Driving Fans Crazy
It’s more than just burning tyres, horsepower, team spirit, pit stops and prettybabes. F1 is the latest formula for our city slickers. And we are all drinking to it!
Sensing a golden business opportunity to zoom straight into the urban mindspace,corporates and F&B chains have spun a new strategy around the game. Sports channelespn is busy tying up with pubs to promote F1 nationwide. If in Delhi it’sGeoffrey’s, then by month-end the fever will spread to Calcutta, Mumbai andBangalore.
Collective interest towards motorsports has been fomenting over the last few seasons.Star Sports’ live F1 telecast was the final trigger and Narain Karthikeyan’s winhas added the zing. Life on the fast tracks was never better.
The objective of F1 live screenings is to extend the mid-season mania on the ground, toprovide the fans an ambience of collective thrill and frenzy. And what better bet thanpubs to spread the spirit among the brethren. Innovative ideas are sweeping the pubfloors. Recently, sports presenter Eric Young hosted an evening at a Delhi pub minglingwith the diehard Maclaren motley. There were freebies galore: booze, corporatemerchandise, memorabilia and even free champagne.
Revamped Delhi bistro DV8 had special membership offers. Dish out Rs 2,500 and get alicence for either the Mercedes or the Ferrari team. And if your team wins, expect ahandsome discount on the grub.
Arijit Barman
Mark Time, Now
For lovers of all things fine, here’s a new hunting ground—The Regent, ashowroom of exclusive watches, precious jewellery, pens and objets d’art inMumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel. The brands on display are as upscale as can be. The watchesare Cartier, Corum, Delaneau, Gerald Genta, Christian Dior, Bell & Ross, AlfredDunhill and Technomarine. The Cartier counter incorporates the new "Espace"concept found only in top European cities. Studies are under way on opening the next storein Delhi.
Ramp Gourmets
And you thought they starved to perfection. Prasad Bidapa, fashion guru and co-authorof Catwalk Cuisine, tells you otherwise. "Where they put it away wedon’t know," he says in his introduction to the book, "but models are someof the biggest eaters I know. The girls especially. Feeding them during rehearsals is anart unto itself."
And so there are 63 of them featured in the book, each with their foodie idiosyncrasiesand favourite recipe. We have Sara Corner, who loves to gorge on funghi marinati (amarinated mushroom salad), a traditional three-bean salad, moong and paneer chaat and anunusual watermelon salad, flavoured with rum or vodka. Madhu Sapre and Milind Soman prefera traditional Maharashtrian meal; Marc Robinson revels in Anglo-Indian food—yellowcoconut rice, curry and chicken chilli fry. Lisa Ray adores Italian food (broccoli quiche)and banoffee pie (banana-toffee cream pie) for dessert, while Lara Dutta enjoys hermother’s homemade Indian food (pepper prawns, chicken curry and gaajar burfi).
Bidapa himself is not a good cook but he’s mad about cook books of which he has awide and expensive collection. Approached by publishing houses for a book, he thought of acook book with recipes from models. Testing those recipes was friend and foodie, ParvanaBoga Noorani. It wasn’t easy to make the models part with the recipes "butParvana called each one at least 20 times and even spoke to mothers or aunts," saysBidapa. The end result is, of
course, delectable.
B.R. Srikanth
John Abraham’s Love:Patra Ni Macchi
Serves: 4. Ingredients: 8 large slices of pomfret; 3-4 banana leaves;2 tbsp sugarcane or malt vinegar; Grind for the chutney: 1 fresh coconut, grated; 5-6green chillies; 1 cup tightly packed coriander leaves; 1 cup mint leaves; 1 small onion; 1head garlic, peeled; 1/2" piece ginger; 1 tbsp roasted cumin seeds; 4-5 tbsp limejuice; 1 tbsp sugar; Salt to taste
Method: Wash fish and pat dry. Taste chutney and add more lime juiceor sugar for a slightly spicy, sweet and sour flavour. Remove centre stalk from bananaleaves and cut into 8 large pieces. Pass leaves quickly over a gas flame to soften them.Coat a slice of fish liberally with chutney and place on a banana leaf. Fold leaf over tocompletely seal in the fish. Tie fish parcel with a piece of string. If you find the leafdoes not enclose the fish, use an extra piece of banana leaf. Do this with all the fishslices. Heat water in the lower half of a steamer and add vinegar. When the steam rises,place fish parcels in the top of the steamer, cover and steam for 20 minutes. Serve hotwith roti or plain dal and rice.
Lonely Tune
If eager autograph seekers and fans mobbing a crooner mark out a pop star, Egypt’sHisham Abbas didn’t fit the bill. He made a low-profile (read lonely) stopover atDelhi last week, and none of our party-hoppers could care less. But this Cairo-born,one-time mechanical engineer from the American University in Cairo isn’t complaining."It takes time," he says, "but it won’t be long before Indians startdancing to my tunes." After seven solo albums, Abbas makes his Indian debut with thecurrent megahit back there in Egypt, Habibi Daah (Nari Nari). And it is theIndian connection Abbas is banking on for the albums’ success. The Kerala backwatersor the Taj in Agra have never looked so beautiful before. Number one on the Egyptiancharts for more than 12 weeks, Habibi Daah has also won the best song and videoclip in Internet votes through 25 Arab countries. The Indian images and colour, Abbassays, have shown their colour. It’s on to his first film next. Is he again going tocamp in India? Wait and watch.
Bobby John Varkey
Well-Reflected
Veteran ad filmmaker and greenhorn in the features department, Rakesh Mehra is intodenial these days. "Aks is not based on Face-off". Nor is it,"inspired" by it. But the film, he says "is a supernatural thriller."An afterthought later, he dubs it "a psychological supernatural thriller...actually Iam not sure if I can use the word thriller". He will be flooded with suitableadjectives after the film’s release on July 13. As things stand, the curiosityelement in this "Rs 13 to 15 crore film," is its cast of Amitabh Bachchan, ManojBajpai, Nandita Das and Raveena Tandon. Says Mehra: "I was chatting with Abhishekwhen Amitji walked in. He was leaving for the airport to catch a flight to Delhi. I wascarrying the script with me and gave it to him. I think he had nothing better to read onthe flight but when his flight landed in Delhi he gave me a call and said,‘let’s do it’." Feelers are the Big B has chosen well, finally.
Manu Joseph
Bong Balle
In Delhi, music has one effect on people. It’s popularly called the balle balleeffect and it affects joints and sinews of all musically-inclined folk in Daler Mehndicountry. So it wasn’t surprising when Delhi celebrated World Music Day on June16—five days ahead of the world—with the mandatory dance and song. What was atad out of character was the attention a rock band from Kolkata got from theballe-balle-ing thousands. Cactus’ lively performance made a resounding debut thatnight as children of the soil repeated Bangla lyrics as if it was the most normal thing todo. Next on the menu: a night of Pungla pop!
Dhiraj Singh
