Author: The Metrognome

Categories
Diaries

Training days

So how did you train for the Mumbai Marathon? Did you train right? An expert offers a quick ready reckoner.
by Deepak Rawat, fitness training manager, Fitness First, clocked in 4 hours 45 minutes in the full marathon, 2012.

Part II of the ‘Mumbai Marathon’ Diaries

Exercise programmes for people participating in marathon runs are designed based on their current fitness levels. Cardiovascular exercises are given more importance as an exercise modality. For a marathon, long distance and interval cardio training are the main features of the exercise programme. However, one must not focus only on cardio but also do endurance training. Single leg, core and bend-to-extend pattern are the main focus areas in muscular endurance training.

On a weekly basis, I advocate a run that takes you to a distance of 30 to 40 kilometres. You can slowly extend this while running and take it up to even 70 km.

I have noticed that some people have the tendency to over-train for events like marathons. Over training can lead to injury, and cause other surprising issues like appetite loss, irritable behaviour and a drop in performance. As soon as this is noticed by trainers, he/she should point it out to the runner immediately.

Those who should not train for the Marathon are people with a higher BMI or with existing health concerns. I have had to tell people not to train for the run owing to physical constraints on their part. We also advise people to rest well during training, but resting times depend on the person’s age and current fitness level.

Besides this, all runners should bear in mind that the knees and ankles are the most prone areas for injury, so they should train carefully. Plus, ensure that you keep yourself well hydrated, and consume up to six litres of water every day while training.

Lastly, during your training and on the day of the race, wear running shorts, a comfortable vest (dri-fit), and running shoes with adequate cushioning based on the arch of your foot.

Diaries is a series of stories on one theme. The Mumbai Marathon diaries aim to lay the ground for the actual event on Sunday, January 20, 2013. Watch out for Part III tomorrow, where a participant tells us about achieving his fitness goals through the Marathon.

 

Categories
Film

May the best of the worst win

The Bollywood Razzies are here. In a year when Bollywood produced piles of rubbish, it’s tough to pick a winner.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Have you heard of the The Ghanta and the Golden Kela? Before you call the moral police, let me clarify. These are the names of awards especially created for Bollywood. The Ghanta and Golden Kela Awards are the Indian counterparts of the Razzies (for Hollywood). Both the awards are independent and not related to each other. It doesn’t matter who gives them away or if the winners have the b**ls to collect them; what matters is that these awards symbolise the awakening of the janata and that Bollywood can no longer bullsh*t the audience without being b**chslapped in return.

The Ghanta Awards are in their third year and the Golden Kelas are a little older at five. Both are very popular on social media and they encourage users to vote online. 2012 was one of the most creatively-challenged years for Bollywood, hence there is plenty to trash this time. But before I cast my precious vote to elect the best of the worst, let’s review the various categories and nominees in each award.

Worst Actor 2012

Akshay Kumar is a clear winner with four straight flops: Housefull 2, Rowdy Rathore, Joker and Khiladi 786. Ajay Devgn comes a close second with Son of Sardaar and Bol Bachchan in both the Awards. Surprisingly, Salman Khan only features in The Ghanta Awards list for Ek Tha Tiger and Dabangg 2. Kat got your tongue, Golden Kela?

Worst Actress 2012

Sonakshi Sinha for Rowdy Rathore, Joker, Son of Sardaar and Dabangg 2; basically everything she did. Katrina Kaif, Deepika, Bipasha, Priyanka Chopra are the rest of the nominations. Everyone, except for Kareena Kapoor, has made it to the lists this year.

 

Worst Film 2012

Oh, this one is tough. There are just five options for the Ghantas and six for Golden Kelas in the worst films category, but they could very well expand their list to include more from the pile of garbage Bollywood produced last year. I like Golden Kela’s list better. They’ve got the crapfest full on with Housefull 2, Son of Sardaar, Khiladi 786, Dabangg 2, Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Joker. All these films were headache-inducting tortures that took away 80 minutes of the audience’s lives. The Ghantas have Student of the Year on its list, but I think the audience deserves a special award for having sat through this film and lived to tell the tale.

