 2007, he released his first album ‘Fates’ which fared well. In the subsequent year, he released his second album ‘Equilibrium’ which showed some of his amazing skills as a guitar player. Then after a period of four years, in 2012, he released his much-awaited album ‘Forward’ which is his best work both musically and creatively. The sound of the album is pure, clean and loud. We may witness a new single ‘Atlas’ anytime soon, which he refers to as almost unplayable!
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Music It has all the crazy double tapping, hammer-on’s and elements of harmonics, which has to be epic. When it comes to equipment, Erik is brand specific. He uses a Sheldon Schwartz guitar- custom Pinnacle model, Gotoh 510 series with 21:1 ratio tuners. He regards Sheldon as the best luthier ever! Erik prefers Elixir Nanoweb phosphor bronze, medium gauge strings with a couple of alterations in the string gauges. As for the pickups, he uses a custom Sunrise magnetic mixed with a Fishman rare earth blend microphone/ preamp. Lastly, he uses Evidence cables. Adding everything, he has the most amazing sound and his setup is quite simple. Due to this perfectly created sound, he prefers acoustic guitars over anything else. Electric guitars do not feel right to him.
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alking about practice routines, maintaining chops on the acoustic guitar is not a piece of cake. Erik has a medium schedule and usually gives two to four hours a day to practice, play and compose; it may be more when he is composing. On practicing songs, he focuses more on the main passages he finds difficult and hardly ever goes from A to Z. Trying the eight hour practice schedule earlier, degraded his skills as he was putting more pressure on himself, but he thinks a four hour schedule is adequate to keep him in shape. Apart from Erik’s schedule, he has ample time for his family and friends. He could have less free time, it surely would not hurt.
Every guitar player has a unique thought process while composing. To him, the first idea of a song can come from a drum beat he hears, an emotion that has to come out, a foreign tuning, a new tapping method, a new arpeggio, and so on and so forth. When he finds a passage that he really likes, it is not enough. He has to feel a shiver up his spine to be completely sure it is what he is looking for. This is surely an effective way out. In the early stages of his music career, he toured all over United States, Europe and Asia but he did not tour in the past year and he may not even this year. He still regards UK and Asia as his favourite places when it comes to the fans. Even though he gives
more time to compositions and not video creation, Erik’s fan base is steadily growing with every passing minute. He might release a video or two this year but composing is still his main priority. He does use media websites to keep in touch with his fans, which is essential for every artist. After the release of ‘Forward’, he finally feels the change in the music industry, and yes he is elated.
“In short, the journey was not that hard at the beginning or during, it’s hard right now! I still compose and will always be composing. I just need to pay the rent like everyone else though!” - Erik
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Kuru Culture
The Deafening Roar By Rushil Gupta Born in Wellington, Ari Jayaprakash is an amazing artist and an incredible photographer. He is mainly associated with the Indian Underground Art Movement. He is the creator of The Kuru Chronicles, a critically claimed graphic novel with a 90-minute original soundtrack accompanying the novel. He is also a famous photographer known for his unique portrayal of Indian culture and history.
Ari Jayaprakash, little is known about you. Tell us about your early career days and how you made it large? I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. I am mostly self taught and have been involved in diverse creative roles in my professional career, ranging from concept illustration to moving visual effects. Every term related to you, revolves around ‘Kuru’- ‘KuruShetra’, ‘The Kuru Circus & Orchestra’, ‘The Kuru Chronicles’. What does ‘Kuru’ signify? I have been working on my graphic novel,’ The Kuru Chronicles’ for the past couple of years. ‘Kuru Circus’ is the music project which incorporates soundscapes from the book in collaboration with various artists. So, I guess things are very ‘Kuru’ centric at the moment but I am certain that will change soon, as we move ahead with other visual and music projects. What or should I ask, who inspired you to bring out the creativity in you?
