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    <title>HT Odd news Headlines</title>
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    <lastBuildDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:10:05 +0530</lastBuildDate>
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      <title><![CDATA[Shaan addresses Jacqueline as Genelia]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100315/1074/tod-shaan-addresses-jacqueline-as-geneli.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:10:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Actress Jacqueline Fernandes got embarrassed when singer Shaan mistakenly addressed her as Genelia D?Souza in front of hundreds of people.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[Actress Jacqueline Fernandes got embarrassed when singer Shaan mistakenly addressed her as Genelia D?Souza in front of hundreds of people.]]></media:text>
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      <title><![CDATA[The perfect exam diet for students]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100314/1074/tod-the-perfect-exam-diet-for-students.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:10:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[IPL fever has gripped the nation, but unfortunately, students have to grapple with the exam fever. The exam season is back, it?s that time of the year when one can feel the anxiety in every inch of one?s body!]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[IPL fever has gripped the nation, but unfortunately, students have to grapple with the exam fever. The exam season is back, it?s that time of the year when one can feel the anxiety in every inch of one?s body!]]></media:text>
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      <title><![CDATA[Rude food | Black magic]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100314/1074/tod-rude-food-black-magic.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:30:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[If the tandoori chicken and the butter chicken (and its European relative, the chicken tikka masala) are the most famous Indian dishes in the world never to be cooked in Indian home kitchens, then there must surely be a vegetarian candidate for the same category. I think I have found it: it is the black dal so beloved of Indian restaurants in India and everywhere else in the world. When it comes to black dal I have to come right out and say that it is entirely out of my area of experience. I am a Gujarati and Gujaratis, in common with the rest of India, think of dal as being vaguely yellow in colour. We never had black dal at home when I was growing up and as far as I recall, most restaurants in Bombay in the sixties and early seventies also did not serve any dish that resembles the black dal so ubiquitous on today?s restaurant menus. I always imagined that the dal makhani that we come across in restaurant menus is a Punjabi home dish. A little research suggests that I am not entirely wrong. But I am not right either. The key to dal makhani is the lentil itself, the humble urad, called black gram in English or masha in Sanskrit. Of the 60 dals that are in common use in India (moong, chana, rajma, arhar/tuver etc), urad is among the most ubiquitous and is found in many parts of the country including the south. But there are many kinds of urad. And one basic distinction is between whole urad and broken-up urad. My friend Gautam Anand, who is fast becoming a mainstay of this column, tells me that his mother remembers urad dal from Lahore in the pre-Partition era. But, the dal she remembers was not made with whole urad. She did not see this kind of lentil used in dal till she came across after the Partition. Gautam?s theory is that the Punjabis of east Punjab and of Lahore did not make a whole uraddal. This was the specialty of Punjabis in Peshawar. Dhabas (there were relatively few restaurants in those days) sold a black dal made with whole urad and served with a few rotis. When the Peshawaris came over after the Partition, they brought this dal with them. As many Peshawari Punjabis became restaurateurs, this was the dal they put on their menus.But even if you dispute the distinction between the two kinds of urad, what is clear is that pre-Partition Punjabis did not put tomatoes in their dal. If they needed a souring agent, they used yoghurt. Why is it then, that tomato puree is now regarded as an essential ingredient of black dal? Our story now veers (as does the story of the tandoori chicken) to Delhi?s Daryaganj where Kundan Lal Gujral, who had come over after Partition, had opened Moti Mahal and made tandoori meat cooking famous. I spoke to Monish Gujral, Kundan Lal?s grandson who now runs the Moti Mahal Delux chain. According to Monish, all of Kundan Lal?s great ideas emerged out of necessity. When he began worrying about his cooked chickens drying out, he searched for a sauce with which he could rehydrate them. His solution was the makhani or butter sauce that led to the creation of the butter chicken, made from bits of tandoori chicken that were in danger of drying out. Monish says that Kundan Lal then searched for a vegetarian option. Gautam maintains that in those days, uraddal was not considered a great banqueting dish. Chanadal was more respectable and in any case, caterers and restaurateurs were obsessed with so-called shahi