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Rock the party Apparels in hues that rock for a new you, party smart herbal products for the 'morning after' and so many other glam products, the city is all set to usher in the New Year, says Saurabh Malik
Whatever your party style is, the shelves in malls and superstores across the city are decked up with stuff that will help you celebrate the rise of the New Year from the ashes of old with pleasure. If you still haven’t hopped around, just get on your bike for picking up stuff that will help you kick-start 2007 with a gorgeous bang. New You
Get set to celebrate a whole new you. Pick up cool party dresses hanging in the garment houses and boutiques across the city. Don’t worry; most shops in Sector 17, and even 10, now remain open even on Sundays. “Go for teeny-weeny skirts if you plan to twirl around the dance floor of life in a night club or a discotheque,” says city-based fashion designer Roop. Back after holding exhibitions in the USA, she says: “Concealed the skirts under life-size coats. Complete the ensemble with high-heel ankle boots. The combo will bring all you dancing divas close to the stature of glam-goddesses in the New Year eve bashes.” Shoulder less and backless cholis too are hot for out-to-chill crowd. That’s the look of the year, in fact. Guys with super-spike looks can go in for jeans fashionably worn out at strategic places. “In formals, you have suits with gleaming brass buttons,” says Roop.
Party Smart
Just in case your kind of deal involves getting high, you can pick up ‘PartySmart’. The natural formulation containing herbal extracts serves as an antidote for the ‘morning after’ symptoms. In simple words, the formulation prevents hangovers before they occur — at least this is what the marketing company claims. High-spirited revelers can buy strips of five capsules priced at Rs 50. “For best results, pop up a capsule 30 minutes before alcohol consumption,” says Humayun Farid, the Vice-President in charge of operations and marketing of Herbal Science, the company behind the product’s distribution and marketing. “It can also be taken any time during or after alcohol consumption the same evening. It is available at leading chemists and supermarkets in Chandigarh.
Flowery pleasure
If you still haven’t decked up your car for zooming on the road meandering its way through merriment, just drive down to the florists. So many of them have made special arrangements for adorning the cars with chuckling flowers for you to cut style! “Depending upon your taste, budget and magnitude of celebrations, you will have to pull out anywhere between Rs 300 and Rs 2,000 for embellishing your car. You can go in for gladioli, roses or other flowers. The choice is your, entirely,” Sector 35-based florists ‘Dew Drop’ people say.
Crème party
Fellows, in case you are still undecided about your party plans, take tips from the city’s café society. The upper cut is geared up to be at one party or another — lounging, boogieing away or just enjoying their drinks — but not before offering prayers. Nominated Councilor M.P.S. Chawla intends to party hop with his family, but not before paying obeisance at a gurdwara. Like always, the next morning he plans to visit Nada Sahib. The Managing Director of Aroma Hotel Man Mohan Singh Kohli has always been offering prayers in his office. This time also it’s not going to be different. The Chairman of Ind-Swift group, Dr Gopal Munjal, too believes in celebrating the big evening, religiously. The COO of Spice Communications Private Limited, M.M. Nandwani, has different plans. Silver wings are ready to carry him all the way to Bangalore to his family. “My luggage is all packed and ready,” he asserts with a smile. “There, I will thank God and begin my new year!” Divine start, indeed! |
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Belly dancers are no more swinging to the beats of celebrations. Bar tenders — igniting the sparks of passion by setting ablaze the counters — too are out of the revelers’ spirits. In 2006, ‘international’ dancers and disc jockeys all the way from Europe and Dubai are setting the pace for the New Year Eve’s celebrations, rhythmically and gorgeously. Right folks, you have guessed it correctly. Dancing and singing sensations from across the border are all set to make sizzling-with-excitement night hotter for the out-to-chill crowd. Taj Chandigarh has already tied up with the Les Belles Duval Revue for a ‘stunning performance’ in the Grand Ballroom. Just in case you know little about the troupe, the dancers have been creating magic in casinos, cruise ships, cultural theatres and five-star hotels across the world. They have also featured in ‘global advertisements’, including ads for promoting Swatch watches. Wah Taj, indeed! Not to be left behind, The Piccadily is also offering ‘scintillating performance by a western dance troupe’ during its ‘Fire and Ice’ party. Majlis in Hotel ShivalikView has Master of Ceremonies Kisembo Henry and Philips from Uganda, just for you! At the Hideout Nightclub in North Park, ‘international disc jockey’ Ricky of the Rix-in-da-mix fame will spin music after landing in Chandigarh all the way from Dubai. “Chandigarians are basically broad-based people with cosmopolitan bent of mind,” says the Taj’s food and beverages manager Vinu Verghese. “For them, nothing below the international standards will suffice.” Well fellows, the intercontinental players are already rubbing their excited hands in anticipation of doing something what ‘Chandni’ did way back in the 90’s — pull crowd.
