INDIA SHINING
Patriotism is all about being proud of the nation and its progress
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…wrote our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru 63 years back. Today, as the nation wakes up to our 64th Independence Day, we talk to people from different walks of life on what patriotism means to them. Says Maj. Gen. (retd) HS Hundal, who earned AVSM and bar, a mention in dispatches in 1971 war and Chief of Army Staff Commendation, "As a soldier, patriotism is, first and foremost, preservation of our hard-earned independence and sovereignty." He wishes for an India where education and medical facilities are provided to one and all.




Akhtar Mahmood — Photo: Pradeep Tewari

Walk down the memory lane
Pre independence era, post independence India and it's sixty three years divide between the times. What binds them together is perhaps the people that witnessed the action, live and as it happened. Who had seen it all, themselves and not through the history textbooks. Today as the nation celebrates the 64th Independence Day, we catch up with a couple of octogenarians while they catch up with 'colonial nostalgia.'

Dharam Pal Vashisht — Photos: Vinay Malik

Decoding the dress
Sari is generally preferred as the official dress code for teachers. Are options available and can one dress up keeping comfort in mind?
If only the Constitution-makers had an idea that a woman in India will have her freedom to work impeded in the 21st century for not wearing a veil, inclusion of another fundamental right was certain - 'Right to wear whatever one wants to as long as it doesn't hurt the sentiments of people'. Or in easier words, the freedom to use as many centimetres of cloth as falls in the very subjective, 'decent' category!

Real reel!
A sober-looking Indian girl, who travels alone with her friends in minis, short dresses, falls in love with a super-rich brat…mush, mush…enter villain, fight… mush. In another frame, a joint family and the overflowing love and care for each other, eating together, playing together, singing together, enters a vamp in the form of an aunty, things at home go bonkers, in the end everything is back in place with a mushy song playing in the background. How mushy can our Hindi cinema get?

Matka chowk
When it rains
This monsoon seems to be a bonafide one — reaffirming the old adage that raining may lead to pouring! This pouring seems to have unfolded a new breed of Monsoon in Chandigarh - a Metro Monsoon, which is marked by some sort of a free-spirited chaos, fleeting yet strong. I can see some of those telltale signs in our city this year.

Foreign Impressions
Travel time
Stan Nieuwenhuis, 24, a student and musician from Belgium came on a two-day holiday to the city along with partner Tine Cartuyvels, 23, a student and actor. We caught up with them at the Rock Garden.







Stan Nieuwenhuis and Tine Cartuyvels

 

FOOD FUN: The Dimsum Festival is on at Purple Rice-35 till September 30.  The menu comprises seven kinds of non-vegetarian dimsums and six types of vegetarian dimsums, along with a complimentary soup.

Take 2 The team of Chandrawal, first Haryanavi movie will start auditions of the sequel, Chandrawal-2 at Indradhanush Auditorium, Panchkula from August 27. The film will be produced by Usha Sharma, the lead actor of the first Chandrawal. The team is looking for the lead actors and all character artists of the movie. — TNS

Festive treat
Celebrate the sacred festival of Rakshabandhan this year with Sparkles. A gold and diamond jewellery brand, Sparkles has launched its gold and diamond Rakhi collection exclusively for brothers and sisters. This unique collection is real 18 karat gold and diamond rakhis accompanied with authenticity certificate, which comes along with each and every product.

Picks & piques
People, LIVE
Film: Peepli Live
Cast: Omkar Das Manikpuri, Raghubir Yadav, Malaika Shenoy, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shalini Vatsa, Farrukh Jaffer, Vishal O Sharma Director: Anusha Rizvi

Gang up
A slew of Bollywood movies on the mafia coming soon
Bollywood is set to quench the thirst of movie aficionados with a slew of gangster movies - and it's about time too, if the success of Milan Luthria's underworld saga Once Upon a Time In Mumbaai is any indication.

LONE warrior
Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston, who is single, wants people to be strong and fight their fear of being alone. "I think it's about finding the right person which means something and not settling. There are a lot of single people who are as happy as a lark. There are a lot of married people not as thrilled as they would like to be," she says.

Wedding bells
Hillary Duff singer-and-actress, who announced her engagement to Comrie after a trip to Hawaii in February is said to be planning to tie the knot in the next two days at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.

More than looks
Hollywood superstar Julia Roberts is too busy raising her three children, which leaves her with no time to worry about her looks. The Pretty Woman star says that readying her children - twins Hazel and Phinneaus, 5, and three-year-old Henry - keeps her occupied.

Bunny is back?
Warner Brothers, is believed to be developing a film starring the inimitable rabbit, Bugs Bunny, which will be a mixture of live action and CGI, designed to revive the character for a contemporary audience.It will be written by David Berenbaum, who scripted the 2003 comedy, Elf, starring Will Ferrell. While Bugs Bunny has made a couple of cinematic appearances since his post-war heyday - he was last seen in Looney Tunes: Back In Action, a 2003 film featuring a host of classic animated characters - he has not been the central star in a film for many decades.

Success story
Toy Story 3 has become the highest grossing animation film of all times, beating the previous record holder Shrek 2 into second place.
With more than 920 million dollars worldwide revenue, the third installment of the series also became Disney's fourth highest-grossing film of all time. Two months after it was premiered in the US, Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich, has become the new highest-grossing animated movie of all time, surpassing Shrek 2 which pulled in USD 919 million globally in 2004.

Light house
Energy efficient and green solutions have been talked about for a long time but have largely been just a talking point or a fashion statement. Home users today are demanding more and more energy efficient solutions and the lighting companies are providing newer, more energy efficient technologies such as CFLs, LEDs and the highly evolved and sleek florescent tube lights - the T5s.

• Tarot Talk