Happiness unlimited

Happiness unlimited
Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj

How do we accumulate happiness? A tough task but not an impossible one. It is said that a person with a happy, healthy mind is the one who is happiest, because in this state of mind he remains calm and truly happy.

The main reason for our unhappiness is when we fall below the line of self-respect. The lower we sink beneath our self respect, the more miserable we become, slipping into a state of denial, thinking that it is normal not to be happy. However, our focus should not be on constant happiness, but it on how we can begin to achieve a happy and healthy mind.
A wiser person is the one who, instead of trying to make big leaps in life, just tries to move from one lamppost to the next. By doing so he experiences significant changes that take place and enlighten him from within. One must always learn to live in the present and try to connect with what is around us. This simple method will give us a heightened state of awareness.
The more aware we are, the more we can stay on top of things. Seeing benefit in everything helps us stay on top when the world is down below. Positive vision is an great way to bring happiness to the world. Try to cultivate positive vision in life and keep accumulating happiness.

Dessert with breakfast cuts cravings, helps shed weight

A STUDY SAYS DIETERS HAVE LESS HUNGER AND CRAVINGS AND ARE BETTER ABLE TO KEEP OFF LOST WEIGHT

WASHINGTON: Adding a cookie or cake to their daily breakfast diet may help dieters keep the pounds off.
A new study has found that dieters have less hunger and cravings throughout the day and are better able to keep off lost weight if they eat a carbohydrate-rich, protein-packed breakfast that includes dessert.

“The goal of a weight loss diet should be not only weight reduction but also reduction of hunger and cravings, thus helping prevent weight regain,” said Daniela Jakubowicz, MD, the study’s principal investigator.
Jakubowicz, a senior physician at Tel Aviv University’s Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, and her coauthors studied nearly 200 nondiabetic obese adults who were randomly assigned to eat one of two low-calorie diets.

FACTORS THAT CONSPIRE TO KEEP US FAT

A study by The British Nutrition Foundation has identified over 100 reasons responsible for making weight-loss so difficult The ‘fat factors’ have been divided into seven groups — social, psychological, eating and drinking, physical activity, our environment, physiology, and TV, computers and magazines. Examples:
Having the wrong sort of friends. While they may be good fun, they could also be encouraging us to eat the wrong things or tease us when we speak about wanting to exercise or join a gym.
Snacking when bored and treating food as something as reward when things go well. These fall into the category of psychological pressures.

Gulping down food can mean that we eat too much before the body's satiety signals kick in.
Using TV remote controls can make our lifestyle particularly sedentary.
People are bombarded by TV adverts for unhealthy foods and many of us don’t even take adequate sleep.
Driving short distances rather than walking.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Prashant Patil <prashantpatil1555@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 8:01 PM
Subject: मराठी युवा // World Peace through correct diet
To: marathiyuva <marathiyuva@gmail.com>, marathiyuva@googlegroups.com

World Peace through correct diet

Peace is a positive process.
Its inner import is infinitely richer than mere war-less-ness
Just as we have been waging wars since the dawn of history now we must learn to wage peace.
Splengler, after the First World War, and Toynbee, after the second, have convincingly shown us through their monumental study of world cultures that western civilization has become increasingly decadent and has neared its complete collapse.

