Latest news with #Bawa
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Who is Raj Bawa, one of the three players making his debut for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2025 Eliminator vs GT?
Raj Angad Bawa made his debut for the Mumbai Indians during their IPL 2025 Eliminator match against the Gujarat Titans on Friday. The 22-year-old all-rounder got a spot in MI's playing 11 as the team missed the services of mainstay Deepak Chahar for the knockout game. The other two debutants for Mumbai are Jonny Bairstow and Richard Gleeson. MI skipper Hardik Pandya won the toss and chose to bat against Shubman Gill's Gujarat Titans. 'Looks like a different track from yesterday. A bit less grass. Big game, scoring runs, and defending would be nice. We all are aware, for the last 9 games, we have been playing it like a knockout. Really need to turn up today and focus on the things which we can control. We've got three changes: Jonny comes back, Gleeson makes his debut and Raj Angad Bawa plays,' Pandya said at the toss. One name in the playing 11 that surprised fans was that of Raj Bawa. So, who is he? Raj Angad Bawa, a left-handed batsman and right-arm medium-fast bowler, made his IPL debut for the Punjab Kings in 2022. Born in November 2022 in Nahan, Himachal Pradesh, Bawa is the grandson of Trilochan Singh Bawa, a member of India's gold-medal-winning hockey team at the 1948 London Olympics. His father, Sukhwinder Bawa, is a renowned cricket coach who mentored Yuvraj Singh and runs a cricket academy. Raj Bawa switched to left-handed batting to emulate his idol, Yuvraj Singh. He wears jersey number 12, a nod to Yuvraj's birthday (December 12) and his grandfather's (February 12). The 22-year-old played for Chandigarh's under-19 team and represented India in the 2021 ACC Under-19 Asia Cup and the 2022 ICC Under-19 World Cup. During the 2022 U-19 World Cup in the West Indies, Bawa played a pivotal role in India's title win, scoring 252 runs at an average of 63 and taking nine wickets, including a five-wicket haul (5/31) in the final against England, earning him Player of the Match. Bawa made his Ranji Trophy debut for Chandigarh against Hyderabad on February 17, 2022, taking a wicket with his first delivery. He was bought by Punjab Kings (PBKS) for INR 2 crore in the 2022 IPL auction. He made his debut against RCB but played only two matches that season. He was signed by the Mumbai Indians (MI) for INR 30 lakh for IPL 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Spotlights shine on local productions at Asian-Canadian film festival
Faustina Dalmacio spends her workday behind the counter, but the Transcona pharmacist has always dreamed of getting behind the camera — to fill the frame instead of filling prescriptions. Two years ago, she bundled up in the January cold to shoot her debut short film, a comedic odyssey of two sisters (Riley Gregorio and Quinn Paredes) lost in Winnipeg's West End after the final bell rings in the halls of the fictional Victor Wolfe Elementary. To make After School, Dalmacio relied on a $10,000 Cinematoba grant from the National Screen Institute and the Winnipeg Foundation, an award accompanied by ongoing mentorship from producer Rebecca Gibson of Eagle Vision. SUPPLIED Director Ian Bawa (left) speaks with Mandeep Sodhi, star of The Best, during filming. 'It was inspired by an experience I had as a child,' says Dalmacio, 30, who moved to Manitoba from Bulacan, Philippines, in 2006. After a cousin's basketball game, she got separated from her sisters and temporarily stranded before one of the team parents drove her home. Her new home was harsh in climate, but welcoming and generous in spirit. That diasporic experience drives Dalmacio's short, one of 13 Manitoba-made pictures set to screen at this weekend's FascinAsian Film Festival, a multi-city event celebrating Asian-Canadian contributions to the film and media landscape. After screenings in Calgary and Edmonton earlier this month, the national festival wraps up in Winnipeg as Asian Heritage Month nears its end. Throughout filmmaker Ian Bawa's career, the festival has been a constant source of support for his projects, including his latest short, The Best, an 'accidental sequel' to his upcoming feature-length film Strong Son, itself an adaptation of an earlier short that's currently in post-production. SUPPLIED Filmmaker Faustina Dalmacio. Bawa will be interviewed by CBC's Faith Fundal during a Behind the Movies conversation and retrospective on Saturday (11:15 a.m.) at the WAG's Ilipvik Learning Steps. Bawa, whose films have screened at festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival and Slamdance, says FascinAsian continues to help Asian filmmakers feel empowered to tell their own stories in their own voices. 