Raincoat As it pours in Calcutta, Manoj and Neeru talk about their flawed love inside a musty house. Rain becomes a symbol of lost possibilities.
Monsoon Wedding The tagline says: "The rain is coming. So is the family." As a wedding takes place in hot Delhi, dark family secrets come forth. Rain washes away pain.
Lagaan Clouds hover in "Ghanan ghanan..." but not a drop falls. It pours after Bhuvan’s rag-tag cricket team triumphs over the Brits. Rain means victory.
Guide Rains bring salvation for the wastrel Raju guide. He fasts for his dry village. The rains do arrive to Sachinda’s "Allah megh de..." but Raju dies.
Barsaat Raj Kapoor’s first directorial hit used rain as a metaphor for the flow of human desire. Remember ‘Pyar hua...’? As well as Nimmi singing "Barsatmein"?
Culture Vulture
‘It was a dark & stormy night’Snoopy
What The first line of the novel that Snoopy the Beagle is eternally trying to write in the comic strip, Peanuts.
Actually The first line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel ‘Paul Clifford’, considered the worst opening sentence ever in English literature.
Today San Jose University runs the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest where entrants compete to write the worst possible opening sentence to a novel.
So you thought you knew all about
Ratan Tata
With the Tata Sons board extending retirement age for non-executive directors to 75, Ratan Tata will have seven more years as head of India’s most respected business group. Which of these facts is a corporate lie?
A. He heads India’s largest private group in terms of revenue.
B. He joined the family-run business at 13.
C. He is developing a car that’ll cost less than Rs 1 lakh.
D. His family financed Gandhi’s campaign in South Africa.
E. The group has 91 companies in 32 businesses in 40 countries.
Answer A. The Tata group is India’s largest private sector group in terms of market capitalisation.
What Is
Noble Rot
No, not what happened when the privy purses were withdrawn from the royals. This is the most distinguished fungus that you can pour into a wine glass. Aka botrytis cinerea, this fungus makes wine-makers exult when it descends on their grapes. Producing sweet intense dessert wines like Sauternes from Bordeaux, Tokay from Austria and Beerenauslesen from Germany.