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My inspirations are varied and include art, photography and cinema. Too many inspirations to name in these realms. ‘The Kuru Chronicles’ is also inspired by art, cinema and music. Diverse inspirations for Kuru include Takashi Miike, Lars von Trier, Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur, Pink Floyd, Heavy Metal, Die Antwoord, J-Horror, French New Wave Extremity, Gaspar Noé, Harmony Korine, Michael Haneke, just to name a few. ‘The Kuru Chronicles’ is a creative collaboration between me and writer Anisha Sridhar. Art and music intersect at some point. How do you manage to balance the two, to bring out the best in you? I think art and music complement each other. How long have you been in this field? How did you make your entry? I have lived and worked as an artist and photographer in diverse cities ranging from New Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta and Chennai to Boston, New York and Vancouver. My photography and traditional medium (oil/acrylic) work includes reflections on alienation, isolation,
identity, corruption, oppression, urban seclusion and other social commentary. Creativity at its peak- ‘The Kuru Chronicles’ is a jaw-dropping graphic novel spanning over 800 pages. According to you, which part of the novel will interest the audience the most? How well is the intensity of the story maintained? The art of Kuru is not your standard graphic novel offering. The style is splash ink art on paper that has been treated with tea and coffee. In the end, the paper edges are burnt as offerings to Agni and sometimes additional shading is done using fire and water. Materials include A3 size drawing sheets, black/red ink and a calligraphy pen. Over time, different techniques were developed to enhance the art. How long did it take to complete the novel? How hard was the journey? Are there any special or memorable events that took place during the writing process, that you would like to share? A late night viewing of the cannibal disease Kuru in December 2010, followed by meeting a few Aghori Babas at the Gangasagar Mela in
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Music
Creating out-of-the-world sounds with instruments, these newly invented genres like Aghor Psytrance, Indo Goth, Naga Post Punk etc. sound amazingly beautiful. How did forming a band and creating new unique music strike your mind? These genre names are something that people started using to describe the imagery in the book, somewhere down the line they started using it to describe the music, I guess. There were a lot of soundscapes that I produced while doing the concept art for Kuru, sounds and music that helped the visualisation process. Also, Kuru
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went on a lot of independent tours around India spanning various music festivals where it garnered a lot of support due to the nature of the work. These meetings led to collaborations between various artists and a lot of music came out of this creative audio visual process. Some of the artists include Tritha Sinha, Audio Pervert and Toy Mob from Teddy Boy Kill, Ian De Souza, Nikhil Narendra, Ritika Singh, Colin Rozario, Sikanth Gopinath, Daya Sankar, Arjun Chandran, Prashanth Pallemoni, Rohan Kulashresta, IP Singh, Chintan Kalra etc. All these amazing musicians were kind
enough to offer their sonic visions for Kuru.
‘The Kuru Circus & Orchestra’ composed a 90-minute original soundtrack. Did you specially make a music group for backing the graphic novel? How does the future look like for the group? How are you planning to sustain everything?
As stated earlier, there were a lot of soundscapes that I produced while doing the concept art for Kuru. We hope to release the album ‘KuruShetra’ soon, once the relevant
Music
licenses are procured. ‘The Kuru Circus and Orchestra LIVE show’ has the band and guest artists jam to produces Kuru-centric sounds. We just finished ‘The Kuru Genesis show’ at Blue Frog, New Delhi in collaboration with Pankaj Mullick from Art Collide. It was amazing to have a group of musicians and artists come together to collaborate on the Kuru theme. Some of the artists include Sameer Hazari, Siddhartha Barik, Bhanu Pratap, Veraat Singh and Abhishek Majumder. We are now looking at doing other shows in Calcutta, Bombay, Shillong and Bangalore.
More shows and albums are on the charts.
Being multi-talented professionally, how do you find time for art, photography and music altogether? What do you enjoy the most?
The art, photography and music, I enjoy it all and they all complement each other in the creative process.
Your photographs are breathtakingly gorgeous. While capturing them, what do you look for in the subject? Which subjects
interest you the most, otherwise?
I think the subject finds me most of the times. The moment just happens and I guess it is a question of just being prepared with the camera. I enjoy the photojournalistic nature of my work and will be pursuing long term projects on war, music and other subjects.
What are you working on presently? What’s the latest news?
A couple of art and photography books which I hope to release soon. Also, album releases and a music documentary are slated for release this year.
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Fashion
"Every start upon an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circumstances looks sensible and likely to be successful." Albert Schweitzer.
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COLOURS OF MONOCHROME
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Ikai by Ragini Ahuja
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his is a young woman, probably about twenty years old, who always stood with an air of carefree confidence that was most noticeable in her serene blue eyes, outlined with a dash of kohl. Soft face with rounded cheek bones, proportionally slim nose, high trimmed brows, soft pouty pink lips and rounded chin was complimented by her easy, charming smile. Wondrous oceans of blue gazed out in playful curiosity as she smiled, though there was a hint of a wild spark lingering behind those lids. Melissa adorned platinum blonde hair, groomed and shining brilliantly, which cropped her gentle face; the mane glimmered down towards her shoulders where it ended, with perfectly cut tips. A couple of weeks ago, the day she had to go out to meet her crush; she straightened her hair and started with the makeup. She brushed her cheeks with a flirty coral and smeared some nude on her dainty lips. She also put a lot of mascara as it highlighted those gorgeous eyes. Her brownish eyes with the quintessential blue in them, very delicate and pleasant! As soon as she finished her makeup, she made her way back to her closet and grabbed a black and white striped dress; she then slipped her heels on and carried her splendid Louis Vuitton bag.
Peplum
Fab.ally
She looked every bit of a fashion diva that she was! Little did she know then that monochrome fashion would make a comeback and would be one of Spring/ Summer 2013’s Biggest Runway Fashion Trends. Be it graphic prints, stark stripes, contrast blocking or grid-like checks, it seems black and white is here to determine the fashion direction for 2013. No longer reserved for basics and formal events, designers’ PreFall 2013 shows demonstrated just how bold and fresh, black and white can truly be! While Gucci was all about feminine sophisticationblack and white checks with cinched waisted, structured skirts and elbow length gloves; other designers had black and white colour blocking with an equestrian touch. Apart from that, tailoring combined with leather, finer black and white prints and stark zig zags were also major features of their collection.