Worst Director 2012

Let’s give Shirish Kunder a lifetime pass for the Worst Director Award in both these awards, along with free home delivery. The Golden Kela has Arbaaz Khan vying for this spot for Dabangg 2. Maybe it’s time Arbaazbhai renounces the world and goes back to his planet. Whenever he does go, he should also take Vikram Bhatt (Raaz 3, Dangerous Ishq) along.

Worst Song 2012

Wikipedia should catalogue this into a series. Even this year, as always, Bollywood will make a generous contribution to this. A special volume should be dedicated to our nasal champion Himeshbhai. All the songs of Khiladi 786 have the magical quality of inducing violent behaviour, enough to start a prison riot. *chops own ears off*

Worst Sequel 2012

Jannat, Raaz, Jism, Housefull and Dabaang should jointly accept the award and officially STOP MAKING ANY MORE SEQUELS! The end has no end. The Dabaang prequel will haunt us soon. *shudder*

Both the awards have other unusual and interesting categories, such as:

Golden Kela Awards:

– Most Atrocious Lyric Awards. My pick is ‘Po Po Po’ from Son of Sardaar.

– Why Are You Still Trying Award – For people like Jackie Bhagnani. “Jackie, who?” you ask. Sigh, never mind.

– Baawra Ho Gaya Hai Kya Award – And the winner is, the Indian audience for spending money on a ride to hell and back with this slushpile.

and the Ghanta Awards:

– Worst Rip-Off/Remake – Barfi!

– Worst Couple – Abhishek Bachchan with anyone, even a log of wood.

– WTF Was That – That one time where you almost threw your shoes at the screen, then remembered you were wearing Osho chappals, so you just closed your eyes instead.

– That’s Anything But Sexy – Tough one again, but nothing can beat the awful dance steps in the ‘Cheeni’ song from Department. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feature on the list.

But are these awards really an eye-opener for for our filmmakers? Will they stop and think about the trash they are serving the audience? I don’t think so. Maybe we need some kind of penalty, where the audience is entitled to a refund for a bad film. This will surely make them behave themselves in future.

Voting for both the awards is now open. You can log on to http://theghantas.com/vote/login.php and  http://goldenkela.com/voting/vote.php

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Pictures courtesy galleryoneindia.in, wikimedia.org, hindi.way2movies.com)

Categories
Diaries

Eat right, run better

A nutritionist explains what a marathoner’s diet just days before the race should be. Plus, diet tips for Marathon runners.
Part I of the ‘Mumbai Marathon’ diaries

Ritesh Shaiwal is fitness manager and nutritionist at Fitness First, Mumbai. He has been consulting on nutrition and training for the last five years, and on a year-to-year basis, he has counselled close to 25 runners. Of these, four are participating in the Mumbai Marathon on January 20, 2013.

If you’re participating in the Marathon this Sunday, Ritesh’s tips on eating and drinking right will hold you in good stead.

What your diet should comprise of:

The diet for someone running the Full Marathon would be completely different from that of a Half Marathon runner. The percentage of complex carbohydrates in the diet of a Full Marathon participant would be at least 30 per cent higher than that of a Half Marathon runner, as he/she would require more energy to complete a 42 kilometre run. The diet for both categories would change every four to six weeks if one has to design a one-month nutrition plan. Complex carbs would increase by five to eight per cent every week, with not too many changes in the percentage of protein and fat consumed.

What to eat while training:

Primarily, the foods that are good to go are whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, vegetables and salads as mid-meals, plus for dinner, along with a dry fruit meal, peanut butter plus chicken/fish/mutton/tofu/soy will get you all the protein nutrition you require. And last but not the least, a regular intake of fruit will help pace your run as well as your training routine.

