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Sri Patteeswaraswamy temple near Coimbatore attracts devotees with its old world charm and exquisite sculptures. Cool view: The temple tank with the gopuram in the background. Six km. from the modern industrial city of Coimbatore is the ancient temple of Sri Patteeswara Swamy where the divine cow Kamadhenu and its calf Patti worshipped the Lord, as the legend goes. FINE SAMPLE: Beautifully embellished ceiling and pillars.— PHOTOS: S. Siva Saravanan. Perur is also known as Dhenupuram. Similar is the legend with the other two famous Siva temples — Sri Patteeswaraswamy temple at Dharasuram near Kumbakonam and Sri Dhenupureeswarar at Madambakkam near Chennai. AUSPICIOUS: Nritha Ganapathi. According to the sthalapuranam, the temple existed in Kruthayuga, Threthayuga and Dwaparayuga under different names, and was worshipped by Kamadhenu, Vyasa, Viswamitra and Lord Yama. Here, Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu took the forms of the two sages Gomuni and Pattimuni and did penance for many years. They...

Thevally Kottaram was the residence of the monarchs of erstwhile Travancore when they used to visit Kollam. ROYAL LEGACY: Thevally Kottaram was built nearly 200 years ago during the reign of Gauri Parvathi Bai. Thevally Kottaram stands on a promontory in central Kollam, overlooking the scenic Ashtamudi Lake. Built nearly 200 years ago, during the reign of Gauri Parvathi Bai, between 1811 and 1819, it was the residence of the Maharaja, whenever he visited Kollam for meetings with the Resident. At that time the Huzoor Cutcherry and public offices were in Kollam, apart from it being an important commercial centre. The palace, though small, is one of the most proportionate and beautiful palaces of Kerala, says the noted architect Eugene N. Pandala. A single-storey structure, built with laterite and lime plaster, it is a blend of Dutch, Portuguese, and English architectural styles. Romantic aura The rounded left wing, which represents the exterior of the semi-circular recessed ends of the h...

RUPA GOPAL The terrain is challenging but a trip to Badrinath is the dream of a pilgrim. Photos: Rupa Gopal In Indo-Tibetan style: The temple, a close-up Badrinath! The first among 108 Vishnu temples, the first site of Lord Narayana, and according to the Azhwars, the first place where idol worship started. Over 10,000 feet above sea level, ensconced in the mighty Himalayas, near the Indo-China borde r, the Devbhoomi of Badrinath is said to have been established by Brahma, in Satya Yuga. Comparatively modern times saw Adi Sankara retrieve the Saligrama idol of Maha Vishnu from the Narada kund, along the banks of the Alakananda , at Badrinath. He installed the idol above a Bhairavi charka, and set the rules for worship, followed till today. The Nara and Narayana mountains shelter the temple, built in Indo-Tibetan style, rich in colour. The rishis Nara and Narayana, observed severe penance on the twin mountains, subsequently named after them. Alongside lies the ice-capped peak of Urvashi,...

Delhi Blue Pottery Trust is ready with another unique show. India’s first studio potter Sardar Gurcharan Singh started The Delhi Blue Pottery in 1952 in Delhi. It took him over 40 years of struggle to make Delhi a place where both traditional and studio potters could co-exist and expose their talent to the world. But in 1986 the Government acquired the land surrounding the pottery, and the kilns had to be shut down. His struggle for land began, and finally in 1991 he founded The Delhi Blue Pottery Trust (DBPT) on New Delhi’s Ring Road. Singh died four years later but his son Manasiram Singh and seven trustees not only live by his dreams but also help social causes today. But as one of the trustees Anuradha Ravindran puts it, “The struggle is still not over. We still have no easy funds to promote pottery.” Yet, the trust holds interesting exhibitions, seminars, discussions, debates, classes and workshops of pottery almost every year. “DBPT’s biggest achievement came in 2002 when we invi...

Starring Madhubala, Guru Dutt, Johnny Walker, Yasmin, Lalita Pawar, Kumkum, Cuckoo, Agha, Uma Devi Though widely labelled as a romantic comedy, the film sought to raise various social issues. In fact, the loose script succeeds largely because of nine interspersed songs. This was Guru Dutt’s fifth film as a director, and third as a hero. Having earlier tested turbulent waters without success as a hero in “Baaz” and “Aar Paar”, the reluctant actor dared to make another attempt, looking more confidently into the camera. The film was originally meant to be released on 25 October 1954, but the delay made the actor-producer re-title the film, and it thus accidentally turned out to be more relevant because of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. In a quick montage-kind of opening sequence, the camera quickly shifts from a gathering crowd around a newspaper hawker: a girl picking up a copy and taking it inside a palatial house where a lady is addressing a motley crowd of supposed feminists; a young...