dishes in which the gravy was enriched with cream. Gautam agrees with Monish that it was Kundan Lal who invented the latter day dalmakhani though he suspects that it emerged out of a desire to do a shahidal to go with the rich non-vegetarian food. Monish says it was even simpler. All Kundan Lal did was to take the black dal of his ancestors and to add his makhani sauce to it. After butter chicken came, his next invention was butter dal. (Think about it: chicken makhani, dalmakhani! Obviously the dishes were meant to be regarded as members of the same family.) I put this theory to Manjit Gill who is not only ITC?s corporate chef but is also extremely knowledgeable about the history of Indian cuisine. To my surprise, because hoteliers don?t like giving credit to each other, even Manjit conceded that the modern dalmakhani was invented by Moti Mahal. Till that version of the dal appeared, says Manjit, nobody thought of putting tomatoes into dal and no Punjabi home cook had ever mixed cream and black dal. I had an ulterior motive in speaking to Manjit. Though dalmakhani is now a menu standard, the dal that has found international fame is ITC?s own Dal Bukhara. Foreigners come from all over the world to eat Dal Bukhara and ITC makes a fortune from its packaged Dal Bukhara which is sold all over the world. So, is there a difference between dalmakhani and Dal Bukhara? Yes, there is.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[If the tandoori chicken and the butter chicken (and its European relative, the chicken tikka masala) are the most famous Indian dishes in the world never to be cooked in Indian home kitchens, then there must surely be a vegetarian candidate for the same category. I think I have found it: it is the black dal so beloved of Indian restaurants in India and everywhere else in the world. When it comes to black dal I have to come right out and say that it is entirely out of my area of experience. I am a Gujarati and Gujaratis, in common with the rest of India, think of dal as being vaguely yellow in colour. We never had black dal at home when I was growing up and as far as I recall, most restaurants in Bombay in the sixties and early seventies also did not serve any dish that resembles the black dal so ubiquitous on today?s restaurant menus. I always imagined that the dal makhani that we come across in restaurant menus is a Punjabi home dish. A little research suggests that I am not entirely wrong. But I am not right either. The key to dal makhani is the lentil itself, the humble urad, called black gram in English or masha in Sanskrit. Of the 60 dals that are in common use in India (moong, chana, rajma, arhar/tuver etc), urad is among the most ubiquitous and is found in many parts of the country including the south. But there are many kinds of urad. And one basic distinction is between whole urad and broken-up urad. My friend Gautam Anand, who is fast becoming a mainstay of this column, tells me that his mother remembers urad dal from Lahore in the pre-Partition era. But, the dal she remembers was not made with whole urad. She did not see this kind of lentil used in dal till she came across after the Partition. Gautam?s theory is that the Punjabis of east Punjab and of Lahore did not make a whole uraddal. This was the specialty of Punjabis in Peshawar. Dhabas (there were relatively few restaurants in those days) sold a black dal made with whole urad and served with a few rotis. When the Peshawaris came over after the Partition, they brought this dal with them. As many Peshawari Punjabis became restaurateurs, this was the dal they put on their menus.But even if you dispute the distinction between the two kinds of urad, what is clear is that pre-Partition Punjabis did not put tomatoes in their dal. If they needed a souring agent, they used yoghurt. Why is it then, that tomato puree is now regarded as an essential ingredient of black dal? Our story now veers (as does the story of the tandoori chicken) to Delhi?s Daryaganj where Kundan Lal Gujral, who had come over after Partition, had opened Moti Mahal and made tandoori meat cooking famous. I spoke to Monish Gujral, Kundan Lal?s grandson who now runs the Moti Mahal Delux chain. According to Monish, all of Kundan Lal?s great ideas emerged out of necessity. When he began worrying about his cooked chickens drying out, he searched for a sauce with which he could rehydrate them. His solution was the makhani or butter sauce that led to the creation of the butter chicken, made from bits of tandoori chicken that were in danger of drying out. Monish says that Kundan Lal then searched for a vegetarian option. Gautam maintains that in those days, uraddal was not considered a great banqueting dish. Chanadal was more respectable and in any case, caterers and restaurateurs were obsessed with so-called shahi dishes in which the gravy was enriched with cream. Gautam agrees with Monish that it was Kundan Lal who invented the latter day dalmakhani though he suspects that it emerged out of a desire to do a shahidal to go with the rich non-vegetarian food. Monish says it was even simpler. All Kundan Lal did was to take the black dal of his ancestors and to add his makhani sauce to it. After butter chicken came, his next invention was butter dal. (Think about it: chicken makhani, dalmakhani! Obviously the dishes were meant to be regarded as members of the same family.) I put this theory to Manjit Gill who is not only ITC?s corporate chef but is also extremely knowledgeable about the history of Indian cuisine. To my surprise, because hoteliers don?t like giving credit to each other, even Manjit conceded that the modern dalmakhani was invented by Moti Mahal. Till that version of the dal appeared, says Manjit, nobody thought of putting tomatoes into dal and no Punjabi home cook had ever mixed cream and black dal. I had an ulterior motive in speaking to Manjit. Though dalmakhani is now a menu standard, the dal that has found international fame is ITC?s own Dal Bukhara. Foreigners come from all over the world to eat Dal Bukhara and ITC makes a fortune from its packaged Dal Bukhara which is sold all over the world. So, is there a difference between dalmakhani and Dal Bukhara? Yes, there is.]]