Gentlemen, start your tugboats

As annual New York competitions go, the Great North River Tugboat Race is, not surprisingly, a bit of a plodder. Organised by the Working Harbor Committee, the 25-year-old race is contested over the same mile of Hudson River, often by many of the same entrants, year after year, generally to little fanfare.

Last Sunday’s edition was just like many of the ones that came before it: not so much a race, complete with a bit of starting-line gamesmanship, but a showcase of hard-working, river-churning power and tradition. To those who hold the race dear, this is what matters, maybe even more than the trophy and the year’s worth of bragging rights that go to the winner. For the captains who ply New York harbor, the busiest harbor on the eastern seaboard, it is a chance to celebrate their river and their boats and a vital city industry that chugs along, rain or shine, in the shadows of skyscrapers.

An early start

Staten Island, dawn. Two white tugboats — the Susan Miller and the Catherine C. Miller — head out into the fog of New York harbor. The Millers are small: Susan’s horsepower is 1,200 and Catherine C.’s is 1,500 — about six times the power of a New York City bus — and named for the wife and aunt of the owner of the marine services company Miller’s Launch. Tugboating is often a family business.

It starts to rain. The Millers plow north toward the Hudson, and the start of the race.

The favourite wore red

“It’s like Nascar, brother! It’s Nascar tugboating!” proclaims Brian Fournier. A tugboat captain from Maine, and a Red Sox fan, Fournier has won this race seven times, but who’s counting. (Fournier is counting.) Today he’s coaching a younger captain at McAllister Towing — one of the oldest tugboat families in the country, started in New York in 1864 — and has reason for sounding confident. McAllister is unveiling a state-of-the-art 7,000 horsepower tug: The Captain Brian A McAllister. Low-slung, blood-red, intimidating. Fournier spells out their strategy: start quick, stay out of the wake of other boats, win. 

‘There is no strategy’

In the wheelhouse of the Susan Miller, its captain, Joe Ternila, has one hand on the throttle and the other on a spear of cauliflower (he missed breakfast). He’s also talking race strategy. “There’s no strategy,” Ternila says. “When they say ‘Go!,’ I put down the throttle.”

Jumping the gun

Thirteen tugboats gather off Pier 84, then parade upriver. The captain of the Catherine C. Miller shouts across the water to Ternila, aboard the Susan Miller.

“Wanna see the bow of the Catherine?” he yells. “Because in the race all you’re gonna see is the stern!”

Above Pier 99 the tugboats wheel and turn, forming a wobbly starting line. The rain stops. Over the radio, the official in the starting boat counts down: five minutes, one minute, 10 seconds. At the count of nine, one tug jumps the start. Another follows. It’s tugboat anarchy. The river churns and the tugs surge forward, faster and faster, their wakes flashing white as they race downriver.

One mile down

From the cliffs of Weehawken, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson, the tugboats do not appear so fast. They slide slowly from left to right in front of a foggy Manhattan skyline grandstand.

The Capt. Brian A. McAllister, despite being one of the only tugs that didn’t jump the start, surges past the other boats over the one-mile course and crosses the finish line first. The W.O. Decker, operated by the South Street Seaport Museum — and the last surviving wooden New York tugboat — comes in a dignified last.

A playful postgame

After the race, the tugboats face off. They push, bow to bow, to see who’s stronger. This is what tugboats were made for. They look like sumo wrestlers, if sumo wrestlers were hundred-ton tugboats belching smoke and kicking up water. Or maybe square-dancers, because after each “dance” the tugs move on to a new partner (some pairings are better matched than others).
 

© 2017 The New York Times

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Gentlemen, start your tugboats

Daddy movie review: Arjun Rampal propels this Arun Gawli biopic

Ask any actor of some worth. It is not easy to play a known living character. Audiences and the character that you are playing, plus their close associates, judge the performance with scrutinised harshness and normally find it wanting.

Not this time. Not Arun Gawli. Not Arjun Rampal, who has shaped into one of Hindi cinema's most dependable actors who does his roles with such smooth efficiency and such noiseless excellence that we are liable to miss the point.

Don't make the mistake of confusing Arjun's laidback wisdom in portraying the gangster-philanthropist-parliamentarian-convict Arun Gawli as a Devganesque laziness. This is a power-packed implosive performance. Rampal plays Gawli as a time bomb waiting to explode. There are no extra toppings, fringe benefits, perks or bonuses to this performance.

Rampal plays it straight. Director Ashim Ahluwalia gives the actor no room to stretch out his character's inner world. Fleeting looks and fugitive gestures add up to making Rampal's Gawli one of the most comprehensive projections of guilty gangsterism in recent times.

Comparisons are not called-for. But I can't help compare Rampal's Gawli with Shah Rukh Khan's Raees. The two sagas of Robin Hoods with furious FIRs on their wanted heads, bear many similarities. Except that Shah Ruh could never enter his gangster character's world.