Megan Mylan’s “Smile Pinki” has proved that a small curve can put everything straight. Photos: V. Sreenivasa Murthy, PTI Winning smile Filmmaker Megan Mylan An idea can change life. Sometimes, commercial catchphrases find their reflection in dreary daily life. Megan Mylan’s Oscar-winning documentary “Smile Pinki” is one such case. It not only opened the world for a little girl but is also giving wings to the dreams of many other Pinkis who are living with the stigma of honth kati . It literally proves a smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks. The director was in India recently on a multiple city tour to promote the film and the cause. She is elated to find that even taxi drivers know about Pinki and cleft lip. “That’s the job of a documentary. It is not about sermonizing or education. It is about filmmaking and the facts should be delivered in such a way that people are entertained and take home the story and the inherent message. She believes in verite style of cinema. Unde...

s equity an add-on to a growth-centred strategy? INDIA — Perspectives on Equitable Development: Edited by S. Mahendra Dev, N. Chandrasekhara Rao; Academic Foundation, 4772-72/23 Bharat Ram Road (23 Ansari Road), Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 1295. V. K. Natraj This volume, published in commemoration of the silver jubilee of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Economic and Social Studies, is dedicated most appropriately to one of its pillars, Professor C.H. Hanumantha Rao. The papers that are uniformly of high professional standards have been authored by established social scientists. They are grouped under six heads: macroeconomic performance and policies; employment, food security and poverty; physical and social infrastructure; agriculture and rural industrialisation; FDI in manufacturing and services; and socio-political issues in the reform process. In their comprehensive introduction, the editors say that the “approach of growth with equity has been followed in India since Independ...

Traces the evolution of a sustainable rural development model for South Asia THE AGAKHAN RURAL SUPPORT PROGRAMME — A Journey Through Grassroots Development: Shoaib Sultan Khan; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 725. U. Subrahmanyam This book traces the evolution of a sustainable rural development model for South Asian countries, based on Shoaib Sultan Khan’s personal field experiences in the subcontinent after setting out his roots in northern India during pre-Partition days. It takes the reader through the grassroots of development which culminated in a participatory development model ready for emulation by several NGOs and government agencies. Khan served initially in the civil services of Pakistan and later moved to UNICEF and UNDP projects. Subsequently he worked for 12 years with the Geneva-based Aga Khan Foundation. His work in the Mahaweli Ganga project (Sri Lanka), a multipurpose irrigation project, is a classic example of par...

220 manufacturers registered Applicants go through screening process Training component built into process SHEEN GUARANTEED: Models displaying Silk Mark sarees at the launch of the nodal office in Hyderabad on Wednesday. Photo: P.V. Sivakumar HYDERABAD: "Let us work together to help the queen of textiles retain the numero uno status it has enjoyed the past 5,000 years." This was the point the Silk Mark Organisation of India (SMOI) sought to drive home to a gathering of master weavers, traders and others connected with the silk industry on Wednesday. Three-time Nandi awardee, Laya, clicked a computer mouse to make the Silk Mark symbol appear on two giant screens at the Grand Ballroom of the Taj Krishna. She also released the tamper-proof holograms. The SMOI Chairman, H. Basker, said Silk Mark was launched first in Bangalore on June 17, 2004. It was followed by launches in Chennai, Mumbai and a half-dozen silk clusters -- Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu and Dharmavaram, Hindupur and ...

BANGALORE: On Sunday, Radio City 91 FM turns four. Reason enough for Bangalore's first private radio channel to launch a weeklong extravaganza to mark the event. Radio City fans will get to win a lot of prizes, including a free chopper ride over the city. The gala celebrations kick off on Thursday. In "Who is Wishing Us," Bangaloreans will have to guess the voice of the celebrity attending the bash. The "Mega Fan Mega Prize" will test the listeners' knowledge of the radio station. "Every true-blue Bangalorean has music pulsating through his/her veins. Radio City has a slot dedicated to English music beginning from July 18," says Bhaskar Dutt, vice-president and station head, Bangalore. source: http://www.hindu.com/lf/2005/06/30/stories/2005063006150200.htm

BANGALORE: Think of the malls in Bangalore and you know why fashion shows are drawing people by the hundreds. Flaunting international brands, the malls are triggering fashion consciousness like never before. Big brand names, which were unheard of till a few years ago, are on everyone's lips. To be up there, you need to be chic, trendy and contemporary, so say the rules. No wonder then that the crowds swelled at the Shoppers' Stop Bangalore Fashion Weekend. On the second and third day, the finalists and winners of the Runway Model Hunt, L'Oréal Cover Girl Hunt, Happy Dent Miss Beautiful Smile and Lawrence & Mayo Look Award walked the ramp showcasing designer collections. The Fashion Weekend started on June 24 with a grand opening show featuring models of the likes of Vidisha Pavate, Kiran Rao, Rachel, Anushka, Shreya, Pashmeena, Mustaffa, Aryan Vaid and Muzamil, who showcased the creations of India's top designers. Among the designers represented were Raghavendra Rat...

