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- A note on the issue: Elevating daily objects

- Sketches that reveal master architect Le Corbusier's mind

- Belarus, Russia, Ukraine rights' activists win Nobel Peace Prize

- The English language is not a fancy dress party

- Looking at the enduring legacy of Le Corbusier through objects

- Among the clouds in Mizoram’s Phawngpui National Park

A note on the issue: Elevating daily objects

Le Corbusier’s pared lines, design philosophy and ideas about form meeting function are influencing a new generation of product designers

A room divider and a coffee table at Phantom Hands, designed by x+l

LAST PUBLISHED 08.10.2022  |  09:07 AM IST

After everything you hear about it, to actually see Le Corbusier’s Monument of the Open Hand in Chandigarh can be a bit unsettling—it stands alone, marooned in a sea of concrete, turning dismally in the wind, almost like a sharp comment on modern urban planning. Plastic magnets of it made for tourists look far more lively. After you have wandered through his grand and bustling Capitol Complex with its vivid art, massive entryways, sweeping arches, stretches of water and terrace gardens, the monument seems somewhat forlorn.

Also read: Looking at the enduring legacy of Le Corbusier through objects

Whether one likes Le Corbusier’s idea of city planning or not, his work influenced a generation of post-independence architects, helping build the essential infrastructure of a new nation. Today, his pared lines, his design philosophy and his ideas about form meeting function are influencing a new generation of product designers. Lamps, furniture, jewellery, even tiles and switchboards that draw on his unerring sense of proportion and colour, are in the market.

To mark 135 years of Le Corbusier, who was born 6 October 1887, we meet the designers and artists who were born at least two decades after his death in 1965 but continue to draw from his ideas and create contemporary objects for daily life. We also have a rare interview with the legendary architect B.V. Doshi, who worked with Le Corbusier, and his granddaughter, who continues to carry forward the same philosophy.

Another birthday we are observing at Lounge is Amitabh Bachchan’s—the actor turns 80 on 11 October, and a rare retrospective of his films is being organised in 18 cities across the country. Bachchan, of course, is still seen on screen—most recently in Brahmastra—but the films that really sealed his place in Hindi cinema’s hall of fame were made in the 1970s and 1980s. Those haven’t been on the big screen for his huge following of younger fans. That’s one way to spend this weekend—and for everything else you could do, from dining out to shopping, read the rest of our issue.

Write to the Lounge editor at shalini.umachandran@htlive.com

@shalinimb

Also read: Sketches that reveal master architect Le Corbusier's mind

- FIRST PUBLISHED

08.10.2022 | 09:07 AM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

Sketches that reveal master architect Le Corbusier's mind

An architect who worked closely with Le Corbusier, B.V. Doshi, and one inspired by him, Khushnu Panthaki-Hoof, discuss the Swiss-French architect’s sketches

A painting by Le Corbusier, which he gifted to B.V. Doshi. Photo: courtesy Vastu-Shilpa Foundation/B.V. Doshi

LAST PUBLISHED 08.10.2022  |  07:30 AM IST

It was the line that linked legendary Indian architect Balkrishna V. Doshi and Le Corbusier. When Doshi went to Paris in 1950 to work with the master architect for four years, neither had words in common—Doshi spoke no French and Le Corbusier’s English was limited to a few sentences. But they found a stronger language to link them for the next 15 years—the very cryptic language of lines and gestures.

“Whenever I was sitting with him, he was at the drawing board. He was always making lines, surfaces, sections and plans in such a way that you would never feel the hardness of material or objects. There was a softness in his designs,” recalls 95-year-old Doshi, the first Indian architect to win the Pritzker Award in 2018, on the phone from Ahmedabad. His granddaughter Khushnu Panthaki-Hoof, principal architect, Studio Sangath, and director,Vastu-Shilpa Foundation, Ahmedabad, adds, “They both spoke the language of lines and that’s where he learnt how to really feel a space.”

Lines form the basis of architecture, much like musical notes in a harmony. The drafts that architects draw don’t just pave the way for designs but also serve as communication with other architects often divided by time, space and language. This keen perception is on full display in the rare conversation we had with Doshi and Panthaki-Hoof, who are joined not only by familial roots but a passion for design.

Also read: Looking at the enduring legacy of Le Corbusier through objects

As they present their unique take on Le Corbusier’s drawings, the discussion oscillates from the professional to the personal. Doshi was gifted a painting by Le Corbusier and used to have a photograph of the architect on his wall. Many of Doshi’s thoughts on design were honed as he witnessed Le Corbusier creating a sense of space with lines. Panthaki-Hoof views the drawings through a double prism—her grandfather’s experiences and memories, and her own study of Le Corbusier’s architecture.

Doshi and Le Corbusier’s relationship went beyond the architectural projects they worked on, including the plans for Chandigarh. Panthaki-Hoof, 42, and her graphic designer sister, Jessica, grew up listening to stories about Le Corbusier, so much so that they thought he was a family member. “My grandfather is an architect and a storyteller. When people came over, the conversation would inevitably veer to Corbusier—not just his design but also his way of life. My grandfather came from an estranged family. For him, Corbusier became a father figure,” says Panthaki-Hoof.

The two master architects, Le Corbusier (centre) and B.V. Doshi (right) on site. Photo: courtesy Vastu-Shilpa Foundation/B.V. Doshi

In several essays, Doshi has likened Le Corbusier to an acrobat, one who could deftly balance light and space, sharp lines and softness, and would often work on different scales at the same time. “Architecture is not just about line and drawing but carries within it notions of space, form and proportion. Corbusier always strived to make things better. He would draw a wall or a door and observe how it would feel in a space. Each drawing carried within it his reflections and imagery. Nothing was a hit-and-trial but was in continuous connection with the surroundings,” says Doshi, who has designed, among other iconic buildings, Ahmedabad’s CEPT University, the sprawling Aranya low-cost housing project in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and the granite buildings of the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru.

Also read: How daily objects tell the history of India

He says Corbusier devised tools to design architecture suitable to the aspirations of a newly independent India, while taking into account the climate, cosmic elements, and lifestyle of the population. “Being methodical and precise, he would expect us to transform into design a stamp-sized conceptual sketch he had made in India. But while developing it, he would ask us to follow up all other relevant information. For example, the climatic grid was prepared in the studio to study air movement, sun path, humidity, rainfall, to decide the orientation, materials, openings, methods of construction, etc,” Doshi said at a lecture at a conference on Chandigarh in 1999. This was later published by the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation.

It is such principles that continue to inspire architects. One can see this sense of lightness and visual continuity between outside and inside in Panthaki-Hoof’s designs. In the 2018 project 079|Stories, a 11,000 sq. ft art and cultural centre in Ahmedabad, the team placed “conventionally underutilised” spaces like courtyards and galleries at the heart of the building. The cube-shaped building became known for its circulation spaces and unobstructed movement.

It is one thing to grow up with stories of a person and another to study his philosophy. “As an architecture student, I realised we overcomplicate things. The way Corbusier worked and my grandfather practised architecture, there was a lot of focus on intuition, on how to feel the space when you moved through it,” says Panthaki-Hoof . “In Corbusier’s buildings, there are a lot of chance encounters, there is always something unexpected. This happens in my grandfather’s work too and we try to do the same.” The focus remains on telling a story through space.

Also read: Looking to the past to design future cityscapes

The multidimensionality of Corbusier’s drawings conveys a sense of inspiring largeness and emptiness, yet his work had elements of whimsy and the lyrical that brought life and perspective to them. “He would make a small sketch of a flying bird in the corner (of his architectural drawings). Usually, such things are not drawn in the draft. By adding that sketch, he communicated so much about space and scale. A tinge of blue would make one perceive the sky,” says Doshi.

Many sketches carry symbolism from Indian mythology and his perceptions of life. Corbusier would often draw hands, which, he believed, were tools from God to find solutions. “There is a sketch, which appears on the door of the assembly building (in Chandigarh), that shows an integrated yet peaceful connection to our understanding of life and decisions. Once, he mentioned that at night when we sleep, we dream, and those dreams give us the images of the whole of life that goes on beyond and we become party to it,” Doshi had said in a 1999 lecture.

Le Corbusier also drew inspiration from classical Indian architectural elements such as cloth awnings that kept buildings cool in summers, objects such as the charpoy, the ghats near water bodies, the sanctity of trees in Indian philosophy. It is this relationship between the “spiritual and the material” that he often worked into his drawings. The Brahmani bull from the Indus Valley site of Mohenjo-daro held an endless fascination, as did the serpent, a symbol of revitalisation in kundalini. He used several such symbols on the walls of the assembly and the secretariat in Chandigarh. “I feel that they are very important because these symbols easily communicate with the Indian people, man on the street,” Doshi has said in essays.

Also read: What will cities of the future look like?

The time spent with Le Corbusier was an education in philosophy and behavioural sciences too. He once drew a donkey and told Doshi that every day he is reborn in the skin of a cart donkey—never forgetting to work incessantly, never scared of experimentation or starting afresh. In his autobiography, Paths Uncharted, Doshi shares a story on two dogs—one a pet and one a stray—that Le Corbusier related just before he left for Ahmedabad to start his own practice. Every day, the street dog would pass the pet and envy the care it got. The pet, however, craved the freedom the stray had. “Corbusier told him that you can tie yourself to something and give up your freedom to have a good life. But if you want to be satisfied within, you should have courage,” says Panthaki-Hoof. Her grandfather recounts these stories to Panthaki-Hoof’s daughter too, trying to inspire a fourth generation.

For Doshi, the biggest learning from Corbusier has been “to find freedom of the mind”, he says, discussing another drawing from the master he cherishes—one of a star, cloud and dagger. The inherent advice was to dream big, never let the vision be clouded but, also, remain vigilant about the uncertainties that lurk behind a cloud— and “constantly be in touch with your inner self to create designs that carry meaning and message”.