Arjun goes right in. He is the only recognisable face (provided his physical and emotional transformation leaves any room for recognition) in the vast cast of what I suspect to be several real-life anti-socials. Cannily, the director builds the quirks around killings and feuds of criminal clans through actors who surrender to their characters with a brutal velocity.

Watch out for Rajesh Shringapure as Gawli's accomplice Rama and Farhan Akhtar playing Dawood as so cool, you may confuse the jungle for the greenery. There is a brilliant conniving female character Rani (played with smouldering slyness by Shruti Bapna) who uses sex as an ATM machine. Rani tells part of Gawli's stories. Other people associated with his life tell the rest.

The editors piece together the saga with layered urgency. This is not an easy story to tell or for us to comprehend. There is no room here for any actor, least of all Rampal, to strut with guns and appear even remotely macho. If you are looking for a stylish take on gangsterism, look elsewhere.

Besides its technical excellence, the biggest achievement of Daddy is its portrayal of violence as swift, repugnant and utterly ugly. The shootouts and here I would like to commend action director Shyam Kaushal, are brutal, terse and to the point. The killers do their business with swift professionalism leaving no room for self-congratulatory paeans to violence that Tarantino, Coppola and nearer home, Mukul Anand and Mani Ratnam have specialized in.

In one notably savage attack, a petty gangster infiltrates a jail cell and pounds an inmate to a pulp after shooting him. What we see is the gut-churning fury of violence in all the graphic sequences of gangrenous gang wars where we hear every bone crunch with the wince-inducing impact of a blow delivered in our popcorn-munching faces.

For me, the real hero of Daddy, besides Rampal (and some, not all, of his co-actors) is the sound editor Sangik Basu followed by the cinematographer Jessica Lee Agne aided by Pankaj Kumar who bring to the frames a sinking feeling of an unwashed blood-soaked doom.

The narrative spares no smiles and laughter in portraying Gawli as a reluctant gangster forced to pull the trigger against his better judgment. There are smirks galore, though. I've yet to see a film that has more characters displaying sneering contempt for their adversaries. If there are five characters on screen, each one is doing something that will drive the plot forward.

In one brilliantly conceived shootout, the policeman Vijaykar (Nishikant Kamat, unrecognisable) ceaselessly on Gawli's trail, interrogates Gawli's mother (veteran Usha Naik).

"Does he owe you money? Why are you after his life?" she mumbles.

Strain hard to listen. The sounds of death, violence, corruption and decay are omniscient in this saga of a man who would rather be a messiah. The problem here is there are so many characters colonising Gawli's perverse kingdom played by actors who don't act, and the unsparing editing (Deepa Bhatia, Navnita Sen Dutta) that won't let the audience breathe in the toxic fumes of fury for long. Consequently, many of the dark disturbing characters are lost to us.

So here's what we do: watch the film very very closely. It is a difficult but finally hugely rewarding experience. The performances are so minutely non-bravura that the characters are so into their world of self-destruction that we are left looking in without ever being allowed to be part of the design of doom.

See the film, maybe twice over to get the nuances. See it for the austere unflinching portrayal of violence. For sounds and visuals that do not afford us the luxury of aesthetic gratification. And most of all, for Arjun Rampal's powerful performance that creeps up on us without warning.

I would call it a tour de force but for the abject absence of flamboyance in the presentation.

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Daddy movie review: Arjun Rampal propels this Arun Gawli biopic

Watch: Elon Musk before he was a billionaire

Take a peek into Elon Musk's early life and first ventures, reports TechInAsia

Take a peek into Elon Musk’s early life and first ventures…

First Published: Fri, September 08 2017. 14:30 IST

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Watch: Elon Musk before he was a billionaire

Building a business on the back of billion pound projects

THE MINISTRY of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and F1 teams including Renault and Red Bull are helping Woodstock-based property and construction consultancy Ridge expand. Building a business on the back of billion pound projects

Accountancy specialising in start-ups expands with new office

SPECIALIST small business accountancy firm Inca has opened a second office in Henley. And bosses have revealed plans to launch six more offices across the county and Berkshire by 2024. Accountancy specialising in start-ups expands with new office

Rise above this muck: Sona Mohapatra writes open letter to Kangana

In an open letter to Kangana Ranaut, singer Sona Mohapatra said she hopes the actor would take a higher moral ground and not make a mockery of her personal life anymore.

The 41-year-old musician's comments come after the "Queen" star's recent appearance on TV talk show "Aap Ki Adalat", where she said that actor Hrithik Roshan should apologise to her publicly for causing her trauma after their alleged relationship ended.

In the letter posted on Facebook, Sona wrote she has always supported Kangana "in private and in public" even before she turned a superstar.

She, however, added, "... But your current run across the airwaves regurgitating personal details of your love life over and over again, washing dirty linen in public and more so as part of a professional PR campaign before your film release is in bad taste."

Kangana will be next seen in Hansal Mehta-directed "Simran", which releases on September 15.

The singer also called out the actor as her current actions are doing "a big disservice" to feminism and fair play.

