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28 August 2010 - 3 September 2010
small world
Skin
What Lies Beneath?
Pramila N. Phatarphekar

Perhaps because we live in it, we barely notice it. Skin, the largest organ in our body, is the subject of an artful yet macabre exhibition at London’s Wellcome Collection museum. Curator Javier Moscoso, a Spanish professor of history and philosophy of science, looks at and under our epidermis. There are suture tools, a dissection of Gray’s Anatomy and wax hand models that display the skin of a painter denuded by turpentine and a bricklayer’s fist dried by lime. There are even squares of tattooed flesh that belonged to 16th century sailors. View, but mind your own goosebumps.

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Take Two
You are Invited for High Tee
Arjun Atwal’s PGA Tour victory suggests an Indian could soon win one of golf’s four major titles.
Akshay Sawai

History does not always demand bloodshed and gunfire. It also happens in wish-you-were-here surroundings. A nice golf club in North Carolina. Lushness and dappled sunshine all around. Unfaltering nerves, and a ball rolls into a hole.

 Congratulations, Arjun Atwal. By winning the Wyndham Championship, you have set a milestone in Indian sport. You have become the first Indian to win a 

US PGA Tour title and you have pocketed $918,000. You have your PGA Tour card back. You have also received a congratulatory message from MS Gill, the Indian Sports Minister. But that is a small price to pay for success.

To most of us, Indian golf is a well-paying but nebulous sub-culture. One way to shut talkative Indians up is to ask them what a birdie is. But they are somewhat aware of the men who hit these birdies. Some of these names are Atwal, Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa, Gaurav Ghei, Shiv Kapur and SSP Chowrasia. 

Indians, at least those who stop by the sports pages, also know that a younger generation of golfers, like Gaganjeet Bhullar and Anirban Lahiri, are shaping up well. The 37-year-old Atwal’s achievement is another advertisement for the health of Indian golf. 

“It is a defining day in Indian golf,” says Padamjit Sandhu, director, Professional Golf Tour of India. “This is the biggest achievement by an Indian golfer because the US PGA Tour is the most prestigious of all tours. Besides, Arjun did not have it easy. The contest had gone down to the wire and he won it on his last putt. He had to earn it.”

Prabhdev Singh, editor of the Indian edition of Golf Digest, says, “Ask any pro golfer which tour he wants to play, he will say PGA Tour. It has the best players and big prize money purse.”  But when will an Indian win one of the sport’s four major titles? 

“The way the game is growing in India, it is a matter of time,” says Sandhu. “Our current players can do it too. They have time. They are all in their late 30s. Last year, Tom Watson almost won the British Open at 59. Arjun has already shown that an Indian can win in the world’s toughest league.”

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patch-up
Deewar Breaks Down Between Salim, Big B
Shradha Sukumaran

Amitabh Bachchan may have faults, but arrogance is not one of them. In Open’s Independence Day special, while reminiscing about making Sholay 35 years ago, its co-writer Salim Khan had said that he now had ‘no relationship with Amitabh Bachchan’  because Big B had credited his being cast in the movie to Dharmendra. “The truth is that I kept a trial of Zanjeer for the Sippy family so they could see what Amitabh was made of. I introduced him to Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai. The ‘Angry Young Man’ was my discovery,” Khan had said. 

In a mark of humility, Amitabh immediately made amends. On 24 August, in the tabloid Mumbai Mirror, he accepted Khan’s role in shaping his career. Bachchan said, “I am extremely sorry if Salim sahib has felt otherwise. He has been a respected senior for me and shall always remain one.”

After this apology, Open got in touch with Khan. Though he hadn’t spoken to the actor as yet, Bachchan’s response touched him. He said, “I can only quote Prophet Muhammad. He once said that when two people work together, Khuda (God) comes between them. When they grow apart, Shaitan (Devil) comes between them. And when a person becomes aware of his mistake and apologises for it, Khuda comes closer to him. My respect for Amitabh has grown.”

 

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deadly vision
Why Time Stands Still
Avantika Bhuyan

Neuroscientist Dr David Eagleman has an ingenious theory about why time seems to slow down in near-death experiences. The professor at Baylor College of Medicine has used the extreme sport called Scad diving to test his theory. While being dropped from some 150 feet without a cord into a net below, volunteers are asked observe a chronometer on their wrist. They were all able to discern numbers that would otherwise have been too fast to monitor. Eagleman suggests the brain records more sensory information in traumatic experiences. The slow motion effect is its way of making sense of additional information.

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film
India Darshan in an Auto
Pallavi Polanki

What happens when a former financial department manager for a casino cruise ship feels like a change? Among other things, Auto!, a crazy travel documentary that involves ‘2 guys, 3 wheels, 1 helluva ride’. Over 14 days, Justin Leong (“a Singaporean who is half-English and half-Chinese”) and Ganesh, his local partner in crime, will travel 1,900 km across India in an autorickshaw. So why this trip? Says Justin, one-quarter philosophically and three-quarters comically, “When I look into the mirror, I see the look of loss, despair, vacancy in my face.” And, of course, “India is such a fascinating culture, steeped with history... what makes India India, what makes India tick, what makes me tick.” Hmm. Check out the film’s teaser at autothemovie.com.

