Kaizen Design Accents, the bespoke furniture, accessories and gifts brand recently launched their second store in Chennai city on TTK Road, Alwarpet. With brand new collections from top names such as Ethicus, India Circus, Anah, Rasa, Zweisel and Dhora, Kaizen delivers innovative and elegant products with the occasional touch of humour, to add a contemporary attitude and identity to your space. Co-founded by Sonali Chitale and Ujjwala Naik Goenka, each piece on display at Kaizen is certainly one-of-a-kind and most definitely worth a pick.
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Do I miss acting? Yes I do. The fame? The media glare? It never was about that for me. Of course, it’s lovely to be recognised and admired – human nature thrives on approval. I come from a family of academics where I was introduced to Richard Dawkins when I was about 8 or 9 years old by my father. He was a rationalist who had by then moved past strident atheism to a more understanding tolerance of people’s needs. ‘The Selfish Gene’ from my dad and Mikhail Sholokhov’s ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’ from my mother along with her Tagore poetry and novels with everything in between… is the world that I grew up in. And I have never left this world throughout my life. This is who I am. I am a homebody. My loved ones are very precious to me and are the glue that holds it all together for me. And one of those loved ones is Cinema.
speculate as to how I might have turned out had I lived another life but my life and my experiences have made me who I am. The greatest factor that has tempered and kept me grounded every step of my life is my family. There has been absolutely no difference in the way that I am treated by my family ‘before’ and ‘after’. My parents are no more today but up until the time they were with me, I was their baby girl. My brother, who is older than me by a couple of years, is the backbone of my life from my birth. He is the one I walked my first steps towards and has always been my Anna. And I know my daughter sees me as her mother first and last. Fame is an external derivative of effort and it is healthiest if it is maintained within that perspective.
Cancer is today, a lifestyle disease right on par with the old familiars like diabetes, hypertension, etc. The word ‘lifestyle’ goes a good way towards explaining the ‘Why’. Newton’s Third Law of physics states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So if we do something to put stress on our body, that body is going to shove right back. This stress could be wrong/excess food, excess weight, chemicals (through food, cosmetics, skin care products, soaps, etc), mental stress, lack of exercise…the list goes on and on. Advice? The smartest thing that people could do would be to be aware of themselves, their environment and try to live as chemical free and healthy as possible. We all know it. As Indian children going to school, we are all taught the fundamentals of healthy habits. But it seems like we forget them in the dazzling glamour of ‘Modern’ life. Fast foods and processed foods are one of the most vicious dangers we are living with. Make the right choices…for yourselves and your loved ones.
Most members of Pathayam have been part of other musical projects and groups before, but it was an idea to explore Kerala’s folk roots and re-interpret them for today’s audiences that brought them together to form this group. Interestingly, their music is already quite popular online and on television. “We focus on folk rock. We’re ultimately looking at music festivals, both around the country and abroad,” says Saju Srinivas, the vocalist of the group.
In the next two years since their first gig, Grey Shack went on to make a mark at almost every live venue and competition on this side of the subcontinent until college ended and the band split to go their separate ways. The band released a well-received debut album with a new line-up in August last year. “A two-year sabbatical and a few line-up changes later, we finally released our debut album Step Outside, a year ago,” says Vikram. The band had been travelling and touring across the country to promote their album.
Year: 2004
Katyn
When Robert Gallbraith was known as the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling, few copies were sold. When JK Rowling was known to be the actual name behind the pseudonym, a huge chunk in the world of readers went ballistic, scrambling to grab a copy. But here’s the deal: it disappoints. A classic whodunit, replete with the grumpy anti-hero hero with a closet full of skeletons, a secretary with whom he shares but doesn’t share a palpable chemistry and a bunch of shoddy subplots – the book isn’t exactly what you’d hope for it to be. Add to the mix a misshapen plot that doesn’t do much to keep its secret – as family secrets and strange characters from the world of glamour converge in a mish-mash of sorts.