></media:text>
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      <title><![CDATA[Are you cheating on your partner?]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100314/1074/tod-are-you-cheating-on-your-partner.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:30:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Shilpa Sharma was happy. At 28, the petite interior designer had it all ? a three-year-strong marriage with Amit, a well-placed business professional, a job with a leading design firm and a two-storey house in Pune. But one evening, Amit returned home, red-eyed. He?d been having an affair with Shilpa?s best friend for almost a year, and couldn?t stand the guilt any longer. He had to tell Shilpa. ?My first reaction was sadness, pain,? says Shilpa. ?But that soon became intense hatred.? Six months of counselling later, the couple divorced. ?I knew it was never going to be the same again,? Shilpa says. ?I wanted out.? An affair to remember Infidelity, the act of being unfaithful to your partner, is more common than most of us think. If you?re unlucky, your exploits will be exposed and rip your marriage apart. (If you are Tiger Woods, they will receive saturation coverage all over the world and your spouse will hit you with a golf club.) Even if you decide to patch up your differences, you live with the scars for life. Experts say that if nature had its way, no one would be monogamous. ?Every human being is polygamous by nature,? says Dr Kamal Khurana, a New Delhi-based marriage and relationship counsellor. ?The concept of marriage was constructed to perpetuate the ideas of commitment and belonging.? The root cause of infidelity may be an imbalance in one of three needs ? emotional, social and physical. ?A mismatch in one or more of these needs may cause a person to seek them outside his or her marriage,? says Aditi Srivastava, CEO of merilife.org, a relationship counselling website. ?If a person cheats on his or her spouse, whether it?s a one-night stand or a long-term affair, it is important to remember that the root cause is in one of these three needs. Infidelity is just an outcome.? Emotional needs are the ?conversation? or the ?communication? part of a relationship. ?It is important for both partners to be able to share their thoughts and emotions freely,? says Srivastava. ?Lack of communication leads to frustration and can have disastrous results.? If you?re constantly wondering about things like: ?Can I take her out with my friends?? ?Will he be respectful to my relatives when he meets them??, it?s a sure sign of a mismatch in social needs. A person may look for someone else outside the marriage to compensate for a boring sex life. ?Creativity is a must in any relationship, even in sex,? says Dr Khurana. ?You must ensure that physical needs are being met.? People who have been happily married for years will tell you that the key to a good marriage is always adjustment. ?Sure, we have differences in the beginning, but I think that as a couple, it is your duty to work on those differences together to overcome them,? says Sameer Kumar Jha, a Delhi-based marketing professional who has been married to his childhood sweetheart, Anamika, for 12 years. But if the couple doesn?t work on their marriage, it could lead to infidelity. Isn?t infidelity extreme? ?That is subjective,? says Srivastava. ?For example, if your partner always interprets what you say in a completely different way, you will seek to fulfill your social needs somewhere else. You?re probably not even looking for someone to have an affair with, just someone to talk to. But one thing leads to another and suddenly, your partner is not part of your thought process anymore.? Stand by your (wo)man? Learning that your partner has been seeing someone else is a huge emotional blow. ?I would be lying if I said that the relationship is not damaged forever,? says Srivastava. ?There will always be scars.? The basic principle of any relationship is commitment. This calls for priority and concern and these cannot be one-sided. So having an affair outside your marriage automatically renders it null and void. ?It shakes trust, which is the pillar of any relationship,? Srivastava says. ?After my husband confessed, my head used to buzz with thoughts,? says Shilpa Sharma. ?I thought, ?What?s wrong with me? Am I not good enough for him that he had to look for someone else?? I nearly drove myself crazy!? This, says Srivastava, is common when something like that has happened. ?You get into a self-doubting mode,? she says. ?You not only blame your partner, you also blame yourself and stop respecting yourself.? However, she adds, it?s crucial remember that it is not you who are to blame. ?A compromise should not come at the cost of your self-esteem. Also, you should understand that there?s a fine line between pride and self-esteem,? she says. Mostly, the partner who cheats ends up feeling guilty about the affair. ?At that point,? says Dr Khurana, ?He or she should remember that honesty is the best policy. It is best to let your partner know what has happened rather than have him or her find out about it later from someone else.?]