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Pet crazy
Wag the Name
Avantika Bhuyan

Gone are the days when dogs would be called Lassie or Fido. In countries like the US and UK, dog owners are giving their pets trendy middle class baby names like Bella, Charlie and Ben. These findings have emerged from a study conducted by the UK’s popular online insurance company protectyourbubble.com, which has insured some 80,000 dogs in the last 12 months. It is interesting to note that names like Millie and Daisy are part of the top 100 names in the UK for babies and dogs alike. And one in every 20 people take the naming of their pet so seriously that they change it after a few weeks feeling that it doesn’t suit the dog’s character or doesn’t roll off the tongue properly.

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Honour
Cathedral for Mother Teresa
Jaideep Mazumdar

Mother Teresa’s yet to get sainthood, but the first cathedral dedicated to her has opened its doors at Baruipur, 30 km south of Kolkata. It was inaugurated on 23 August, and later, Bishop Salvadore Lobo of the Baruipur diocese said that Mother Teresa’s canonisation will happen in good time. “We know she’s a saint and when the time comes and God wants, things will be done for her canonisation. Thousands of miracles have been attributed to Mother Teresa, but the Church hasn’t accepted them as they don’t fulfill all the criteria and characteristics of a true miracle,” says Bishop Lobo, who headed the tribunal that scrutinised and confirmed the miracle that led to the Mother’s beatification, making her ‘Blessed Teresa of Kolkata’.

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Rolls Royce
Chiru’s Phantom Gift
Anil Budur Lulla

When politicians get Rs 4 crore gifts, normally they keep it under wraps. But not if you are a superstar and not if it is your son doing the gifting and not if the gift is one of the most expensive cars in the world. On his 56th birthday, Praja Rajyam Party head Chiranjeevi got a Rolls Royce Phantom from his actor-son Ramcharan Teja. Phantom, the ultimate car from the Rolls Royce stable, is owned by a select list of celebrities the world over. But zooming around in the car is not going to look good for Chiru if he wants to cultivate an aam aadmi image.

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Rebuke
Parliamentary Parody - Scolded for Mockery
Dhirendra K. Jha

The man at whose behest the Indian opposition last week staged a ‘mock’ Parliament session abstained from an all-party meet on 25 August when various political leaders expressed regret over the one-and-a-half-hour drama in  the Lok Sabha.

Lalu Prasad, who floated the idea and who acted as ‘PM’ jointly with Mulayam Singh Yadav, did not attend the meeting in which Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar expressed deep disenchantment with the sham session.

In the mock session, BJP’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde acted as ‘Speaker’, while his party colleague Kirti Azad played the role of ‘Leader of Opposition’. About 70 MPs had participated in the drama that invited a strong rebuke from the real Speaker. Even the BJP leadership was not happy with the fact that some of its MPs took part in it.

The all-party meeting on 25 August was attended by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, BJP Parliamentary Party Chairman LK Advani, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta, CPM leader Basudeb Acharia, NCP Chief Sharad Pawar, SP leader Shailendra Kumar and TDP leader Nageshwar Rao.

Interestingly, neither Lalu Prasad nor any other member of the RJD was present in the meeting.  Though Mulayam Singh Yadav was also absent, he did send his representative to join various political parties in expressing regret for the act.

On 20 August, after the Medical Council of India (MCI) Bill was passed without a discussion, the house was adjourned soon after. Lalu Prasad, together with various opposition leaders, decided to ‘mock’ the Government by holding a sham Lok Sabha session. 

Lalu  said that everything that the members wanted to bring up would be discussed threadbare. With about 70 MPs participating, debates were held on various issues, including the Medical Council Bill.

 

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Infested
Dengue May Dampen CWG
Jatin Gandhi

It is not just alleged scamsters who are thriving on the Commonwealth Games (CWG) mess. The latest to benefit from it is the humble mosquito. Monsoon rains tend to usher in dengue fever season in the capital, which peaks in October. But, this year has been particularly bad with the number of cases officially reported already hovering around 500.

These are figures maintained by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which means the actual count could be higher. Major hospitals in the capital have already reported double the number of confirmed dengue fever cases. The MCD’s records show that the largest cluster of cases is being reported from the south and central zones. These zones cover areas where CWG preparations are on. Stagnant water at construction sites for the CWG aid the breeding of the Aedes mosquito. And an official confirmation of the symbiotic relationship between the insect and the CWG chaos comes from the highest echelons of government.

“The combination of heavy rains that has lashed the city this year and the debris created due to the ongoing construction for the upcoming Games is proving to be ideal to give rise to diseases,” Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad recently said. Follow-up raids by the MCD  led to the discovery of mosquitoes breeding at all CWG sites.

 

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28 August 2010 - 3 September 2010