Acme
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Acne, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Balenciaga, Eudon Choi, Alexander Wang, Hermes, Jason Wu, Marc Jacobs, Fendi, Micheal Kors, Lanvin, Herve Leger by Max Azria ,Unique, Marni, Sportmax, Emporio Armani,Roberto Cavalli, Narsiso Rodriguez, Ralph Lauren, Jil Sander- you name it, they have monochromed it!
Whatever your personal style is, the designers’ demonstrated that there is a way for everyone to embrace this new trend and there is definitely nothing boring about black and white.
Acme
Like other fashion trends (and like most of us too), even the monochrome fashion trend has a history. It dates back to the World War I days. Changes in dressing during World War I were dictated more by necessity than fashion. As more and more women were forced to work, they demanded clothes that were better suited to their new activities. Social events had to be postponed in favour of more pressing engagements and the need to mourn the increasing numbers of the deceased, visits to the wounded, and the general gravity of the time meant that darker colors become the norm. A new monochrome look emerged that was unfamiliar to young women in comfortable circumstances.
Acme
Ever since, the trend has been coming back time and again, with breathtaking variations. When in 1992, Julia Roberts wore a black and white dress, as she picked up her Best Actress Oscar for Erin Brokovich , monochrome saw a dashing comeback. The dress secured the third position in a Telegraph poll for one of the most iconic red carpet dresses of all times. Ever since Michelle Obama became the First Lady, she has become America’s number one style influence, with critics and fans going wild over whatever she adorns. On her husband’s campaign trail, the simple
Acme
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Fashion
Ikai by Ragini Ahuja
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Ikai by Ragini Ahuja black and white Tracey Reese number she put on blended perfectly with her charismatic personality. She has been seen donning a monochrome ensemble a number of times, and needless to say, she does complete justice to the trend. Not only have the women, men seem to have been bitten by the monochrome bug too. Whatever you might have to say about his personal hygiene, eighties film icon Beetle juice made that black and white
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striped suit all his own, despite several gorgeous catwalk attempts by various designers ever since. Not just International names, Indian designers like Ragini Ahuja have revamped the trend in a unique and unconventional way. Ragini wanted to take up the daunting challenge of designing something for the fearless and yes of course, she went the monochrome way. Boxy Canvas like silhouettes were adorned with edgy geometric animal portraits and animated details for her Summer/Resort 2013 Collection titled ‘brute’.
Fashion The collection offers oversized tailored separates in crisp cream/black chanderis appliqued with roaring animal characterization in flesh tones, projecting a relaxed playful dimension. Monotone crepes add flow to the otherwise structured collection. There is a vivid mix of structured pleated shirt blouses, pants, bodysuits and shorts. Also, crisp sarees, flowy palazzo pants, sheer kaftans and boxy shirts. Oversized muslin/cotton monotone appliqued totes and detachable collars and cuffs are few other sprightly details from the collection. Not just this, men’s sheer chanderi shirts with appliqued pocket detailing and flowy crepe shorts add further versatility to the collection. By now it is an established fact that monochrome, is THE trend for Spring/Summer ‘13, but trust me it is not just about garments. The trend has also hit
accessories, offering some of the most chic style options for the summer. Boots, satchels, neck-pieces and even earrings look enticing in black and white. These pieces can be teamed with block colors for that modern graphic look. Stripes take a huge share in the monochrome trend and are totally worth mentioning as they make another appearance this season, and certainly don’t look like they are going away anywhere, anytime soon. The monochrome trend is extremely simple yet leaves a long lasting impression. Make sure you buy pieces that are flattering and fit well. So, do not worry if colourful prints and metallics are not your thing. Adopt monochromatic, geometric patterns; think black-and-white stripes, weaves, blockcolours, textures, polka-dots and dress to kill. With black and white, you can certainly not go wrong.
The Fashion Gods have spoken, ‘Let monochrome rule’!
Ikai by Ragini Ahuja
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FEARLESS Fashion for men By Kunal Sharma
A young HR professional irresistibly attracted to the fashion world, writes as a freelancer for a variety of fashion related and scholarly publications. He shares his fashion and styling tips in a fun, fresh way that is always relevant and helpful to his readers.
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ummers have always been one of the trendiest seasons when you can experiment with a lot of colours. The clothes are much more vibrant and funky. So, this summer, you have the chance to update your wardrobes with fresh new pieces that are in line with 2013’s fashion trends. And while it’s up to you as to how you choose to interpret and adapt the trends to suit your own personal style, that doesn’t mean, you will be left short on guidance and inspiration. This Summer is definitely one to get excited about. We have had the summer of prints and bold colours, and while they were great fun at the time, this summer is all about taking what we have learnt from our past experiences and refining it. We know men aren’t as comfortable taking on a fashion trend as women are, but there are ways to adopt refurbish your look without stepping out of your comfort zone. Men’s style is really advocating the sensibility that less is much, so this season your mind should be on smaller, more subtle patterns and simple colour combinations that help to communicate your own confidence and natural sense of style. That doesn’t mean you can’t wear what you wore last year, you just need to be more attentive when putting a look together.