“Those were the days when cable television with round-the-clock channels had invaded the living rooms, and lives, of so many residents,” still recalls Sameer Gupta, associated with the hotel industry for over 30 years now. “No wonder, something more passionate, loaded with fun and excitement, was required to force the residents into leaving the warm comfort of their houses”.
It was then someone thought of creating Chandni. The famous Bollywood blockbuster starring Sridevi had generated waves all across the country. Almost everyone was talking about the movie. For cashing on the phenomena, a city-based hotelier thought of calling Chandni to the city. Well, inviting Sridevi to Chandigarh would have proved expensive. So the hotelier simply called a singer from Delhi and gave her the name of Chandni…. The strategy worked. The scheme was an instant hit. The hotel bagged almost the entire business that New Year Eve. All that was over a decade ago! In 2005, the hoteliers and others in the celebration business broke free from the routine celebrations by serving on a platter the concept of belly dancing. The year before that, it was bar tenders from Delhi juggling bottles of excitement. Phew! The concept of celebrations is fast changing in the city of excitement. Anyways, the idea of keeping pace with international dancers while jiving into the New Year sounds exciting, indeed! — S.M.
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Booked for life Angad B. Sodhi
“New authors and books do sell well for a short period, but the best selling books from a sales ratio perspective are the older and better-known self-help or motivational books like Who Moved My Cheese or The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari,” says Ajay Arora, the owner of Capital Book Store. The highest-selling books this year are not recent releases by a long shot; in fact some of these have been out for a few years and are still outselling books that have been out for just a few months. But this is not to say that no book published in the year 2006 was successful. There were a couple of books that stood out in numbers hard to ignore, The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss have taken off in the latter half of the year. While The Last Mughal may be an exception to the norm, the sales of Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss were only propelled after it received the Man Booker and all the consequent media publicity.
Fiction too has limited appeal. “Fiction books that sell are limited to certain brand name authors whereas non-fiction books address the different needs and interests of the readers making them very popular,” says Pankaj P. Singh, the owner of The Browser Library and Bookstore. Is the reading public of Chandigarh too timid to experiment with new titles? Looking at the track record of books that sold in the city over the past year, this does seem to be the case. In the Name of Honour, a book by Mukhtar Mai, has raised high expectations. However, the book has thus far only sold a few copies. “The sales for this book are expected to pick up a great deal after the book is reviewed by the local media”, says S.K. Syal of the English Book Shop. “Books by unknown authors usually don’t sell too well unless they get caught up in some kind of controversy or receive international accolades,” agrees Pankaj. Nothing succeeds like success, they say. Well for best-selling books this certainly is true, since readers take their cue from book reviews and bestseller charts published in newspapers. Which of the books released in 2006 will be among the bestsellers next year? We will have to wait and see.
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Kaya kalp for
Chandigarh in 007 At the time of the year when the Archies and other gift nooks are flooded with people to get the best gifts for their loved ones as a New Year welcome, what would you like to have from your city beautiful in the year 2007? The catch phase this year-end for Chandigarh people is Happy New Chandigarh. All wish to see it happier and newer in the year to come.
The young pulse of the city wants a changed and yet not-so-changed Chandigarh in the year ahead. The ‘city beautiful’ is all set to welcome the New Year but with a bit of self-reflection. So, lets check out, what the youth want their beloved city to be like, in the year 2007. “Chandigarh should have a happening night life similar to the likes of Delhi and Mumbai” says Neeraj Sharma, who is here to study from his native place Gurgaon. “There should be more night discos and the markets should be open overnight to receive people turnout at midnight. The city should not be sleepy anymore in the year 2007”.
“Eve-teasing should be a past reality in our liberal city, let’s make a progressive environment for the girls in our city and give them the long due respect which they deserve” says Sunil Chaudhary, who is preparing for PMT this year. “There is a certain kind of gender bias when it comes to abiding by traffic rules in the city, while the boys are expected to follow the rules religiously; girls are not made accountable even when it comes to wearing a helmet. I hope the year to come may take away this bias, which is unfair on us”, says Jitender Pal who is also preparing for competitive exams.