"Wish you would rise above this muck and make your point through actions and your work. Your success doesn't need this tabloid trail. Your well-thought out and superbly worded open letters of the past, fearless interviews addressing larger issues, taking a stand, taking legal recourse are welcome. The current 'circus', not," she continued.

Sona also said she believed there are many feminists who belong to the opposite gender and asked Kangana to recognise their contribution as well.

Read the full letter: 

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Rise above this muck: Sona Mohapatra writes open letter to Kangana

Conformity in China's schools

LITTLE SOLDIERS

American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve

Lenora Chu

Harper/HarperCollins Publishers

347 pages; $27.99

China is such a vast, contradictory land that the most illuminating books often explore it through an intense focus on a single topic: The aviation industry, the one-child policy, the lives of migrant factory workers. Education is a particularly transparent window, as demonstrated by the perceptive Little Soldiers, which turns over cultural rocks from bribery to the urban-rural divide while delving into the nation’s school system, deeply rooted as it is in both ancient Confucianism and Communist dogma. As Lenora Chu notes, in China, “countless individual decisions, big and small, are made in the name of education.”

Anyone will understand the country better after reading this book, the heart of which is Chu’s experience of enrolling her three-year-old son in an elite Shanghai preschool. She and her husband, the NPR correspondent Rob Schmitz, work hard to get Rainey admitted, but from his first day they start to have second thoughts. They fear that their son is being brainwashed into being a good little soldier, a loyal Chinese patriot, and are sure that the school employs methods that rankle American sensibilities, including hard-edged coercion; public competition, with posted rankings of everything from height and haemoglobin level to recorder skills, punctuality and politeness; and even threats of calling the police if a child doesn’t take a nap.

Their toddler comes home singing songs in praise of Chairman Mao, has a friend attending “early MBA” classes and tells them that his teacher forces him to eat eggs by holding his mouth shut. These warning signs are balanced by his rapidly developing self-sufficiency, sense of discipline, math and Chinese skills. He’s also learning to navigate a complex, obstacle-filled world. In China, there is almost always a “work-around” to strict rules, and Rainey starts wordlessly figuring this out, much to Chu’s delight.

The author befriends two high-achieving Shanghai high school students, one meticulously working the system and the other counting the days until she can abandon it in favour of an American university. Along with an array of international education experts, they serve as insightful commentators as Chu pulls back to examine the broader system, including a more typical Shanghai public school and poor migrant students stumbling toward the zhongkao high school entrance exam, which can determine whether a student will follow an academic or blue-collar path. Chu follows a migrant worker from a rural province who has lived apart from her husband and son for years. Working as a masseuse in Shanghai, she has dedicated her life to improving her child’s lot, only to realise that, raised without parental guidance, he lacks the study skills necessary to launch himself onto another track. It is one of several heartbreaking tales the book could have explored more deeply. The overlooked students get less attention than do the strivers in Little Soldiers, as in life.

Chu recalls her own teenage rebellion growing up in Texas with Chinese immigrant parents who demanded excellence and expected to largely control her decisions. A Freudian could have a field day with her decision to enroll her own son in the strict Chinese system, but Chu understands that she is striving to replicate her own jumble of Chinese and American education and culture, with the parental and institutional roles reversed. She writes, “It was as if I looked into Teacher Chen’s eyes … and immediately recognised my father’s intentions (sometimes misguided but always well-meaning).”

After immersing herself in the Chinese education structure, she visits American schools and quickly recognises that while the Chinese system is designed to weed out and filter students, in America the express goal is “No child left behind.” The American schools feel impossibly soft, with an overemphasis on individual desires that allows weaker areas to wither. This is especially so in the teaching of math, with so much focus on applicable knowledge that concepts are taught in a shallow fashion, while Chinese students memorise what they have to, then explore deeper, more complex applications. Chu vividly sketches these differences in terms that will make readers ponder what they actually think about rote memorisation and parents question their preferences for their own children.
 

© 2017 The New York Times News Service

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Stress caused by financial hardship may up migraine risk: Study

Stress caused by financial hardship can increase the risk of developing migraine in people with a particular gene, a study has found.

A migraine is a serious and debilitating neurological disease affecting 1 billion people worldwide.

Researchers, including those from Semmelweis University in Hungary, checked about 2349 patients, for two variants of the CLOCK gene, and how these are associated with a migraine.

The CLOCK gene is a gene associated with the sleep-wake cycle — also known as the circadian rhythm — that make chronic stress-triggered migraines more common.

It has an important role in regulating many rhythmic patterns of the body, including body temperature or level of cortisol, the primary stress hormone, researchers said.

They found that there was no significant direct connection between the gene and migraine, but when they factored in stress (financial stress, measured by a financial questionnaire), they noted that the investigated gene variants increased the odds of having migraine type headaches in those subjects who suffered from financial hardship by around 20 per cent.