1.Old Jacket, New Fit
It seems like every designer is reaching into the past and bringing all kinds of traditional patterns and fabrics back into the modern day, complete with quality cuts and silhouettes. This is especially apparent in blazers and sport jackets, which are set to prominently feature classic patterns this Summer. Louis Vuitton experimented well with jackets in his SS’13 collection for menswear- lightweight fabrics with timeless silhouettes. Whether you opt for glen plaid, hounds tooth or gingham, look to pick one up in summer appropriate fabrics like madras cotton, linen or cotton blends, so when layered over an Oxford cloth shirt, you’ll barely even know it’s there.
2. Go Pastel
This is a really simple upgrade and can do wonders for all of your looks once the sun begins to shine. Invest in pastel (or chalk-like) colours, they work great for nearly every guy once they’ve got a little bit of colour themselves, and can be integrated seamlessly into the wardrobe. Designers like Philip Lim, Guilded Age and Hackett London have all been huge fans of the pale palette. Think pinks, greens, purples and yellows and always make sure to pair them with more neutral pieces to give your look balance and help ground the bolder hue.
Salvatore Ferragamo
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Fashion
Salvatore Ferragamo
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Images- Louis Vuitton & Richard James
3. Good old-fashioned Blue
One of this season’s most popular upcoming trends is the utilisation of colour – whether in the form of tailoring or tonal outfitting. And it seems that one particular colour has moved to the forefront: good old-fashioned blue, the SS’13 men’s collection by Salvatore Ferragamo featured unashamedly eye catching shades of Curacao blue. However, for those who would prefer a more subtle take on the blue trend; check out the SS13 showcase from Hermes. Now it may not seem particularly ground breaking to report that blue
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is going to dominate menswear this season – it is, after all, ingrained as a male-oriented colour from birth. The great thing about this trend is that the new pieces you purchase will already work extremely well with other complementary colours you have in your wardrobe – think white, red, brown or tonal navy – helping you develop seasonally appropriate, effortless looks that are both stylish and high on the trend.
4.Floral Accessories
Yes, I know I said that this Summer would be all about keeping things
simple – but you should always own accessories that help bring your look to life. This time rather than trying to integrate wild patterns into your look, opt for a floral accessory such as a tie, scarf or pocket square. The pattern is subtle, simple and sophisticated and works well with any outfit you build, be it a full suit or a simple jeans and t-shirt combination. Floral printed accessories.Don’t be afraid to invest in florals, it’s just about the only pattern that guys haven’t worn freely yet.
Fashion
Salvatore Ferragamo
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Salvatore Ferragamo
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Fashion
Images- Louis Vuitton & Richard James
5. The shoe of the season?
Vibrant Loafers For the man who craves a little colour in his wardrobe, there is something pretty awesome about vibrant colour selection of loafers for spring. I am bored of seeing guys playing it safe in neutral coloured shoes when the warmer days are upon us. Loafers are the most popular choices of great designers such as Richard James when it comes to shoes and the Summer season. Get your act together and brave something bold.
6.Take sneakers sockless
Having been suffocated for the past six months, it’s time to let your ankles breathe. This season take a sockless stance. Whether wearing one’s pant leg rolled up or hemming some slim-cut khakis to create that slight high-water feel, going sockless is touted as the best way to complement Summer fashion. No matter what anybody says, yes, you can skip the whole sock part of the footwear equation. For most types of shoes, actually, I have seen this
to be true. Low-cut sneakers, loafers, boat shoes, moccasins, even some types of oxfords: indeed, they all look better without socks. This look was seen down the runways of Valentino, Giorgio Armani and many other prominent designers. Man, after looking at the fashion trends for this Summer, I for one cannot wait to spruce up the warmer weather.
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A free bird, a social butterfly, a loner, an iconoclast, sometimes the girl next door- this is Khyati Shah, a hundred different things within the measure of a day.
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Ink to paper is thoughtful Ink to flesh, hard-core. If Shakespeare were a tattooist We’d appreciate body art more. -Terri Guillemets
It began as an identification symbol and having travelled through tough times, emerged stronger and made a comeback as a status symbol. Welcome to the world of tattoos- that indelible mark which lets you wear your attitude on your skin. By Khyati Shah.
attoo Tales
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nce upon a time, there was a man called ‘Ötzi, the Iceman’. The world discovered him when his frozen, wellpreserved, tattooed corpse was found on a mountain between Austria and Italy. The finding is remarkable not only because it is the oldest human corpse found but also because it establishes the fact that the art of tattooing is as old as us. A large number of mummies have also been found with tattoos on their bodies.