- FIRST PUBLISHED

08.10.2022 | 07:30 AM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

Belarus, Russia, Ukraine rights' activists win Nobel Peace Prize

A trio of human rights champions from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday even as a war rages on in Ukraine

Jailed Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski (above), the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2022. In this file photo, Ales Bialiatski, the jailed leader of Vesna, the most prominent human rights group in Belarus, stands during a court session in Minsk in 2011.  (AP)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  04:40 PM IST

A trio of human rights champions from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a highly symbolic choice of laureates drawn from three nations at the centre of the war in Ukraine. The honour went to detained activist Ales Bialiatski of Belarus, Russia's Memorial group and Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties.

"They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy", the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, told reporters. The committee called on Belarus to release Bialiatski, 60, who has been jailed since 2021. Bialiatski's wife said she was "overwelmed with emotion" after the news.

While the prize was not a direct message to Putin, Reiss-Andersen called his regime an "authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists" and that the committee wanted to highlight he "way civil society and human rights advocates are being suppressed."

Last year, the Peace Prize crowned two champions of freedom of the press, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa and her Russian colleague Dmitry Muratov.

The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $900,000). The award will be presented at a formal ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of the prizes' creator, Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.

Reiss-Andersen said she hoped Bialiatski would be able to attend. "We do hope... that he can come to Oslo and receive the honour bestowed upon him", she said. Bialiatski was imprisoned from 2011 to 2014, and was again arrested following large-scale demonstrations against the regime in 2020. "He is still detained without trial. Despite tremendous personal hardship, Mr Bialiatski has not yielded an inch in his fight for human rights and democracy in Belarus", the Nobel committee said.

Memorial is meanwhile the largest human rights organisation in Russia. Russia's Supreme Court ordered the group's central structure, called Memorial International, dissolved in December 2021. In addition to establishing a centre of documentation on victims of the Stalinist era, Memorial compiled and systematised information on political oppression and human rights violations in Russia. It became the most authoritative source of information on political prisoners in Russian detention facilities. The organisation has also been standing at the forefront of efforts to combat militarism and promote human rights and government based on rule of law.

Both Bialiatski and Memorial have been mentioned in Nobel speculation in previous years.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, the Center for Civil Liberties, founded in 2007, has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population. "In collaboration with international partners, the center is playing a pioneering role with a view to holding the guilty parties accountable for their crimes", the committee said.

The Peace Prize is the only Nobel awarded in Oslo, with the other disciplines announced in Stockholm.

On Thursday, French author Annie Ernaux, known for her deceptively simple novels drawing on personal experience of class and gender, won the Nobel Literature Prize. She is the 17th woman to get the nod out of 119 literature laureates since 1901. Earlier in the week, the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry were announced. The 2022 Nobel season winds up Monday with the announcement of the winner of Nobel Economics Prize.

Also read: Mizoram's predicament over Myanmar refugees

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 04:40 PM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

The English language is not a fancy dress party

Our love of flowery language is second to none. This tendency to go overboard is a special feature of Indian English. It’s a hangover of the Raj

Shashi Tharoor would never string together polysyllabic words without meaning. (Getty Images)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  03:00 PM IST

Every few weeks, like clockwork, someone will send a Shashi Tharoor meme on some WhatsApp group I am on.

How would the MP Shashi Tharoor wish someone a happy Diwali, for instance. The real-life Tharoor tweets “Warmest Deepavali greetings to all—may light dispel darkness, truth supplant ignorance, joy overcome gloom & hope rise above despair”.

But in the meme world it goes something like this: “May your festive season be punctuated with revachism whose magnoliquence can only be theatropistically analysed by the use of reminiscent exacerbation.” And so on and so forth. This is not Tharoor-speak because it’s just polysyllabic words strung together without any regard to meaning, something the real Tharoor never does. Even worse, it manages to spell some of them wrong, which too would never happen in a Tharoor tweet.

Also Read: A debate in Bengali is the ultimate test of fluency

Tharoor clearly enjoys his reputation as the prestidigitator (see, I can do it too) of the English language and can show it off like a party trick with some elan. But all around us we still see people feeling compelled to treat the English language as some kind of fancy dress party.

Clearly, we are not the only sufferers. New Zealand is proposing The Plain Language Bill that demands bureaucrats use simple, comprehensible language to communicate with the public, according to The Guardian. New Zealand even has an annual plain language award for the “best sentence transformation” from government gobbledygook to vanilla English.

For example, this gem from their transport authority. “Where it has been identified and is possible to update this it has been undertaken ensuring future band allocation is correct.” That simply means, “Where possible, we’ve identified and updated affected sub-models to make sure they’re assigned the correct levy band going forward.” I am not sure what a levy band is but I get where the sentence is going. The other one just made my head spin.

Of course, a Plain Language Bill could also result in a new kind of language police, plainclothes police, so to speak.

But the effort is laudable and we could do with some of it as well. India’s love of flowery language is second to none and it goes well beyond New Zealand’s problem of government communication.

Corporate reports, public relations press releases, court rulings are often utterly incomprehensible, lost in verbal fireworks. I just came across a signboard advertising “the crescendo of furnishing ambience”.

During the Arushi Talwar murder case, a trial court ruled, “The cynosure of judicial determination is the fluctuating fortunes of the dentist couple who have been arraigned for committing and secreting as also deracinating the evidence of commission of murder of their own adolescent daughter—a beaut damsel and sole heiress Ms Aarushi and hapless domestic aide Hemraj who had migrated to India from neighbouring Nepal to eke out living and attended routinely to the chores of domestic drudgery at the house of their masters.” That’s just page 1 of a 210-page verdict. What’s striking, though, is that while the language is flowery, the grammar remains a little shaky.

Perhaps some of this is about thwarted literary aspirations. Perhaps many judges wanted to be writers, given their propensity to quote from scriptures, classics, myths, even films. But mostly it’s just our innate love for pontification. It’s gotten so bad, writes Bhavya Dore on the website Popula, that the Supreme Court has sent a case back to a lower court saying, “We will have to set it aside because one cannot understand this.” The Vidhi Centre for Law and Policy has produced a manual for plain language drafting practices, saying “complex legal drafting goes against the grain of a democratic and participatory society as it reduces accessibility of the law to the common man”.

Language thus becomes a tool for obfuscation, not clarification. It can also leave the uncommon man/woman with a splitting headache.

When Subhash Vijayran filed a petition in the Supreme Court against bombastic language, he said: “The writing of most lawyers is 1) wordy, 2) unclear, 3) pompous and 4) dull. We use eight words to say what can be said in two. We use arcane phrases to express commonplace ideas.” He got a sympathetic hearing from the bench but the sad truth is everyone thinks everyone except themselves writes flowery, incomprehensible English. They never think of their own output.

The Supreme Court itself produced a 268-page verdict in a case involving the politician Subramanian Swamy which said a batch of writ petitions “exposits cavil in its quintessential conceptuality and percipient discord between venerated and exalted right of freedom of speech and expression of an individual”, etc, etc.

No wonder Vijayran wanted “Legal Writing in Plain English” to be made a mandatory subject in LLB courses.

It probably needs to be a mandatory subject for MBA courses too because business reports and corporate brochures are just as maddeningly dense. Even CVs, which should be crisp and to-the-point, cannot resist a stroll in the flower garden. Diplomatic circles have a special love for this kind of language.

After the WikiLeaks expose, The Guardian couldn’t resist quipping that among other things the leaks showed “India’s bureaucracy has a well-deserved reputation for obtuse language and an ability to resist reform”. In Yes Minister, the suave bureaucrat Sir Humphrey Appleby knew how to do that. But his flourishes had wit and flair. Sadly, we are just left with the uncle-jee version—bombast and hot air.

Many Indian languages can be flowery, especially in a literary setting. Persian or Sanskrit poetry in translation lose their musicality and can feel overburdened with words. Even Rabindranath Tagore in English translation can often feel too saccharine and wordy. Mahatma Gandhi was so enamoured of the sound of Tagore’s Bengali poetry he tried to study the language to read Tagore in the original.

But this tendency to go overboard is a special feature of Indian English. It’s a hangover of the Raj. It was a way for the colonised to try and curry favour with the sahibs and a way to make themselves feel better about their colonised selves. It was obsequious and flowery at the same time.

The British sneered at it, calling it Babu English. It was bombastic, clunky and heavy-footed in its use of idiom. The babu wanted to show off his education but he only revealed the thinness of its veneer. It was meant to show off but it often served as a disguise for a feeling of inadequacy.

Babu English had cousins like Butler English, Boxwallah English. But it wasn’t just the poor babu who was to blame. Even some early Indo-Anglian poets found it hard to resist the urge to be flowery. Govin Chunder Dutt, of the same family as the poets Aru and Toru Dutt, writes a Farewell To Romance with

“Wherein thine image might be dimly spied,

While the winds dallied with thy bosom bare,

And raised thy robes, and oft in wantonness

Rippled thy mirror, to destroy thy dream?”

We obviously come from good flowery seed. And most of us carry it within us. It’s something we have to unlearn.

At my English-medium school, I too liked my flowery English. In class VII, I remember, we had to write about our Puja vacations. We had been to Kashmir and I wrote what I thought was a thrilling story involving the chair cars of Gulmarg. The setting being Kashmir inspired me to be at my flowery best. Our class teacher was a Jesuit priest, Camille Bouché. Father Bouché returned everyone’s scripts. I waited smugly, convinced I was being singled out for some great honour. Perhaps he would read it out to the class. Instead, he returned my exercise book with a big red gash through my masterpiece. “Write simply,” he told me. “Don’t show off. Big words are not necessarily the right words.”

At that time I bristled with indignation. But it might be one of the only lessons from school I still carry close to my heart.

Cult Friction is a fortnightly column on issues we keep rubbing up against. Sandip Roy is a writer, journalist and radio host.

@sandipr

Also Read: Does migration endanger languages?

