OVER THE MOON: Oak and Arora

Ashish Oak and Shveta Arora are your regular dating couples—after work, they like to dance, dine out and hang around with friends. And it’s been like this since they began dating each other over a year ago, fully aware that they jived well together. However, they have ceased to the regular dating couple—regular, that is. While dining and dancing at Pasha, a trendy restaurant, recently, the two were completely oblivious that they were being closely watched. It was only when they were adjudged the second “Most Passionate Pair” that they got the pleasant surprise. Throughout the year, wine makers Disaronno, and magazines Glamour and GQ have been hosting hot parties in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Miami. Judges observe how couples interact with each other, while a questionnaire determines if they are considerate, caring, romantic and share similar passions for food, travel and life. Obviously, they liked what they saw in Oak and Arora and picked them as Chicago’s runner-up couple. “It was a complete surprise—it was a random night out and the place was chosen at the last minute,” says Arora, 25, an accountant, “we were very excited to be picked.” “It was very unexpected but nice,” admits Oak, 28, a marketing executive. They got a basket of gifts, which includes candles, a bottle of Disaronno and a $100 cheque. But the best would be the spotlight: their picture will feature in the February issue of Glamour, where the results are revealed.

—Sonia Chopra

It was an honour and I was very excited to carry the Olympic torch,” says Victor Wyle of Kansas City. The 19-year-old was one of 50 people who passed the flame, torch to torch, across Kansas City on January 9-10. The flame, lit in Olympia, Greece, will end on February 8 in Salt Lake City, the site of the 2002 Winter Games. Victor, who was abandoned in Chennai at age 4, was adopted by Joy Wyle, who brought him over to the US. A dwarf, Victor is manager of Kansas City’s Shawnee Mission East High School’s baseball team and was nominated to be a torchbearer for the Olympic flame by the school librarian.

—Nitish S. Rele

ILLINOIS
Natural Instincts

DOUBLY APPRECIATIVE: Somani is proud of his Indian and US links

To many the name of Satu M. Somani immediately connects to nerve agents and mustard gas. But Somani, professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Southern Illinois University’s (SIU) School of Medicine, is also spearheading research into ayurveda. Somani is a member of the Complimentary and Alternative Medicine Task force at SIU’s Springfield campus, which is studying, among other things, Cisplatin, a highly toxic cancer drug that can damage the kidney and lead to hearing loss. Somani wants to see how herbal drugs could enhance the body’s antioxidant system and is putting to the test plant extracts like ginger and gingko biloba. In the winter edition of Aspect magazine, he notes, “I call it deductive medicine because it has been handed over from generation to generation.” Somani, who has been in America for nearly four decades, is proud of his Indian connection. Somani believes that an immigrant can serve both his new home and the country of his origin. He is the founding treasurer of the first Hindu temple in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been active in many social organisations from his student days. The Somani family has established a Tulsabai Somani Educational Trust in Hingoli, Maharashtra, which gives numerous scholarships to deserving students, foreign travel fellowships and awards in literature and science for creative work. “Giving back to the community is very much an Indian tradition,” he says, “it is a good American tradition, too.”

—Mabel Pais

BACK WHERE SHE BELONGS: Patel

NEW YORK
Acquired Art

For literary minded desis, the New School University, NY, is offering a course on contemporary Indian fiction, being taught by Vibhuti Patel, letters editor for Newsweek International. The weekly spring course kicks off on February 5 and covers bestsellers by Salman Rushdie, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Vikram Seth and Rohinton Mistry. The veteran journalist of 20 years returns to her first love: teaching. As Patel puts it: “I am just returning to teaching through journalism.”

—Anil Padmanabhan

NEW YORK
Survival of the Fittest

Vipin Narang is naturally excited to win the Marshall’s scholarship. One of 40 students selected from US institutes to spend three years in Oxford, Narang spent last summer in Geneva working with the United Nations for Disarmament Research. Then it was back to Stanford University for a master’s in chemical engineering. At Oxford, he shall be studying for a doctorate in international relations, “The world is open to mass destruction and so we need a comparative strategy to survive. Maybe the events of 9/11 made the committee more sensitive to world policy,” says Narang. It ‘s easy to figure out why he won the scholarship.

—Sonia Chopra