The Sun has certainly risen up in the East and India is evidently in the lead. This, however, is a Call for greater responsibility and not just a point of pride.
I do not subscribe to the view that Civilization is divisible, either racially or hemispheric ally. For Civilization itself there are no Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern quarters, and directions.
Civilization is one and indivisible.
If western civilization has neared a collapse, the eastern, too, has certainly shared in its decaying process.
We cannot afford to forget the fact that Man is Indivisible, and, therefore, his civilization could not be otherwise.
In this shrunken world of today, we must learn to overcome the sense of all l imitative frontiers, cultural, national and geographical.
Civilization tends to decay and collapse when they become separative and exclusive, imperialistic and arrogant.
War is a lengthened shadow of the inner conflicts of Man.
Peace is a removal of inner conflicts. It, however, does not mean that Peace is a total blank.
True Peace is a vibrant, dynamic state of self conscious. Being-Becoming, at once creative, meditative and activist.
We have strayed away from the path of a Peace since the advent of the vast-scale industrialization.
Man is thinned out into an empty nothing; today he is merely existing as a screw in the mighty machine of his own creation, and of his own total destruction. His self-identity has ceased to exist as a significant and operative force.
Thermonuclear weapons are the inevitable end result of our lunatic search for power of destruction - power and yet more power to scrape out our neighboring nations. What a monstrous travesty of Jeaus's teaching - Love thy neighbor?
Incalculable power from the heart of atom - but power for what? To extinguish the whole human family?
Freedom from slavery and subordination - but freedom for what? freedom for spiritual decay, moral degradation, and physical self destruction.
Today, our paranoiac tendencies could be unmistakably identified and ascertained.
We seem to be working out the compulsions necessitated by some strange suicide complex, latent in the unconscious of the Homo sapient.
Our minds need to be completely re-orientated.
Our thinking has to be re-conditioned.
Before we learn to do anything better we must learn to think better.
What Albert Schweitzer names as 'elemental thinking' is the science and art, to be cultivated by each one, and all of us. The content of elemental thinking is four fold.
Man's relation to the universe, the meaning of life, the nature of goodness and a feeling of Reverence for life.
Albert Schweitzer is one of the world's greatest living men of today. Indeed, he may be the greatest, according to quite a few thinkers and observers, in the west.
He has denied himself the dazzling glories of several careers as a philosopher, as an organist as a theologian, as a musicologist, as an author.
In my brief interview with him at Bonn in Germany when he was there on a Lecture - Music tour, he gave a message for we and for all to whom I may happen to carry it - ''Watch your thoughts. Let them be the nearest to life itself. Modern science have abstracted themselves from life but they will return to it, eventually.''
Another Immorted, Albert Einstein emphasized the same idea in a different key. He told me at his home in Princeton in March to 1953, ''To change our minds, we must contact righty type, higher type of minds and they are so very, very few contact alone can improve the quality of our mind. Right kind of books, could also change our thoughts. Your problem of world peace is indeed the problem of different kind of books, could also change our thoughts. Your problem of world peace is indeed the problem of different kind of thinking. I had to leave the League of Nations. I could not find any sincerity; either.''
The concept of Viveka, in India Philosophy, as the major key to the Sadhana of self-realization, brings out in relief why thinking is such an essential activity in re-conditioning human life for higher attainments.
Viveka is discrimination, detecting the true from the false, the substance from the shadow.
''The principle of soul alone transcends the temporal process and therefore it is truly eternal. Everything other than the soul, the whoe visible world of objects, is therefore, evanscent and untrue. To realize this truth with absolute certainly is the nature and function of Viveka.''
Shankaracharya has explained the concept of Viveka in this lucid manner, in his magnificient treatise on ''Direct Experience or the Absoulte' अपरोक्ष अनुभूति.
The Elemental thinking, the Viveka, is a feature and function of the whole of man's being and personality. The cerebral movement alone is not enough, we must learn - to think with our blood and bones.
Integral thinking could be possible if only our body and being are cleansed of all the gross elements. When we are simple and pure we can think right and straight; we can discriminate. Viveka will start its activity and establish us in Peace and poise.
Body is the base of our being of which the crest is the thinking activity purify the base and the crest will shine in radiant purity.
And what is body but Food transformed into organic substance. Pure food will give us a pure body and pure body will be the right conditioning for Viveka or elemental thinking.
The root of the whole matter is correct food.
The great Sant - Kumar a philosopher of the chhandogya has both stated and solved the whole problem in just two words - आहारशुद्धौ सत्वशुद्धी: ।
'Purity of food will spell the purity of soul.''
To achieve world peace we must purify our minds and thoughts and to do this, purer foods are a basic necessity.