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 03:00 PM IST

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Looking at the enduring legacy of Le Corbusier through objects

On Le Corbusier’s 135th birth anniversary, Lounge explores how the master architect’s design elements continue to live on—in furniture, lamps, mirrors and other daily objects

‘Envol’ floor lamp by Paul Matter. Photo: Ankush Maria

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  03:00 PM IST

When Nikhil Paul installed his studio’s new floor lamp—a burnt brass stand, with iron arms and spherical blown glass shades at the each end—at the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France, this May, he felt like things had come a full circle. The building had been designed by the Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, in 1952. As a child, Paul—now the founder of Paul Matter, a Delhi-based lighting design studio and atelier—had spent every summer vacation at his aunt’s home in Chandigarh, the city Le Corbusier designed.

In fact, the city, with its squares, parks and avenues, was his first tryst with design. “It made me curious about architecture. My parents are doctors and I was studying to be one, but by happenstance I got into design and revisited everything I had seen growing up,” he says.

In May, Ygaël Attali, co-founder of the international art gallery Galerie Philia, invited him to participate in Heritages, an exhibition to celebrate 70 years of Unité d’Habitation, a self-sufficient housing structure with everything the residents needed located within. Paul, one of eight international designers there, showcased Envol, a lamp inspired by Le Corbusier.

Also read: These women artisans sew together a brand and their futures

Le Corbusier, who died at age 77 in 1965, is best known for his buildings, which influenced generations of architects, but over the past couple of years, product design has begun drawing from his work. Contemporary interpretations take just the curve of a line from his architecture, his powerful sense of proportion or the brutalist style that he followed, and incorporate these elements into cutting-edge product design.

The coffee table and floor lamp at Phantom Hands designed by the Dutch designer duo x+l. Photo: courtesy Phantom Hands

You can now see the colour keyboards—or “Architectural Polychromy”—that Le Corbusier created between 1931-59, drawing on nature’s hues to achieve harmony in design, in tiles, switch designs and kitchen interiors. The Fondation Le Corbusier, a private foundation and archive that is the custodian of his legacy, has entrusted Les Couleurs Suisse AG with the worldwide licence for the original Le Corbusier colours; they work with select manufacturers.

The Italian company GIGACER, for instance, offers large-format ceramic tiles in the Corbusier colour of 32142 ombre naturelle claire. The German electrical installations company JUNG has been hand-painting surface switches in Corbusier colours for some years. In India , design ateliers such as Phantom Hands and Dotto Objects are independently creating pieces inspired by the architect’s design philosophy.

Also read: How daily objects tell the history of India

Though Le Corbusier is known for his sense of proportion, harmony in design and contribution to urban planning, particularly the design of Chandigarh, which started in 1951, he also designed furniture, like settees and chairs, for the spaces he created. For decades, versions of the pieces he created with cousins Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriard, which came to be known as LC furniture, have been replicated. Since 1964, however, the Italian manufacturing company Cassina Spa has been the exclusive manufacturer of Le Corbusier furniture bearing the logo of Fondation Le Corbusier.

Now, with the rise of multidisciplinary studios, helmed by young designers who are collaborating with textile designers, artisans and international designers to look at specific aspects of iconic creators like Le Corbusier, a greater range of everyday objects is taking inspiration from the architect’s vision.

The table lamp at Phantom Hands, designed by x+l. Photo: courtesy Phantom Hands

At Paul Matter, experiments are on to convert the site installation from Heritages into a series. It’s interesting to learn how the piece came into being: On weekends, Paul would head to Chandigarh and revisit places from his childhood. “All Corbusier’s concepts and detailing—in the parks, city squares, university, walkways, even the drainage covers on the roads—are celebrated in such a monumental way in the city,” he says. Indeed, in this, his most ambitious, project, Le Corbusier brought in all the learnings from earlier projects, like the Villa Savoye in Poissy, France, and introduced elements such as the architectural promenade, tree-laden avenues, the use of the Modular, concrete grills, and open spaces with a play of light and shadows.

Paul studied both Chandigarh and Unité d’Habitation and decided to pay homage with the former as the point of reference. The team studied Le Corbusier’s Modulor maps (described as the “anthropometric scale of proportions devised by Corbusier”), created 100 prototypes, and selected one to send to Hermitages. “We took the rotating Open Hand Monument, installed at Chandigarh’s Capitol Complex, and simplified it,” explains Paul.

Materiality has always played a huge role in design at Paul Matter, set up in 2016, and this was no different. The team used blown glass, which added a lightness to the design, and the softer metal qualities of brass. “Brass is easy to bend and ages beautifully. We kept mild steel as the base and let it rust to capture a bit of the brutalist essence of Corbusier,” he says.

Also read: Editor's note: The future of our freedom

Nikhil Paul, founder, Paul Matter. Photo: courtesy Paul Matter

In another design atelier in Bengaluru, Le Corbusier’s vocabulary is being interpreted very differently. Phantom Hands, a design-driven contemporary furniture maker and a collective of artisans from traditional craft communities, creates furniture based on pieces—chairs, lamps— designed for public spaces and buildings in Chandigarh in the 1950s-60s.

It started in 2014-15, when Deepak Srinath, co-founder of Phantom Hands, became interested in the design heritage of Chandigarh. Besides Le Corbusier, he was fascinated by Jeanneret, who wasn’t as well known, but had been crucial to the evolution of Indian Modernist design. “I started researching the provenance of the pieces (chairs). In many ways, this (Chandigarh furniture) was one of the first open-source design projects in the world. Designs were not just created by Jeanneret and Corbusier but contributions were made by several other Indian architects and designers,who were part of the team. Some were modified to suit a particular requirement of a public building,” says Srinath.

It came as a surprise to him that though there was a market for such designs, no one, other than local carpenters, was making these chairs any more.

In the 2000s, in fact, there had been some controversy over Chandigarh’s design heritage being exported and exploited after international auction houses began selling vintage furniture made by Le Corbusier and Jeanneret for the city. “We wanted to be above board, so I spent several months researching the history and design authorship claims of these pieces (Chandigarh furniture),” says Srinath. Apart from meeting architects S.D. Sharma and B.V. Doshi, who had worked with Le Corbusier and Jeanneret, to understand how the furniture had been designed and produced, he reached out to Prof Maristella Casciato, formerly of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Canada, where Jeanneret’s archives are housed. After speaking with intellectual property rights lawyers, scholars and Jeanneret’s family, he realised that it was difficult to identify Le Corbusier or Jeanneret as the sole creators of this furniture. Several people—local architects, craftsmen and others—had been involved. The copyright didn’t lie with Jeanneret’s estate and the designs had never been licensed to a single manufacturer. Phantom Hands then decided to create “re-editions” of the Chandigarh furniture, starting with the X-legged and V-legged office chairs and armchairs in teak and cane.

Also read: Looking to the past to design future cityscapes

“We wanted to create a well-made piece which had the proportions that the original designers had intended,” says Srinath. Unlike typical vintage furniture, which perhaps fits well only into retro-themed homes, Chandigarh designs have aged well; their simple, clean lines fit snugly into contemporary spaces. Crafted in teak and cane, they work just as well in traditional Indian settings too.  “People want to go back to handmade, which reminds them of simpler times. These are objects that don’t just look good but are extremely functional and robust. We have put a lot of thought into our joineries and material. As much reclaimed wood has gone in as possible. Our pieces should last between 50 and 100 years. Isn’t that what sustainability is all about?” asks Srinath.

Phantom Hands also created contemporary interpretations of Le Corbusier’s design language. In collaboration with the Amsterdam-based design duo x+l, they made a coffee table with legs inspired by the architectural shapes seen in Le Corbusier’s buildings in Chandigarh. A floor lamp and a table lamp, also designed by x+l for Phantom Hands, take into account the architect’s lifelong fascination with light and shadows. “He was a master of proportion. We try to bring that out in our furniture. Our contemporary design collaborators continue to be inspired by his powerful design language,” says Srinath.

Clio mirror by Ahmedabad-based multidisciplinary studio, Dotto

Saloni Mehta, the founder of Dotto, a multidisciplinary design studio in Ahmedabad, agrees. Her team is working on its new collection, Thea, featuring objects in teak, wood and brass that are inspired by the curves of Le Corbusier’s work. Mehta, who started Dotto in 2019, says her studio aims to “design sans scale” and create lifestyle products inspired by art, architecture and literature.

She found Le Corbusier’s attention to detail in even the smallest of things, be it drainage covers, faucets or doorknobs, inspiring. “We decided to do the same. When we designed sling bags, we didn’t opt for ready-made hardware available in the market. We created the hardware ourselves. If we are designing something, it has to be a wholesome experience,” she says.

Also read: What will cities of the future look like?

Her team has drawn from Le Corbusier’s paintings, especially the ones featuring women. This was an extension of Mehta’s graduation project, in which she overlaid the plans of his buildings with his paintings. “The forms are so similar. The way he drew a thigh of a woman would match the lines in one part of his public buildings,” she explains. This project was converted to “design sans scale” at Dotto, where a facade of a building could be converted into a tabletop, a purse, a door.... “We focus on aesthetics and functionality. Our new series of mirrors, inspired by Corbusier, allows you to hang everything on it, from the smallest piece of jewellery to scarves and sunglasses. It’s a hat tip to the versatility of the master architect,” says Mehta.

Hebe earrings by Dotto

Le Corbusier believed in an interdisciplinary approach. It is only apt, then, that decades later, young designers are taking this ethos forward, collaborating to uphold the principles of harmony, proportion and unrestrained openness that the master architect believed in so strongly.

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 03:00 PM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

Among the clouds in Mizoram’s Phawngpui National Park

Birding in Mizoram’s Blue Mountains and the quest for the rare Mount Victoria babax make for a truly unusual experience

The mysterious Mount Victoria babax looks very similar to the Chinese babax and was considered the same species till 2005. The only record of the species in India, from Phawngpui, used to be from a specimen collected in 1953. (Dhritiman Mukherjee)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  07:00 AM IST

As I stand at the edge of a spectacular precipice, I wonder if riding the clouds might be the simplest way to navigate Mizoram. Perhaps it’s the season—April sees frequent rain. Or perhaps Mizoram’s clouds, unlike those of Meghalaya, are a closely held secret of the Eastern Highlands.

