The Jaago Re boy has graduated to films. Avantika Bhuyan looks at how theatre changed Anand Tiwari&rsquo;s life.

On centre stage

Business Standard

Diwali card parties are all about high glamour and even higher stakes.

Wild card parties

All you need is broadband and speakers to recreate the concert experience at home. Priyanka Joshi on the latest in live music.

Live on the laptop

There is often a conflict of interest between explicitly message-based &ldquo;propaganda&rdquo; films and dynamic, imaginative cinema. Movies made with the chief aim of educating or rousing an audience will understandably emphasise content at the expense of form. When the priority is to feed ideas to viewers (rather than create a nuanced work that is open to interpretation), a script can easily become clunky and over-expository and the camerawork might be no more than functional &mdash; there isn&rsquo;t much sense using techniques that might distract or be lost on viewers.

Artful propaganda

The Hyundai Eon is all set to take the game to the Maruti Suzuki Alto.

Small wonder

Out of power, their membership going down, the Left parties in India are in danger of becoming history - and its leaders are finally waking up to it.

Left in the lurch

Sure, everyone&rsquo;s gushing about Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. But there are other drivers no less talented, but in machines that aren&rsquo;t as competitive, that you must keep your eyes open for.

Know your  F1 drivers

When we go looking for Sonu Gujjar at a 6,000-strong rally in Kamla Nehru Park, Gurgaon, we expect to run into a firebrand leader belting out inspirational speeches to work up the gathering. There are union leaders who take turns at addressing the workers on the grounds but Gujjar is not one of them.

An unlikely leader

I am planning to buy an SUV within a budget of Rs 11 to 13 lakh.

Double oh!

Cricketer Jonty Rhodes has used his fitness secrets to devise a nutrition supplement that will hit the markets soon.

A fit business

I have done two long interviews with Shah Rukh Khan. The first was at his home Mannat where Mr Soundbyte Specialist said wonderfully inscrutable things like &ldquo;even in bed I&rsquo;m on stage&rdquo;, and the second was on a full moon night on a terrace in Goa where the Badshah was surrounded by his hosts &mdash; a luxury watch maker &mdash; giving back-to-back interviews to grateful journalists, while outside the heaving press of fans and onlookers strained at their leash.

Real life super hero

Besides Karma, Ruth, and Sonia, the tenants of 55 Tenison Road were mostly language students, and others were at Cambridge University. At different periods, they included a South Asian mathematician, a young Cambridge-area girl named Christine, a German fellow called Thilo Dilthey, and Hans Loeser, a German at the university who stayed for three months one summer. Loeser did not socialize with Sonia and Rajiv outside the house but he did observe that Sonia was quite active: &ldquo;Very often she was out of the house, she was not very sedentary&hellip;all of us were young and going out in the evenings.

'A fiery Italian temper'

Optimistic crowds cheer on as the first phase of the Bangalore metro is completed. However the traffic snarls and displacement caused by ongoing construction have created their own share of sceptics.

For that smooth ride home

Formula One drivers today follow a punishing fitness regime that concentrates largely on one part of their body: the neck.

Following Schumi's neck

London-based journalist Rani Singh discusses her book with Veenu Sandhu.

'She has mastered the art of silence'

Anyone who travels within India would know that retail prices of alcoholic beverages vary widely, as does the availability of brands. For example, you cannot find anything except a limited number of Indian spirit and beer brands in retail shops in Chennai (which resemble prison cells &mdash; what with extremely dingy setups and iron barred windows), whereas there&rsquo;s a world of beverages on display and for sale in cities like Bangalore or Mumbai.

Selling wines in India

Before the recitation of the chosen episode began, my father would raise the book to his forehead, touch it with eyes reverentially closed, and address a poetic distich to Hanuman&hellip;to come and take his seat here, &lsquo;for the Ramayana was about to be read&rsquo;,&rdquo; writes B N Goswamy in his preface to the seven cantos of the Ramayana published by Editions Diane de Selliers &mdash; perhaps the most ambitious illustrated project on the epic undertaken after Emperor Akbar commissioned the first translation in 1588 with 166 miniatures, and Rana Jagat Singh of Mewar followed it up with the first of similarly illustrated manuscripts.

Painting the Ramayana

Professor Aprad Elo invented his rating system to normalise results across eras to compare players, who never met. Unfortunately, that is not possible. There is inflation as the pool of rated players grows.

Chess (#977)

Find shopping tedious, don&rsquo;t have the time for it, or can&rsquo;t decide what to buy? Personal shoppers are just the thing for you.

Shop for a living

Brands are turning to specialised design firms to revamp packaging of their products to improve their appeal and ensure ease of use.

Packing a punch

Marketers are increasingly using the festive season to connect with consumers with clever marketing and promotional tactics.

Divine opportunity for brand connect

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