II

Dr. A.K. Bhagwat realized the truth of this Logic of world peace, thirty-five years ago.
He dedicated himself to the cause of better food for better thinking, the moment he perceived the sequences between food and peace. He has vigorously participated in the freedom struggle of India. He has bee a steady follower of Mahatama Gandhi whose faith in food as a thought conditioner is universally known.
For the last twenty-five years I have seen and known Dr. Bhagwat always absorbed in food research Mahatmaji had placed him in charge of the Nature Cure Center at Uruli Kanchan, a village near Poona for this very purpose.
In the first world war he worked as a medical assistant in the Indian army and had occasions to travel abroad.
He is a valiant soldier of the spirit. He has chosen to worship God, in the name and form of the Indian villager. Like Gandhiji, Dr. Bhagwat lives as a villager.
On 22nd July, 1956 the Guru-Paurnima Day, a day on which, all over India spiritual aspirants offer annual homage and worship to their Guru Dr. Bhagwat is re-dedicating himself to the cause of world peace through purer food.
His devotion to Mahatma Gandhi and to Vinoba Bhave has been his mighty asset. He has been working in tune with their teaching and his success has really been remarkable.
His main emphasis on what he calls ''efficient economy'' an economy which secures and material. He has formulated a theory of social evolution is terms of a great Vedic Hymn called Purusha-Sookta. He deplores waste, in every form and names our civilization of growing standards, as a world-wide waste-paper basket.
Let us all join our hands with Dr. Bhagwat, a most devoted servant of God in the form of Man.
- D. G. Vinod

ॐ ॐ ॐ

You may be stepping on ancient art Gets a glimpse of a collection of rugs and carpets that will bring Persia to Bangalore in an auction to be held on Monday

You may be stepping on ancient art

Gets a glimpse of a collection of rugs and carpets that will bring Persia to Bangalore in an auction to be held on Monday

The assumption is always that old carpets, rugs and tapestry end up being either fed on by moths or in some dusty unwanted stack. To rescue them from this inevitable cliché of decay, Bid & Hammer (B&H) has organised a first-of-its-kind auction in Bangalore on Monday. The auction will see 120 such ‘antiques’ go under the hammer. And while estimates for the pieces from Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey start from Rs15,000 and go up to Rs12 lakh, many expect the auction to collect much more. As many as 99 of the items being auctioned are from the collection of corporate honcho Danny Mehra, who says he’s had a hard time deciding on which ones of his some hundred “babies” he should let go off. “I lived in the US for 26 years and would be a regular at auctions organised by firms like Bonhams and Le Ambassadeurs. I have bought most of my stuff from them.”   Art historian Seema Bhalla who was at a preview of the lots said, “Finally we have a chance to spread awareness among people about what real carpets are. Too many people confuse factory-made floor-covers for carpets. How can assembly line products match loving, hand-woven expressions of art?” Bhalla adds that even though carpets and rugs have found admirers in the West, Central Asia and Persia have always been the cradle of carpet weaving. “These would not only be used on floors and to sleep on, but also to line the walls of the tents by tribal nomads who were trying to protect themselves from the weather outside. The arrival of Islam helped bring in a religious element to the works as demand for prayers rugs grew,” she explains. “Traditional weavers,” she goes on to add, “were usually women who gathered to share stories as worked their looms. Their desires and aspirations find expression in their patterns. Unlike the latter day masculinist designs when men brought symbols of power and war to their work, the designs by women talk of conservation and nurture.” She cites the example of a Kurd rug from 1910. “Despite the desert conditions around her, this woman must have hoped for a life of abundance for her children. The tree of life emblem with the greenery clearly shows what she dreamt of.” The costliest article on offer is a Safavid dynasty imperial court 14ft x 9 ft carpet. Dating back to 1650, it is finely handspun in Himlayan silk and inscribed with animal, palmette and cloudband designs. “This one is from the Rockfeller collection in the US and its pair — known as the Emperor’s carpet — is now with the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst at Vienna, which acquired it for Rs2.75 crores. Both these are considered the greatest of all Oriental carpets,” explains B & H CMD Maher Dadha. Gaj Singh II, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, knows a thing or two about royalty and emperors. The member of B&H’s advisory panel says, “I am very keen to learn how collectors respond to this specialist auction. Efforts like these can go a long way in developing Indian auctions above and beyond paintings.” Enquiries have already begun pouring in from all over the world. “The response from royal families in the Persian Gulf is particularly amazing. Whether UAE, Kuwait or Qatar there seems to be a growing realisation about the value of these rugs and carpets as symbols of Islamic culture,” reveals Dadha’s son Ankush, who is handling the many enquiries.