I am at Thlazuang Kham, in the Phawngpui National Park. The cliffs rise around me in a semi-circle and I watch the clouds caress the rocky outcrops on the far side of the yawning gorge, all tawny gold and emerald green. In the distance, Phawngpui Peak, the state’s highest point at 2,157m, beckons.

Also read: Do you know these common, endangered birds of the Himalayas?

It has taken us three days by road to reach the national park. We spend the first two days climbing hill after hill to reach Sangau, 229km from Aizawl in the state’s south-eastern corner, near the India-Myanmar border.

Four of us—a wildlife photographer, a naturalist, a film-maker and I—are on a two-week field trip to explore Mizoram and its wildlife. This far to the east, daybreak is around 3.30am. As we set off for the national park, the clouds play hide and seek with the towering blue mountains in front of me. Far below, the Chhimtuipui river, also known as the Kaladan river, glistens a pale blue as it snakes across the valley to the Burmese village across another hill. American writer Rebecca Solnit’s observation on the blues of horizons and distant mountain ranges comes to mind: “The color of that distance is the color of an emotion… the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go. For the blue is not in the place those miles away at the horizon, but in the atmospheric distance between you and the mountains.”

We hike up a ridge, watch Blyth’s swifts and Nepal house martins perform aerial acrobatics and wind our way through patches of thick montane subtropical forest. We turn a corner, to be greeted by a vast expanse of sprawling grassland—it’s Far Pak, the secluded forest lodge at the park, and our base for the next few days.

The dark-sided flycatcher (Muscicapa sibirica)is a small, brown flycatcher that often perches on the tips of branches, making short sorties out to catch insects in flight. (Dhritiman Mukherjee)

The Burmese connection

Sharing a 722km-long border to the south with Bangladesh and Myanmar, Mizoram rubs shoulders with Tripura, Assam and Manipur to the north. Phawngpui Peak is the highest point of the Mizo or Lushai Hills, part of the much larger Arakan Mountain range along the India-Myanmar border. In the south, the mountains and rivers connect Mizoram to Myanmar’s Chin state, forming a unique frontier zone for both biodiversity and culture.

The Phawngpui National Park is one of Mizoram’s two national parks. Visitors must be prepared for mud roads that become difficult to navigate in the rain, basic accommodation, and no electricity. The name Phawngpui is derived from the local Lai language—phongmeans “meadow”, pui means “great”. As I observe the grassy glades on all sides, I realise it’s a fitting name.

The park, which gets its name from Phawngpui Peak (known in English as Blue Mountain), covers around 50 sq. km. The grasslands are interspersed with thickly forested patches of Himalayan oak and Indian pine, bamboo, white orchids, rogue lilies, and the occasional blushing, late blooming rhododendron, all adding their myriad hues to a unique landscape.

The sunlight begins to feel harsh as early as 10am but the trilling song of mountain tailorbirds leads us, almost like the fabled Pied Piper, to a clump of thick bamboo. Further along, we come upon the seasonal water source that feeds the forest lodge. Here, a pair of yellow-bellied fairy fantails dance a complicated hopscotch on the bamboo fronds.

By 4pm, the sun starts waning, and the sunset is swift and dramatic. Temperatures dip drastically. Along with the howl of the wind, we hear the calls of a grey nightjar from the grassland in front of the lodge, and the booming call of a brown wood-owl from the wooded patch behind. Around 8pm, we get unexpectedly lucky—following the deep, loud hoo-hoo call of a Himalayan owl, we come upon the rather serious-looking bird, black eyes outlined by rims of bright white.

There are no lights for miles, and the night sky is dazzling. Days later, I discover my cellphone has been trying desperately to connect, routinely pinging a tower in Hakha, Myanmar.

Formerly considered a subspecies of the tawny owl, the Himalayan wood owl (Strix nivicolum) is an uncommon sighting, heard more often than seen in the montane forests of the Himalayas. (Dhritiman Mukherjee)

A search for a lost bird

One of the main reasons we have travelled to this remote corner of Mizoram is our search for a rather nondescript-looking brown bird, the Mount Victoria babax (Pterorhinus woodi). Bird Count India, an informal partnership of individuals and organisations, ranks the Mount Victoria babax as the eighth rarest bird species in India, among the 20 on their list. Belonging to the laughingthrush family and named after the highest mountain in Chin state, this species is restricted almost exclusively to the Arakan Mountains in western Myanmar. On this side of the border, the presence of the babax in Phawngpui is known from a specimen collected in 1953. The bird was sighted in the same region in 1997, and then, for the first time in 25 years, in January 2022. Would we be able to spot it?

The sheer cliffs featuring rocky outcrops with some vegetation are their preferred habitats, and we kept a sharp ear out for their calls. The bubbling whistle-like “puh-pooo-yih” seemed quite distinct in theory but we are ambushed by other laughingthrush calls on more than one occasion. We routinely scour the cliffs early in the mornings and evenings, hoping to hear them, but they are elusive.

On one of these walks, we see another bird that is found only in the Lushai Hills in Mizoram and the Chin Hills of Myanmar: the Chin Hills wren-babbler (Spelaeornis oatesi). At first, all that registers is a tiny bundle of brown feathers. But a closer look reveals the most charming features: a white chest flecked with dark spots, a head and upper body with lighter details that complement and contrast with the chest, and a distinctive long tail. We have just seen a “skulker”, which is how avid birders describe difficult-to-see birds. The Chin Hills wren-babbler prefers the understorey of evergreen forests and scrub habitats, and we are lucky to see one flitting in a bamboo patch.

A closer inspection of foliage and bark in forested pockets reveals stunning insect life. A longhorn beetle (Thysia wallichii) rests in the shade on a sunny morning. (Dhritiman Mukherjee)

In this remote landscape devoid of man-made sounds, it is easy to tune in to the soundscape. As I listen, distinct acoustic signatures become apparent. The brown wood-owl and the cicadas keep me company through the night. A pro ventriloquist, the brown wood-owl’s location in the woods behind the lodge is impossible to pinpoint. In another direction, two Himalayan owls appear to be having a conversation in the trees near the cliff. At daybreak, I hear what seems like the familiar urban sound of a generator coming on. My brain registers the sound even as I drowsily realise that we have no generator or electricity. It’s the whirring call of brown bush warblers (Locustella luteoventris) in the tall grass.

On our last day, we walk to the now-familiar ridge, listening carefully. We scan the habitat but there’s no sign of the bird we came to see. Unwilling to give up, we decide to walk to a more hidden outcrop. The naturalist, who is ahead of us, calls excitedly on the walkie-talkie, “It’s the babax, it’s the babax.” We hurtle down the slope. A pair has just flown across and settled on a tree but is now hidden from sight. After a few minutes, they hop on to a fallen tree and make their way up the slope, in plain sight, one after the other. The entire team has seen the babax. The blue mountain has bestowed on us the most memorable parting gift.

Divya Candade is a writer with RoundGlass Sustain, a social impact initiative telling stories of India’s natural world. Read a longer version of this article on Phawngpui National Park.

Also read: World Environment Day: Saving a giant softshell turtle

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 07:00 AM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

Food

- Cocktails are about a return to fun

- A South Indian restaurant in New York gets a Michelin Star

- The age of robusta coffee is here

Cocktails are about a return to fun

From edible garnishes to making whisky fun, cocktail trends from around the world

Cocktails and mixologists are not playing second fiddle to food and chefs anymore. (Istockphoto)

LAST PUBLISHED 08.10.2022  |  09:00 AM IST

"Cocktail culture is exploding globally. It’s all about a return to fun,” says Jenna Ba, sipping coffee on the fringes of the recent World Class Cocktail Festival and Bartender of the Year Awards that saw 50 mixologists from across the world taking part in a three-day “cocktail Olympics”, navigating intricate instructions to create complex drinks from a set of spirits assigned by Diageo’s World Class team. Ba, a veteran of the global bartending scene, is not a contender—she is present at the Sydney, Australia, festival in her role as global brand ambassador at Diageo. She is a frequent visitor to India and was last seen whipping up drinks at Mumbai’s Slink & Bardot nightclub. She has also worked at The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, made a cocktail using leftover gulab jamun syrup and Talisker single malt, and learnt how to make the perfect jaljeera from a vendor in Mumbai’s Dadar market.

Also read | How a mixologist creates drinks using method and memory

Jenna Ba

Speaking to Lounge, Ba lists a few trends that are rocking the world of cocktails, making drinking a fun and social activity after all the solitary juicing-up of the pandemic years.

Martinis are big: “A Martini is so simple, it’s actually complex. It’s like a beautiful black dress, it changes depending on how you personalise it,” says Ba. The classic gin-and-vermouth Martini is getting the gourmet treatment with many flavour twists—from the relatively sedate espresso Martini to the daring Aviation Cocktail, which uses a very specific liqueur, créme de violette.

Cocktails are food: The craft of making cocktails has come a long way from adding sugar syrup and lemon juice to a white spirit. Now there are edible garnishes, trendy new flavours, storytelling around cocktails and a new sustainability-meets-local angle—much like there is in gourmet food. Cocktails and mixologists are not playing second fiddle to food and chefs any more.

Making whisky fun: The “sacrilege to mix anything with a single malt” kind of attitude is out, says Ba. “Whisky always had gatekeepers who were judgemental about who drinks whisky, where and how but much of that is changing, with a new generation of mixologists who are not scared to play around with whisky,” says Ba, pointing to Indian bars like Whiskey Samba, in Gurugram, Haryana.

Zero-alcohol cocktails: The concept of drinking more meaningfully is gaining ground; Ba calls it “hedonism with self-respect”. Ba’s favourite zero-alcohol drink is a Zero Collins, made with Tanqueray Zero and a dash of lime juice and sugar syrup. She calls it “a shower for my brain”.

Get ready for tequila: Mixologists predict that it’s tequila’s turn to take over bars—and when we say tequila, we do mean any agave-based drinks, though there’s buzz that Diageo’s multiple award-winning tequila, Don Julio, might be making its way to India.

