melange

Sweet vengeance

Jessica AlbaDressing down

The actress used to get beaten up and

bullied in school all the time. Since her

family used to move a lot, she

changed several schools where

she was teased for being mixed-race and not

wearing “cute clothes”. “I was bullied so badly that my dad used to have to walk me into school so I didn’t get attacked... I’d eat my

lunch in the nurse’s office so I didn’t have to sit with the other

girls,” she said in an interview.

“Never be bullied into silence. Accept no one’s defi nition of your life; defi ne yourself.” — ROBERT FROST

Cricketer Gautam Gambhir has been embroiled in controversy over his falling out with Delhi team coach KP Singh. With accusations flying about both on and off the field, the batsman, it seems is seeking divine intervention. Gambhir, along with his wife Natasha and daughter Aazeen, were in Amritsar recently at the Golden Temple

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It seems Airbnb founder Brian Chesky takes the old adage —“When in Rome, do as the Romans do” to heart. Chesky, who’s in New Delhi with his girl-friend Elissa Patel, took a break from meetings and boardroom discussions to turn into a true-blue tourist.

And from the looks of his Instagram feed, he’s going all out — saree shopping, visiting monu-ments, meeting celebrities and

of course, making time for fam-ily. A recent picture by Chesky saw him flanked by seven kids, in an autorickshaw. Turns out, they were Patel’s cousins from Gujarat. And trust Chesky to be cheeky — he captioned the pic-ture: “Seven of Elissa’s cousins flew from Gujarat to stay with us. We’re visiting Humayun’s Tomb, Chandni Chowk and a Bollywood party together. Oh and we’re also starting a boy band. This is the album cover”. Roger Federer, are you listening? .

Buying into Delhi’s charm

In divine service

:::::: billionaire diaries

businessinsider.in

1 Private jet with a gold wash basinSultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei fl ies in a luxurious Boeing 747-400 which set him back a cool $400 million. It’s no ordinary plane though. The wash basins in the bathrooms are made of solid gold while the bedroom walls have gold inlays.

2 Name carved on an islandIn 2009, Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family had workmen carve his name, Hamad, in capital letters on an island he owns in the United Arab Emirates. However, this stunt was apparently not well received by the higher ups in the family and it was erased soon after. 3 A $500 million yacht

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich purchased this massive yacht, Eclipse in 2010. The yacht is equipped with an anti-paparazzi system that overexposes photos. It has two swimming pools, two heli pads, and was bought by Abramovich “on a whim”.

4 A giant shark Billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen bought a 14-feet long dead tiger shark which he preserves in formaldehyde. This work by Damien Hirst cost Cohen $8 million.

5 A Bulgarian townFast cars and luxury homes are the usual perks of the billionaire, but Scott Alexander, one of Britain’s richest men, splashed out on the ultimate status symbol — a town of his own. In 2006, Alexander

purchased a Bulgarian coastal town for an undisclosed amount.

Eccentric billionaires have lifestyles to match. A look at some of the outrageous things the super-rich have splurged on

SPEND LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING

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Actor Matthew Perry recently confessed that he “beat up” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when they were in school together. These famous personalities also faced bullying, only to emerge stronger

apoorva.puranik@timesgroup.com

Barack Obama Ear me out

Former US President Barack Obama spear-

headed an anti-bullying summit in 2011. During the

summit, Obama revealed that he was often picked on and bullied in school.

“I have to say with big ears and the name that I have, I wasn’t immune. I didn’t

emerge unscathed.” During the conference Obama also emphasised on the need to dispel the myth that bully-

ing is just a harmless rite of passage.

Sundar Pichai Ragging baggageArguably the most powerful person in Silicon Valley used to be a favorite rag-ging target. Pichai,

who attended IIT Kharagpur, was

ragged quite a few times in

college. During his visit to India

in January, he recalled one such

incident where all his belong-

ings in his hostel room — includ-ing clothes and

furniture had been rearranged, despite

the door being locked. He was also made to

carry baggage across the railway platform at Kharagpur station

(the world’s longest) by his seniors.

Hrithik Roshan Utter stutter The actor’s physique can turn most people several shades of green and this is vindication of sorts for Roshan, who was bullied all through his child-hood for his lanky frame and stutter. Roshan was picked on so much that he would look for excuses to bunk school. The actor took up speech therapy to fix his stutter.

Mila Kunis Saving face

The Black Swan actress used to go home crying from school

every day as her classmates used to bully her for her “big

eyes, funny face and large lips” Kunis, who came from Ukraine,

(her family moved to the US when she was seven) said in an

interview, “I used to come home crying and ask my parents -

‘Why do I have big eyes?’.. I’ve learnt it wasn’t a bad thing to be picked on because when you’re

little it seems awful.”

