Monday,May25,2009

ABYTE OF LIFE

BOOK SOME TIME

British Council Library introduces RFIDtechnology

FREE CIRCULATION

Vol. 3No. 95

HANS BALIYE

Karisma Kapoor, David Dhawan to judgeshow

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With more than 1,000 professional matches under hisbelt – every single one of them for Milan or Italy – Paolo Maldini will make his farewell bow at San Siro.His career has cranked on and on, past so many milestones, it is hard to know where to beginhonouring the end.

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ERGO

Monday,May25,2009

NAMMA CHENNAI

Air hostessfound dead undermysteriouscircumstances

n air hostess with Air India was founddead under mysterious circumstancesinside her house in J.J. Nagar nearMogappair on Saturday night.J.J. Nagar police said the deceased NeethuKumari (25), a native of Bihar, wasresiding at a rented house in PapannaVenkat Rao Street, Golden George Nagar,in J.J. Nagar. The incident came to lightafter Bhaskar, the house owner, realised afoul smell emanating from Neethu’s houseon Saturday night and thereafter informedthe police.Police reached the spot around 11.30 p.m.and broke open the door to ﬁnd thedecomposed body of Neethu on the bed.“We suspect it to be a case of suicide byconsuming poison but it can beascertained only after the post mortemreport comes in. However, there was nosuicide note found in the woman’s room,”said K. Sridhar Babu, AssistantCommissioner of Police, Thirumangalam.Following preliminary police investigationsthe body was sent for an autopsy toGovernment Kilpauk Medical Collegehospital.Police added that Neethu might havetaken the extreme step on Wednesdaynight after returning from work. Aninvestigation is also on to ascertain if itwas a case of a well-orchestrated murder.

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Ergo Correspondent

Short-lived delight

Police recently recovered overRs 1.5 crore worth of computersfrom a fraudulent individual whopurchased them from a computersales ﬁrm in the city. The reco-vered goods were brought to thePolice Commissionerate formedia display. Most cops on duty were overjoyed after seeing thecomputer cartons, assuming thatthe computers meant for policepersonnel under a new scheme inthe police force have ﬁnally ar-rived. Their excitement wasshort-lived after a few CrimeBranch cops told them the truth.

Sign of big change

A senior cop had gone to meeta top politician after the latter’sparty won the recent elections inthe state. But sadly for the cop,the politician refused to meethim. Insiders predict it’s a clearsign of big changes to come in thepolice force, including the trans-fer of the senior cop.

The paranoid cop

A high-ranked khaki in the sub-urbs is a paranoid man thesedays. The reason – fear of a trans-fer coming his way as he has beenserving in the zone since the day it was formed. The man is desper-ately running from pillar to postin order to revoke the order be-fore it is issued.

Khaki matrimonial

A smart woman cop in the city is on the lookout for a matrimo-nial alliance.However, despite a number of prospective bridegrooms ap-proaching her, nothing seemedto be working out – so far, that is.Now, things seem to have workedout with one, who is now busy calling on anyone who is vaguely acquainted with the lady cop anddoing a background check onher.

Of transferworries andfuture weddings

Take me home

Cherry is a two-month-old female pup with aunique beauty. All her vaccinations have been givenand she is playful, intelligent and active. To adoptthis lovable mongrel puppy, contact Saipriya ofTAGS at 9840259173.

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An ice-cream cart proves cooling in more ways than one for this ice-cream vendorand his dog taking a nap under the shade of the cart at Marina Beach inChennai.

PHOTO: S.S. KUMAR

We all scream for ice-cream

Monday, May 25, 2009

hat Simon Majumdarloves to eat comes outpretty clear. When hequits his job and sets outto travel around the world andeat everything, one wouldn’thave expected that he honestly means “Go everywhere, eateverything” – things that rangefrom bowl-licking good to hor-rors he tried so that others wouldn’t make the mistake of sampling.

