Bag a bargain
Want Gucci gladiators or a Prada tote, but can't afford the tag? All you need is to head to export surplus stores in the tricity and scoop up foreign brands at half the price
Indian made foreign apparels are covering up the minimalism of the pretty young things like never before. Desi girls, videshi fundas, that's right folks. If all this is clothed with confusion for you; let's put it out, plain and simple. Teenyboppers in the PG accommodations and elsewhere are shedding off their desipann, and fashioning a splendiferous image for themselves by donning style stitched out of real premium foreign brands. They are going in for Ed Hardy and Zara, so they can talk like Marlene Dietrich and dance like Zizi Jeanmaire. Of course, you know nothing about them. But then, you hardly put on labels, and talk vaguely about the French Riviera and Munich without awareness of their location even on the maps. Just for projectin gan image of sophistication!

Male order
Say shopaholics, and you think women. But the season's sales turn the tricity males into shop-hoppers too
Women bargain, men don't because they are 'saving' illiterates. But there's something, much against the reputation of men that they have learnt from women----shopping while the sale season is on. Hold on! We aren't claiming that men have got wiser; they might be doing it just for the sake giving women some competition.

Barsaat ki ek raat
Big B helps women stranded in Mumbai rain
Imagine being stranded in heavy rain and then getting a lift from Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan. That's what happened to a few women here recently. Big B did his bit by giving lifts to a few women in his car to help them escape the Mumbai rains that have jammed life in India's financial capital for the last three days. The road outside Amitabh's house Prateeksha is waist deep in water, which has entered his reception area too. When the actor decided to take a ride in his SUV to his second home Jalsa in Juhu, he found the women wading through the waterlogged street.

All in the genes
Shahid has inherited his dad's ability of acting: Amol Gupte
Shahid Kapoor apparently took inspiration from his illustrious dad Pankaj Kapoor to play the role of morally-incompatible twins in forthcoming thriller Kaminey. And his co-star Amol Gupte feels the young actor has indeed inherited his father's acting skills. "When Shahid played Guddu, he had to assume Guddu's stammer. He completely internalised all of the character's traits, including the stammer so that there's nothing caricatural about the character," Gupte, who plays a villain in the film by Vishal Bharadwaj, said.

Chat room
Straight talk
Law or not, tricity folks are open enough about accepting homosexuality
What does democracy mean? Having rights and the freedom to exercise them as well. Sure, we know it at the back of our hand. We pride ourselves in being the world's largest democracy, secure in the fact that we, as a nation, can overcome anything. But recently, we came across an issue that even our best sense of democracy could not define, or let's say come to terms with. Of course, we are talking about homosexuality. It seems to be the topic of national concern now, after the decision to decriminalise gay sex turned the country into a debating arena.

Earth hour

Actor Vidya Balan poses for a picture during a sapling distribution drive in Mumbai. Reuters photo: Manav Manglani

Pet THEORY
Rain bow!
Come rainy days and the glistening coat of hair of your pet becomes a potential hunting ground for a plethora of pathogens. Led by mites and fungi, it is a steady progression of frightful skin ailments, which account for more than 50 per cent visits to a veterinarian during the hot and humid months. Besides shining hair coats loosing there glisten, these skin ailments are of extreme discomfort to a dog making them to go off feed some times.

Priceless?
The soaring prices of veggies have not stopped people from picking up the greens
Scanty rain, sweltering heat and news of no crop cultivation and drought-like situation, have already led to a dreading scenario. With vegetable and fruit prices skyrocketing, common men's fight for survival has already started. But for our city folks, who love to flaunt and don't mind spending an extra buck for what they like, we check out if the price hike in pulses and veggies has made a difference in their buying pattern.

Pets to dye for!

A woman walks with a bichon frise and a poodle, both coloured with various dyes on a street in the Hubei province of China. Amid the current pet boom, dog owners are flocking to pet beauticians to pamper their pets with everything, from shampooing to hair trimming, and nail care to hair dyes. Reuters photo

Happily ever after
Want to have a lifelong marital union? Well, then don't marry a man who is nine or more years older than you or is two or more years younger than you are, revealed some of Australia's top demographers. In fact, they have suggested that the secret to a lasting marriage is to marry a man who is about your own age, or if your parents are still together, marry a man whose parents are also still together.

Coolie chronicles
Big B remembers Neelu Phule as being down to earth and humble
Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan remembers Marathi stage and film actor Neelu Phule, with whom he worked in his 1983 hit film Coolie, and says he was very talented, yet so down to earth. "I had worked with him (Neelu Phule) in my film Coolie , a seasoned thespian with a distinguished face and voice, who had played some historic roles in his career.

Relatively speaking
The g(r)ay area
Ok, we all know now it's legal to be gay, but what would be your response if you found out that someone in your family or friend circle is gay?

• Celeb speak