Also read | Cocktails in India come of age

- FIRST PUBLISHED

08.10.2022 | 09:00 AM IST

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A South Indian restaurant in New York gets a Michelin Star

The year-old Semma, that serves Gunpowder dosas, pesarattu, and Dindigul biryani, was honoured with a Michelin Star today

Chef Vijay Kumar of Semma poses with the Michelin Star. (Photo: @vikaskhannagroup, Instagram)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  05:51 PM IST

It didn’t take too long for Semma to catch the attention of New Yorkers. The South Indian restaurant opened in the dining hotspot West Village in October last year. Within three months, they received a glowing review from The New York Times. Diners lined up for their spicy, rustic food prepared by chef Vijay Kumar. Today, amidst loud cheers, the restaurant received its first Michelin Star.

Semma, by the hospitality group Unapologetic Foods, is the brainchild of US-based restaurateur Roni Mazumdar and chef Chintan Patel. Their impressive roster of restaurants also includes Dhamaka, Adda and The Masalawala. In recent months, they made headlines when Patel was recognised as the best chef in New York by the prestigious James Beard foundation. Their motto is to bring authentic and regional Indian food to the US with restaurants and casual diners.

When they planned to open Semma—a Tamil word which loosely translates to awesome—the partners roped in chef Kumar. He was working with the one Michelin-starred restaurant Rasa in New York then. For the new venture, he created a menu with regional, true-to-roots South Indian dishes. In an interview with Lounge, Kumar said they haven’t retrained the use of spices: “That is our philosophy; we are not changing our recipes. We just want to eat the way we used to eat back home. No compromise on it at all. And, touch wood, 99% of the guests appreciate the fact that we are not cutting down the spices or anything like that.” Kumar, who hails from Tamil Nadu, is now a chef-partner.

The experience is all about ‘fun dining’ not ‘fine dining’. The idea is to experience real flavours of India with little fuss. Dishes like Gunpowder dosas, Dindigul biryani and pessarattu are familiar to Indians, and haven’t been tweaked for western palates. There’s a preparation with snails inspired by chef Kumar’s memories of his grandmother. In the Lounge interview, Mazumdar shared, “When Vijay makes the snails, it is about respecting the way he has grown up. So when you taste the snails, you are also tasting his childhood memories. I think that is the most critical part—it is not always about taking age-old recipes, switching them up, changing ingredients. Our goal is to look back and ask ourselves—how we can be true to where we come from? How can we honour our past?”

Perhaps, it is this approach that defines how Semma disrupted New York’s dining scene and will continue to do so in the future.

Also read | These are the world's best bars of 2022

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 05:51 PM IST

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The age of robusta coffee is here

Long forced to take a back seat to the arabica coffee bean, robusta is now becoming the flavour of note for the speciality coffee industry

Speciality robusta is beginning to make a mark, (Istockphoto)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  09:00 AM IST

Mere mention of the robusta bean is enough to evoke imagery of poor, second-rate coffee. Vardhman Jain, co-founder of the Bengaluru-based cold brew maker Bonomi, puts it most succinctly, “The general perception of robusta has always been that it’s very dark, bitter, tobacco-ey and harsh on your palate.”

That is beginning to change. Arabica, which has dominated the market and mindscape so far, is beginning to yield ground to the sturdier robusta as production, availability and pricing niggles take a toll. A recent Bloomberg news report noted that arabica prices are at a 10-year high; it’s expected to become pricier still, given changing weather patterns, new diseases and increasing labour costs. Rizwan Amlani, co-founder and CEO of Dope Coffee, goes as far as to say arabica could well be on its way to extinction.

For years, robusta has had to live in the shadow of the arabica bean, whose smoother taste allows different flavour notes, ranging from chocolatey to fruity, and enabled the wave of coffee consumption to sweep far and wide. Robusta would be more commonly used in south India, for filter coffee, or bought in bulk by big players like Tata Coffee and Nestle for instant coffee.

Suddenly though, everyone, from planters to roasters and coffee companies, is promoting speciality robusta, looking at new flavour extraction processes, such as natural fermentation more suited to robusta’s unique properties, and micro-lot experimentation, trying to extract complex flavours from the bean—unheard of even a couple of years ago.

It’s well-timed. A 2022 study led by Roman Grüter at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland, estimates that climate change will reduce coffee-producing land by 50% before 2050. “Arabica coffee has low tolerance to rising temperatures and is susceptible to coffee rust. On the other hand, robusta coffee is heat-resistant and more forgiving to grow,” the report states.

The sturdier robusta, which has higher caffeine content, grows at lower elevations and at higher temperatures. Unlike countries like Brazil and Vietnam, major producers of robusta, India has the advantage of robusta grown in the shade of trees such as pepper, for example, that may give its produce a more unique, mellower flavour that can fetch higher prices.

In India, most estates, ranging from the main Chikmagalur belt in Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and even Meghalaya, are already engaged in producing speciality robusta. In May, Mumbai-based Subko Specialty Coffee Roasters launched three types of robusta coffee with different flavour notes along with the Chikmagalur-based Salawara Estate. To entice customers, the robusta beans come in pharmacy-type pill pods, with new maroon imagery to set them apart.

Robusta from Salawara Estate.

“We jumped into robusta beans with a purpose and mission to make India a leader in specialty robusta. It’s great to see other brands put in effort and popularise robusta too because it is the bean of the future,” says Rahul Reddy, founder of Subko Coffee.

Mumbai-based Dope Coffee went one step further during the first lockdown in 2020 and released a whisky-barrel blend using the Amrut cask and robusta beans from Harley Estate in Karnataka’s hilly Sakleshpur region. “It was a lockdown experiment to try and make this coffee using robusta beans. I cherish this coffee because so many people discovered us because of it. We sold out on our website in less than eight hours,” says Amlani.

In late September, Bonomi launched its first robusta cold brew. Jain says he’s waiting to see the reaction of consumers to the higher caffeine content in robusta beans.

Prices of washed robusta, which refers to a certain type of processing, are up from around ₹7,500 for 50kg two years ago to ₹10,000. But it’s still cheaper than washed arabica, which retails for ₹16,000-17,000, and speciality arabica, which goes up to ₹25,000-30,000 depending on its cupping score (a measure of how good the coffee beans are according to a certified expert) and quality, says Sharan Gowda, co-founder of Ground Up Coffee and a third-generation coffee planter at Salawara Estate. It may be easier to work with robusta, he adds.

“Robusta has just got a bad name over a long period in our history. We need to realise that it’s a different coffee altogether... And while it’s not completely possible to get rid of robusta’s harshness, we need to treat it as a different breed to get maximum value out of it,” says Amlani.

Gowda believes India’s production of robusta is more sustainable than countries like Brazil and Colombia, which cleared entire forests to plant coffee. India uses the forest ecosystem to grow coffee in the shade, protecting it from harsh UV rays and ensuring fallen leaves are used as manure.

It’s not easy, nevertheless. Shravan D.S., head roaster at Bengaluru-based Beanrove and a fifth-generation coffee planter who also owns the Kalledevarapura estate in Chikmagalur, explains that robusta is not easy to roast. “It takes a lot of work to figure out the process of extracting taste notes from a bean known to give burnt rubber and wood notes.”

The industry is now ready to put in the effort. Earlier, all robusta beans would be picked together; now it’s common to handpick beans to ensure quality robusta produce comes into the speciality fold. The fermentation process is being tweaked to suit robusta since the bean’s mucilage is thicker than arabica’s. As Gowda explains: “Earlier, we did one round of picking robusta beans, with green and ripe beans together. Now, we are more selective. We ferment the bean for longer and check the pH (acidity) level separately compared to arabica.”

“It’s better to be ahead of the curve and innovate since it might be difficult to do so in the time of crisis,” says Amlani. “Every roaster will launch robusta coffee within a year.”

Here is a starter pack for speciality robusta:

• Dope Coffee’s Double Barrel Blend ( ₹600 for 250g)

• Subko’s three different Specialty Robustas from Salawara Estate ( ₹595 for 250g)

• Blue Tokai’s Kerehaklu Estate Robusta ( ₹390 for 250g)

• Kokoro Coffee’s Kaizen 2.0 ( ₹450 for 250g)

• Bonomi’s Kerehaklu Estate

Priyanko Sarkar is a Mumbai-based writer covering the F&B industry.

Also read | What’s behind the enduring popularity of pourover coffee?

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 09:00 AM IST

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Fashion

- What to look forward to at FDCI x Lakme Fashion Week

- Inside the world of bespoke tailoring

- Kanye West explains why 'White Lives Matter'

What to look forward to at FDCI x Lakme Fashion Week

The upcoming fashion event seems high on evening-centric offerings, mixed with art-inspired resortwear

A sketch from the Shantanu and Nikhil's 'Capella' collection

LAST PUBLISHED 08.10.2022  |  09:00 AM IST

The Fashion Design Council of India returns to Mumbai after 16 years with the Lakmé Fashion Week, starting 12-16 October at the Jio World Convention Centre.

Going by the sketches, preview look books and collection notes, it's clear that it's a season of shine-heavy evening wear and fun resort pieces, embodying the spirit of travel and exploration of nature and artforms.

After the two trying years of lockdown, it's not hard to understand why designers explore wilderness, travel, epoch defining historical eras and art forms. While SVA and Nirmooha take us on an adventure trip steeped in holidays and nature, Limerick and Payal Singhal have visually arresting art forms on their moodboards. Moreover, Geisha Designs and Shantanu and Nikhil propose a closet of shine-inducing evening wear, comprising statement cocktail and ceremonial ensembles. Looks like twinsets or co-ord sets are here to stay. So is 3D baroque-inspired embroidery.

Also read: A lesson from Paris Fashion Week: adventurous dressing

Here are some key trends to look forward to at this season's at FDCI x Lakme Fashion Week.