So, tattoos are not a recent ‘invention’ but a long ‘convention’. The word tattoo comes from the Tahitian word ‘tatu’ which means, ‘to mark something.’ Traditionally, tattoos were used for various reasons that varied from culture to culture. Their initial usage was not merely aesthetic but had an underlying significance. The Greeks, for example, used tattooing for communication among spies. In other places, they were a part of tradition. For instance, the Ainu people of Western Asia used tattooing to exhibit their social status. Modern tattooing emerged in the West. It originated in the 16th through the 18th century, when sailors came in contact with the Amerindian Tribes and Polynesians. Captain James Cook is credited with bringing the word ‘tattoo’ to the West, post his return from the voyage to Tahiti and New Zealand. They served medical purposes too. Researchers believe that Egyptian women were tattooed during pregnancy to relieve pain and ease childbirth.
Fashion
From Stigma to Fashion S
amuel O’Riely introduced the tattoo, as we know it today. His shop in Chatham Square in New York City was the most sought-after inking spot for the moneyed class. Popular between the two World Wars, however, tattooing lost its appeal in the post-war period and became associated with criminals, circus performers and the lower classes. Nevertheless, things changed during the 60’s when a number of elite tattooists, magazine editors and leaders of tattoo organizations downplayed the association of tattoos with the working class and gave it a new avatar, which was more palatable to the middle and
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upper classes. Celebrities, Rock Bands and Sports Persons also contributed to the burgeoning trend. The tattoo renaissance had begun. Lyle Tuttle tattooed Janis Joplin and Mike Messina inked flowers on Cher’s cheeks! Tattoos thus became a way to announce to the world that
‘This is my body and I have control over it.’
Since then, there has been no looking back. Today, tattoos are considered as ‘fine art’, with immense support from the masses and a host of tattoo studios, websites, magazines, etc. devoted to the raging phenomenon. As Koust puts it, “Tattooing can be conceptualized as an ironic fad—a popular cultural trend that due to its permanent nature cannot be as easily discarded as a pair of jeans.” The ‘commodification’ of tattooing has eliminated the stigma associated with it and made it more acceptable and desirable to the gilt-edged. So, go ahead, get ‘inked’ because tattooing is here to stay!
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Tattoos were made legal in New York only in 1993.
The Hawaiians have their own traditional tattoo art known as ‘kakau’.
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In Britain, tattooing was reserved for the upper class. King George V journeyed to Japan, specifically to get a tattoo.
A tattoo ‘flash’ is a folder of tattoo-artwork by tattoo artists.
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In America, during the period between the two World Wars, the link between soldiers, sailors and tattooing was so strong that it was assumed that a man with tattoos was serving in the armed forces or had been at one point of time.
Greeks and Romans used tattooing as a punishment.
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Tattoos are forbidden in Judaism based on the Torah. They are also forbidden in Sunni Islam but permitted in Shia Islam.
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In Thailand and Myanmar, monks incorporate magical powers to the design when tattooing. Women are excluded from this because they believe women do not need the extra boost as they are already strong enough.
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Gizmos Illustrated and written by Jithin George A mechanical engineer pursuing his masters in Transportation Design, from IIT Guwahati. He is currently working on a fuel-cell based city car and loves anything and everything that has wheels on it
E ay! P U DS dw
N rhe A S LL oto
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque lectus ipsum, auctor vel tincidunt vitae, rhoncus nec lectus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Fusce ullamcorper iaculis purus, eu pellentesque ligula sollicitudin non. Pellentesque consectetur bibendum elit quis rutrum. Proin risus erat, accumsan non pretium quis, varius at arcu.
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a
F ture , N Fu GE
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S R A RC
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ydrogen is the future- be it fuel cell technology to run cars, fusion technology to run nuclear power plants or even hydrogen bomb technology to annihilate half the globe. Fuel cell is undoubtedly the path to follow when it comes to the kind of energy crisis that we are going to face in the near future. Automakers across the globe are sourcing in amounts more than the GDP of half the African nations put together, just to get the right mix of stuff to get their cars run on fuel cells. Honda won the race with their FCX being launched in 2012. It is the world’s first fuel cell production car. The Asians who were well known for copying stuff or following leaders in imitating things are really catching up these days.
Superiority in technology has always been the factor for differentiating the big players from the small ones. The smaller ones run on budgets which equal, may be the amount the bigger ones spend on office stationary. Well, that might be quite an exaggeration, but the point that I want to make here is that, acquiring technology is very expensive. F1 is one major example of the fact as to how important is amassing new technology. The Williams of Alain Prost with active suspension, the Brawn GP of Jenson Button with doubledecker diffusers, the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel with the advanced KERS (kinetic energy recovery system)- all these did help a lot in all these drivers winning their World Championships. In the same way, fuel cell is a very expensive piece of technology. Developing it and fitting it onto a car is even more
Gizmos
exorbitant. This means, that under current circumstances, we are not going to see a lot of hydrogen powered cars on the roads any time soon. In the meantime, the focus has shifted from hydrogen to other means of unconventional energy. Solar cars were produced (basically prototyped) and they did do test runs. But those were all more or less university-college students and academic projects funded by the industry. They are all very far from being a competitive element in the automotive sector. Then came cars that ran on water. BMW and Mercedes are supposed to have developed water engines and fitted them into their cars as prototypes. But all ropes let loose when our own Tata owned Jaguar developed a gas turbine powered super car called C- X75 which they have confirmed is very much close to production-ready, as early as 2015. I don’t know how that is going to sound because for me personally, jet powered cars were something of the far future, not of my life time. But fortunately we will get a chance to drive a jet powered Jaguar down the Mumbai Sea Link pretty much soon!