What to eat till the race:

The diet, say one week before the race, would be: Carbs (50 per cent), Protein (35 per cent) and Fat (15 per cent) where one should consume complex carbs for breakfast and lunch. A week before the run, one should change the carbohydrates percentage from 50 per cent to 60 per cent, and include complex carbs for dinner. A night before the race, have a good heavy complex carb meal of pasta and chicken because you need the energy for the race the next day.

On race day:

On the morning of the race, two bananas with a slice of peanut butter sandwich does the trick for me. During the race, ensure that you have Electral or Gatorade, as your body requires the nutrition to sustain a long run. Post the race, you can go back to a normal, balanced diet.

Opt for these slow energy foods:

Slow energy foods are basically complex carbohydrates. The best sources for these are oats, whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole wheat grain roti and whole wheat pasta. Whole wheat pasta is my personal favourite complex carb, along with chicken, on the night before the race.

Avoid:

Aerated drinks and chocolates while you are training, as also chips and cookies. These are high in unsaturated fat.

The deal with energy drinks:

Energy drinks are great while training and during the run, as they contain simple carbohydrates which provide instant energy to the body, as compared to complex carbs. So having an energy drink while training or running is important so that your body does not go into starvation mode and gets instant energy. But be sure to only sip on the drink, don’t gulp it in large quantities.

Hydration on the go:

Hydration is key when you are running a long distance. For every kilometre or 1.5 km, one should sip about 100 ml of water, so that your energy levels are up and about. Once you are in the run for, say 45 minutes to 60 minutes, energy drinks should be introduced as a part of the hydration programme, apart from water. Keep sipping while you are on the run – don’t stop to sip as it will affect your timing.

Diaries is a series of stories on one theme. The Mumbai Marathon diaries aim to lay the ground for the actual event on Sunday, January 20, 2013. Watch out for Part II tomorrow, where we speak with a trainer on exercising for the Marathon. 

(Featured image tumblr.com) 

Categories
Eat

Liquid spheres

The Oberoi Hotel, Mumbai, offers cocktails that go beyond mere melting in the mouth – they are designed to explode!

This month, it’s time to raise your glass to welcome the New Year as The Eau Bar offers up a selection of innovative new cocktails that will change the way you drink.

The Oberoi is offering a range of cocktails that are created by the hotel’s resident mixologists, who employ the ‘Spherification’  technique. Sounds intriguing? It is. Spherification is a culinary process of shaping a liquid into spheres. It transforms liquids into what, visually and texturall,y resembles caviar.

Spherification was originally discovered by Unilever in the 1950s, and brought into the spotlight by the creative team at el Bulli under the direction of Executive Chef, Ferran Adrià. The basic technique is ideal for obtaining spheres with very thin membranes, barely perceptible in one’s mouth. Upon taking a sip, the spheres will seemingly ‘explode’ in the mouth, releasing the flavoured liquid within.

The special cocktails on offer include the Cosmolecular, made of vodka and cranberry juice, with orange liqueur on the side; Strawberry Martini, made with vodka, with a strawberry sphere on the side and Champagne cocktails, served with either strawberry pearls or almond pearls, among others.

(Pictures courtesy foodgps.com, touchofmodern.com. Pictures are not of actual drinks but have been used for representational purpose only)

 

 

Categories
Learn

Why children must be (cyber)smarties

Three Mumbaikars are teaching school children in the city and outside it to be safe and responsible on the Internet.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Renuka Sharma (name changed) met a boy on Facebook and decided that she was in love with him. A few months later, the 16-year-old ran away from home to be with him. Fortunately for her, the boy, who did not know that she was a minor, did not take advantage of the girl; instead, he escorted her home and explained the entire situation to her distraught parents.

Most children are not as lucky. Drawn to social networking and gaming sites that also help them stay connected with their friends and strangers over chat windows, young children are increasingly falling prey to Internet predators, or being drawn into unsavoury bullying online. Often, unsure of how to deal with the situation, and afraid to talk to their parents for fear of censure or being misunderstood, they allow the problem to escalate out of hand.