Travel and nature

A sketch from SVA's new collection, Mor Aur Fuaara

SVA's new collection, Mor Aur Fuaara, comes steeped in the spirit of travel, nature and holiday. Designer duo Sonam and Paras Modi took a trip to the picturesque Nadesar palace in Varanasi, which informed their creative canvas. During their stay at the heritage palace, the designers found themselves getting transfixed by the view of a gushing fountain and a pack of peacocks. Their collection evokes these visuals in the form of vibrant prints peppered on Indo-Western fusion silhouettes. Their signature stripes make a strong comeback, combined with metallic accents. Engineering their own textiles and inculcating Lucknowi embroidery and applique detailing, each ensemble whispers a story of its own. Hues of luscious, green, mints, midnight blue, off white and rose gold pink paint a rich canvas of luxe, wearable ready-to-wear. Ensembles crafted in an array of contemporary silhouettes comprise of draped saris, structured capes, twin sets and separates.

A sketch from Nirmooha's upcoming collection

This spring, Nirmooha seems drawn towards Mother Nature and its vast wealth of flora and fauna. Picture a pack of luscious fungi growing in the wilderness, which has been played into the prints and textures of the pieces realised in lime green, daffodil yellow, deep purples, soft lavender along with terracotta. The label's signature 3D cord ornamentation is explored to create tactile textures over sheer textiles.

Art inspo

A sketch from Limerick's Artopia

Designer duo Abirr n' Nanki from Limerick are all set to unveil Artopia, which derives inspiration from miniature Indian paintings. Reimagining these highly detailed paintings that originated in the 7th-9th century, this collection explores the heritage art in a more contemporary way. Easy-to-wear summer silhouettes, co-ord sets with a few yardage saris on free-flowing fabric, like organza and silk crepe, set the mood for wearable chic.

A sketch from Payal Singhal upcoming collection

Another designer inspired by art is Payal Singhal. Her outing, Painterly, dips into her repository of childhood memories and personal experiences for this collection. Singhal grew up around fashion owing to her parents’ garment export business. However, besides her penchant for the dynamism of design, art was an integral part of her world too. Her grandfather was the National Award-winning artist J.P. Singhal. Under his creative influence, her love affair with the canvas started early on, an innate skill she lost touch with over the years as fashion took over. The pandemic allowed her to return to painting, bringing her immense calm as she put paint to paper. Apt for destination weddings, the pieces come to life thanks to multi-hued brush strokes and abstract art besides miniature Mughal paintings.

Shine on

A sketch from Geisha Designs' collection, Luminescent

Exemplifying shiny textures, Geisha Designs' collection, Luminescent, comprises a line of cocktail gowns and evening wear pieces that superimpose masculine with feminine elements. Picture masculine flourishes (in the form of vertical lines interpreted through techniques like weaving, knotting, cording) interspersed with feminine (in the form of 3D florals, ruffles, tiers, flower petals) accents. Silver makes its presence felt along with the reflective accents of rubies, purples, emeralds and midnight sky.

Shine is also on the moodboard of designer duo Shantanu & Nikhil who showcase Capella: Bridal Couture ’22. Inspired by the Baroque art and its symbolic insignias like ornate chandeliers, the pieces evoke visions of the brightest star in the sky, Capella. There’s a nod to tulle and Baroque lace which comes embroidered in dori work.

Also read: This festive season, go for gold

- FIRST PUBLISHED

08.10.2022 | 09:00 AM IST

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Inside the world of bespoke tailoring

In a world obsessed with speed, there are generations-old shops ready to spend months creating that perfect suit

Sachin Vaish, who runs Vaish in Delhi’s Connaught Place (Pradeep Gaur)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  06:02 PM IST

One of the peculiarities of living in 21st century India is that in a country known for bureaucratic delays and traffic jams, the private sector feels a need to overcompensate. A restaurant aggregator’s 10-minute delivery promise this summer might have been thankfully short-lived but speed, even in a country that lives in three centuries simultaneously, is becoming an obsession.

High-end tailors, ranging from Vaish in Delhi’s Connaught Place to Y&O on Bengaluru’s bustling Commercial Street, in effect make the opposite promise. Their proprietors say upfront that they will ideally require as many fittings as needed. The process can take from four weeks to two months. Says a loyal customer of Vaish in Delhi, who has had seven jackets, two suits and a bandhgala tailored since he moved back to India a few years ago, “The only thing they ask of you is that you be prepared to invest the time to get it right.”

Also read: How to add flair to the male closet

Y&O’s Yunus Ahmed believes high-end tailoring in India sometimes doesn’t get the “respect” it deserves because people have become accustomed to doing so much in a hurry as well as buying off-the-rack clothes.

Spend even a little time with Sachin Vaish, who runs Vaish, or Ahmed and it is apparent that these proprietors are sticklers for process. They are content to turn away business or guide the customer to less classically bespoke options that are quicker rather than compromise on quality. At Vaish, a tailored suit typically costs ₹80,000 to ₹1.2 lakh but can go up to ₹10 lakh, depending on the suiting. Y&O’s bespoke starts at ₹90,000. Happily, duties and shipping on fine suiting material from overseas add just 30% to the cost so the finest Italian and English brands are easily available via their efficient supply chains.

Y&O brothers Yunus (left) and Omar Ahmed at their Bengaluru shop (Clare Arni)

If one can afford a high-end bespoke tailor, it makes sense to follow their process and enjoy the craftsmanship on display. This is how clothes were made for centuries. And, waiting a month or two for a garment that you will wear for decades together just requires a little planning.  Y&O, and Syed Bawkher & Company in Chennai, are overseen by men whose families have been in tailoring for three generations. Before independence, Vaish used to serve the officers at the British army barracks in what is now Palika Bazaar as well as many princely families.

Vaish and Y&O’s tailoring routine starts with making a paper pattern and then the toile, essentially a custom-made garment in cheaper fabric, such as cotton used for uniforms or muslin, that is a prototype of the suit to be made.

It is only at the second fitting that the fabric the customer has ordered, usually light wool, is used. This preamble allows the tailor to adjust for the quirks of the individual body as a physiotherapist treating a patient would. “Most people are asymmetric,” says Sachin Vaish. “The drop of the shoulder is often different. One guy might stand with a soldier’s pose while the other stoops a lot; the size could be the same but the jackets would be completely different.”

Haute couture can be an art form. Bespoke tailors use what is called the “floating canvas” to give the jacket its shape. This lining is often made of horsehair or camel hair and wool or cotton because these breathe better and are lighter. It is attached to the fabric that the customer has chosen with a series of hand stitches. By contrast, many less laboriously tailored suits have fused lining, essentially glued together using heat.

The former is what one needs for a better fit but the pity is that most men opt for the latter or buy off the shelf. On the anecdotal evidence gathered from having split my career pretty evenly between the world’s financial capitals in New York, London and Hong Kong, I can report with regret that in none of these places do men wear jackets that look as unflattering as they tend to in India, usually because the fused lining is bulkier here than it should be and the process of multiple fittings has not been adhered to. Typically, the jackets are cut too tight.

The other problem is that India’s warm climate and today’s more casual dress codes both make a persuasive case for the unlined jacket but most Indian men shy away from them, unlike men in the West. Even though this simply means making a jacket without the lining at the back and the sides, most customers react as if that would leave them feeling undressed. Vaish says he has been able to wear unlined jackets in Delhi almost till the end of December and starts wearing them again in February. Even so, his suggestion that clients consider an unlined jacket finds few takers.

In Bengaluru, which often seems blessed with outdoor air-conditioning year-round, Ahmed favours the more casual shacket, a jacket worn in the style of a shirt. The styles are very different and the shacket may be too casual for most but the principle is similar—a more comfortable, climatically attuned garment than the traditional lined jacket.

Another Vaish recommendation is that clients try hopsack, a kind of light wool that has a basket-weave, and, again, one that breathes better.

As a rule of thumb, pick your tailor carefully—and listen to them. Imagine having a genie at your side who can conjure up the equivalent of magic mirrors that make you look slimmer and smarter. “Bespoke tailoring is a relationship. It’s more than just buying clothes,” says Ahmed, whose father decided to open a bespoke tailoring shop after seeing how fascinated he and his brother, Omar, who handles the business’ operational side, were with fine Italian suiting fabric during a family holiday to Italy. They were then 13 and 11, respectively.

A couple of decades on, it is apparent that Y&O is a labour of love. Its leather sofas and plush interiors suggest a posh club rather than a tailoring shop. Yunus and the master tailor spend time sweating the details. They seek to understand whether, for instance, a client uses a pocket diary that will require a little extra room in the jacket and where they prefer their initials on their shirts. Buttons made from an indigenous nut are procured from Latin America or made from Swarovski crystals from Austria and lined up in large cupboards in their studio. Accessories go way beyond cufflinks, to umbrellas sourced from Italy and stylish man-bags.

If you are having a suit tailored, consider English-styled adjustable side straps on the trousers. These are adjusters made of the same fabric as the suit, with a metal clasp that enables one to loosen or tighten them. I hate wearing belts and dislike looking at belt loops even more. I am also fond of working cuffs, the kind that allow you to button and unbutton them when a work meeting or a wedding function runs on and on.

The last time I saw my long-time tailor in Hong Kong, a few years ago, I mulled aloud whether I should have a sky-blue hopsack fabric I had just bought made with a mandarin collar instead of a more conventional jacket. He pointed out that I had half-a-dozen mandarin jackets (the Chinese variant of the bandhgala) already. The finished product made for an eye-catching blazer, complete with Paul Smith-styled multicoloured striped lining. An eccentric South African woman in the press box at Wimbledon requested a photograph the first time I wore it.

This is the supreme paradox of bespoke tailoring: At its best, it is unshowy and understated, yet people usually can tell your suits are tailored. If there is a moral to this story, it is that when you find an excellent bespoke tailor, enjoy the process and benefit from their wisdom.

Also read: Is your neighbourhood tailor a style magician?

Rahul Jacob was the travel, food and drink editor for the Financial Times in London and is the author of Right Of Passage, a collection of travel essays.