“The city should be embellished with multiplexes and malls in the year ahead, I want it to have its share of PVRs and Ansal Plazas so that hanging out becomes much more fun. Chandigarh is still not touched by big names in the line of designers because of lack of malls to showcase their work”, says Tina Singal, who is a young PR personnel. “There are lot of beggars in the city which is obviously due to poverty, I really wish that in the year to come there may be a decrease in the disparities within Chandigarh. The year 2007 should bring prosperity for all in the city, which is right now aching with extremities in terms of wealth”, says Shreya Adya, who is a class 12 student.
“I love the city for having a balanced outlook of a town as well as the quality of life of akin to a metropolitan city. But Chandigarh should take a chill-pill when it comes to welcoming outsiders like people from the northeast, who are not properly treated by the locals. All of us should take a resolution to treat outsiders with warmth and compassion”, says Ayushi, who is doing her MBBS as she stands alongside her NE friend Kunga. Lets hope the city gifts us all of this in the year to come…
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Reality bites
I am 23 years old and have been with my girlfriend for four years. We were studying theatre together and have been seeing each other ever since. Somehow I have started feeling very caught up in a situation as she is looking for marriage and I am not ready for it yet. I feel I have to see the world and experiment with my life somewhat. I do not feel that marriage is the be all and end all of all relationships. Why can girls not accept a relationship without a marriage or some level of commitment attached to it? I really want to tell her this but do not know how she will react. I don’t want to hurt her but is there a way of getting my viewpoint across. She is convinced we are soul mates but I have a desire to move on. Help me in this please. Vinayak Kahra, Chandigarh It is not your girl friends fault that her thinking culminates in to a marriage situation as in our country most girls are brought up to believe that all relationships of this kind should lead to marriage. So she has to seriously think on those lines. But at your age with most people life is about frivolous fun. I hope you have not been leading her on to it. Have the courage to face your situation to tell her the truth about the way you feel about her and come clean. Prolonging the agony is the greatest mistake you are making. But if you know how to tell her properly it shall suffice. The balance of power in a relationship is a predictable see saw of strength and weakness. Make her feel that it is just an opportunity for both of you to grow. Also you never know you might miss her presence emotionally and want to actually be with her for a lifetime. Put it gently across and allow both of yourselves the chance to grow outside the periphery. See how it goes from here. * * * I am in my 40’s and have had an office romance for the last 10 years with a married man. He has been promising me marriage even since but nothing has really come out of it . He has two teenage daughters and now he feels that if he leaves them in a limbo their lives will be affected. I’ve tried to leave him many times but he always begs me to go back to him as be says be cannot live without me. I am not really happy in this situation, which seems to be leading us nowhere actually but I do not feel I have the guts to leave him. I feel I am suffering unnecessarily while women of my age are all settled and having a good time. What should I do, continue with this or just give up on it. Amrit Wadhera, Patiala He seems to have it all while you seem to have nothing much out of this whole situation. You seem the have given to best years of your life to this relationship and still seem to have gotten nowhere. Do take complete stock of your situation. Where are you standing in it? He has acted very selfishly and is definitely not the decent man you portray him, as he seems to have it all his way. Face the hypocrisy of your situation and get out of it as soon as possible. Definitely you have allowed yourself to be unnecessarily emotionally dependent on this man and thrown away your best years for someone who offered you scraps. Have the courage to be on your own for a while and slowly as the emotional garbage scarifies a new relationship will definitely come to you. You need to make space for it. Rush in your queries to Renee at lifestyle@tribunemail.com or care of Lifestyle, The Tribune, Sector 29-C, Chandigarh
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Sci-fi Harry The year 2006 proved to be a triumphant year for Bollywood
