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REVIEW
2003 & PREDICTIONS 2004
Pride
without prejudice
 A.J. Philip
AT a supermarket in Cologne,
the two hair dryers looked almost the same and they had identical
specifications. Yet, the salesman quoted a higher price for one of them.
Why? He did not bat his eyelid before pointing out the "Made in
Germany" tag. I could even detect a sparkle of pride in his eyes.
Movers, shakers & sizzlers
SOME people are born to make headlines, others have headlines thrust on them. So it was in the year 2003. It too had its share of movers and shakers — people who were in the spotlight, by choice or chance, for reasons good, bad and bold. Here is a random, light-hearted look at some scene-stealers and moments that defined the year, writes
Chetna Keer Banerjee.
Sporting
a winner’s smile
For once it appeared that India was making its presence felt in a range of sporting arenas. There was good news from the fields of cricket, hockey, football, tennis and more.
IT was the best of times and
the year of content for Indian sport. Prodigies from different sporting
arenas ensured that the smile remained intact on the faces of their
respective fans throughout 2003. The smile became brightest on December
16 when India shattered a 22-year-old jinx when it annihilated the
mighty Australians in to win the Adelaide Test and go up 1-0 in the four
Test series.
Not in the spirit of sports
ON the field, Indian
sportsmen and women might have covered themselves with glory — albiet
in fits and starts — but off the field it were issues like doping and
bribery as well as certain unusual controversies that hogged the
headlines on the sports pages in newspapers, says Abhijit Chatterjee
Luring back the reader
With more and more people buying books, the year saw an upsurge in the
reading habit. It was boom time for not just fiction but also
non-fiction….
SOME
writers are just one-book wonders and, like Emile Bronte, Margaret
Mitchell or Arundhati Roy, they bask in the sunshine of the popularity
of their first books for most of their lives. They know they don’t
have another book in them and don’t make the attempt to write one.
“As
far as wildlife conservation goes, India is doing far better than other
Asian countries”
IF you saw a strange animal in
India and wanted to know more about it, you would be hard-pressed to
find a source. There was no comprehensive book on Indian mammals until
now. Biologists and conservators only concentrated on the bigger and the
more popular mammals like the tiger or the rhino.
Bold themes and pretty faces
From Jism to SSSSHHH…the
audiences were treated to stimulating cinema, never mind if some flicks
were inspired by Hollywood. Dare-to-bare young stars sizzled on the big
screen like never before, says
Avinash Kalla.
THE bigger, the better! Not always and certainly not when the
buzz revolves around Bollywood. The year 2003 belonged to the minnows
that made it big even as many of the mega projects fell flat on their
faces. It was the young and energetic youth that swept the screens with
fresh faces and fresher ideas and set the cash registers jingling while
many of the mega-starrers turned turnip at the box office.
Moving towards the final frontier
The year saw television settle down in its vital role as a medium of
information with a plethora of news channels. As 2003 came to a close
the sky was choc-a-bloc with more programming, more software and the
battle for airwaves was hotting up even as the Conditional Access System
threatened to spoil the party, writes
Mukesh Khosla.
IT'S
been a year of controversies and war of ratings. Serials expected to hit
big time collapsed while others from which nothing was anticipated
became the flavour of the year.
Starspeak:
2004
AS
another year dawns, well-known astrologer Nirmala
Sewani takes a peep into the
future and predicts what the stars have in store for you.
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