THE DIARY OF Z

Mock meat is making its rounds to India with exciting options for vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores.  Extremely popular in China and the UK, Indian chefs are experimenting with soya ingredients to bring about veg chicken, veg lamb, veg duck, etc. 

Edward Wang, owner of  China Garden in Mumbai, says “The dishes are 15 per cent more expensive than vegetarian food but the health benefits are many".  High in protein and flavour, these mock meats will even have carnivores fooled as to what they are eating!

I recently went to Little Italy in Bangalore’s Indiranagar that had a mince “meat” pasta which we all thought was real meat.  Only after the meal did we realize that Little Italy is a vegetarian restaurant! Vegan societies such as PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) have long promoted adding meat substitutes for those who cannot give up flavour for animal rights and health purposes. 

Contributed by Prachi Jain

The success of ‘3 Idiots’ has planted the seed of change in the minds of many people.  The ideas and value system of Aamir Khan’s character can be taken to address several issues that need a fundamental change.

During the IBN7 Bajaj Allianz Super Idols awards, Khan honoured 18 people who have achieved success despite being physically disabled.  Khan said, "Our society barely thinks about the physically handicapped people. It’s necessary. There should be proper infrastructure - be it buildings, theatres, roads - everywhere so that they can too have a comfortable access to every places like a normal person does”. 

According to a recent survey done in Pune, 80 per cent of government and semi-government buildings are not disabled-friendly.  Perhaps with the kind of change a movie like ‘3 Idiots’ has inspired, we can start to improve our infrastructure to accommodate every individuals rights.

Contributed by Prachi Jain

On the weekend past, I found myself dancing like a fool amongst a group of men dressed and painted from head to toe as Tigers, while a manic drummer bashed away on his skins beside me faster than a humming bird flaps its wings. I was at the Fireflies Music Festival set amongst the Fireflies Ashram about 30 km out of Bangalore. I’ve not been to an Indian music event before, but this, featuring a fusion of new styles and traditional, was fantastic! Let me describe the scene…

Situated at the bottom of a small but steep hill, and in front of a docile lake is a towering Banyan tree whose wide trunk stands as the centerpiece of a large stage that faces an amphitheatre built into the hill. It was here amongst a small forest of trees, and far enough from Bangalore to avoid the night time curfew, that a few thousand young music fans arrived to dance, sing, and party the night away from sundown to sunset. Once the sun was well below the horizon, green and blue lights illuminating the trees through the dust created a mystical scene and an inspiring atmosphere.

A resounding theme for the night is one of peace and environmental awareness, and after a few stirring speeches on the importance of community and sustainability, the real fun began. An hour later the whole place was completely alive with singing, dancing and drumming that at times felt almost tribal. What struck me most, as an outsider, was the mostly young crowd’s enthusiasm for the traditional music from a Qawali band and a South Kerala folk band, which I must say, outplayed and outcrazed the more modern bands, and had the crowd in a frenzy! Despite the apparent ‘westernisation’ of Bangalore, this is evidence to me that India’s pride in its own culture will remain strong in the future. 

At about three in the morning I allowed myself a 20 minute snooze on a blanket while a band with Prog-Rock stylings thrilled the dozens of people walking around in Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin shirts. When I woke up, I found that many of the rowdy revelers had themselves succumbed to their booze and many sleeping bodies were now scattered amongst the trees. Amongst the final acts of the night was a Bangalore hip hop group called Low Riders, who re- injected some energy into the night and carried a hopeful message of peace in India and the world. Not long after, the inevitable rising of the new day prompted the masses to dreamily shuffle out and drive home for a big long Sunday sleep.

Contributed by Jeremy Veitch

I find it so frustrating that all of our favourite sporting events are being exploited by terrorists and used as weapons of fear and uncertainty.

This week we’ve seen the terror attacks in Pune, and a former Pakistani commando associated with Al-Qaeda has warned international sports players not to take part in any Indian sports events, including the 2010 Hockey World Cup, the IPL, and the Commonwealth games in Delhi in October.

Sport is one of the few things in this world that really does bring people of different nationalities, religions, race and background together. Sure, things can get heated on the field and we don’t always feel kindly towards the opposition, but that’s all part of the fun and spectacle. But to use sports events as tools for division and hatred, instead of harmony, is infuriating! Surely, these great events cannot be abandoned or sent elsewhere. The show must surely go on.

It’s lucky then, that there are people who are standing firm, including the government in Delhi, who have asserted that "Nobody would be allowed to dictate terms to us". And while Shane Warne said he might reconsider playing this year’s IPL, Andrew Symonds has shown some confidence saying that he has no fear of coming to India and is gearing up for the 2010 season.

We should all look forward to a great year of sports in India, and let’s hope for a healthy dose of competition on the field between different countries, where at the end of the day the players can all shake hands and have some fun.