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[Shilpa Sharma was happy. At 28, the petite interior designer had it all ? a three-year-strong marriage with Amit, a well-placed business professional, a job with a leading design firm and a two-storey house in Pune. But one evening, Amit returned home, red-eyed. He?d been having an affair with Shilpa?s best friend for almost a year, and couldn?t stand the guilt any longer. He had to tell Shilpa. ?My first reaction was sadness, pain,? says Shilpa. ?But that soon became intense hatred.? Six months of counselling later, the couple divorced. ?I knew it was never going to be the same again,? Shilpa says. ?I wanted out.? An affair to remember Infidelity, the act of being unfaithful to your partner, is more common than most of us think. If you?re unlucky, your exploits will be exposed and rip your marriage apart. (If you are Tiger Woods, they will receive saturation coverage all over the world and your spouse will hit you with a golf club.) Even if you decide to patch up your differences, you live with the scars for life. Experts say that if nature had its way, no one would be monogamous. ?Every human being is polygamous by nature,? says Dr Kamal Khurana, a New Delhi-based marriage and relationship counsellor. ?The concept of marriage was constructed to perpetuate the ideas of commitment and belonging.? The root cause of infidelity may be an imbalance in one of three needs ? emotional, social and physical. ?A mismatch in one or more of these needs may cause a person to seek them outside his or her marriage,? says Aditi Srivastava, CEO of merilife.org, a relationship counselling website. ?If a person cheats on his or her spouse, whether it?s a one-night stand or a long-term affair, it is important to remember that the root cause is in one of these three needs. Infidelity is just an outcome.? Emotional needs are the ?conversation? or the ?communication? part of a relationship. ?It is important for both partners to be able to share their thoughts and emotions freely,? says Srivastava. ?Lack of communication leads to frustration and can have disastrous results.? If you?re constantly wondering about things like: ?Can I take her out with my friends?? ?Will he be respectful to my relatives when he meets them??, it?s a sure sign of a mismatch in social needs. A person may look for someone else outside the marriage to compensate for a boring sex life. ?Creativity is a must in any relationship, even in sex,? says Dr Khurana. ?You must ensure that physical needs are being met.? People who have been happily married for years will tell you that the key to a good marriage is always adjustment. ?Sure, we have differences in the beginning, but I think that as a couple, it is your duty to work on those differences together to overcome them,? says Sameer Kumar Jha, a Delhi-based marketing professional who has been married to his childhood sweetheart, Anamika, for 12 years. But if the couple doesn?t work on their marriage, it could lead to infidelity. Isn?t infidelity extreme? ?That is subjective,? says Srivastava. ?For example, if your partner always interprets what you say in a completely different way, you will seek to fulfill your social needs somewhere else. You?re probably not even looking for someone to have an affair with, just someone to talk to. But one thing leads to another and suddenly, your partner is not part of your thought process anymore.? Stand by your (wo)man? Learning that your partner has been seeing someone else is a huge emotional blow. ?I would be lying if I said that the relationship is not damaged forever,? says Srivastava. ?There will always be scars.? The basic principle of any relationship is commitment. This calls for priority and concern and these cannot be one-sided. So having an affair outside your marriage automatically renders it null and void. ?It shakes trust, which is the pillar of any relationship,? Srivastava says. ?After my husband confessed, my head used to buzz with thoughts,? says Shilpa Sharma. ?I thought, ?What?s wrong with me? Am I not good enough for him that he had to look for someone else?? I nearly drove myself crazy!? This, says Srivastava, is common when something like that has happened. ?You get into a self-doubting mode,? she says. ?You not only blame your partner, you also blame yourself and stop respecting yourself.? However, she adds, it?s crucial remember that it is not you who are to blame. ?A compromise should not come at the cost of your self-esteem. Also, you should understand that there?s a fine line between pride and self-esteem,? she says. Mostly, the partner who cheats ends up feeling guilty about the affair. ?At that point,? says Dr Khurana, ?He or she should remember that honesty is the best policy. It is best to let your partner know what has happened rather than have him or her find out about it later from someone else.?]]></media:text>
