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Taste
Buddies
Ever
heard of a cereal called polenta? Or bread called bakarkhani? Ever tasted
a mango fool or a Victoria sandwich? On August 23, when Taj Bengal and
Savvy Cook Book organised a food quiz for the hotel's Ladies Club, these
were some of the googlies. The multi-sensory quiz, required the contestants
to smell samples, taste them and even tune into a chatpata Govinda number
on roadside junk. Quizmaster and food critic Gitanjali Prasad spent three
weeks cooking up the right mix of questions on nutrition, fusion cuisine,
traditional Indian fare and exotic dishes. "I wanted it to be a fun
event, but also one where you could learn something new about cooking,"
says Prasad. To many of the participants it was a revelation. "I
never bother to study the ingredients, but now I'm going to," says
homemaker Tina Nobis, who the first prize. "The quiz tickles your
mind." Hopefully, the tastebuds too.
-Labonita
Ghosh
In
Print
With
the soaring prices of Kalighat watercolours (fetching Rs 1 lakh last years
at Christie's) and with Ravi Varma oils even more out of bounds, art lovers
are now stashing the next best substitutes-the relatively cut-rate turn-of-the-century
prints. In an exhibition at Delhi's Art Konsult curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay
of the Lalit Kala Akademi and featuring the collection of Meena and Siddharth
Tagore, more than 50 lithos and oleographs (that's a litho with a lacquer)
lured buyers with a Rs 5,000 tag. But there was a time when the prints
of the famed Chitpur Press, the Chitrashala Press Poona and the Raja Ravi
Varma Press used to cost even less. Recalls Siddharth Tagore: "Till
a few years back, a guy in Corporation Street in Calcutta used to sell
these for Rs 5 each. Now even these are rare ... specially the Chitpur
Kalighat imitations." Still, there's nothing like having an original.
-Anshul
Avijit
Act
of God
It's
been going uninterrupted for 20 years but Krishna, the annual Shriram
Bharatiya Kala Kendra's Janamastami dance-drama, once again proved to
a big hit in the capital last week. The reasons: slick production, great
choreography, catchy costumes and lively music. "It has been a constant
evolution in terms of music, sets, choreography and production,"
explains Kendra's executive director, Shobha Deepak Singh. Every
time Krishna emerged victorious-when the Yadava god-king vanquished Kalia
Daman and subsequently danced on the serpent's hood or when Duryodhan
was killed-the packed audience, especially children, applauded wildly.
But the fun is not over yet ... wait for next year.
-S. Sahaya Ranjit
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The
stock markets are humming, and it's feel-good time once again, writes
INDIA TODAY Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 