The team looked at functional single nucleotide polymorphisms within the CLOCK gene that are able to influence how much protein is transcribed from the gene.

Since this protein controls the body clock machinery these variants may impair processes that can prevent a migraine in the face of stress.

The study does not show what causes a migraine but it does show that both stress and genetics have an effect. We were able to show that stress - represented by financial hardship - led to an increase in a migraine in those who have a particular gene variant," said Daniel Baksa, from Semmelweis University.

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Stress caused by financial hardship may up migraine risk: Study

Meet Abhishek Patel, who ferried a bomb on his shoulder to save 400 kids

In a decade of service as a policeman, 32-year-old Abhishek Patel has held a blemish-free record. His actions were worthy but indistinguishable. 

As a head constable posted at the Surkhi police station, 200 km from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, he mans the First Response Vehicle that rushes to all “Dial 100” emergencies. But on the afternoon of August 25, Patel decided to defy orders. His act of valour against all sane advice is now getting him global recognition.

It was a usual day in the life of a policeman when Patel got a call from a school 8 km away. The caller had discovered some sort of ammunition that he was unable to identify. Patel was aware of an army cantonment in the vicinity and knew he had to rush.

Upon reaching the backyard of the school, he saw that the curiosity around the object had manifested into a live extravaganza. Patel stepped in to clear the crowd. His prompt action over the course of the next few minutes would save lives of hundreds.

The object was a live shell, a potential bomb without a ticker that could lay there for days or explode the next second. Patel cleared the crowd, made a call to the control room asking for a bomb squad while he evacuated the area. His training had taught him that the blast radius of the shell was half a km. That could ravage the school and much of the populated neighbourhood. But the answer from the control room left him stupefied.

Patel was told that the bomb dispatch could take anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour, and his orders were to evacuate as much of the area as possible. They were two policemen to tackle a bomb. At stake were the lives of 400 schoolchildren and hundreds of villagers. 

As the policemen started evacuating the school and the area around, Patel reckoned there was no time to take all the people to safety. Within the next few seconds, Patel was seen sprinting away from the inhabitance, ferrying the 10 kg bomb on his shoulder.

“I acted on pure instinct, I had no time to think,” he says. “The clock was ticking in my head and I couldn’t stop thinking ‘What if…’ I couldn’t leave it to fate.”

While his fellow policeman tried to guide more people to safety, Patel kept running towards the open fields on the other side for a good 15 minutes, till he reached a spot where the chances of people around being minuscule. The fear was overpowering. His training had also taught him that exposure to sunlight and motion could trigger the blast, but it never got the best of him. After surveying the area, Patel slowly placed the explosive on the ground. Breathless, he took control of his pounding heart, gathered his remaining energy and ran back to save himself.

“I was scared to death. But it was about risking one life as opposed to risking hundreds. I know I did the right thing,” he says.

Patel, who understands English but responds in Hindi in the most unostentatious manner, has been sought by international publications to relive his story of raw bravery. Acknowledging the sum of Rs 50,000 given to him by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, Patel says it’s a dream that doesn’t seem to end.

Asked about the reaction of his family, he says, “They are relieved — and proud.” The father of two remembers how his wife was hysterical when she met him later. 

“Didn’t the faces of your children flash in front of your eyes before you picked up that bomb?” she had asked him. To which Patel had replied, “It is when I looked at the faces of hundreds of children in the school that I decided to do it.”

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Meet Abhishek Patel, who ferried a bomb on his shoulder to save 400 kids

Hyundai Verna Generation-V can give its competitors a run for their money

The fifth generation Verna is loaded with some great features, writes Joshua David Luther

The newly-launched fifth generation Hyundai Verna gets a touch of everything in the right quantities — technology, comfort, convenience, luxury, space and performance.    The moment I got my hands on this good looking sedan, I felt that it could give the likes of the Maruti Suzuki Ciaz and the Honda City a run for their money. The new avatar of the Verna is loaded to the brim with some great features. It’s been built on Hyundai’s K2 platform and looks very sophisticated. Hyundai’s cascade grille design and stretched projector headlamps add a ...

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First Published: Sat, September 02 2017. 00:16 IST

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Hyundai Verna Generation-V can give its competitors a run for their money

Maria Sharapova, a momentary underdog, is hunting wins again

Maria Sharapova had us going for a few days there, didn’t she? On Monday night, she returned to the United States Open, her first Grand Slam tournament after a 15-month suspension for doping, and the crowd welcomed her as if it had missed her. It roared as she scrapped through three sets against the No. 2 seed, Simona Halep, and it roared some more when she fell to her knees in tears after winning.

The show of emotion made sense. In her biography, “Unstoppable,” to be released in two weeks, Sharapova says she once thought “the whole world was against me” because of the doping scandal. On Monday, right there in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the Open’s grandest stage, she realised it was not.

Maybe that flash of vulnerability was enough to get you rooting for Sharapova, an unlikely underdog often considered more aloof than adorable in the earlier portion of her career, which included five Grand Slam singles titles, including one at the 2006 Open.