Of readers and their rights

Of readers and their rights

For some of us who work from home, Facebook is the sort of space that gives us the feeling that we don’t. It’s like the office canteen: we go there to see who is ‘wearing’ what today; we smile at how pretentious our colleagues are; and we flaunt our flashy new phones, pens, cars, cats and children’s first prizes. It’s the 15-minutes-in-the-sun that Andy Warhol promised us — outside of TV. And every now and then, things of beauty and innate value pop up on Facebook. For stay-at-home moms like me (and non-moms as well) it’s a window into magic which happens elsewhere in the world of art and technology. Thanks to Facebook shares, I’ve seen lots of lovely films, art, craft, writing – and cakes! One of the nicest finds recently has been a 20-year-old book called The Rights Of A Reader by Daniel Pennac. A friend shared a link to a hilarious promotional poster of the book drawn by Quentin Blake. The title was intriguing. Whoever heard of rights for readers? I ordered the book to find out. A writer of children’s books, Pennac is also a parent and a teacher. And The Rights… grew from his experience of trying to inspire a bunch of not-so-bright teenagers to read. Pennac examines three fundamental issues: how much small children love hearing stories; how wonderful it is when they discover they can put letters together and actually read; and how between parents and schools, we push kids away from books in the years that follow. Pennac’s tip for getting kids — of all ages — to read is simple: read to them. If you are a reader, chances are someone read to you when you were small. This is instinctive with most parents. Present reading to the child as an engaging activity that you love, and the child will grow to love it too. I know this is true because my mom patiently read to me till the day I took the book out of her hands. There are habits that foster reading — we all evolve these instinctively for ourselves as readers. Pennac calls these ‘reader’s rights’. It’s just that when we become parents and teachers, we forget them. Readers, for instance, have the right to skip pages. We all do this, but not many of us like our kids doing so. Also, readers have the right to not read and the right to read anything – anywhere. Even comics while sitting on the pot. There are many parental habits vis-à-vis reading that Pennac disapproves of. Monitoring children’s reading is one, as is the need to test kids and ask them to ‘describe’ what they just read. I’m guilty of both. Because I want to be a part of her life, I often ask my daughter what happened in the book she just read. She’s not always keen to answer, probably because as Pennac observes, ‘Reading is a retreat into silence… it is about sharing, but a deferred and fiercely selective kind of sharing’. I love her reading Horrid Henry, Judy Moody and Junie B Jones. I never insist on ‘the classics’ or even Enid Blyton. But she wants to read Harry Potter — which her father and I think is too emotionally sophisticated for her. Growing up, our parents never ‘curated’ our reading. I find it odd that we should so instinctively want to control hers. I read James Hadley Chase, Nick Carter, Sidney Sheldon alongside the classics — one kind of book only sharpening my appreciation of the other. To some of us reading is a special kind of oxygen. We need it. Others don’t. As parents and educators, our job is simply to enable kids to read. Whether they read later or not is their choice. As Pennac reminds us, while it’s fine for a child to grow up and reject reading, ‘it’s totally unacceptable for someone to feel that they have been rejected by reading’. Wise words indeed!

How to desperately seek a husband Sejal Sahni, a 33-year-old, unmarried British NRI, talks about her six months navigating the Indian marriage market, through newspaper ads, Shaadi.com and kundlis

How to desperately seek a husband

Tejaswi Mangale, a 36-year-old, unmarried British NRI, talks about her six months navigating the Indian marriage market, through newspaper ads, Shaadi.com and kundlis

Tejaswi Mangale was, by most measures, a very successful 33-year-old woman. This British NRI had a well-earning job in equity brokerage and a loving circle offamily and friends. But she wasn’t married, which automatically disqualifies her — in the eyes of most concerned Indian parents — as either successful or happy.

“I never felt the need to get married,” Mangale says, sipping her coffee. She is a beautiful woman with long hair and a ready laugh. “My parents gave me the usual lines about ‘saare acche ladke chale jayege’”. They probably couldn’t have guessed what came next: Mangale’s friend, a documentary filmmaker, approached her with a proposition: that they collaborate to film her as she searches for a husband in India. For six months, Mangale would try every approach in the Indian guidebook to marriage — she put an ad in the newspaper, she made a Shaadi.com profile, she was set up by friends and grandparents in Rajasthan, and she had her kundli matched with strangers. “My parents were shocked, to say the least,” she says carefully.

The documentary, titled Desperately Seeking Husband, is now in post-production, and plans are on to broadcast it on British TV’s Channel Four. The question, however, is how does one’s rather personal quest to find a life-partner, sync with the creative and narrative process of making a film? Is the quest really to find a husband? “I would have been very happy, of course, if I found someone with whom I had a connection,” Mangale explains. “But the point was that using me as a case study, the film would explore the changing — and unchanged — approaches to marriage and monogamy in India.” One of the people Mangale met with was Gopa Bharadwaj, a psychology professor at Delhi University. “Gopa told me that college girls feel pressure to maintain a sort of collegiate social status with a boyfriend,” says Mangale.

