Tips to see better

I can't vouch for these claims, but here's someone who believes defective eyesight can almost always get better, and without glasses:

Good Earth bars

I recently discovered Good Earth "meusli bars", and I love them! They are made on a farm on Bannerghatta Road, which I gather is owned by the movie legend Waheeda Rehman.

The bars are made from dates, raisins, almonds, cinnamon, orange peels... The taste is grainy and moist, and may remind you somewhat of the unde eats last generation grandmothers used to make. A bar costs between Rs 9 and Rs 15.

Chewiness sets Good Earth apart from your regular chocolate, and I am sure the ingredients are much healthier than the sugar and soya lechitin that you find in those aggressively marketed chocolate bars. But I would still hold back from declaring Good Earth is for everyone: I read regularly about the dangers of carbohydrate for diabetics. Meusli may have less carbs than milk chocolate, but still, you would be well advised to check your nutrition allowances before you gorged on these bars.

(On a related note, have you noticed that Cadbury is now trying to grow its market for chocolate in the towns and villages? In their TV spots, you even find cows and folk music, till now considered too unglamorous to sell "upmarket" products. One ad for Cadbury's chocolate drink Bournvita, aired repeatedly on kids' channels like Pogo and Cartoon Network, shows a Rajasthani folk singer holding his own against a city slicker-dancer!)

And thanks Good Earth for the nutrition information. Some of India's biggest chocolate makers still don't think it necessary to provide such information on their products.

Gaalipata vs Aa Dinagalu (Background score)

Thanks to a strange twist of events, I got to see Gaalipata (Kite) and Aa Dinagalu (Those Days) on two subsequent days. One is a lighthearted caper, the other a taut Godfather-like take on a 1980s gang war.

Something about the background scores... Gaalipata's (composer: V Harikrishna) comes across as too busy, and even noisy. The climax overdoes the song themes with the chorus, and scales melodramatic peaks. But Ilaiyaraja's score for Aa Dinagalu is a subdued contrast. It becomes just another hue in the dull watercolour atmosphere that director Chaitanya creates. You don't notice the background score even when a big orchestra plays along. The violins and the cellos create Monet-like smudges, and if you happen to prick your ears and pay attention during the final scenes, you just might relish the detail in the impressionistic abstraction.

Chaitanya takes you back to the Eastman colour era, and Ilaiyaraja's paintbrush smears gently enhance the period without drawing attention to themselves.

Ilaiyaraja is a master, and can sometimes afford to be self-effacing!

Auto love

I saw this piece of wisdom painted on a Bangalore auto:

Love maadidre romansu
Kai kottre Nimhansu

If you fall in love, it's romance
If you're ditched, it's Nimhans.

(Nimhans stands for National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences. It was earlier just called 'mental hospital').