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 06:02 PM IST

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Kanye West explains why 'White Lives Matter'

The musician is perplexed by the negative feedback he's received for his YZY Season Nine collection, according to reports

Rapper Kanye West (in black hoodie) during the Givenchy Spring-Summer 2023 fashion show during the Paris Womenswear Fashion Week on 2 October. (AFP)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  08:00 AM IST

Kanye West recently raised many eyebrows by wearing a T-shirt that had "White Lives Matter" written on it.

After facing backlash from many, West has now issued a statement defending his 'White Lives Matter' T-shirt.

West took to Instagram to share a photo fo a black T-shirt and wrote "Here's my latest response when people ask me why I made a tee that says white lives matter... THEY DO".

Also read: Why the Kanye West-Gap breakup will be tough on Adidas

According to Page Six, West is perplexed by the negative feedback his YZY Season Nine collection received.

"He thinks it's a PC thing," said an insider to Page Six. "He wants to give a voice to the 'other side' (of the race debate in America)." They added, "He doesn't understand why people aren't seeing that."

Page Six reports that front-row guest Jaden Smith left the show immediately when he saw the designs. Later, West was criticised by many journalists, public figures, and activists.

West also brutally ridiculed Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson's sense of fashion for disliking his harshly condemned merchandise.

Later, Gigi Hadid came in support of Karefa-Johnson and came down heavily on West in his Instagram post's comment section. Hadid wrote, "You wish u had a percentage of her intellect. You have no idea haha...If there's actually a point to any of your s-t she might be the only person that could save u".

Later, Vogue ultimately came in support of the employee and issued a statement.

"Vogue stands with Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, our global fashion editor at large and longtime contributor. She was personally targeted and bullied. It is unacceptable," the magazine wrote in an Instagram post.

"Now more than ever, voices like hers are needed and in a private meeting with Ye today she once again spoke her truth in a way she felt best, on her terms," the magazine added.

Before the posts mentioned above, West took to Instagram and wrote, "Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter was a scam now it's over you're welcome."

Also read: The live-action soap opera of Kanye West's album Donda

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 08:00 AM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

How to Lounge

- Vintage Bachchan, back on the big screen

- Little Women, Lighting Up The Stars and other titles to watch

Vintage Bachchan, back on the big screen

As Amitabh Bachchan turns 80, he’s the subject of a rare retrospective of his classic films in cinemas across 19 cities

A poster for the retrospective, designed by Prashant Kanyalkar. Courtesy Film Heritage Foundation

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  03:23 PM IST

It is possible there are more people in this country today who have never seen a classic period Amitabh Bachchan film on the big screen than those who have. Bachchan, of course, remains an active and important part of Hindi cinema: Just this year, he was the motive force in Jhund and the sage older statesman in Brahmastra. But nothing can compare to his reign in the 1970s-80s, when he was Hindi film, an industry unto himself. The utter lack of revival screenings in India has meant that these films, some of the most important in Hindi cinema, have only been watched on TV and laptop screens by recent generations. That could change this weekend.

Also read: Little Women, Lighting Up The Stars and other titles to watch

To mark his turning 80 on 11 October, there will be a retrospective—'Bachchan: Back To The Beginning', by Film Heritage Foundation in association with PVR. Eleven films featuring the actor, the most recent from 1982, will be screened in select PVR cinemas in 19 cities from 8-11 October. These include Yash Chopra’s Deewar, Kabhi Kabhie and Kaala Patthar, the Hrishikesh Mukherjee films Abhimaan, Mili and Chupke Chupke, as well as Don, Kaalia, Amar Akbar Anthony, Namak Halaal and Satte Pe Satta. The rarity of old films playing in cinemas seems to have surprised even Bachchan, who said in a statement: “I didn’t think that I would see a day that all these films from my early career would be back on the big screen across the country.”

A poster for ‘Bombay To Goa’. Courtesy S.M.M. Ausaja

There will also be an exhibition of Bachchan memorabilia at PVR Juhu in Mumbai (the source for the images used here). Curated by film historian, author and archivist S.M.M. Ausaja, it will have posters, photographs, LP and magazine covers, publicity material and the original Shahenshah costume.

The retrospective has its origins in a request by the Finnish Film Archive to Shivendra Singh Dungarpur to help them source some Bachchan films for a screening. Dungarpur, founder of the Film Heritage Foundation, started wondering if it might be possible to get the actor’s films into cinemas here on his 80th birthday. He got in touch with Ajay Bijli, chairman and managing director, PVR Ltd, who asked him how they would convince the producers who had the film rights. “That’s my problem,” Dungarpur told him.

Bachchan's first ‘Filmfare’ cover. Courtesy S.M.M. Ausaja

Dungarpur started approaching producers and rights holders. Rajiv Rai gave them Deewar, Aditya Chopra gave them Kaala Patthar and Kabhi Kabhie. Zanjeer was sought, to no avail. Unsurprisingly, some of his requests were met with bewilderment. “People said to me, why are you taking Abhimaan, it’s on YouTube.” The transfers, he says, were “all decent prints. They are not Bologna-standard but this is a first step to give producers confidence that their films are wanted”.

These producers might take heart from what seems like a good deal of public interest. Dungarpur says his phone has been ringing non-stop. Shows have sold out, celebrities are asking him for passes. “The response has been overwhelming,” he tells me. “Contemporary actors have been calling, saying they will be watching these films for the first time on a big screen. It’s a tremendous feeling.”

Bachchan at a concert rehearsal. Courtesy S.M.M. Ausaja

Sanjeev Kumar Bijli, joint managing director, PVR Ltd, also describes the response as “overwhelming”, adding that with the advance sales “turning out to be a huge success, we look forward to regularly showcase the best of India’s films in our cinemas”. Hopefully, this means more old and rare films will find their way into theatres from time to time. “We don’t have an institution like a MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) or a BFI (British Film Institute),” Dungarpur says. “But what better way to reach out than do a people’s festival?”

To movie fans outside India, it might seem strange that the rights holders and producers were so sceptical that people might want to watch the most beloved films of India’s biggest star. Yet the average cinema-goer is thought so little of in India that this dismissal of their tastes is not that surprising. “People who have seen Chupke Chupke 20 times, they still want to see it on the big screen,” Dungarpur says. “Today, I saw each and every print on the screen. Man, what a feeling.”

A poster for ‘Ganga Ki Saugandh’. Courtesy S.M.M. Ausaja

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 03:23 PM IST

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Little Women, Lighting Up The Stars and other titles to watch

A groundbreaking 1929 documentary, the return of the Clooney-Roberts partnership, and other attractions on screens this week

A still from 'Lighting Up The Stars'

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  11:28 AM IST

Lighting Up The Stars (Netflix)

Mo Sanmei (Zhu Yilong), a mortician who has done prison time for assaulting his ex-girlfriend's partner, finds himself taking care of four-year-old Wu (Yang En You), an orphan, who latches on to him after the death of her grandmother. While Mo is grappling with heartbreak and a strained relationship with his father, the young girl is unable to comprehend the absence of her granny.  With delightful performances from Zhu and Yang, this is a charming film on loss and love with comical moments.—Nipa Charagi

Also read: French writer Annie Ernaux awarded Nobel Prize in literature

Natchathiram Nagargiradhu (Netflix)

Pa. Ranjith's new film is now on Netflix. We'd written in our review: “This is a Ranjith film that is in argument with itself. Or Ranjith swapping chairs and debating with himself. Natchathiram Nagargiradhu is a talky film. It’s why Rene when she is forced to tell her own story is made to stand in a witness stand prop on the rehearsal stage. People say a lot of things, drop opinions and even references and usually it is an enjoyable genre, just people talking in a room with no plot.”

Ticket To Paradise (in theatres)

A divorced couple travel to Bali to break up the wedding of their daughter to a man she’s just met. Ol Parker’s film reunites frequent co-stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts. With the big starry romcom becoming a rarity, this is a throwback to a time when such films when such films were ubiquitous in Hollywood.

Man With A Movie Camera (MUBI)

This 1929 film by Dziga Vertov takes us through a day of life in Russia with the help of dazzling editing and camera trickery. Arguably the greatest documentary of all time, it’s also one the most relentlessly inventive films ever made. The propulsive score is by Alloy Orchestra.

Little Women (Netflix)

The three Oh sisters have been abandoned by their parents, leaving them in debt and misery. In-joo is divorced; In-kyun, a journalist, has drinking issues; and the youngest, In-hye, wants to go to an art school abroad. They are pitted against corrupt politician Park Jae-sang and his devilish wife Won Sang-ah.  This "Little Women" is utterly South Korean in its setting: class divide, debt, slush money, you name it, including murders one too many. With twists and turns tumbling out like a nesting doll—and a ghost orchid adding to the mystery—it does get confusing.—NC

Also read: Bad Sisters review: A most delicious dark comedy

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 11:28 AM IST

- For more such stories Lifestyle News, Fashion Photos on Mint Lounge.

Smart Living

- Apple AirPods Pro 2 review: Pleasing in more ways than one

- Google Pixel Watch faces hurdles with cost, no iPhone support

- Google takes new route to face recognition on Pixel phones

Apple AirPods Pro 2 review: Pleasing in more ways than one

In a tricky TWS earbuds market, Apple's second-generation AirPods Pro make a case for themselves with impressive noise cancellation and audio quality

New second-generation AirPods Pro on display at an Apple event on the campus of Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Wednesday 7 September 2022.  (AP)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  02:00 PM IST

Audio products like Apple’s AirPods Pro or Samsung’s Galaxy Buds have a tricky spot in markets like India. They’re expensive, which means they take on the best audio companies out there, and if they can’t hold their own against a Bose or a Sony, a more affordable alternative is just a stone’s throw away.

Granted that Apple has never really made products ‘meant’ for India, the company’s AirPods Pro may actually be the right fit for premium true wireless (TWS) earbuds buyers in the country.

The AirPods Pro (2nd Gen), which will cost you ₹26,900, have been three years in the making, and these new versions sport Apple’s brand new H2 chip, updated touch controls, and an altogether better audio experience. Yes, a Sony WF-1000XM4 or Bose QuietComfort earbuds will come out on top in some cases, but the AirPods Pro do make a case for themselves.