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      <title><![CDATA[The fall guy]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100314/1074/tod-the-fall-guy.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:55:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[The man: Felix Baumgartner. The mission: To jump from 23 miles above the earth?s surface in the longest freefall ever, and come back alive.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[The man: Felix Baumgartner. The mission: To jump from 23 miles above the earth?s surface in the longest freefall ever, and come back alive.]]></media:text>
      <media:credit role="publishing company">HT</media:credit>
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      <title><![CDATA[Oh, that jazz player]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100314/1074/tod-oh-that-jazz-player.html</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">/32/20100314/1074/tod-oh-that-jazz-player_1</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:45:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Soli Jehangir Sorabjee seems suitably jolly inside his Niti Bagh office in south Delhi. And why shouldn?t he be? At 80 years and two days, he is between two parties: one that was celebrated on the evening of March 9, his birthday, in Delhi, and another that his family and his friends are expecting this weekend in Mumbai. ?We Parsis have a wicked sense of humour. A few days ago I was thinking, ?I?m 80, I?m old, my friends are dying one by one?, when these Parsi friends of mine tell me, ?Soli, we?re all sitting in the departure lounge waiting for our plane,?? the former Attorney General of India says with an unbridled chuckle.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[Soli Jehangir Sorabjee seems suitably jolly inside his Niti Bagh office in south Delhi. And why shouldn?t he be? At 80 years and two days, he is between two parties: one that was celebrated on the evening of March 9, his birthday, in Delhi, and another that his family and his friends are expecting this weekend in Mumbai. ?We Parsis have a wicked sense of humour. A few days ago I was thinking, ?I?m 80, I?m old, my friends are dying one by one?, when these Parsi friends of mine tell me, ?Soli, we?re all sitting in the departure lounge waiting for our plane,?? the former Attorney General of India says with an unbridled chuckle.]]></media:text>
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      <title><![CDATA[Review: The Blind Date Cafe]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100313/1074/tod-review-the-blind-date-cafe.html</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">/32/20100313/1074/tod-review-the-blind-date-cafe_1</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:50:06 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Gautaman Bhaskaran Cast: Bharath, Partha, Ashwin, Ranga Prasad, Preethika, Mahima, Anupama and Richa.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[Gautaman Bhaskaran Cast: Bharath, Partha, Ashwin, Ranga Prasad, Preethika, Mahima, Anupama and Richa.]]></media:text>
      <media:credit role="publishing company">HT</media:credit>
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      <title><![CDATA[I can dance much better than Tendulkar]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100312/1074/tod-i-can-dance-much-better-than-tendulk.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:35:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[His performances in domestic cricket may have helped him get noticed by the selectors, but his Indian Premier League (IPL) outings for Mumbai Indians have helped him fetch stardom.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[His performances in domestic cricket may have helped him get noticed by the selectors, but his Indian Premier League (IPL) outings for Mumbai Indians have helped him fetch stardom.]]></media:text>
      <media:credit role="publishing company">HT</media:credit>
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      <title><![CDATA[Singing with a straight face]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100312/1074/tod-singing-with-a-straight-face.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:40:06 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[What is Alien Chutney?It?s supposed to be something you don?t quite understand, are almost insulted by, that you think is way too arbitrary to be successful, but at the same time, inherently Indian. So it?s very alien but its chutney! Does your music fit in any genre? No, not really. It?s funny, but it?s sophisticated music as well. Kaizad Gherda, who?s on the piano and my co-vocalist, and Kabir Singh, who does the digital bit, are serious musicians. We have house, techno and dance tracks, but my music space is bands like Tenacious D and Flight of the Conchords. How do you go about writing the lyrics for such a genre? (Straight faced) I consume some Brandy, pick up a guitar, and it all happens! I don?t really know how I write my jokes as well. Most of my comedy and songs come to me in the shower. So, I end up taking four-hour long showers. What are the songs like? We have songs about dating a Punjabi woman called My girlfriend is a hawaldar, songs about Punjabi men with man boobs called Paape, you are the dude if you have man