All of this can be remedied by children knowing how to behave online. But who will teach them Internet etiquette, and what constitutes bad online behaviour?

Cybersmartie will.

Conceived in 2011 and set up in 2012 by three Mumbaikars – Shekhar Tripathi (24), Sayantan Sen (30) and Neha Doshi (37) – the company aims to educate children on responsible Internet behaviour, in an environment known to them (their school) and in a way that engages them. Speaking to The Metrognome, Neha (in pic on right) said, “The thing is, today’s children get access to the Internet at a really young age. Soon, they spend long hours online, signing up for Facebook or playing virtual reality games. There comes a stage when children find it difficult to differentiate between their real and virtual lives.”

The first problem area is cyber bullying, says Shekhar. “It starts off as a fun activity, with several children ganging up on one child. But it soon crosses acceptable limits of social behaviour. The interesting thing is, several children do not know that this is cyber bullying and that it is wrong,” he adds.

What Cybersmartie does is impart this knowledge in an interactive manner. “We hold workshops for four different topics – cyber bullying, digital responsibility – what to post and what not to post, sexting and online predators – and make them really interactive. We cite current examples when we speak to them; for instance, there is no point discussing what email is and what it means, because children today have email accounts only to sign in to Facebook. We talk about the technologies they use and address their online behaviour patterns, so that the workshop becomes relevant to them,” says Shekhar.

Why Cybersmartie?

Shekhar and Sayantan first decided to embark on this project after they accessed the latter’s nephew’s FB page in 2011. “There was a child with glasses who was being bullied online,” Shekhar remembers. “We saw that eight comments had been posted at 2 am. By the time we checked again at 8 am the next day, there were over 40 more comments, which meant the kids had been at it all night on a weekday. And the comments were mean and abusive.”

The two friends – they used to work together at at Pricewaterhouse Coopers – started researching this behaviour. “We learnt that it was called ‘cyber-bullying’ and that it could have far-reaching repercussions for the victim. We realised that nobody taught children about this, and there was no discussion on preventing it or dealing with it. Our schools, even our Government, does not have a policy on Internet bullying,” Shekhar (in pic on right) explains.

Neha came on board the project a bit later. “We met clinical psychologists, teachers and school principals to understand what schools needed. After researching and interacting with experts, we designed a curriculum for the workshops we would conduct,” Shekhar says. Their very first workshops happened at Lilavatibai Podar Senior Secondary School, Santacruz.

The workshops include a short video on cyber bullying, and the trio make sure to get the children to talk and share as much as possible. “They are very receptive and quick to share their experiences. However, when dealing with older kids, we engage in role playing and a quiz game-like scenario to first get them involved, then to get them to share,” says Neha.

Some problem areas

Most teachers are not even aware of their students’ Internet habits, says Neha, who is a teacher herself. “Which sites are the students accessing? When they say they are on Facebook, what are they doing on it? What is the communication like on Whatsapp? Teachers must be involved in these things, so as to be able to help a child who is being troubled by his peers or a predator,” she explains.

She adds that a lot of children operate multiple FB accounts, apart from posting such information about themselves that can be exploited by miscreants. “We teach them not to declare their holiday plans, or reveal their whereabouts all the time. If a child comes to us and tells us that he/she is facing a problem, and several children have already done so during the workshops, we take the problem to the school authorities so that it can be resolved.”

Shekhar adds, “We must update ourselves all the time, because cyber bullying may also change its form every three months. Besides, we must recognise and accept that children will be exposed to pornography and violence on the Internet, but that they should possess the knowledge to deal with bullies or tricksters.” He cites the example of a boy who befriended another ‘youngster’ – who was actually 30 years old – and soon began confiding everything to him on FB. “The man started blackmailing the child, and started extorting money from him. Finally, the child was forced to tell his mother when the man demanded Rs 20,000 from him. Children must be made aware that they should inform their parents or teachers at the first instance of such blackmail,” Shekhar says.