with an altogether different genre of movies ruling the box office. If Rang De Basanti and Omkara did a good business across Indian cinema circuits then the grand success of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna overseas was no less. It seems as the year 2007 holds much more as the producers and directors gear up to give a face-lift to Bollywood once again. First in line is the producer-director Harry Baweja who is all set to launch his son Harman Baweja, in the first ever (as he claims!) sci fi Love story 2050. In a tête-à-tête, Harry shares notes on this one and more. From being just a bystander on the sets to a clapper boy to assisting director B Subhash to directing his first film in 1991, Trinetra, Harry has finally managed to reach at an enviable tip in his career. Dilwale, Deewane, Main Aisa Hi Hoon, Qayamat and the list of movies he made goes on but the one that remains close to his heart is Main Aisa Hi Hoon. “Though the movie didn’t do well, but I like it the most, simply for the heart touching portrayal of a handicapped boy, and the social message it delivers,” tells Harry. Giving a low-down on the launch pad of his son, Love story 2050, Harry reveals the movie takes the audience to Mumbai of the year 2050 with a liberal dash of computer graphics added to it. So in this time travelling film, there are going to be flying cars, lot of special effects and robots (a la Star wars). And not just the usual robots, the movies would bring to life, two robots namely Boo (a male robot) and Q.T (the female robot). But don’t mistake Boo and QT for Koi Mil Gaya’s Jaadu for they far meatier roles to play in the film than him. What makes the movie a true-blue Hollywood style is the fact that to create the special effects and the computer graphics five Hollywood studios have been roped in along with many Oscar winning technicians working to do the job accurately. So if you see any Indians hogging the John Cox Studios these days, don’t be surprised. John Cox (who won awards for animatronics for the flick, Babe I and Babe II) has done the Animatronics’ of the movie and Weta, a New Zealand based company that did King Kong and has seven Oscars in its kitty, is behind the 2050 look of Mumbai (with the splendid infrastructure of course) in the movie. When asked if Lovestory 2050 is any closer to the heels of Krrish and Harry immediately retorts, “I wrote the film way back in 1999, the same year I got the script registered as well. I never used it earlier simply for the fact that that it was too early to make a sci-fi flick as the Indian audience were not prepared for such a multi-crore film at that time”. Well that’s a gracious way of snapping off indeed. Well, the audience will have to wait for a quite few months till this one is releases and give their verdict both on the flick as well as Harman Baweja who happens to be armed with a professional degree in acting from Le Strasburg institute (coincidently Hollywood stars, Robert de Nero and Al Pacino took their acting lessons from the institute as well!) in Los Angeles. |
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Thank the camel Sreedhara Bhasin The last day of the year is usually earmarked for pondering. TV journalism prepares slides showing events of the year unfolding – making sure there are plenty of jubilation and destruction covered. If I were to prepare a slide show of Chandigarh in progression – it too would be worth reflecting on. For a coffee-lover like me, the new coffee shops are a nice change. I was at one of these shops and did some quick mental math and figured out that now we are paying almost what I am used to paying at Starbucks, for a cup of good coffee. The Chandigarh rupee is getting stronger every day. The hassle of going to Delhi from Chandigarh has always been my pet peeve. I have always complained that there are not enough connections, flights, trains etc. for a swift and painless trip. Now, Tribune has a long column of bus, train and flight schedules with multiple entries! Even more amazing is the fact that I can even check my train reservation status on the official Indian Railways website and it actually works! Chandigarh has some of the best doctors in the world! After many years of American doctors whose Hippocratic oaths only allow them to make diagnosis on the basis of innumerable tests done in rapid succession, the doctors that we grew up with in India, seemed like panacea incarnates. But, I did recently have the opportunity to visit a doctor, of the new age, who told me in three breaths all that was wrong with me, looked at the watch five times in three minutes and almost pushed me out of the door after answering my third query. That was surely a new sign of progress! I was at a party the other day. There were two women on both sides of me. After the usual chit-chat about weather and traffic, they engaged on their favourite subject – cars. They went into details of how many car loans they have on their respective Skodas and Honda Citys and then they went on to future plans of the third car and how to finance it. I was reminded of my American neighbour who changes her car almost every year – for a ‘bigger and better’ one. I also talked to people who have recently returned from places like Manhattan and Tokyo – legendary for high real-estate prices and was told that the current Chandigarh land price is comparable to that of some of these places. I was driving yesterday and deliberating on my piece for today. At a red light I stopped. On the other side there were lines of cars and scooters lined up – waiting for their turn for the light to turn green. Heading the queue, was a camel waiting patiently and earnestly, staring at the light (or it seemed like), with his owner standing next to him, wearing enormous jutis and sporting a royal moustache. I was elated! My faith was restored! Somethings have not changed after all!