The launch of e20 as Mahindra calls it or the NXR as Reva called it before being taken over by Mahindra, is a big leap into the Electric Vehicle segment in India. Mahindra is trying to attain what Reva couldn’t, that is making an EV mass appealing with good looks and competitive pricing. But again, the infrastructure is going to be the major factor here as getting an EV to recharge its heart is pretty much impossible even in the cities, let alone suburbs and rural areas. The concept of ‘better places’ wherein you just swap batteries at the charging stations is a very innovative idea which can actually work in areas where infrastructure is not well accessible. It will help in reducing the time spent in every charging station and even more, it will reduce the price of an EV as you no more own a battery, you just lease it. The concept is more like the LPG cylinders that we get at our homes.
Research is going into making the cars more intelligent, like making them communicate with each other so as to give the driver a better understanding of the surroundings he is driving through. Mercedes has launched the driver capability memory feature in their new E class. It remembers the normal traits of its owner and then creates a base line; any deviation from that will put the car on alert and will also alert the driver visually or audibly. That is, if you over speed on a street that you normally drive very calmly on or if you slam brakes too hard, then your car will suggest you to stop driving and take a break. Even the audio gadget guys like Harman are doing a great job researching on detecting driver mood swings and involving the automobile electronics to respond accordingly, like for instance, you and your wife (forgive me but the male hormones inside me are making me assume that this article only has male readers) are driving along a busy stretch of road and you both get into a fight over where to go shopping (I know it happens, girls always select
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Gadgets
From Ape to Android The story of the Human Race
M
odern humans evolved nearly two hundred thousand years ago. Two hundred thousand – unless you’re talking about the value of money in the twenty-first century, that’s a very, very large number. That’s more than three thousand generations of humans; human life, as we know it, repeated over three thousand times. And yet, as late as four millennia ago, we were still in the Stone Age; still sharpening our rock tools to count and hunt. As late as two, still emerging from making pots and cups out of metal, and as recently as four hundred years back, still to formally discover electricity. With all that evolution, all that fuss that scientists make about opposable thumbs and convoluted brains, it seems like we should have come much further, far sooner. Fast forward to today, and you might ask: haven’t we? In barely more than half a generation, science and technology has made such blinding progress that we are unrecognizable from our grinningchimpanzee roots. We are now the owners of computers that do most of our jobs, computers that think hundreds of times faster than we ever could; computers that have now shrunk to the size of our palms. Smartphones, you say? Nah,
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they’re getting old. That’s how fast things have come to change. That’s how fast we have come to change. Merely four hundred years post electricity, and a handful post the first smartphone, we have already entered the age of wearable smart devices. Enter the Google Glass, and the – as yet rumoured, but anticipated – iWatch.
And this is where the revolution, from ape to android, really begins to take hold. We have all watched the Terminator series (haven’t? well then, put this down and rush to your nearest DVD store), and we are only too aware what androids are, what they are capable of (destroying the world, yes, but they can be builders too), and that they are certain to be prevalent sooner than later. What we may not have realized, what is far more probable and far more interesting, is that we are much closer than making those androids, to being them.
Gadgets Imagine a future, and you need not go too far, when most of us see the world through an advanced version of the Google Glass, or whatever happens to be the super-smart alternative of choice. We perceive, interpret and respond to the world using the information that this device feeds to our brains. Add to that a super-smart watch – iWatch, something from Samsung, take your pick – that, beyond its obvious function as a timepiece, is a GPSenabled phone, a music player, a 3D projector and anything else you can imagine. The spectacles and the watch are wirelessly hooked, and together with headphones and a microphone, completely insulate us from the natural processes of seeing, hearing and speaking. Wait, that’s almost like describing the present. The future, we were saying? Well, just chuck the watch and let the glasses do everything. It is something we will be hard pressed to disagree with. It looms over us like the unshakeable, inevitable certainty of approaching storm clouds. Let the clouds rain upon us with thunder and fire then, let’s face facts now: within this century, likelier than not, every human with a basic purchasing ability would be in more ways than one, an android. Are we to mourn the dying of a part of our human selves, then? Are we to join the Chicken Littles’ of this world and chastise
the technologists for bringing this doom upon us? Are we like Nostradamus to contemplate impending disasters? Or shall we for once, rejoice? Difficult to say. On the one hand, we risk severing a significant portion of the biological connection that we have shared with the natural world ever since we began. Who knows how that may pan out? This might only be a beginning too, catalyzing a devastating chain reaction that has us ending up as barely human electronic containers. We also risk an increase in our already booming arrogance, in direct proportion to our world-altering ability. With all those devices making us feel like gods, what is to keep us from taking machine guns to all that we find beneath us? To our own, even. On the other hand, though, we harbour the creation of a race the likes of which nature, even with the full quota of its evolutionary tricks, could never conjure. Or, perhaps, the real question is: why debate what is certain? We never stood a chance before the discovery of fire, before the invention of the wheel, before the industrial revolution, and we do not stand a chance before the very same cogs of fate that are now in motion.
