• Hanuman Flew at 660 Kmph
• Foreigners Make a Beeline For Indian Art
• UK's Nagra Wins Poetry Prize
• Das' Film Finalist in Green Oscars
• Top Indian Linguist Honoured by China
• The Great Indian Art Attack
• Film on Indians Tops US Charts

• One-Year Baby Gets Award
• Moti Mahal to go Global With Tandoori Chicken
• Durga in Cyberspace for NRIs
• Ratan Tata Honourary Citizen of South Korean Province
• DD all set to go International
• British DJ Wants to Perform at Taj Mahal

Ten-headed demon king Ravana of the Hindu epic Ramayana actually had one head and the other nine were its reflection on the nine large polished gems that he wore around his neck, an American scholar of Sanskrit has reasoned. According to Berkeley professor R P Goldman, ancient scholars who made an intense study of Hindu mythological texts like the Ramayana, tried to "rationalise" several of the seemingly improbable tales - like Ravana's 10 heads, or how fast Hanuman the monkey god could have flown to get the sanjivani , or elixir, for Laxman, or even how long Kumbhakarna, Ravana's brother, might have slept. In a lecture in New Delhi titled, "How fast do monkeys fly? How long do demons sleep?" where he read commentaries on Sanskrit epic poetry, Goldman said ancient scholars like Nagoji Bhatta, Govindaraja, Maheshwara Teertha, Satyateertha and Madhava Yogendra tried to "track down the narrative" and explain through "scientific reasoning" the seeming exaggerations in the works. Goldman, who is professor of Sanskrit at the University of California at Berkeley, said the Sanskrit scholars, who lived between 1200 and 1800 AD, were not "prepared to swallow anything" and went through the texts carefully. According to him, the commentators have painstakingly chronicled day-to-day events of the Battle of Lanka, the 6th book of the Ramayana. They have done meticulous calculations of the lunar calendar to explain how many hours could have elapsed between the slaying of Kumbhakarna to the vanquishing of Meghnad, or even if the war with Ravana lasted just one night or sapta ratras (seven nights). One important question that these scholars raised was how long could Hanuman have taken to fly to the Himalayas-to the Mahodaya mountain to fetch the life-giving herb for Lakshman - from Lanka, where the battle was raging? "How fast do monkeys fly? It was a matter of scholarly reasoning for the commentators," said Goldman. Some of them worked it down to a speed of roughly 660 km an hour considering Hanuman first brought the mountain to Lanka and then flew back all the way to put it back in its place. "Hanuman was quite ecologically conscious," said Goldman. Even the duration of Kumbhakarna's prodigious sleep in the "Yudhakanda" (story of the battle) has been a matter of great study, with the scholars "expending considerable ingenuity to explain" whether Ravana's brother slept for six, seven, eight or nine months. Goldman said there were four different calculations to explain Kumbhakarna's duration of sleep. Goldman said he fell in love with Indian culture and history when he was a 20-year-old student at Columbia University, New York. "I was studying chemistry and took up a course on Indian history," he said.

Courtesy: The Times of India, October 29, 2004

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Laalithya Sree, aged one year, has a speciality. She was the youngest child to receive a prize in the painting competition conducted by the Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority (VUDA) in connection with the Flower Show 2004. Laalithya Sree painted several flowers on the drawing sheet reflecting her creative imagination. Amazed at her creative work, the judges selected her art work for a consolation prize in the 0-5 year category. The Minister for Commercial Taxes, Konathala Ramakrishna, who presented the prize to her at the valedictory of the flower show at Kailasagiri hills, appreciated her interest in painting from an early age.

Courtesy: The Hindu, October 26, 2004

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It's not just NRIs, mainstream foreign buyers have also trained their sights on auctions of contemporary Indian art. Around 25% of the 51 works which sold at the Sotheby's September 2004 New York auction, for instance, were lapped up by "non-Indians". Based on feedback from auctioneers, this tribe of art collectors has jumped from a mere 3% of buyers at auctions 3-4 years back to 15-20% now. Each foreign art aficionado is estimated to be investing $200,000 in Indian art every year. And, non-Indian buyers are growing by 20-30% annually. "In our September 2004 auction of Indian contemporary art in New York, 13 of the 51 works were sold to non-Indian buyers. One also hears from the art trade in the US about increasing interest in modern Indian art from non-Indians. The composition of this buyers group is mainly Americans, Britishers and Japanese," Anuradha Ghosh-Mazumdar of Sotheby's told ET in an e-mail response from New York. According to her, there is an extent of awareness about senior Indian artists overseas since some of them lived abroad for a fair length of time.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, October 25, 2004