Eat My Globe

is a methodi-cal, insightful and extremely funny autobiographical ac-count of the author’s around-the-world adventures, withfood as the beginning and endof all. Most travellers visitmonuments, Majumdar visitsrestaurants and people’skitchens and gets stories andphotographs. Beginning inBritain and ending in Rome,Majumdar details local delica-cies and flavours with a finesseand wit that makes you wantto pack your bags and do thesame.Each chapter, chronicling the author’s experience in adifferent country, throws upsome surprisingly interesting facts. For example, did youknow that in Britain for a pork pie to be known as MeltonMowbray pork pie it needs tohave a minimum 45 per centmeat content in it?Through a circle on Internetfriends spread across differentparts of the globe, each shar-ing Majumdar’s seemingly un-natural passion for food, theauthor scourges the best plac-es to find each place’s localspeciality.Places that find mention fa-vourably range from high-pro-file restaurants like Sydney’sTetsuya Wakuda and Mum-bai’s Bukhara to Yakitori(‘roasting chicken’) bars in To-kyo and tacos stalls in Mexico.Homes of friends and strang-ers who invite him home alsoend up churning out the trip’smost memorable meals.Of course, Majumdar alsogets his chance to deviate fromfood and make a commentary on socio-economic-politicalscenarios (the one on China ishilarious, scary and gross si-multaneously), but that thank-fully is just occasional. For themost part, the story is aboutthe eating.Stir-fried rat in China, rottenshark meat in Iceland and codsperm sushi find their way down the author’s throat dueto his adherence to the “eateverything” aspect of the jour-ney.If you don’t read how it’s so-mething that runs in the fam-ily, with the author’sIndian-Welsh roots signifi-cantly accounting for it, Ma- jumdar’s obsession with foodand what goes behind it wouldalmost seem maniacal.

Eat My Globe

is a page-tur-ner that informs and enter-tains, in whatever order.

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‘Eat My Globe’ by SimonMajumdar is thetale of one man’sworld tripresulting fromhis one big passion – food

SHALINI SHAH

shalinishah@goergo.in

Many colours on his plate and palate

Book:

Eat My Globe

Author:

SimonMajumdar

Publishers:

HachetteIndia

Price:

Rs. 295

library staff at BritishCouncil Library on AnnaSalai sounds both relievedand excited when he takesmembers through the working of the RFID (short for Radio Fre-quency Identiﬁcation) technolo-gy. Relieved, because the newly installed kiosk does away with thehassle of standing in queue to re-turn or borrow books, so he canattend to other requirements of customers. And excited as bibliophilesseem to have accepted the tech-nology without much commo-tion. With around 9,000 members,comprising both individuals andorganisations, the library on anaverage receives around 200 walk-ins a day. This count almostdoubles on weekends, especially in the evenings where the crowdgets “unhealthy”.Installing the two RFID kioskscomes as a boon for thosepressed for time. All what oneneeds to do is place the book tobe borrowed or returned (any number) along with the RFIDcard on the machine. The kiosk requests the user to follow somebasic instructions – renewal, bor-row or return. An acknowledg-ment slip is generated giving details of the ‘book issued’ and‘date of return’. One can alsocheck their account status or whether there are any pending charges on these kiosks. Well, that’s not over. It has alsoinstalled a drop box at the check-in zone of the British Council, whereby members can drop inany time of the day to return theirbooks. According to R. Muralidharan,manager - young audiences, BC,the work towards the RFID tech-nology started a year ago. “Westarted issuing the RFID cards toall the members since Novem-ber,” he says.The technology was piloted inthe Delhi and Chennai libraries of the British Council, and in thecity it probably is the ﬁrst to im-plement such a technology.If you are a regular at the li-brary, look out for more additionshappening, including a refur-bished look.

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For membership and other details call 4205 0600 or drop in at British Council, 737, Anna Salai.

BC library has more reasons to woo members. The 24X7 drop box and RFID technology saves time to a great extent

LIFFY THOMAS

liffythomas@goergo.in

Be your own librarian

BOOK REVIEW

A member checks out the RFID kiosk