Let us then grin with all our teeth out, very much like our chimp buddies, and let us drool over the fantastic possibilities of our future. We shall be androids, aided by technology to be infinitely faster in our minds than any generation before us, and every species around us. And just to appease the Chicken Littles’, we can also be humans, for we can taste our food like humans, take a leak like humans and sleep and wake and touch and walk and run and get tired just like humans. And as for destruction, we are a highly evolved species, aren’t we? If nature could gift us such marvelously opposable thumbs and complex brains, it could also trust us to be human enough and not use them to destroy it. In the end, the simple truth is that we, as the most intelligent species on earth, have not just the right but the duty to bring about revolutionary change from time to time. Life deserves a fresh lease every once in a while. And as long as we can keep ourselves in check (not go the Skynet way or start taking ‘smart’ organ transplants), this final step up from ape-human to human-android is likely to be just that: A STEP UP.
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Beauty
Cool Summer Tips
from Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic
Beat the heat with some
cool care tips from Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic. The most commonly experienced summer problems are tanning, pigmentation, dull and lifeless skin, excessive oiliness and tired eyes. Here is what you can do to combat the hot spell in style! 1. To remove grime and dirt from the skin, deep cleanse it with the gentle Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Face Wash, twice a day. 2. Skin tends to get oily in summer due to excessive sweating. Instead of a massage cream, use Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Seaweed Pack to massage the face and neck. Wipe off after 10 minutes and apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Moisturizing Lotion. 3. You may experience some dryness of skin, even in the summer. This is due to the lack of moisture, not oil. Use Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Hydro Gel on the face, to moisturize it. Wipe off after 10 minutes and apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Almond Moisturizing Lotion.
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4. To remove tan and pigmentation, mix one teaspoon of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Milk Pack with enough Fairy Lotion to make a paste. Apply all over the face, neck and other tanned areas. Leave for 20 minutes and rinse off. Apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Almond Moisturizing Lotion.
5. To revitalize dull and lifeless skin, mix one teaspoon of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Seaweed Pack with quarter teaspoon of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Beauty Grains and massage onto the face and neck for a few minutes. The fine beauty grains exfoliate dead cells and black heads while the Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Seaweed Pack hydrates the skin without making it oily. Rinse off for a clean, soft, glowing skin. Apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Almond Moisturizing Lotion or Hydro Gel. 6. To avoid suntan and pigmentation, use Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Sunscreen before going out in the sun. Mix sunscreen with a little water and apply on exposed skin. It can be used under make-up. Reapply every 3 hours if out in the sun for a long time. 7. To nourish skin, use non greasy Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Oils. Apply two drops of Beautiful Skin Oil (for normal skin), Oily Skin Oil (for oily skin – cuts out the excess oil) and Dry Skin Oil (for dry skin) all over the face and neck to instantly pep-up the skin.
Beauty
Summer eye care the Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic way: Due to the scorching heat, eyes tend to get very easily tired in summers. You need to pay extra attention to the eyes. 1. Use Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Under-Eye Gel twice a day. Take a little gel with your ring finger and gently apply on the delicate skin around the eyes. Make sure that you do not rub or pull the skin while applying the gel. You may use the under-eye gel even in the day, under the sunscreen. It cools the skin around the eyes and keeps it smooth and supple. 2. To cool tired eyes, add a drop of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Rose Essential Oil to a bowl of cold water. Dip cotton pads in this water and apply to the eyes. It is extremely cooling. Use as often as needed. 3. To combat dark circles around the eyes, use under-eye gel twice a week and apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Glossy Pack on top of that. Leave for 20 minutes and rinse off.
Other Daily Tips: 1. Have a great start to the day with a refreshing bath with Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Citrus Bath Gel. Use the bath gel with a body sponge for an effective bath. 2. To keep feeling cool and fresh throughout the day, add a few drops of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Fresh Oil to the last mug of water in your bath. You can also apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Fresh Oil after your shower, especially on your pulse points. 3. For an instant pep-up, use Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Morning Dew Oil, the same way you use Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Fresh Oil. 4. Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic also has a vast range of singular oils. Try a few drops of Sandalwood Essential Oil or Vertiver (Khus) Essential Oil in your bath water. These oils are very cooling. They take away all negativity and keep you grounded. 5. For a whiff of cool aroma, try a few drops of Vertiver Essential Oil in your cooler.
With super-beneficial tips like these, stay fresh and rejuvenated all through the summer! Dr. Blossom Kochhar is the founder of The Blossom Kochhar Group of Companies. She has been practicing and researching the science of ‘Aromatherapy and Herbalism’ for well over 25 years and is highly recognized for her authority and efforts to promote aromatherapy.
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Crafts
The Beautiful Irony Of
Indian Crafts
By Saumya Nagar
Saumya Nagar is a consultant Textile Designer. She has been working with NGOs and self-help groups around the country on design interventions and research projects, for the promotion and upliftment of textile craft communities.