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After feeding prime ministers, kings and monarchs, New Delhi's Moti Mahal restaurant, where the tandoori chicken was said to be born, aims to spread its aroma around the world. "Tandoori chicken has become a global dish and we are proud of it," said Monish Gujral, son of restaurateur Kundan Lal Gujral, who started Moti Mahal in 1947 in Daryaganj. "But now we want to take our special taste to the world ourselves. We are opening in the Middle East, in Britain and in the US -- a global trail of the tandoori chicken." Kundan Lal Gujral, who came to India from the North West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan) during the subcontinent's partition, was the man who first got the idea of baking chicken in the great earth oven, common across villages in the subcontinent for baking bread.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, October 21, 2004

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If you are away from home in a foreign land and missing the Durga Puja festivities, don't lose heart. Instead, get to a computer and connect to the internet to find Goddess Durga with her entire ensemble waiting for you. Keeping in mind the millions of lonely and homesick Bengali hearts, who may be thousands of miles away from home, an IT company in West Bengal has arranged to webcast the Durga Puja festivities. On the company's website, http://durgapuja.visitnortheast.com, one can get to see not only the various community festivities, but also offer homage to the deities. "There are millions of people across the globe who can't make it home for Durga Puja, and so miss it. It's our effort to take Goddess Durga and their home ambience to them," said Tanmoy Goswami of Techno Developers' Group. The website, which Goswami claims is gaining in popularity with NRIs in North America and Europe, will beam pictures of various community marquees where clay idols of the deities are worshipped. "The idea is to give our visitors a snapshot of what is happening in West Bengal in Durga Puja," Goswami said. The website would also webcast the elaborate rituals involved in worshipping Goddess Durga and worshipers can offer homage by clicking on the site.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, October 18, 2004

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Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata has been made an honourary citizen of South Korean province, North Jeolla. "The awarding of the honourary citizenship of North Jeolla province is a recognition of the goodwill developed by the Tata Group within the local community and its contributions to the province," a company statement said on Thursday. The manufacturing facility of Tata Group's Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company Ltd is located in North Jeolla. The citizen certificate was received on behalf Ratan Tata by Tata Daewoo chairman Ravi Kant from the governor of the Jeollabuk-do provincial government H E Kang, Hyon-Wook in Jeonju, the capital city of the province, the release said. Tata Daewoo's executive director Ravi Kant has also been made an honourary citizen of the province, it added.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, October 15, 2004

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The son of Punjabis who came to Britain in the 1960s won one of Britain's leading poetry prizes on Wednesday with a poem about their experience, and all the generations of immigrants and asylum seekers who came after them. Daljit Nagra's Look We Have Coming to Dover! evokes the lash of the breeze as immigrants reach port, and the yobbish rain and wind which is their first taste of English weather. It was chosen as this year's best single entry in the Forward poetry prizes. Nagra, born and brought up in west London and a widely published poet, wins 1,000. The chief judge, poet Lavinia Greenlaw, said: "Look We Have Coming to Dover! is a poem of contemporary resonance which engages playfully and powerfully with our literary heritage." The title reflects - without mockery - the fractured English of his parents' generation. But the verse is a virtuoso exercise in the command of English, with its slang, extreme compression, thrusting verbs and confident references to one of the great poems of the language, Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, written in 1867. Nagra writes: Seasons or years we reap/ inland, unclocked by the national eye/ or a stab in the back, teemed for breathing/ sweeps of grass through the whistling asthma/ of parks, burdened, hushed, poling sparks across pylon and pylon. Swarms of us, grafting/ in the black within shot of the moon's spotlight/ banking on the miracle of sun to span/ its rainbow, passport us to life.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, October 08, 2004

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Doordarshan is all set to make its international debut. It is going to launch a new channel that would cater exclusively to the Asian community in England. The channel, called DD India, will be available on the BSkyB DTH platform. The I&B Ministry has recently finalised a deal with the platform. The channel will cater exclusively to the international audience and will not be available to Indian viewers. It is scheduled to be launched tentatively in November. Confirming the launch of the channel, I&B secretary Navin Chawla said: "There is a large Indian population in England which wants to know what is happening here. In addition, the population from the entire sub-continent is also keen on Indian programmes. There is tremendous scope for a good Indian channel, so we decided to go ahead." Chawla was in London recently to finalise the deal. A special production unit is being set up in Delhi, which will deal exclusively with the new channel. The channel will have a mix of entertainment and news. Initially, the best programmes from the national and regional channels of DD will be selected. Gradually, new programmes will also be commissioned. "A range of some very good programmes are shown on DD and its regional channels. These will be packaged and presented in a new manner by the production unit in Delhi, before we move onto new programmes," Chawla said. The channel will also have news bulletins at regular intervals. News from the sub continent is believed to have a huge audience in England.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, October 06, 2004