“Customers no longer walk into a showroom unpre-pared; they arrive with detailed questions and de-mands. This is why we focus on offering product trainings to our sales consultants. Customers look for a car that represents their lifestyle. It is impor-tant to give them opportunities to connect to the brand by remaining in regular contact during vehicle ownership. Part of our new strategy is to look at how a Porsche showroom looks and feels like in the future and we are working towards a pilot project of integration of new technologies in India”.

—As told to maleeva.rebello@timesgroup.com

What are the new car buying trends among millennials?

forDEESCH PAPKE, CEO Porsche Middle East & Africa

rashmi.menon@timesgroup.com

Most art works displayed by corporate collectors in their work space are pleasing to the eye. Not so with Vir Kotak, joint MD, JM Baxi Group. Delhi-based Kotak believes in surrounding himself with works that give an insight into the human condition. Behind his desk, Kotak has a small watercolour on paper work by Arpita Singh, which he de-scribes as being “quite pleasant to look at first, but it’s actually a dark subject matter”.

A 2015 piece titled Palmyra-Tailors & Drapers, it depicts the beheading of an archeologist in Syria by IS at the UNESCO world her-itage site Palmyra. “It deals with Syria as a hu ma nit a r -ian crisis. It’s nice to have it as a reminder that people can also be tran-sient,” says Kotak, who re-cently showcased his first solo photography show that focused on memories, in Mumbai.

The other painting that hangs on his office wall is the cruci-fixion of Christ by Rameshwar

Broota, which Kotak says com-plements Singh’s work. Why such dark themes? “I view it objectively, lighter, darker or happier,” he says, “Take your work seriously, not yourself. Things can be done lot more ef-ficiently if you know the differ-ence between the two.”.

Listening to your art

It was chilly that first morning in New York when I walked to the lo-cal farmer’s market. So I was happy

to stop at the first stall which had a sign saying: ‘Hot Cider’. This wasn’t cider in the original sense of fermented apple juice. In the US, the term is sometimes used for raw, unfiltered apple juice and this had been heated with spices.

Frankly, in the cold, alcoholic cider would have been welcome, but this was what was on offer. I bought a cup with little enthusiasm, remember-ing the blandly sweet apple juice sold at railway stations across India by the Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation (HPMC, though shouldn’t that be HPHPMC?). Worse, there was that awful apple based soft drink that was one of the most disgusting things I have ever tasted.

Then I took a sip of the New York cider and almost dropped the cup. It was as close to the apple juice I was used to as champagne is to soda water. This was sweet, but with acid freshness, sophis-ticated sour notes and complex fruity aromas. I could taste the spices, but they

wouldn’t have had the same impact without the amazing apple base.

Partly this was because it was made from amazing apples. The fruit industry has flooded the mar-ket with just a few varieties, like Red and Golden Delicious, more chosen for looks and storability than taste. But in the US Northeast many heritage varieties are still grown and they have

all the flavour, texture and sheer joy in eating that has perversely been bred out of mainstream apples.

This juice was also just pressed and not subject to concentration and stand-ardisation. It was a reminder of how, historically, apples were grown almost as much for juice as for eating. In colder climates like the UK or Northeast US grapes don’t flourish and grain, which could be brewed into beer, was also in demand for bread.

Apples required little work to grow, and reliably produced quantities of juice. As Frank Browning writes in his book Apples: the Story of the Fruit of Temptation, “in Britain’s constant ten-sion with the Continent, cider became the patriotic beverage of self-sufficien-cy”. Ironically when the US rebelled against Britain, cider again was pro-moted as the patriotic drink.

In time easier, availability of wine and grain ended cider’s glory days. In India we only seemed likely to get the boring HPMC juice. But recently I came across natural, unfermented apple juice that is being sold by an organic German bakery from Delhi. And again I tasted those complex fresh flavours I had encountered in New York.

I know that in Himachal there are old orchards with varieties that would count as heirlooms abroad, but here are just sold cheap and possibly made into juice. Or perhaps it is made from stand-ard varieties but the minimal process-ing makes the difference.

Either way I’m happy I can get a taste of this ancient and amazing apple drink.

::::::foodfablesby Vikram DoctorFascinating nuggets from epicurean history

Forbidden fruit: A juicy story

Brian Chesky

The watercolour Palmyra - Tailors

& Drapers ; Vir Kotak (above)

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Matthew Perry

Justin Trudeau

MUMBAI, WEDNESDAY, 22 MARCH 2017 04