boobs. And we have a song about sleeping with the sabziwali, where the lyrics go, Put your aloo in my jeera, wrap your tamaatars around my kheera, Baby let your masala flow and love this ladka, ?cuz you are my sexy sabziwali and I?m your tadka! Based on true stories? (Laughs) No, I?m more likely to be your sabziwali than sleep with one. So how did the band come about? I was the vocalist of a very bad rock band in college called Bad Attitude. If I had any common sense, I?d let the dream die. But I think all comedians are failed rockstars, in any case. I?ve been writing songs on my guitar for quite a while now, I just took my music to Kabir and the band happened. I know funny, they know music, and it?s a healthy marriage. How?d the first gig go? The first gig was part of our stand up comedy show called Weirdass Hamateur Night. We wanted to see how people would react to the experiment of putting in 45 mins of songs in a stand up comedy set. I thought I?d get massacred, but they loved it! And now, we are doing a gig a week. We even played at IIT Guwahati recently, and surprisingly, it went well there too. How serious are you about the band? Even though I don?t perform stand up for small crowds, I fully intend to earn our bones by performing in smaller venues like clubs. There?s an album coming out in September and in fact, the band?s also composing two songs in a movie I?m acting in, called Shaadi Of The Dead. I want to do a bit of everything, so I?ve two film releases, two books, a music album and playback singing, all happening. Yeah, I don?t sleep much!]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[What is Alien Chutney?It?s supposed to be something you don?t quite understand, are almost insulted by, that you think is way too arbitrary to be successful, but at the same time, inherently Indian. So it?s very alien but its chutney! Does your music fit in any genre? No, not really. It?s funny, but it?s sophisticated music as well. Kaizad Gherda, who?s on the piano and my co-vocalist, and Kabir Singh, who does the digital bit, are serious musicians. We have house, techno and dance tracks, but my music space is bands like Tenacious D and Flight of the Conchords. How do you go about writing the lyrics for such a genre? (Straight faced) I consume some Brandy, pick up a guitar, and it all happens! I don?t really know how I write my jokes as well. Most of my comedy and songs come to me in the shower. So, I end up taking four-hour long showers. What are the songs like? We have songs about dating a Punjabi woman called My girlfriend is a hawaldar, songs about Punjabi men with man boobs called Paape, you are the dude if you have man boobs. And we have a song about sleeping with the sabziwali, where the lyrics go, Put your aloo in my jeera, wrap your tamaatars around my kheera, Baby let your masala flow and love this ladka, ?cuz you are my sexy sabziwali and I?m your tadka! Based on true stories? (Laughs) No, I?m more likely to be your sabziwali than sleep with one. So how did the band come about? I was the vocalist of a very bad rock band in college called Bad Attitude. If I had any common sense, I?d let the dream die. But I think all comedians are failed rockstars, in any case. I?ve been writing songs on my guitar for quite a while now, I just took my music to Kabir and the band happened. I know funny, they know music, and it?s a healthy marriage. How?d the first gig go? The first gig was part of our stand up comedy show called Weirdass Hamateur Night. We wanted to see how people would react to the experiment of putting in 45 mins of songs in a stand up comedy set. I thought I?d get massacred, but they loved it! And now, we are doing a gig a week. We even played at IIT Guwahati recently, and surprisingly, it went well there too. How serious are you about the band? Even though I don?t perform stand up for small crowds, I fully intend to earn our bones by performing in smaller venues like clubs. There?s an album coming out in September and in fact, the band?s also composing two songs in a movie I?m acting in, called Shaadi Of The Dead. I want to do a bit of everything, so I?ve two film releases, two books, a music album and playback singing, all happening. Yeah, I don?t sleep much!]]></media:text>
      <media:credit role="publishing company">HT</media:credit>
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      <title><![CDATA[Book Review: Question]]></title>
      <link>http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20100308/1074/tod-book-review-question.html</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">/32/20100308/1074/tod-book-review-question_1</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:05:05 +0530</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Rarely has one man left such an indelible stamp on two worlds as Charles Saatchi has. He was one of advertising?s brighter copywriters. And, of course, he is the enfant terrible of the art world ? the man who can make or bake artists.]]></description>
      <media:text type="html"><![CDATA[Rarely has one man left such an indelible stamp on two worlds as Charles Saatchi has. He was one of advertising?s brighter copywriters. And, of course, he is the enfant terrible of the art world ? the man who can make or bake artists.]]></media:text>
      <media:credit role="publishing company">HT</media:credit>
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