DAVANGERE: He is from a barber's family and helps his father in his profession. But helping his father did not make him slack in his studies. B.S. Vijay Kumar scored 93 per cent in the second Pre-University Course exam held this year and stood first in his college, DRM Science College in Davangere. He secured the 3035th and 4922nd ranks respectively for medical and engineering seats in the Common Entrance Test. Vijay, who has been performing well all through his academic life, wants to become an electronics engineer. He continues to assist his father in his profession, as he is yet to be admitted to an engineering college. Vijay does not want to pursue his studies elsewhere as he wants to continue assisting his father till he completes his education and gets a job to take care of the family. He hopes to do his engineering at the Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology (BIET) or at Brahamappa Devendrappa Thavannappanavar (BDT) Engineering College in Davangere. Father proud De...

Of encounters in far-flung places. Footloose and Fancy-free; Prema Srinivasan. For copies contact Prema Srinivasan, 12 Parthasarathy Gardens, Kasturi Ranga Road, Alwarpet, Chennai 18 or e-mail prema_49@rediffmail.com For one who doesn’t like to travel, the best way to learn about other places is travel books. Sit back and let the writer take you to all those places that you’ve heard of or wonder about… Prema Srinivasan’s Footloose and Fancy-free covers all the known territories: the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Australia, South Africa… India gets a look-in with Shimla, Puducherry and Tranquebar. Down memory lane In her preface, the author mentions that most of these were places she had visited with her family; some are reprints of articles published earlier in newspapers and magazines. The first piece, a trip down memory lane, on the Mylapore area of Chennai is perhaps the most evocative. The images of a laidback charming place are in sharp contrast to the congested, traffic-heavy Mylapore...

From a sluggish first half, Solo takes flight to a surreal world. Solo; Rana Dasgupta, HarperCollins, Rs. 395. With Solo , Rana Dasgupta again demonstrates an unusual flair for the short story; for, though Solo is a novel, it is really the self-contained, story-like chapters of the second half of the book that are remarkable. In the latter part, the writing frees itself from an uneasy heavy-handedness that slows down and mars the book’s first part. No doubt the first half is meant to give readers a sense of the sluggish, unrelenting pathos of real life (which does get through), however the structure seems unable to prevent the reading from occasionally becoming a little tedious. But, for a large part of the first half, Solo does read well; a few sharp cuts might have prevented readers from getting a little fed with how long it takes the writer to show us what life means for the 100-year-old, blind Ulrich, sitting alone in his derelict flat and re-membering his own listless past and ...

Intimacy of killing” might sound incongruous, but that is what “killology” founder Lt.Col. Dave Grossman seeks to detail in his 1995 Pulitzer shortlisted book On Killing. It has since — particularly post 9/11 — become required reading at many military schools and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. In its initial appearance, the book was primarily a detailed study of how armies the world over developed ways to make troops overcome the aversion to kill after it became evident that nearly 85 per cent of riflemen did not fire their weapon at an exposed enemy even to save their own lives or that of their comrades in World War II. By the time of the Vietnam War, this “Johnny-can’t-kill” syndrome had been dealt with through psychological conditioning and the non-firing rate was reduced to five per cent but at a huge psychological cost; making Grossman assert that man by nature is not a killer despite the increase in violence in day-to-day existence. And, that seems to be his main concern in...

At first glance, literary criticism seems a purely reactive enterprise; an appraisal of creative output that both logically and chronologically arrives after the fact. But it is much more than that. Just as the gardener’s pruning shapes the growth of the plant, criticism gives direction to creativity. A critical culture envelops writers, whispering suggestions of subject and style – and the majority of writers depend on the suggestions. Otherwise they might not know what to say. The same critical culture guides readers too, and helps them comprehend the books they are given. Otherwise they might not know what to think. No clarity So if Indian English fiction today seems a disjointed cacophony of voices, with no discernible shared themes or values to lend some shape to its burgeoning mass, the ultimate fault is of our critical imaginations. They have not clarified the standards, by which writers may know their material, and readers may know their books. What standards we have got, are s...