Contributed by Jeremy Veitch

Do you ever feel a bit overwhelmed by technology? Sometimes I think the world may actually soon start looking like it does in old movies and TV shows set in the distant future. You know, the ones in which people ride in flying cars, talk to holograms, and have computer chips inside their heads?

Well, we don’t have flying cars yet, but in many ways I think we have technologies today that are far more advanced than any movie director in the 1960’s could have ever thought of – just look at the internet, and the iPhone!

And on the topic of smart phones, it looks like they’re about to get a lot smarter.

This week, the geeks at Google unveiled some of the new tech ideas they’ve been working on behind the scenes. Apparently we could soon be having live phone conversations with people who don’t speak the same language by using a phone app that will translate our speech! If you’ve ever read ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’, by Douglas Adams, you might be thinking that this sounds far more appealing than sticking a Babel fish in your ear!

We will also be able to take a photo of a restaurant menu written in German and have it translated into English within seconds.  And what about this – an app that can diagnose your cough?!

Personally, a lot of this makes my head spin. Don’t get me wrong - I grew up with new technologies, I love my iPhone and I use social networking sites regularly, but there are times when it feels exhausting just to try to keep up.

For us living here in Bangalore, of course, this is all good news. The IT era of Telco’s and technology is well upon us!

Honestly though, I think that Google should put their efforts into creating a flying skate board, just like the one that Michael J Fox rides

in the film Back to the Future 2. 

Contributed by Jeremy Veitch

Have you had any problems with the breaks in your Toyota recently? Well, this week the world’s largest car manufacturer recalled nearly half a million of their hybrid model, the Prius, from places all over the world, after finding braking problems in the car. This follows two other recalls last year of up to 8million vehicles worldwide!

Is Toyota losing its touch? My first car was an old blue Toyota Corolla, and despite a few rattles and shakes, it was a very trustworthy car. Even when things did go wrong, it seemed that everyone knew how to get under the bonnet, tinker around and have it running again.  Now in the age of computerized  hybrid engines, can we put our faith in car makers to get it right? In the US, Ford Motor Company has had similar problems with their own Hybrid car models, but has claimed that they can roll out a software patch to fix the problems without having to make a recall.

The good news is that Toyota claims they have fixed the problem. None the less, with share prices dropping, and further speculation around the safety of their vehicles, it seems that to patch up their damaged reputation, Toyota may need a 4WD to get over the rough road ahead.

Contributed by Jeremy Veitch

While reading about India’s unfortunate performance against the South Africans this week in the first test, I realized I have been watching Sachin Tendulkar, the only batter who showed some real fight in the match, play cricket for nearly 20 years!

I am an Australian, and in 1991, I was still looking forward to my ninth birthday. Like other boys my age, I loved my cricket and 1991 was also the year when Sachin, not yet the ‘Little Master’ first strode onto Australian fields and began showing us Aussies how it’s done.

Tendulkar scored two centuries in that tour including an unbeaten 148 in Sydney. From there, well, the rest is history isn’t it? He’s the highest ever run scorer in both one day and test matches, he has an excellent test batting average of 55.35 and he’s said to be the best batter ever, second only to Donald Bradman.  He’s also a straight up gentleman, and is highly respected by cricketers and fans around the world, especially in Australia. We all loved watching his fierce on field battles with Shane Warne, and Warnie himself has said that he’s never played against anyone better.

Now, nearly two decades past, I am astonished to see the Master still out there in the middle swinging the bat with precision and class, even when the soldiers are falling around him. He knocked up a cool 100 in the second innings bringing him even closer now to his next milestone of 50 test match centuries. With seven more to get, it may just be that we’ll all have the privilege of watching Sachin play for a few years more. What a champ.

Contributed by Jeremy Veitch

Dear lovers of history, particularly Japanese and Chinese history. If you want a deeper insight on the rape of Nanking, nothing like reading this internationally award-winning essay written by me and honoured by none other than the Iris Chang Foundation. It was declared an ‘essay of distinction’.

You could download an e-book for $5 and make it your own by clicking the button below. Do read and patronise.

Valentine’s is a funny day. People, who are normally sane, staid and composed behave strangely. Grown men are reduced to tears. Mature women become crooning babies. The very mention of a saint called Valentine causes wobbly knees and an expectant sparkle in the eye. If you are the sort who wants to honour the saint anyway, here are a few gifts that could knock the stockings off your Valentine.

•    Gift her a Valentine kit that will make the art of seduction easy. Costing $275 on RedEnvelope.com, it features a Kiki Motif Instrument of Pleasure, an ergonomic, multispeed vibrator adorned with the Kiki motif, handcuff-pattern silk restraints, a massage candle, personal lubricant, Kiki Select Kimono condoms, and before-and-after mints. This gift will set a precedent for fun. It is a gift the two of you can share. It is romantic and adventurous without being scary.

