In the 1990s, a rather tacky serial made its appearance on Indian television, prime time Sunday. It was called Chandrakanta. And though it claimed to be an adaptation of Devkinandan Khatri&rsquo;s path-breaking novel in Hindi &mdash; the first work of prose in the language &mdash; by the same name, it didn&rsquo;t quite follow the riveting text of the original. The serial was stopped midway because it ran into financial trouble and the only reason why, in fact, you may remember it is because it introduced its young viewers &mdash; till then brought up on a steady diet of Star Trek or Tolkien &mdash; to a couple of new words: Ayyar (a spy adept at disguise) and Tilism (a magical land, castle or other feature) are just two of those that I remember.

Indo-Islamic fantasy

Business Standard

India's largest art show will open next week on an unprecedented scale, amidst hope and optimism.

The gods of art are here

On August 1, Manoj Yadav, a watchman at a housing society in Mumbai&rsquo;s Santacruz, bought three packs of Cadbury Dairy Milk Shots for Rs 2 each. That&rsquo;s Yadav&rsquo;s way of celebrating payday &ndash; something he intends to repeat next month, too.

Sweet taste of success

Women want their skin to lie about their age. The image managers of Santoor, which has become the largest selling soap brand in South India, has made that the main selling point of their promotion campaign over the years.

Santoor on a roll

Saregama (popularly known as HMV) has stepped up its digital drive with a vengeance. In a move to increase the digital content to 60-65 per cent of its revenues (from 40 per cent now) in the next five years, the top music recording company is launching a website, tying up with telcos like Vodafone, Idea and Airtel for use of its music library and with cellphone manufacturers like Nokia for in-built sound tracks and albums.

Saregama sings a new tune

The most successful ads are at times the ones that communicate in a culturally specific way. Take the Idea Cellular commercial. The one about how the caste war in a village is stopped by replacing everyone&rsquo;s caste-based names with their mobile numbers. The sign-off line, mouthed by a chamcha to village headman Abhishek Bachchan, is &ldquo;What an idea, Sirji.

Vive la difference!

Mushrooming app stores are offering a huge 70 per cent revenue to developers.

Application development means big business

Hi-end smartphones are all set to make a huge splash this year. Relatively new players like Acer are throwing down the gauntlet to established smartphone makers such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson. And, all this is only going to make your decision-making tougher.

Talking smart

The deadlock between the Vijay Mallya-owned United Spirits Ltd (USL) and the Indian Hotel and Restaurants Association (Ahar) and Maharashtra Wine Merchants Association (MWMA) continued for the third day today, taking a toll on the sales of USL&rsquo;s two flagship brands, Bagpiper and McDowell.

Maha stores stay off Bagpiper, McDowell

The Ford Endeavour goes through a wardrobe change.

Scaling new heights

It took me precisely six seconds to decide that Tata Motors has done the right thing by buying Jaguar Land Rover. Six seconds that saw the speedometer of a naturally aspirated Jaguar XF hitting 100 kph. As you would imagine, I do 100 kph very often in cars that range from econo-boxes to supercars, but the Jaguar was special. It emitted the right growl, sent the right vibrations and then caught an artery that supplies blood to my vitals and squeezed it dry.

V8 and watch

I&rsquo;m on the lookout for a hatchback for my wife. She will drive it to work and back, so it&rsquo;s going to be city driving for the most part. The car will do 1000 km every month and my budget is up to Rs 6 lakh. One option I have in mind is the Hyundai i20. Currently, she drives a Tata Indigo diesel, so a diesel option is not out of the question. Please suggest which car would suit my requirements the best.

Hatch-ing a plot

Cells taken from ovaries in a Delhi abattoir result in India's - and the world's - first cloned water buffalo in a modest laboratory in Karnal. Anand Sankar comes away charmed by Garima.

Cloned milk and cereals

Those are betel nuts that have been arranged on the onyx glass. The look has been accentuated by a banana leaf pattern finished in gold,&rdquo; points out interior designer Saswati Guptaa, as we lean forward to examine a dining table.

The perfect fusion

Since 2001, India has possibly been the fastest-growing wine market worldwide, and one that is viewed with an enormous amount of interest by winemakers everywhere.

The rise and rise of wine in India

There is such vibrancy there, just take a walk down the road early in the morning,&rdquo; says Saibal Das about Chitpore. Das, a well-known photojournalist who has worked with several media organisations, is now back in Kolkata, living in his home town and documenting the bustling area. &ldquo;I know the pulse of this place. I was away for 10-12 years, but Chitpore is what I associate myself with,&rdquo; he says. Inspired by National Geographic features on Sunset Boulevard, Broadway and Route 69, Das asked himself, &ldquo;Why not Chitpore road?&rdquo; And thus began his photographic journey.

From Chitpore to the garden of Eden

Day One is preview day, &ldquo;for VIPs&rdquo;, but there&rsquo;s only one bonafide VIP at the India Art Summit: Nandan Nilekani spends two hours admiring the art, and manages to slip out unnoticed &mdash; and unreported &mdash; by the paparazzi. That&rsquo;s quite a feat, but then the press is courting the artists who are the rockstars here. Last year, few made an appearance, or stayed long enough.

Buzz and business

Love shopping for your kitchen over the weekend and turning out a fancy meal without the help of a takeaway? Anoothi Vishal draws up a list of some interesting new ingredients that you can stock up on.

Gourmet groceries

A recreation of an 1860s murder sheds light on the workings of a conservative yet prurient society, not very unlike our own.

Road house blues

A visit to any sporting goods retail outlet will tell you how serious European football clubs are about making their presence felt in India. And the fans are lapping it all up big time. With the 2009-10 European football season kicking off last weekend, brands are stocking up on football merchandise in a big way.

Football fever

Neha Bhatt savours some short stories from a prizewinning Nigerian author.

At home and abroad

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