But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe you, like at least one top player here, think she doesn’t deserve the star treatment coming off a doping ban. Maybe you, like another top player, don’t think she should have gotten a wild card into the main draw at all.

And maybe the result of Wednesday’s match got you thinking something different altogether. There were no tears and no high drama. Sharapova went back to work, beating 66th-ranked Timea Babos of Hungary, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-1.

So much for that heart-tugging underdog narrative. Some of the top-seeded players — including not only Halep but also No. 5 Caroline Wozniacki, No. 6 Angelique Kerber and No. 7 Johanna Konta — have lost already. Serena Williams isn’t even here. So in a matter of 72 hours, Sharapova the underdog is suddenly an unexpected favourite, and one with an easy road to the semifinals.

That label is making some people uneasy.

With all of her doping baggage, would Sharapova be the Open’s first choice as the face of the tournament heading into its second week? Probably not. But Williams is out, pregnant with her first child, and some of the biggest hitters have fallen early. Several top men, including Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, never arrived, citing injuries. So Sharapova is the kind of big name the tournament needs. Some of her competitors, however, could do without her.

CoCo Vandeweghe this week said that she didn’t agree with Sharapova’s wild card, arguing it should have gone to an American instead. Earlier this year, Agnieszka Radwanska said that Sharapova shouldn’t get any free passes, that she should work her way back into the sport “beginning with smaller events.” Eugenie Bouchard was more blunt: She called Sharapova a cheat and said she should be barred from the sport.

Like it or not, though, it looks as if Sharapova might keep winning; she won’t play a top-10 player until the semifinals, and she has said she feels as if she’s getting better. Get ready, Sofia Kenin. You’re up next. “I think the way that I played Monday night,” Sharapova said, “I don’t think there are any more questions.”

Oh, but there are questions. And doubts. And scepticism over what exactly unfolded with her doping case. Sharapova could be so far inside her bubble that she doesn’t see that. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to see that.

Still, the cloud over Sharapova is part of the reason French Open officials stiff-armed her potential return at their tournament. Those officials wanted to make a statement about doping, and make it clear that they would not show leniency for someone who broke the rules, whether she did it on purpose or not.

This week’s results are not Sharapova’s first break, however. After she tested positive for the banned drug meldonium at the Australian Open in 2016, she received a two-year ban, but eventually had it reduced to 15 months because her violation was ruled “unintentional.”

It was much too long a ban for a case with so many gray areas anyway, especially for an athlete who admitted to taking the drug after January 1, when it became banned, and not a few days before, which would have cleared her.

Yet she did admit she had been taking the drug since she was 18, to overcome a list of ailments so long that it makes one wonder how she ever became the world’s top player in the first place. It would have been more plausible if Sharapova had just said she was taking the drug for 10 years because it gave her an athletic edge. But then, regardless of her family medical history, she couldn’t say that, and it’s too late for alternative excuses now.
 

© 2017 The New York Times

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Maria Sharapova, a momentary underdog, is hunting wins again

The innovation that changed fashion forever

What makes fashion modern? Is it the fabric? The cut? The way it tells you all you need to know about the wearer? I began thinking about this question last year when Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design and architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, recruited me to contribute to “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” The exhibition, which opens on October 1, is only the second the museum has devoted to fashion, following a 1944 predecessor put on by the maverick architect Bernard Rudofsky.

As a prelude to the exhibit, I participated in a day of short talks on sartorial themes — an “abecedarium,” Antonelli called it—with 26 presentations made in alphabetical order. For the letter A, for instance, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield discussed the birth of the Air Max; for C, former Costume Institute curator Harold Koda detailed the history of the cheongsam, the body-hugging Chinese dress.

I had the honour of discussing Z, for zipper. Today the zipper is ubiquitous. On, say, the nylon Prada backpack to be featured at MoMA, it’s almost too mundane to merit comment. On the Schott Perfecto motorcycle jacket, also included in the exhibition, it transcends its original functionality to become a design element in its own right. And on a few of the little black dresses in the museum, the zipper has become a synonym for domestic intimacy: How many times has a fellow helped his wife with one before heading to dinner, its teeth inter­locking as the pull runs up her spine?

The zipper is an American product, Chicago-born. In 1893, Whitcomb Judson, an Illinois inventor, introduced his patented “Clasp Locker or Unlocker for Shoes” at the World’s Fair. Judson’s product was a clumsy, crude device, a glorified hook-and-eye mechanism. In 1913 a Judson employee named Gideon Sundback patented the “Hookless Fastener No. 2” and put us on the road to progress. No button, lacing, or snap had ever brought human flesh into such close proximity with machines and the efficiencies they metallically embody.

This fashionable innovation, however, was slow to catch on. A world where the corset was common did not rush to welcome an expensive novelty that promised swift disrobing. But it was slowly integrated into money belts, wardrobes, slipcovers, sleeping bags, pencil cases, tobacco pouches, and handbags. The word “zipper” itself was coined by rubber company B F Goodrich in 1923, as an onomatopoetic trademark for its galoshes and sports shoes. A typical Goodrich ad promised to make a lad a champion: “Beat all the boys undressing when you go swimming!”