Mangale’s visit to a friend’s family in Jaipur unsettled many preconceptions for her. “The women in this family didn’t work out of choice. The men were very supportive of their choices, and one of the women did in fact work with her husband’s business, but the other women chose to stay at home. They were all well-educated and just happened to also be homemakers.” The grandmother of the family took Mangale under her wing — “very kindly, considering I was without any family members,” says Mangale — and introduced her to a family friend. Mangale had a meeting with the family first, where she was grilled by his grandmother. “She asked me blunt questions — could I cook, could I take care of the house and would I be able to adjust with the other family members,” says Mangale. “But at the same time, this grandmother was pragmatic. She spoke approvingly of the trend of youngsters finding their own partners, saying half-jokingly that at least the ‘parents would not be to blame’ if the couple wasn’t compatible.”

Mangale was — horror of astrological horrors — declared to be a ‘manglik’. This automatically disqualified her from marrying anyone who wasn’t a manglik like her. She went on a series of blind dates in Delhi and Mumbai, set up by friends and friends-of-friends. “I was being followed by a camera most of the time, and the camera was set up on every date, coffee and dinner I went for,” she says.“Some guys were uncomfortable with it, but for the most part it was surprising how a camera can actually aid people in opening up. If nothing else, after sometime they forget it’s there.” Mangale went on a blind date with a “ridiculously rich” man, that didn’t end well: “he was trailed the whole time by four bodyguards! He spoke incessantly of his money,” she remembers with a frown. “Then he kept calling me for days. It wassad, he was obviously very lonely.” Another set-up with an advertising professional was surprising in the man’s candour as to what he expected from a wife. “Originally from Patna, this guy told me bluntly that his professional life came first for him, and he wanted someone who would understand these pressures.”

Has Mangale ever been accused of having ‘too high expectations’? “Oh, all the time,”she says. “But I’m okay with my expectations. They’re high and that’s the way I like them. I don’t intend on compromising.” So Mangale’s hunt — and that of every other Indian girl’s worried parents

Minding the four-letter word

Minding the four-letter word

It’s a problem that has changed little in complexion downthe generations. How should parents deal with children using swear words at home? And if kids don’t swear at home, should parents be okay with their kids swearing outside? Who sets the limits and — the biggest problem — what are the limits? “Kids should never speak bad language in front of their parents,” says Queenie Singh, jewellery designer and mother of two teenagers, Tiara and Rajveer. “There are limits to the kind of language my kids can use in the house — mainly limits of decorum and decency. I consider their saying ‘shut up’ in the house as rude. Or ‘Don’t be stupid’.” “When I was growing up, I didn’t know that the word ‘f***’even existed,” exclaims choreographer Sharmilla Khanna, mother of a teenaged daughter, Shaan. “Given that times have changed so much, I wouldn’t stop Shaan from saying ‘damn’ and ‘stupid’, which were once considered taboo, even in front of me.” Sharmilla adds that what she considers really offensive is when her daughter says ‘Just chill mom’ because it suggests that she as a motherdoesn’t know anything. “When my daughter was in the 10th grade, she did pick up an offensive word that she used, and I had to correct her. Even when she’s talking on the phone with her friends, I don’t permit her to use four-letter words,” she says. But how do parents react when kids do swear in front of them? “I did hear one of my daughters utter a word once that was on our blacklist, and I had to explain to her that it was shocking to say something like that even if she’d picked it up from an adult,” says businesswoman and entrepreneur Gayatri Ruia, “I told them that one doesn’t need to use bad language to express themselves and that neither her father nor I use bad language. I also had to give them a logical explanation about why some adults use bad language.” Jewellery designer Poonam Soni, however, finds the issue more complicated. “I was watching Rowdy Rathore the other day and freaked out with all the blood, gore and abusive language in the film. Kids are exposed to so many influences, and bad language is all over films and television. Parents are in a dilemma over setting the parameters.” Businesswoman Reena Wadhwa says that her children Karan, 21, and Nikita ,19, have been given the space to use racy language when they’re with their friends. “Though four letter words are unacceptable in my house, we can’t really afford to overreact if something not-too-harmful is inadvertently used in our presence. Our reaction would be guarded in that case. They have to respect us and not go over-the-top with slang in our presence,” she says.