•    If you have money to burn and don’t want to buy islands for her like the other business magnates, buy her a plot on the moon instead. Yes, you can do such a thing in this time of space age technology. Just the way a female fan has been gifting Shah Rukh Khan every year on his birthday.

•    Arrange for a 1-carat solitaire to be delivered to her along with red roses declaring permanent love for her from an admirer. When she gets the little box, the courier boy would declare that the little box comes with a free gift and present a big carton with the label ‘Love Inside’. When she opens it, you’d pop out and plant a kiss on her cheeks she wouldn’t forget.

•    You could get sentimental and walk down memory lane by gifting your love a beautifully decorated frame containing the photo of the place where you proposed to her. Or better still, you could video record your personal thoughts and remembrances about her and play it on V Day by candle light.

•    If you want something small but thoughtful all the way, you could gift her a personalised flower pot with a message that says, “Our love grows”. Or a love letter in a bottle with the message: “Our love is unsinkable”. Or a personalised diamond keepsake that says: “Like a diamond, our love is forever”. Or all of these things to make it a themed gesture.

•    Gift a custom-made book to her, containing all your letters, emails, sms-es until the time you got married. Print them all out and have them bound into a book, with the final page saying that it is NOT the end of your love story, but ONLY the beginning…

•    Go the DIY way. Make a memory box. Glue photos or pictures to the outside of a wooden box. Use Hodge Podge glue to create a sealed glaze over the pictures. Fill the box with tokens and mementos of your time together. Write memories you share on small slips of paper to fill the box. A thoughtful gesture that will last a lifetime.

•    Get a packet of balloons. Fill a few with little things — a cute key chain, a pair of earrings, candies, a little message on paper — anything at all but not too big. Blow up the balloon and write your own personalised romantic message on it and then deflate it and present it to her. She has to blow up the balloon to see what you have written and then pop it to get the stuff inside.

•    How about an aphrodisiac love potion and a Beating Heart Pillow? Yes, UniqueValentineGift.com sells this for $20 and $150 respectively. Organically designed to have the same effect as Spanish Fly, the elixir of love claims to increase the inner sexual conscience of the mind to achieve various sexual advances. Only 20 drops of the love potion in any drink is all that is required. Both males and females can expect increased sexual stimulation, propensity towards sexual activity and improved overall mood. If that doesn’t set her heart racing, there is the Beating Heart Pillow. Hold the heart a moment and you’ll begin to sense your own heartbeat slowly syncing with the pillow’s carefully designed rhythm. It is designed to help you relax, daydream, meditate, and nap. Perfect for Valentine’s.

•    Create your own raffle/coupon book using hand made paper or even coloured drawing sheet paper that has irresistible offers on every leaf of the coupon:
#1. A long lasting kiss with eyes wide open, offer available for 15 mins from receipt of voucher.
#2. Avail a bear hug within 24 hours after Feb 14, 2010.
#3. Luxurious foot massage after 7 days from receipt of voucher.
#4. A sweet honest smile when I am most angry.
#5. Steaming cup of tea within 10 days even when I am dead tired.
#6. A seven-course meal on your birthday with special friends at home.
#7. Looking for car keys (3 times ONLY) even if I am most busy.
#8. Allowing you in the loo even if I woke up first in the morning. Offer valid only for Feb 2010.
#9. Watch Sex & The City (5 times ONLY) when my favourite serial is on; offer valid for the whole of 2010.
#10. Free facial at my home spa after a day out with friends.

3 Idiots is continuing its dream run. Realistic, funny and with an accent on thinking out of the box, the film deserves all the moolah it’s making. At last count, the Indian box office collections stood at Rs 185 crore after tax. A box office record, making it an all-time blockbuster, even beating the likes of Ghajini, Gadar and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.

While it’s hard to pin point reasons for its monumental success, some of the reasons for its fantastic opening include:

1. Aamir Khan’s marketing wizardry: In industry circles, he is being called ‘god’ and a marketing maverick. With good reason. The way he disguised himself and played tricks on the ‘aam junta’ and celebrities alike made many heads turn and filled so many column spaces in newspapers and sound bytes on TV channels.

2. The script is king and with a director like Rajkumar Hirani of Munnabhai fame, the story could relate to just about anyone, class and caste no bar. It was as much a multiplex film as it was a single screen film. As much a success in urban and rural areas.

3. The casting was apt. Everyone did their job well. From eccentric professor Boman Irani to the room boy to Sharman Joshi and R Madhavan to even Kareena Kapoor. Very few films have the best cast and crew. Sample this one. It had No 1 director Hirani; No 1 actor Aamir; No 1 actress Kareena and No 1 producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

4. Ladyluck is on Aamir’s side for the last two years. Sample Taare Zameen Par, Ghajini and now 3 Idiots. Everything he touches turns to gold. Midas touch!