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British-Indian DJ Bobby Friction has two major dreams: to have a mega concert at the Taj Mahal and another one while flying over Jalandhar in Punjab. "That would be the ultimate kick," Friction, real name Paramdeep Singh, said on telephone from London. "It would tell the world how big Asian music and bhangra is," said Friction, one of the most popular DJs in Britain who hosts the country's top radio gig, Bobby Friction and Nihal Presents on Radio One. Friction's compilation of top 15 Asian tracks in Britain has just been released in India by Sony Music. The 30-year-old music aficionado is known as much for his funky hairstyles as the groovy music that he dishes out. Bobby Friction is a roving ambassador for British Asian music the world over. For over seven years he has taken his unique perspective of Brit-Asian music to all corners of Europe, playing in Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Germany. "Bhangra is a strange thing," said the 30-year-old whose father is from New Delhi and mother from Chandigarh. "People who don't speak a word of Punjabi, not even a word of English, dance to this music. With a vast knowledge about British music history, Friction predicts that bhangra will be the sound of the new century. "I can see the way people are identifying with it around the world. "This bhangra-hip hop mix is becoming the sound of a new millennium, and since this is really a sound that originates from Indians, we could really take over the music scene."

Courtesy: The Asian Age, October 04, 2004

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A film on rainwater harvesting by actress and activist Nandita Das is among a long list of finalists from India for this year's Green Oscars, earning the Indian film industry a new title of "Wild Bollywood." After decades of domination by European and American companies, the prestigious biennial Wildscreen wildlife film festival and Panda Awards or "Green Oscars," has had a surge of entries from India this year. The film directed by Das, nominated in the campaign award category, is a public service announcement to promote rainwater harvesting as the lesson from the past, which provides a solution for the future. The short film revolves around the concept of catching rain in a neighbourhood, creating a cascading effect. People begin to collect water in a variety of objects and in fact, in anything they can lay their hands on. The number of delegates from India and films entered for the awards, starting next weekend in Bristol, are at record levels. Six Indian films have made the shortlist - including two of the four best news items, the campaign award and the individual campaigner prize. Organisers say India is leading a steadily growing wildlife film industry in developing countries: other entries this year come from Colombia, Costa Rica, Iran, Puerto Rico, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. The first film from India to make its mark at Wildscreen was a documentary 20 years ago on the endangered gharial crocodile, made by brothers Naresh and Rajesh Bedi. Since then a small group of filmmakers and cameramen has steadily gained an international reputation.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, October 04, 2004

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Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, civil servant Gautam Goswami and sitar exponent Anoushka Shankar feature prominently in Time's 20 Asian heroes' list under the age of 40.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, October 04, 2004

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Guiana 1838, a film based on the story of about one million Indians who were made to work on sugarcane plantations in British colonies in the 19 th century, has grossed a whopping $70,540, the highest screen average in the entire North America, over the weekend. The film, which opened in just one location in Queens, New York and sold a majority of seats in advance, has been made by first-timer Rohit Jagessar, a Guyanese American. The historical docudrama tells the true story of the Indians who were shipped out of their country to work on sugarcane plantations in the British West Indies, Fiji, Mauritius and Australia among other British colonies following the abolition of African slavery in these nations. Director Rohit Jagessar's self-distributed Guiana 1838 invaded the list in the number one position with the highest per screen average recorded nearly a year-and-a-half ago, after opening in one Queens, NY cinema,' a media report said. Jagesar, who is also the film's writer and director, said, "I expected the movie to do good but I didn't expect a $70,000 gross".

Courtesy: The Economic Times, October 01, 2004

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The Chinese government has bestowed the prestigious Friendship Award to Tamil linguist N. Ghadigachalam for his contribution in popularising the Tamil language service of the state-run China Radio International. Mr Ghadigachalam, who worked with CRI for 12 years in three stints from 1983 onwards, was given the award here on Thursday along with 84 others by Chinese vice prime minister Hui Liangyu at the Great Hall of the people. Mr Ghadigachalam, an associate professor at the International Institute of Tamil Studies, Chennai, was instrumental in introducing and producing programmes like Folktales of China, Chinese Cuisine, Culture of China in Tamil for listeners in India and Sri Lanka. Sources from CRI said that Tamil language service receives two lakh letters a year from listeners from India and Sri Lanka, making the service one of the most popular foreign language service of CRI. Mr Ghadigachalam has also authored several books on Chinese literature and introduced famous Chinese writers to Tamil readers. Mr Ghadigachalam said he felt happy to know that China recognised his service and hoped that the Tamil service of CRI would become even more popular in the future. Speaking at the award ceremony, Chinese vice-prime minister Mr Hui praised the foreign experts for their contributions to China's economic and social development.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, October 01, 2004

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