In the 1930s, young men rejected button-fly trousers as fuddy-duddy, and, as the zipper finally normalised, Judson’s company — renamed Talon — had factories operating in 24-hour production mode, even during the Depression.

Today the zipper market is a $13 billion industry dominated, as everyone in possession of a windbreaker knows, by Japan’s YKK Group, a company that secured its reputation by embracing vertical integration: It makes the metal for its zippers and the boxes those zippers are delivered in. In 2015 the company opened a London showroom for its higher-end wares — the type fit for a luxury handbag — in an effort to outflank Chinese competitors now delivering respectable goods at a fast-fashion pace.

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The innovation that changed fashion forever

Chocolate makers are using single-origin cacao beans to bring flavour alive

At Earth Loaf Artisan and Raw Chocolate’s factory in Mysuru, one can find the finest, organically-certified cacao beans sourced from Varanashi Farms in Karnataka being transformed into artisanal chocolates. 

Incorporating local herbs, spices and fruits, the founders, David Belo and Angelika Anangnostou, create single-origin, bean-to-bar chocolates such as mango, red capsicum and chilli chocolate, and coconut, ginger and gondhoraj bars. Together with other craft chocolate makers such as Mason & Co, Regal Chocolates and Indah Chocolate, the duo is at the forefront of the niche bean-to-bar movement in the country. 

While a majority of chocolate makers buy blocks of pre-made chocolate from bulk suppliers such as Morde to create their confections, artisanal chocolate makers work directly with farmers to source the right kind of beans and make their products from scratch. This gives them control over the entire process: sorting, roasting, cracking, winnowing, grinding, fermenting, tempering. 

Regal, which has plantations across 220 acres in the foothills of the Annamalai range, has taken this movement further by becoming India’s first tree-to-bar chocolate maker. 

“While in bean-to-bar, people get beans from someone else’s plantation, we breed our own trees,” says Karthikeyan Palaniswamy, who, along with his brother-in-law Manoj, came up with the baking bars, Regal, last year and the edible bars, Soklet, in February this year. 

Making chocolate from scratch completely transforms its taste. Usually, chocolate companies buy huge batches of cocoa from hundreds and thousands of farms from across the world. This cocoa then goes through the process of alkalisation to homogenise flavour and darken colour, as a result of which the finer nuances inherent to each farm’s beans are lost. 

“In artisanal chocolate, we are able to bring out the characteristics of the unique terroir in which the bean is grown,” says Luvin Paryani, founder, Indah Chocolate, which is based out of Wagholi, Pune, in Maharashtra. 

It is for this reason that these chocolates are produced in small batches. At both Earth Loaf and Auroville-based Mason & Co, it is believed that this process helps preserve the purity and quality of beans.

As Belo said in a previous article: “Every single batch has a human interaction… Every single batch is different because the weather dictates that. It is a living product which reflects the movement of nature.” 

Mason & Co also creates limited edition chocolates for festivals, while the boxes and wrapping at Earth Loaf are silk-screen printed by hand in Mysuru. 

The price starts at Rs 99 for a 40 gm bar and goes up to Rs 335, sometimes higher.

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Chocolate makers are using single-origin cacao beans to bring flavour alive

A Swiss sojourn may start at Alpines but its real charm lies in Interlaken

The setting sun casts a peachy glow on the snow-capped mountains as the lone parasailer soars up for the day’s last sortie. “They say you can see the Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger from up there,” says the old man sitting next to me on a bench in the Hohematte. A lifelong hiking enthusiast, he’s never tried parasailing, he says. “I don’t think I’ve missed much though,” he says. “Perhaps it is because in Interlaken, I feel that heaven is not only above, but all around you.”

“He has a point, I muse as I look around me. Interlaken is located along not one, but two stunning lakes — Brienz and Thun. It is the gateway to the Bernese Alps, with over 45 mountain railways, cable cars, chair lifts and ski lifts to ferry skiers and hikers to over 200 km of pistes and a dense network of walking trails. Having just spent several days hiking, I’m content to take his word for it for the time being. Over a cup of coffee, I watch the world go by the Hoheweg, the flower-lined boulevard of boutiques and restaurants that stretches from Interlaken West to Interlaken East. 

The Grand Geissbach Hotel | Photos: Gaurav Sharma

 It takes some superlative cheese fondue and a good night’s sleep to get my aching calves out of bed the next morning. We’ve planned to spend the day cruising along Lake Brienz to further rest our over-worked muscles. The boat sets sail, giving us the chance to see how locals enjoy their weekends here. They’re out in full force with their picnic baskets, kayaks and soccer balls. Wherever there’s a little strip of beach, people are sunbathing. Ahead, we espy a mysterious chalet nestled in a densely forested mountain. Next to it, there’s a magnificent waterfall. It’s the historic Hotel Giessbach, known for fabulous views and mountain walks. \

Interlaken’s main street | Photos: Gaurav Sharma

Moreover, it is home to the oldest operational funicular in Switzerland. The hotel terrace is pleasantly shaded with some of the most enchanting views of the Brienz. We order a selection of their sirops infused with alpine herbs and settle down to a long lunch. 