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Hollywood hunk
Perfectly chiseled face, imposing six-feet-two inches height, athletic gait, dark brown hair and eyes, make Paul Harika a face walking straight out of the Mills and Boons. His story is a happy one too, but one that took a lot of hard work to make his starry dreams come true. Meet Paul Harika from Chapper village of Patiala, whose gut feeling took him all the way to Hollywood and where he is now working towards an Indian identity. Like everything begins with a dream, Paul says “When all my friends from the Theatre and Television Department were saying that they wanted to go to Delhi or Mumbai, something inside me said I wanted to go to Hollywood.” Predictably, his dream was not appreciated by his peers, and he got the scoffs all the time. “Uhh you!! Is the reaction I keep getting even after many prestigious ad campaigns in print, magazine brochures, television ads, tele serials and films. “Everyone seems to hate my guts saying what is he doing in Hollywood?” The beginning was tough as he “worked at gas stations, repaired ATM machines and traveled tough hours to get to studios. Driving through long empty roads many a times I felt tired but the dream refused to die,” he says. “Even the girls who used to work with me used to tell me to go to Hollywood,” the memory makes him laugh. “Work poured in and one day I was surprised to hear from my casting director that I got work not because I was an Indian but because I looked Italian or Mexican. With Indian directors and roles like playing an Indian ambassador along with actress Katie Homes in First Daughter compensated for that desire,” says Paul. His looks do give him versatility as he played a Taliban warlord in Paramount Pictures’ Homeland Security and Metcalf, the FBI agent, in tele-series Handler. “All along I only wanted to be a good actor and wherever good roles come my way I am game,” says Paul. Paul now is working with Indian directors. He plays Harry in soon-to -be released comedy film Chapper Phar Ke and is doing a 20-episode serial on Channel Punjab. This Screen Actors Guild member says his desire is to sing in Punjabi.
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Sunday’s brunch
out
Right fellows, the cool concept of breakfast-lunch combo “oh-so-hot” in metropolitans across the country has come to the city. Launching the idea in the city, Director of Sector 26 hot joint Swagath Manish Goyal, insists Sundays are not going to be the same again. For, the latest weekend activity will leave you relaxed like never before. Talking about the concept all set to pamper the taste buds of the residents, he adds, “After a late Saturday evening, people are looking forward to relaxed morning. Even the housewives want to stay away from the blue flame burning in the kitchen. They want a single mid-morning meal that’s neither too early, nor too late. And that’s exactly what has inspired us to introduce a buffet in the afternoons’, he says. The buffet starts at 11:30 am and continues up to 4.30 pm. The elaborately laid brunch commences with ‘soup and salads’ and is followed by an array of dishes selected from the Indian Mughlai, Mangalorean and the Chinese cuisines. It finally ends up with choicest desserts. This is not all. Wine and Champagne are included in the buffet and the servings are unlimited. For all this, you will have to pull out something like Rs 499 plus taxes. A treat,
surely! — TNS |
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Health tip of the day
It is often seen that obese people over exercise in order to quickly shed off weight. After few days of over training they leave the exercise due to some injury, muscles soreness, fatigue, depression, sickness etc. — Dr Ravinder Chadha |
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You are ready to slip into your stilettos for dancing into dawn and delight! After pulling that alluring little red dress out of the mind’s closet, right! Or else, you plan to deck up your jaunty jalopy with balloons and gladioli for driving all the way through celebrations into the New Year! 
If all this is sounding a bit too confusing, just read on to find how the hoteliers in the city have all along been creating magnetic phenomena like ‘international DJS and Chandnis’ to draw revelers into “out-of-the-ordinary” celebrations on the New Year’s Eve. 
Looking for a bizarre idea to lure the crowd on December 31, the hoteliers were scratching their tired little heads with exhausted fingers in the past decade of the long-gone millennium. Dance `n’ dine parties with blazing bonfires were regular. Barbeques? Absolutely unexciting!
A tour of the city’s prominent bookshops and polite inquiries while on a quest to find out what the city has been reading this year led to a major revelation. Many of the bestsellers of 2006 had not been published this year, but were published earlier! 
Among the older books, a title that has started making waves in the city this year is The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. Published in 2003, the book was a bestseller abroad, but Chandigarh readers only lapped it up once the book was made into a big Hollywood film starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. A similar case was that of
DaVinci Code, which became an internationally acclaimed and controversial bestseller and Hollywood blockbuster, after which its sales got a boost in the city.
New Year is bringing a delicious gift for all you food lovers to savour. Along with a holiday, you will get a chance of tasting Sunday brunch buffet.