HE’S GOT THE LOOK A rehearsal for the male beauty pageant Mr Navi Mumbai held last month reveals the hopes, aspirations and blunders of some boys-next-door,

HE’S GOT THE LOOK

A rehearsal for the male beauty pageant Mr Navi Mumbai held last month reveals the hopes, aspirations and blunders of some boys-next-door,

When I walk into the rehearsal hall for the Mr Navi Mumbai pageant, I immediately walk out again. “I’m looking for the beauty contestants,” I ask a confused security guard. Just then, a turbaned man, who turned out to be Manmeet, one of the pageant organisers, jogs out from the room I had exited. “You’re just in time,” he says. We walk back in together. The large room is empty except for a few foldable metal chairs scattered next to a coffee machine, and a table with a battered-looking laptop on it. Lounging around the room are the fourteen finalists for the Mr Navi Mumbai pageant, the first of its kind to be held in the suburb. “The personality development class is about to begin,” says Shelly, Manmeet’s sister and a co-organiser, pulling me towards the chairs. “I’ll introduce you to the boys.” The beauty of normalcy The contestants arrange themselves in a semi-circle around us. As I see them gathered around, I am forced to admit the real reason I walked out of the rehearsal hall: nobody looks like a beauty pageant contestant: they all look so…normal. Where are the comically-ballooned biceps? Where are the chiseled jaws and the quizzical squints of manufactured intensity? The nervous-looking boys in front of me run the gamut in terms of looks: one is a bespectacled, paunchy type who looks like he’s come straight from engineering college. A few have gelled their hair into spikes. Another has popped the collar of his jacket, obscuring the entire lower half of his face. The instructor, who also runs an English language learning centre, looks battle-hardened. “Let’s start with the introduction round.” The first one up is the curly-haired pubescent, Vineet, who turns out to be all of 18. “I am Vineet from Ghatkopar. I like…um,” he stops. A contestant sitting across from him giggles and nudges his neighbour, earning a “shh!” from the instructor. “I like footballing and cricketing,” Vineet continues, earning another high-pitched giggle from the earlier offender. “Boys! No laughing,” barks the instructor. “Vineet, you like ‘football’ and ‘cricket’.” Vineet hangs his head. “Okay everybody, clap for Vineet!” The room applauds half-heartedly. Next up is Abhijeet, he of the hugely-popped collar. “My fashion — sorry, I mean passion — is modelling and my fashion — sorry, passion — is also Mumbai,” he blurts out, sitting down quickly. “Okay, everybody clap for Abhijeet!” says the instructor. The pageant is four days away, but Manmeet isn’t worried. “We are still training them,” he says with a big smile. “We will get them makeovers, and then you see them!” It’s the turn of the contestant who has been snickering incessantly. There is a hostile silence as he stands up. He is short, dark-complexioned, has a large nose and a grin that splits his face in half. His confidence is palpable, and loud: “Wha-DAPPPPPP Mumbai!” he bellows. The contestants around him jump back in fright. “I am Sufiyan, from the city of dreams, Mumbai. I like the workout and keeping fit! It’s great to see all you people here!” With a huge grin, he flops back down. “Sufiyan, what energy!” says the instructor happily. “Everybody, clap!” Of questions and set-ups Now itis time for the question-answer round. “Here’s a common question: some people say it’s a man’s world. What do you think?” asks the instructor. Everybody shakes their head vigorously. One of them, in a fit of inspiration, points at me. “Look, women are journalists now. They can do anything!” This advocate for women’s right to ‘do anything’turns out to be Prateish from Vashi, a rugged-looking, headband-wearing model who used to work for Kingfisher. “My parents didn’t like me being a model,” he admits. “But now they’re proud. I mean, today a model earns more than a doctor!” It’s time for ramp-walk practice. Sparsha, a tiny Goan girl who once won six pageants in a single year, jumps into action with surprising authority. She clicks the laptop: Flo Rida’s voice booms out. “Okay, boys, walk!” she shouts over the music. The contestants start walking towards us one at a time. They all do some sort of ‘move’ at the end: Vineet break-dances, Prateish sticks his thumbs down his waistband and glares, and Sufiyan trails a finger down his chest. Sparsha breaks down the contestants with professional bluntness. “Sufiyan has Roadies written all over him. This guy,” she points to a somewhat-athletic-looking contestant, “he can do print but no ramp or TV. Doesn’t have the face for it.” One contestant, who has been shooting me looks since I came in, pulls me aside and says that “he’ll talk” on the condition of anonymity. I am intrigued by this glimpse into the murky side of a Navi Mumbai male beauty pageant, and agree. “It’s a set-up,”he says ominously. “Daal mein kuchh kaala hai. They’ve decided who’s going to win.” They’ve been favouring him —” he points at a tall man — “he’s really experienced and stuff.” (For all you conspiracy theorists, the same tall guy won the pageant four days later.) As the day winds down, a serious-faced Sufiyan details his financial issues for me. “I was very poor,” he says. “Pitaji had some financial problems. Some bad people…anyway. We used to live in a chawl. We borrowed a lot of money. I am looking for a job. But I would like it if I got famous and made a lot of money.” ‘Famous’ is a buzzword for Sufiyan. “I want to be, you know, famous,” he says, waving his arms. “Everywhere, people should know me. Like Salman bhai. I will be famous, this is my only plan.” Does he want to be an actor? “Yes, a famous actor!” he replies. “First this pageant, then Bollywood!”