Noise cancellation

The H2 chip is the brain of the AirPods Pro (2nd Gen), which means they handle the most essential features, like active noise cancellation (ANC), for instance.

While the 2nd Gen AirPods Pro do have better audio quality than their predecessors, ANC really is where you see the biggest difference. They can drown out street noise to a large extent, even when you’re not listening to music, and the transparency mode makes environmental noise feel more natural.

The transparency mode has become a common feature of ANC headphones over the past few years, meant to allow environmental noise flow in even when you have them on. The AirPods Pro, however, is tuned to soften a sudden harsh noise, like a car horn, but still let it through so you can hear it along with the audio content you are listening to. It’s a good feature for cyclists, runners etc.

To be sure, even Sony’s WF-1000XM4 are great at this, but you would be hard pressed to find a competitor for the AirPods Pro other than the Sony and Bose’s QuietComfort. It’s quite significantly better than the Pixel Buds Pro or the Samsung Galaxy Buds series. In fact, if you haven’t used a pair of headphones with really good ANC before, this might actually feel unnerving at first.

In the end though, this is the kind of noise cancellation that’s perfect for listening to a podcast, or an audiobook when you’re out running or just walking on the street. And yes, they do work for noisy Indian roads as well.

Audio quality

While noise suppression is definitely the highlight of the AirPods Pro, it’s no slouch in terms of audio fidelity either.

Apple and Google seem to have a different philosophy for how audio should sound on TWS, and frankly, I think they might be right. If you’re thinking of these as pure music listening devices, then the AirPods Pro definitely lacks the punchy and thumping bass that a Sony WF-1000XM4 can deliver.

Instead, the audio signature here is tuned to do justice not just to all kinds of music, but also to an audiobook, podcast, recordings and more. Where they really shine is in instrument separation, which is very clear in songs like Mark Knopfler’s Sailing to Philadelphia. In short, the AirPods Pro will handle music from rock bands like Imagine Dragons to soft-soothing tunes like Don Edwards’ Coyotes, without disappointing anyone.

The new AirPods Pro bring major upgrades to Transparency mode, Spatial Audio, and customer-loved convenience features, while cancelling up to twice as much noise over their predecessor. (Apple)

Gestures and other features

Despite these improvements, however, Apple’s AirPods have never excelled on audio or noise cancellation alone.

The AirPods Pro takes advantage of the company’s own ecosystem, and the fact that it controls hardware and software closely on its devices to provide not just seamless connectivity, but touch controls too.

You lightly press the stem of the Airpods Pro to play/pause music, or long press to switch between ANC and transparency modes. You can also slide your finger up or down the stem to turn volume up and down. It all does work without a glitch.

In addition, the AirPods Pro (2nd Gen) also has the company’s U1 chip, which is used in the AirTags as well. These allow iPhone users to use the Find My app on their phones to pin-point the AirPods’ location if they’re lost or misplaced.

The U1 chip allows directional tracking, which means the phone’s camera can be pointed around the house to find out exactly which sofa’s cushion the AirPods Pro are under. Apple’s overall Find My network also allows other iPhone users to be notified if a lost pair of AirPods Pro are near them, and they can then notify the rightful owner.

That said, the U1 chip is fitted inside the AirPods case, which means that what you’re tracking is the case and not the actual earbuds. Lose one without the case and you’re done for.

Should you buy them?

The AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) are much improved from their predecessors. They can also charge wirelessly or with Apple’s lightning connectors, and have a tiny speaker fitted on the case to chirp when the battery is low or the device is charging, etc. They do really have a lot going for them, and with the seamless connectivity you get with an iPhone, easy-to-use settings toggles, they definitely work for iPhone users.

The only problem today is that with Sony and Bose selling their best at just under ₹20,000, it’s difficult to ignore the value those offer as well. The AirPods Pro won’t disappoint you, but who doesn’t want to save a few thousand bucks if they can, right?

Also read: Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones review: The best just got better

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 02:00 PM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

Google Pixel Watch faces hurdles with cost, no iPhone support

At $100 more than Apple's lowest-cost model and limited to Android users, Google's new Pixel Watch faces enormous obstacles to adoption, say analysts

New Google Pixel watches are displayed at a launch event for new Google hardware devices in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, U.S., October 6, 2022. (REUTERS)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  12:30 PM IST

Oakland, California (Reuters) - Google's debut smartwatch will go on sale Oct. 13 for $350, the Alphabet Inc unit said on Thursday, taking on a field dominated by Apple Watch at a time when inflation-hammered consumers are shunning all forms of pricey wearables.

At $100 more than Apple Inc's lowest-cost model and limited to people with Android phones, the Google Pixel Watch faces enormous obstacles to adoption, market analysts say. Even sales of the Apple Watch have slipped this year as consumers delay purchases or select cheaper rivals.

Also read: Google Pixel Buds Pro review: Up against the best in business

"The market is not as robust as it once was," said Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at market intelligence firm IDC, adding that aggressive discounting will be crucial to Google.

Google apps already work with watches from companies including Apple, Samsung Electronics Co and Fitbit, which Google bought last year and whose devices are known for tracking personal health.

The new round-faced Pixel Watch, made from stainless steel and glass with dozens of wristband options, enables contactless payments, music control and turn-by-turn directions. A model with cellular connectivity costs $50 more.

The watches will be sold in the United States and several other countries. They will not pair with iPhones because Apple gives its own watches exclusive access to messaging and other important features users would want, said Sandeep Waraich, a Google director of product management.

Hardware sales are a growing part of Google's sales, with benefits also coming through more opportunities to sell ads and services subscriptions.

Google also said its latest smartphones would go on sale in 17 countries starting Oct. 13. They include a $599 Pixel 7 with a 6.3-inch display and a shinier $899 7 Pro with a 6.7-inch display, further camera zoom and additional RAM.

Though a small player in smartphones overall, Google's sales are accelerating. It shipped 3 million phones in the first half of this year, up 131% on a year ago, according to tracking company Canalys.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Peter Henderson and Richard Pullin)

Also read: Google takes new route to face recognition on Pixel phones

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 12:30 PM IST

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Google takes new route to face recognition on Pixel phones

Feature on the new Google Pixel 7 is not as good as Apple's Face ID mechanism, as it can struggle in low light and is more vulnerable to being spoofed

The Google Pixel 7 phone is displayed at its launch in New York on October 6, 2022. Once a minor player in the smartphone business, Google confirmed its new ambition to penetrate the highly competitive market. (AFP)

LAST PUBLISHED 07.10.2022  |  12:00 PM IST

(Reuters) - Facial recognition returned to the latest Google Pixel phones on Thursday after a short hiatus due to challenges on cost and performance, according to three former employees at the Alphabet Inc unit knowledgeable about the efforts.

The feature on the new Pixel 7 is not as good Apple Inc's Face ID unlocking mechanism, as it can struggle in low light and is more vulnerable to being spoofed. In addition, Google has said it is not secure enough to enable signing into apps or making payments.

The return comes after Google became stricter about launching products with facial recognition, in part due to questions about its performance on darker skin. The company took time to review its approach to training and testing facial recognition since the previous Pixel with the capability launched in 2019, one of the sources said.

Google declined to comment on several specific questions about its history with face unlock. It said generally, "Thanks to advanced machine learning models for face recognition, Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro feature Face Unlock, but we’re doing it a little differently." It added, "We achieve good facial accuracy performance with the front-facing camera."

Google's pursuit of face unlock for Android smartphones spans at least a decade, but it came under greater pressure when Apple released Face ID in September 2017, the sources said.

To that point, Google struggled to devise a system that both performed quickly and was impervious to spoofing, or the use of photos or hyper-realistic costumes to fool someone else's phone into unlocking, one of the sources said. Engineers toyed with requiring a smile or a blink - proving a person's "liveness" - to combat spoofing but it was awkward and slow, the source said.

Another source noted that after the arrival of Apple's Face ID, which uses a depth-sensing and infrared camera called TrueDepth to map a face, Google executives signed off on a comparable technology. Google's Pixel 4, released in 2019, called its infrared depth-sensing setup uDepth.

It performed well, including in dark conditions, with no more than a 1-in-50,000 chance that it would unlock a phone for an unauthorized face, according to Google.

But the gear was expensive. And while Apple sells 240 million iPhones annually, Google has topped out at a few million, preventing it from buying parts at the volume discounts Apple does.

Google dropped uDepth in the Pixel 5 in 2020 due to costs, the sources said.

Face masking because of the pandemic gave Google reason to exclude the feature from last year's Pixel 6 and additional research time, two sources said.

Face unlock on the new phones relies on a typical front camera. But unlike the previous system, it cannot securely unlock apps and payments because Google says spoofing chances - such as by holding up a user's photo - are greater than 20%, above the 7% threshold it requires to be considered most "secure."

Low light and sunglasses also can cause trouble, Google says, noting fingerprint unlock remains an alternative.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Kenneth Li and Leslie Adler)

- FIRST PUBLISHED

07.10.2022 | 12:00 PM IST

- For all latest Fashion News, Lifestyle News, Food News, Smart Living only on Mint Lounge.

Table of Contents

Live Mint

News

A note on the issue: Elevating daily objects

Sketches that reveal master architect Le Corbusier's mind

Belarus, Russia, Ukraine rights' activists win Nobel Peace Prize

The English language is not a fancy dress party

Looking at the enduring legacy of Le Corbusier through objects

Among the clouds in Mizoram’s Phawngpui National Park

Food

Cocktails are about a return to fun

A South Indian restaurant in New York gets a Michelin Star

The age of robusta coffee is here

Fashion

What to look forward to at FDCI x Lakme Fashion Week

Inside the world of bespoke tailoring

Kanye West explains why 'White Lives Matter'

How to Lounge

Vintage Bachchan, back on the big screen

Little Women, Lighting Up The Stars and other titles to watch

Smart Living

Apple AirPods Pro 2 review: Pleasing in more ways than one

Google Pixel Watch faces hurdles with cost, no iPhone support

Google takes new route to face recognition on Pixel phones