Having spent the day on Lake Brienz, we decide to spend the evening on Lake Thun. Youths are playing soccer on its grassy banks even as early diners throng the lakeside restaurant. Music wafts across the water from a distant café.

It seems inconceivable that a place so serene could hold any dark secrets, but it is said that in the early 2000s, Lake Thun’s meagre fish population displayed severe deformities and genetic anomalies. Perhaps it is because after World War II, thousands of tonnes of unused munitions were supposedly dumped into it. The situation seems to have improved since then but I know what I’m definitely not ordering for dinner tonight. 
 

Locals picnicking by Lake Thun | Photos: Gaurav Sharma

Interlaken’s hiking and skiing opportunities, we discover during the next few days, are unparalleled. Of course one can go to its most famous attraction, Jungfraujoch, but there are several others closer home that are as scenic. The Harderkulm to the north and the Schynige Platte to the south of Interlaken are easily accessed by train and offer some incredibly scenic vistas. 

The useful Swiss Pass (it’s really the only way to enjoy a Swiss sojourn without breaking the bank) either includes most of these trips or ensures a heavily discounted rate. However, at the fag end of a longish trip to Switzerland, we’re fairly “alped out,” so as to speak. 

Instead, we go for long walks, picnic in meadows, find waterfalls to bathe in and sample the country’s ample culinary bounty— and discover this is pretty much what locals do in summer. So while their high mountain tops are full of tourists, mostly Japanese and Indian, locals spend their weekends on Interlaken’s less obvious charms.

Leisure activities in the lake | Photos: Gaurav Sharma

All too soon, it’s time for the final amble down the Hoheweg. Tourists pass by in a horse-drawn carriage, pointing at the many kiosks advertising parasailing and other strenuous pastimes. 

I give them all wide berth, making for the same bench I’d found on our first evening in Interlaken. The Jungfrau gleams in the distance and I muse that it is the serenity of Interlaken I’ll remember, long after the aches and pains of our alpine hiking have subsided.

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A Swiss sojourn may start at Alpines but its real charm lies in Interlaken

The real-life reality show that jumped the shark

In 1989, if you didn’t know where your girlfriend was, chances are you had to just go find her, with something analog like your legs. Fast-forward through a dozen improvements on fast-forwarding technology into the future present, barely a generation later: It’s 2019 and 30-something Hazel, the protagonist of Alissa Nutting’s (pictured) smart, rivetting novel Made for Love, has a chip in her brain.

Hazel’s husband, Byron Gogol — a tech impresario/overlord who mashes up Bill Gates’s pioneering genius, Steve Jobs’s visionary particularity and Jeff Bezos’ ruthless drive to subjugate all minds through objects — installed the chip in her head without her knowledge. Not only does he know where she is at all times; each day he downloads the previous 24 hours of her life. No thought or act can be hidden from him, forcing Hazel’s experience of the present into a brilliant pantomime of the curated self. She’s a hostage to the all-too-recognisable work of imagining each moment packaged as the past, viewed from the future: thinking in broadcast. After 10 years as the captive, increasingly unwilling test subject in the development of her husband’s increasingly invasive technological innovations, Hazel runs away to hide in a trailer park for senior citizens.

Made for Love
Author: Alissa Nutting
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Pages: 310
Price: $26.99

The book begins, and races along, as an antic thriller, through a circus’s worth of set pieces (sex dolls, lawn flamingoes, motorised wheelchairs, bestiality with dolphins), but throughout and underneath this supersaturated masquerade Hazel tells the darkest, baldest, saddest truths. Her aphoristic, hyperanalytical, deftly extemporaneous takes on love, intention, sex, childhood and gadgets are a pleasure to read and always hit their mark; they are also the interesting and entirely believable productions of a character whose self-awareness far outstrips her self-determination. She is, of course, also aware of this: “Nothing was worse for one’s emotional comfort than scrupulous observance,” she remarks.

Like the best episodes of Black Mirror, Made for Love provokes the disturbing realisation that we are, more or less, already living in the time portrayed as a couple of steps beyond too much. The continual effort to distinguish between the real and the fake has become a hallmark of this time; when Byron says to Hazel, “You’re real, and I can prove it by searching for you on the internet,” Hazel responds, “I am having a different reality from the internet’s reality.” That’s as sound a description of the modern era as one is likely to come by in contemporary literary fiction.

