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Balle, Balle Baisakhi
This Baisakhi, city residents are sending e-cards, planning picnics and sporting traditional jewellery, finds out
Saurabh Malik
You have danced to the tunes of merriment on the college grounds during Baisakhi celebrations and even tasted the traditional makki di roti and sarson ka sag. But, still revelry for you has always remained confined to formal, rather than customary celebrations. And, the reason behind the phenomenon is not very hard to see.
The day is passionately associated with the harvesting season in
this part of the region, and your familiarity with the field of
agriculture is limited just to geography books.
Grand entry
Smriti Sharma
She is an eyeful who can manage a great item number as her movies like No Entry proved, she can fit in well with super hits. Clad in an ice blue saree with shortened tresses, Celina Jaitley, who was in town to inaugurate Daffodils Study Abroad, a consultant for education and migration to Australia, looking every inch unspoilt. After a one and a half hour long wait, finally when the dainty star arrived amidst a huge gathering of people, conversation flowed naturally after a little reluctance from her side.
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Legacy of faith
Gayatri Rajwade
A city-based author narrates Guru Nanak’s message
in a simple and contemporary way
He grew up surrounded by the teachings of Baba Nanak but when he finally sat down to write his book, ‘Guru Nanak: His Life and Teachings’, it was a bindaas
author approaching his typewriter!
Senior journalist and writer Roopinder Singh has come a long way since then. Today, at the launch of the Hindi translation of the same book, it was an emotionally overwhelmed author who took to the dais. The memories engulfing him were of his father, the eminent Sikh scholar Giani Gurdit Singh, who passed away in January this
year. “I am grateful to my
father who put me on this path and to my mother who shaped me into
what I am today,” he said. The
book which first came out in English in 2004 has gone in for a second
edition and after the Hindi translation that was released today, a
Punjabi translation is on the cards next. However, the book actually
happened quite by chance, “I had just finished writing a biography
on Marshal of the Indian Airforce, Arjan Singh, DFC, when the
publisher, R K Mehra of Rupa came up to me and said I was to do a book
on Baba Nanak for them,” he recalls.
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Life begins at 60
Amritpal’s out to enrich society with retired Sikhs’ experiences, writes
Purva Grover
Each time Amritpal Singh (37) would be at his home in Mohali, he would wake up to the same sight every morning; his father’s retired friends would be seated at a bench in the neighbourhood park reading the newspaper. Well, on returning home in the evening, the scene would still be quite the same; for even now they would be at very much the same place and this time re-reading the paper.
Brownie
point
Parbina Rashid
Colour has different connotations—spiritual, physical and even political. But colour as a reflector of one’s inner-self? Yes, that’s what Franck Pavloff’s Matin Bruri (Brown Morning) does to you. A nicely woven story that starts with an extremist state oppressing the locals and gently leads one to do a little soul searching.
A beautiful mind
Penning lyrics gives free play to thoughts and feelings of this city-based composer, finds out
Purva Grover
In between numerous files, papers and books that lie on his desk, a small tape recorder finds its place too. A senior accounts officer at Accounts General, Punjab, S. Rakesh switches on the set each time a person or a situation touches his heart; and then humming to himself he transforms the moment into beautiful words.
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A force to reckon with
S. D. Sharma
Sunil Kumar does things many able-bodied persons cannot
Yakeen ke noor se roshan hain raaste apne, ham voh chiraag hain tufaan jinhe bujha na ska.. Wazahat Ali’s couplet seems to be apt to describe the courage and conviction of Sunil Kumar, an inmate and plus one student of Saket Institute for Orthopaedically Handicapped. As the melodious Hothon se chhu lo tum.. emanating from a synthesizer captures your imagination and guide you to a solitary room wherein the artist Sunil is lost in his routine endeavor, you are stunned and shaken the next moment.
DANCING DOLL
The two hours captivating solo Kathak dance performance at Tagore theatre by eleven-year-old Arzoo Upadhyaya had the audience in awe. The danseuse, a seventh class student had the spectators all in praise for her matured sense of observation and grasp of the minute intricacies of the dance form.
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Rocking
Parbina Rashid
I have been collecting rocks ever since I was a child, Prof Anant Rajwade breaks the ice as we approach him to show us his rock collection.
“What kind of rocks?” we ask him, unable to believe that one can sustain his hobby for so long when the object in question is something as dead as a rock.
“You should see for yourself before we get on with this conversation.” With this he leads us to his first floor den. And what we see is beyond our wildest expectation.
All three walls of this small room are lined up with shelves that showcase
his treasure — purple amethyst, a green and white Australian celenite, a
shiny Fool’s Gold from Spain, a pink Brazilian dolomite, a green mica
from Pune and much more. One loses track of the names because the colour
and sparkle numbs all other senses. One feels one has ventured into a
well-kept garden where all plants are in full bloom.
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Cottony
Summer
While the summer swelters on, keep cotton cool! No deliberate alliterations here, we promise, just a spry collection of fluttering fabrics au natural that bring with it whiffs of tradition, colour and cheer.
If breezy is your mantra and earth your divination then riffle through Sohni’s exhibition that brings traditional blocks and weaves on fresh cottons with striking prints and pert embellishments right into your ‘covet’ category.
To Ash, with love
Young Patna fan hand-embroiders red saree for her fav actor’s special day
While Aishwarya Rai may be getting ready to don glitzy designer wear at her wedding, a young girl in Bihar is toiling away at an exquisitely embroidered red sari for the actress to wear on that special
day.
Joyti Kumari, a 17-year-old college girl from Sipaya
Tola, about 250 km from Patna, is a diehard fan of Aishwarya. And she is very busy these days. For, the actress is getting married to actor Abhishek Bachchan in Mumbai on April 20, and Joyti hopes she will finish the sari in time to present it as a gift.
“She has been working day and night for nearly a month to create the
finest embroidered sari for Aishwarya to wear on her wedding day,” a
close relative of hers said.
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SIDELANES
Black Beauty
Joyshri Lobo
She was sometimes referred to as Black Beauty and sometimes as The Hearse. It all depended on how she behaved. Like an aged Duchess, she was temperamental to the core. If it was cold she refused to move. If it was hot, she boiled over and crawled to the verges. Spring found her in her element. She welcomed people and was generous with her space.
New Releases
Action-packed treat
Life Mein Kabhie Kabhie
Director: Vikram Bhatt
Cast: Dino Morea, Aftab Shivdasani, Anjori Alagh, Sameer Dattani, Nauheed Cyrusi
Vikram Bhatt’s next offering after Red is likely to be a hit at the box-office. The flick is a journey of success and tribulations, hope and despair, and happiness and sadness. It can be easily labelled as a complete thriller. Sameer has penned the lyrics for the film and Lalit Pandit has composed the music.
Adnan’s mystery woman revealed
The wait is over, Adnan Sami is back with his new album Kisi Din. In true Adnan style, the first video is a melodious track that portrays the pain and grief over the loss a dear one. In Teri Yaad, Adnan reminisces about a woman whom he loved and lost, just after professing his love to her.
youth
speak
A night @ the call centre
The charm of working in a BPO is attracting the city youth and they are all falling for it without knowing the real story. The country is now realising that the famed success from business process outsourcing is coming at the cost of a generation’s mental well being.
No doubt, it is good for the economy as it creates employment but work in a call centre is stressful, repetitive, and tiring.
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