To Be Greeted By A Round Of Huzzahs

Curated by Sunaina Anand is an exhibition of artworks by over 50 renowned faces—a veritable who’s who including S.H. Raza, Ram Kumar, Paresh Maity, Jogen Chowdhary, Subodh Gupta, Binoy Varghese; and denizens of glitz like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman, Akshay and Shahrukh. A singular theme runs through the works—elephants, and one medium has been used—fibreglass. The motive of the exhibition, organised by Maneka Gandhi and People for Animals, is also a singular one—to raise funds for elephants. Only 22,000 elephants are left in India, 600 are killed every year, and 6,000 live in brutal conditions. Taking care of each elephant costs about Rs 50,000 a year, while other costs come to about Rs 15 to 20 lakh. The exhibition, with its herd of ‘white elephants’, all of them carrying varied colours and designs, is to generate funds for Wildlife SOS—the NGO that brought an end to the practice of dancing bears. Though the Asian elephant is protected under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, only Wildlife SOS runs an elephant conservation and care centre in India. The centre, located in Mathura, has 18 elephants under its care and aims to bring up the count to 50. It has enough natural vegetation—it’s flanked by 215 acres of forest—for the animals to feel at home, surrounded by open fields, while water pools have also been provided for the elephants to bathe and play in. Nov 28-30, Le Meridien Hotel

And Also

GO Chandigarh Literature
Words Move

The fourth Chandigarh Literature Festival has more books to be dissec­ted, analysed and read out. This year, the four-day event has invited movies. Some of them are Bedtime Story, Rig­h­­teous Republic, Masaan, When God Is a Traveller, No Direction Rome and Killa. It also includes enactments and musical performances. Nov 5-8, Chandigarh Club

Watch mumbai theatre
Those Days

Directed by Rakesh Bedi, Mera Woh Matlab Nahi Tha brings together stage veterans Neena Gupta and Anupam Kher. The play is about two ex-lovers meeting after 35 years. The high school sweethearts who married other people reminisce about what went wrong, and how they grew apart. Replete with layers of emotion, it is about journeys imbued with absence. Nov 13, Bhaidas Hall

This Too
Multicity Music The NH7 Weekender is back. Along with Faridkot, Shaa’ir + Func, Papon and The East India Company are newbies like Swarathma, Ankur & The Ghalat Family, Madboy Mink. Oct  23- Dec 6

Product
Patanjali Atta Noodles
Rating: 

Maggi may be trying to make a pained comeback, but Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Atta Noodles have already hit the shelves. It is ‘Made in Bharat’, but the ‘Jhatpat Banao Befikr Khao’ atta noodles is as good as Maggi’s version, almost indistinguishable from it. The soup is creamy but has a pinch too much salt; and you get 15 grams less noodles for the same price—Rs 15. The product claims ‘no cholesterol’, says it’s ‘in line with international dietary guidelines’, and has a higher cont­ent of fresh peas, carrots and beans. Can it be compared to the other noodles in the market? No, but no atta noodle matches its maida cousins. The one downer is perhaps the cooking time—three minutes, a whole minute more than the claimed cooking time of Maggi noodles. But who knew Maggi noodles could cook within that time?

App
Walnut
Rating: ***

An expense manager, Walnut is your free accountant. The app organises your finance—spending, bank transactions and other bills, and gives you an upd­ate with a single click. It filters your e-mails, SMSes and bank accounts (if you want) to gather all transactions. You get an overview, as well as a det­ailed listing of all your expenses, in the quickest way possible; except the app takes a bit of getting used to, and will need some deal of fiddling. (Available on Android)