‘The only thing constant about Fashion is change,’ Oscar Wilde.
A
s times change, so does fashion in the modern world. To be able to sustain, one has to change with the times. The Ancient civilization of India has constantly changed and adapted itself to the times, and is thus is alive and thriving after so many eons. Indian fashion has been classic for most part of time; Indians are not true believers in FADS, more often than not Indian fashion has been characterized by western influences throughout history or has been influenced due to rulers and foreigners wearing clothes that were different from the traditional. In spite of the changing sensibilities of fashion,
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the Indian textile crafts have always emerged winners. The Indian Fashion Industry is in its green and salad days. It was reckoned in the 1980s , born in the 1990s and faced a spot of bother; after successfully completing its elementary years in the first decennary of the 21st Century, today it is a burgeoning and radiating industry waiting to bloom and sprout.. This industry though is new to an ancient civilization; it has its roots in the rich and vivacious Indian Textile Industry. The availability of raw materials like cotton, silk and wool fibres along with natural dyes and finesse for craft had made India the greatest textile exporter in the 17th and 18th Centuries. It is a recognized fact that the Europeans came to India in search of spices and beautiful textiles, which ultimately resulted
in the British Raj, more by accident than by acumen. After gaining Independence in 1947 from the reigns of the mighty British, the Indians rediscovered themselves as an amalgamation of the east and the west. Apart from using silhouettes from the traditional Mughal and Rajput styles, they borrowed silhouettes from the west unabashedly and felt proud to do so, they felt modern, and yet they wanted to stick to their roots. After more than sixty years of Independence, Indians are more comfortable in their own skin and have realized the immense potential and the gold mine that they are sitting on, when it comes to Textile crafts.
A
neeth Arora is one of the most upcoming names in the Indian Fashion industry. Her brand ‘Pero’ employs over 80 craftspeople to develop garments that are sold all across the world. Her beautiful garments are all made of handloom fabrics, and the brand has given a glamorous transformation to the monotonous old lungi fabric. Another creative Indian designer is Gaurav Jai Gupta, his design label called ‘Akaaro’ has been working extensively with the weavers of West Bengal. He is known for his experiments with textiles, one of which is the amalgamation of thread and metal.Some other names working with the craft sector include Paromita Bannerjee, Swati Kalsi and Sanjay Garg. All of these designers feel responsible to promote Indian Textiles and have been adopting them into their collections according to their own sensibilities and inspiration. The revival of the Textile crafts has been due to the new confidence that India has in terms of its educated citizens, improved economy, and a feeling of Indianness- belonging to the roots of traditional India. The movement was of course started by Mahatma Gandhi, Home Spun Khadi. Today, Dilli Haat- a government initiative is a very big example of this fact. Designers like Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal, Tarun Tahiliani, Sabyasachi Mukerjee and many more Indian designers bank majorly on Indian Textile crafts for their brilliant fashion statements. Crafts like the Chanderi Saris of Madhya Pradesh and Block Printing of Rajasthan
are touching the sky; there are many, however, that are nearing obsolescence. Even after all this effort for the upliftment of the crafts and the crafts people I am forced to ask if the lapse of a few decades, where the crafts were ignored has made us loose too much. A number of techniques and arts have been lost in this period of time and many are on the verge of extinction. Apart from a number of techniques and art forms, what we have majorly lost is the essence of the craft. In the older days the craftsmen used to weave/embroider/ print with love and passion, the craft was like their meditation, but in all these years we have lost that warmth and affection towards the art. All that we are left with is the ambition to make money. I am forced to wonder if this means flourishing or declining. These are the times of commercialization and we are pushing crafts into the commercial domain. By asking the craftsmen to do their job for a significantly lesser amount, we are forcing him/her to reduce the quality of the product. This has had a very adverse effect on the craft. The skill of our craftsmen today has gone down to a level that a novelty that was made 10 years back cannot be reproduced today. It is an ironic situation where on one side we are providing a much higher employment to our artisans, on the other side, the skill set of the craftsmen is being pulled down to adhere to the needs to the market.
Craft, Tradition and culture, all of these are very closely connected, and are quite dynamic in nature. All move at a constant pace. Times change, tradition twists, culture evolves and craft grows. Times have changed, traditions have twisted, cultures have evolved, but has craft grown? Among the last few visible changes in the craft sector, was the re-introduction of khadi by Mahatma Gandhi, this revival, however, was not aimed at the craft sector but was an effort for our country to be born. Many years have passed since then but the craft sector has not grown; we have not developed anything new to cater to the world, and therefore I ask, what next? Will our craftsmen evolve to create something new or is their fate now in our hands? Will the craftsmen become artists or end up being labourers? The wonderful painter Paul Gauguin asks, ‘Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?’ It is a question that reverberates in my mind, as I do not know in which direction the craft sector is moving today. Is it on a high or low, both due to ignorance and involvement? All that I do understand is that today crafts are in the center of a beautiful irony and hope that someday we are able to pull our act together and provide the respect and appreciation to our craftsmen, the way they deserve.
new zealand innovation now in india
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