If a novel’s mandate is to bottle and exhibit the zeitgeist through character in a way that is, well, novel, Nutting, the author of Tampa, goes for it, all out, a la David Foster Wallace, and romanticises nothing, a la David Foster Wallace: not marriage, not love, not family, not sex, especially not technology — and definitely not finding one’s way in the world, since many people, she realises, don’t. Hazel is rudderless, ordinary, passive; all the more impressive, then, is Nutting’s creation of a compelling, wholly sympathetic character from such a beige moral blob.

Porpoising in and out of Hazel’s story is the tragicomic tale of Jasper, an individual as motorised as Hazel is defunct. Jasper uses his Aryan-Jesusy looks and meticulously cultivated sexual skills to con women out of large sums of money, until his sexual orientation is forcibly rewired from human/female to dolphin/any. As Hazel tries to escape her spouse and Jasper tries to fix himself, the entire pageant of the here and now is called up for inspection. What is the surveillance state? How did we all come to be living so completely inside it, so fast, and without our consent? How is life happening in the mind, through perceptions, thoughts, the incessant synthesising of experiential data that defines consciousness, and also happening in the body, which is always needing and always dying? How can a regular overstimulated and underactualised person survive in this reality show that has so clearly jumped the shark?

Made for Love crackles and satisfies by all its own weird rules, subversively inventing delight where none should exist. How can a book be so bright, and so dark?

---

© 2017 The New York Times

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The real-life reality show that jumped the shark

Shubh Mangal Saavdhan review: Nothing dysfunctional in this laugh riot

It's okay if you can't get it up.

There. I said it. It's taken Hindi cinema years and years to be liberated from the shackles of libidinous machismo. An actor called Ayushmann Khurrana has done. He plays an ordinary guy with a routine problem with such conviction.

Ayushmann's Mudit in Shubh Mangal Saavdhan suffers from performance anxiety whenever he tries to make out with his bride-to-be, played with spunk and spontaneity by Bhumi Pednekar who is rapidly emerging as the voice of the mofussil woman.

In many ways, Bhumi is the hero of this remarkable film that's eventually bogged down by too many stereotypical characters associated with the small-town joint families.You know them, quirky, cantankerous, eccentric, whimsical but cute and honest.

Bhumi's Sugandha is one of the most sharply-written female heroes in recent films. Sugandha is deeply middle-class and proud of it. She resolves to marry the sexually dysfunctional (albeit temporarily so, but who knows!) Mudit not out of any false sense of bravado but because... well, this is the best she can get. And he is so goddamned devoted.

Once she makes up her mind to go with Mudit she will see her resolve to its logical (?) conclusion.

Screenwriter Hitesh Kewalya finds space in the cluttered canvas to give the couple breathing, if not breeding, space. Their first (aborted) sexual encounter in a cramped MIG flat in Delhi with sounds of songs and everyday conversation seeping subtly into their activity is done in a lengthy flurry of furious foreplay signifying nothing. It's a sequence filled with clumsy groping and slurply smooching played out with endearing honesty.

Another brilliantly written sequence of foiled passion has Sugandha trying to seduce Mudit at a picnic with a plunging neckline and groaning tips from an orgiastic song that goes Come to me, Danny Boy.

Danny Boy's reactions of smothered frustration are priceless. Though the script constructs a case for the girl's bourgeois heroism (if you can't have cake have the crumbs) for me the real hero of the film is Ayushmann Khurana's Mudit. A man who loses his 'manhood' but holds on to his dignity even as the entire family scoffs at his condition, and emerges a hero in the most unforeseen ways.

Ayushmann expresses Mudit's erectile disenchantment with just a whisper of a look, a hint of despair... subtle sly and chic, this is an Everyman played with reined-in vigour and unostentatious valour. Though his character suffers from performance anxiety this is performance supremely devoid of any anxiety. Lamentably the script crowds Mudit's dignified anxieties with sniggering friends and scoffing relatives.

I wish the couple had been left alone by the screenplay to sort out their mutual problem. By bringing the entire family from both the sides into the picture to thresh out the problem on hand, the film ironically mocks the very malady that it so sensitively puts forward. Some of Ayushmann's scenes with his father and his future father-in-law with both the patriarchs trying to bully him out of his temporary dysfunction, are way too high-pitched and clamorous. It's like shooting down an injured birth with a canon.

The Big Indian wedding and the activities surrounding it have for some time now been a source of great colour vibrancy and irony in our cinema. But the wedding festivities have now become a cliche. We need to move on now.

Shubh Mangal Saavdhan serves a dish that's provocative and tongue-in-cheek. Director RS Prasanna steers the situations away from cheesiness even when a doctor tells Mudit: "You are making a big thing out of a small thing," and Mudit replies: "That's exactly what I am not able to do."

Ayushmann says such loaded lines and dips glucose biscuits into hot tea to explain his poignant plight to his wife-to be, with heartbreaking earnestness.

This is a brave and bright film with its heart in the right place and its gaze refreshingly free of a gender bias fixed firmly at the crotch level.

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Shubh Mangal Saavdhan review: Nothing dysfunctional in this laugh riot