Friendship, one tweet at a time Decodes the unique dynamics of friendships born and sustained on Twitter

Friendship, one tweet at a time

Decodes the unique dynamics of friendships born and sustained on Twitter

Harish Iyengaar is your regular MBA student, whose passions include music and writing. He’s also an avid ‘social networker’, or tweeter. ‘Scaryhairyman’ (as he’s known on Twitter) has nearly 500 followers on the micro-blogging site. One of them is Divya Gangaramani, whom he interacts with every day, but has never met. How does this friendship work? “In my opinion, making friends on twitter is a blessing. You meet people who you never expect to meet and they understand your life views. I find this a very intellectual way of socialising,” says Harish. As Divya (known as ‘ThePappadWoman’ on Twitter) says, “It was Harish’s music tastes that prompted me to follow him. Before we knew it, we were talking about everything.” Harish says it was “Mumbai, misery and music” that got him and Divya talking. They have ‘friended’ each other on Facebook and also chat on WhatsApp. For some, Twitter is a way of expressing themselves to like-minded people, while for others, it’s a place to escape everyday monotony. Nidhi Thakur works as a client executive in a Mumbai-based PR company. But that’s not how nearly 3,000 people on Twitter know her. On Twitter, she is known as Mrs Chulbul Pandey or ‘ChhotaRecharge’ (her handle). “I like Twitter because it’s about friendships by choice,” says Nidhi. “There are no compulsions, no formalities — you can unfollow people if things go haywire.” Sometimes, meeting your online friend for real can often leave you with a bad taste. As was the case with Nidhi. “I met this girl who was known for her attractive pictures on Twitter. But when I saw her, I couldn’t recognise her until she came up to me,” she says. She recounts another incident where she met this boy who sounded interesting on Twitter, but was quite the opposite in person. “In one hour, we spoke for just ten minutes.” Furthermore, the guy in question tweeted about their meeting and said he had an ‘awesome’ time, baffling Nidhi even more. One wonders what legitimacy these friendships have when trust issues are pertinent online. “We're aware that people we meet online might be different in real life, but we continue because of this psychological need to connect with like-minded people,” says Harish. After having known each other for over a year, Harish and Divya now plan to meet. Divya is more excited than anxious, and Harish is confident and rules out any possibility of apprehensions. “I love surprises and don’t really have great expectations for the first meeting. Makes it more interesting that way,” he says with a wink.

The ex factor

The ex factor
 
Findings from a Canadian study report that ex-lovers affect new relationships, preventing them from flourishing and damage their very foundation. The study, spearheaded by author Stephanie Speilmann of the University of Toronto, was conducted in three waves over six months, with 123 men and women reporting at each phase their current relationship quality, emotional attachment to ex-partners, and perceived quality of relationship alternatives. It revealed that as a person’s current romance became less satisfying, desire turned more strongly to lovers from the past. Also, increased longing for an ex predicted a decline in a person’s current relationship quality.