What they teach

The workshops deal with such topics as plagiarism and how to use others’ material for project work, how to use FB’s privacy settings, hacking, why passwords should not be shared and what to do when you’re being bullied, among other things. “We send a family ‘tip sheet’ after the workshops are over, for parents to look at. We have a module for teachers and schools too,” Shekhar says.

For more details on the Cybersmartie programme for school children, write to shekhar@cybersmartie.com or call at +91- 96193 22618.

Categories
Film

Let’s sex it up. Not.

M wonders how, despite rampant sexual harassment within it, Bollywood will address the subject in this Friday’s big film release.

Bollywood never ceases to amaze me. The Friday release this week is Inkaar (starring Arjun Rampal and Chitrangada Singh) and it delves into the subject of sexual harassment at the workplace, and how a man deals with allegations of abuse from a female colleague. I am keen to see how the film explores this issue, coming as it is from the horse’s mouth. Okay, I’ll come straight to the point.

When the Hindi film industry releases a film on sexual harassment, I want to see a disclaimer at the start of the film stating: ‘This film is not a piece of fiction and is based on real life instances from the producer/director/executive producer, etcetera’s lives. Due to the brief duration of the film, all the victims and their stories could not be covered. Viewers’ discretion is advised.’

The following is a true story.

An executive producer (EP) of a major film broadcasting house was fired and immediately hired by another broadcasting company. Like they say, one man’s dirt is another man’s treasure. Well, this guy did have loads of dirt on him. To begin with, he was fired or to put it politely, “asked to leave” because of the constant complains of sexual harassment he meted out to his female colleagues. In fact, tales of his behaviour were known to all and sundry in the industry. This didn’t stop him from doing the same at his new workplace. He believed that when you work at a film production company, you are expected to flirt a little to keep the atmosphere ‘light’.

He also believed that wearing a skirt to work makes the female colleague ‘available’ and that she’s ‘looking for some action’. So, he thought he did the right thing by constantly passing nasty remarks about their appearance and their clothes at the workplace. He even told stories about how he was popular amongst starlets, and how they sent him titillating pictures of themselves on his Blackberry Messenger.

Sometimes, he would even tell his males colleague to “go for it” and ask the superiors if they were “screwing” their subordinates (of course, the subordinates were women). He would narrate numerous stories about how, at his previous organisation, he would conduct ‘screen tests’ at hotel rooms and put the tab on the production budget. Stories about him luring young, struggling actresses and taking advantage of them were aplenty. He would drool at new faces and purposely set up meetings at the office to prove he was the alpha-male of the pack; the other men in office would wonder what they had to do to be as charming with the ladies as he was.

Of course, he also had stories of the industry to tell. The most disturbing incident he narrated was of an industry head honcho. He didn’t name the Person, but said that he was once present at a party at this Person’s house. After the guests left at around 4 am, this Person, intoxicated, walked straight into the domestic help’s room and locked the door from the inside. He stepped out of the room a few minutes later and crashed on the couch in the living room. The Person’s wife, who had watched him step in and out of the help’s room, got up, walked into her bedroom, came out with a bundle of rupee notes and when to the help’s room. She walked out again without uttering a word to anyone.

Coming back to Mr EP; he didn’t stay in the new organisation for long either. The women in the new organisation also complained to the bosses. The reason for his exit is still unclear, with most reports hinting at ‘under-performance’. In one year, Mr EP had walked all over the production house’s already non-existent work culture; he was insensitive and loathsome and everybody knew about it and tolerated it. This is exactly what perplexes me; when Bollywood turns around and makes a movie on sexual harassment. The industry that sells dreams is also known for its debauchery and immorality, and men like Mr EP reinforce the cynical view one already holds against the entire fraternity.

I am very keen to know what the filmmakers have depicted in Inkaar and how far-off or close it is to the ground realities of  filmy battlegrounds. I’ll watch this one to gauge Bollywood’s point of view on the subject.

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy sabhot.com)

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