'Sometimes I feel alone, telling stories about a turban-wearing guy, but then I watch 10 other films with characters like that,' says Bawa, whose short will screen Sunday alongside Dalmacio's in the Family Matters showcase at the WAG. (1 p.m.). 'People want these stories now, and it wasn't like this 15 years ago when I started. Now I know I'm not alone in this.' Also screening Sunday afternoon is a profile of local drag artist Ruby Chopstix. Becoming Ruby tells the story of the Vietnamese-Canadian queen, who in 2023 became the country's first drag artist-in-residence, working out of the Winnipeg non-profit Sunshine House. SUPPLIED After School is a comedic odyssey about two sisters. It's the latest short by documentarian Quan Luong, whose works includes Tailor-Made, about Ellice Avenue stitchmaster Tam Nguyen. 'For me as a filmmaker, I try to only make films that otherwise wouldn't be made, so stories like these really pull my attention. Luckily, Ruby and their family opened up to me,' says Luong, a 27-year-old Manitoba filmmaker who was born in Ho Chi Minh City. While the film will be having its local première this weekend — both in Sunday's program and at a special Saturday screening (11 a.m.) at the Park Theatre, with both Luong and Chopstix in attendance — Becoming Ruby recently screened at Toronto's Hot Docs International Film Festival and at both Edmonton and Calgary's FascinAsian showcases. Themes of travel, American dreaming and queer identity come to the fore in filmmaker Razid Season's Elijah, which was inspired by the director's volunteer work with the South Asian trans community through New York City non-profits. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Set in the Big Apple, Elijah follows Bengali Muslim cab driver Haider (Ajaz Alam), who deals with the plummeting value of his taxi medallion as his daughter Shoshi (Mithila Gazi) embraces her trans identity. SUPPLIED Becoming Ruby focuses on Vietnamese-Canadian drag artist Ruby Chopstix. 'Stories like these are often invisible. It's fiction, but it's inspired by real people,' says Season, 38, a Bengali director who was raised in the United Arab Emirates before studying film at City College in New York. Other festival offerings include Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller's Mawtini, about Nawal, a young Palestinian woman, and Tanya, an Indigenous senior, who battle their building managers to plant a garden on their apartment block's lawn (Saturday, 1:45 p.m.). On Saturday at 4 p.m., after the screening of Paper Flowers at WAG-Qaumajuq, stars Olivia Liang (Kung Fu, Legacies) and Kapil Talwalkar (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist) will join audiences for a virtual Q&A moderated by radio programmer Iris Yudai. SUPPLIED Filmmaker Razid Season. SUPPLIED Elijah is set in New York City. SUPPLIED Mandeep Sodhi in Ian Bawa's film The Best. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Sydney Morning Herald
10-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Can a second trip somewhere outdo the first? Follow these tips for recapturing the magic
This story is part of the May 11 edition of Sunday Life. See all 13 stories. The most content I've ever felt in life was when I lived by a beach for six months in Sri Lanka. After working for seven years in the Middle East, my wife and I decided to take some time off and learn to be parents to our infant son before we submitted to the grind of daily life back home in Melbourne. Mirissa, the coastal town we settled in, is close to the island's most southerly point. Ordinarily, it would be busy with backpackers who'd stay in cheap lodgings and spend their days lazing about on its coconut palm-shaded beach. But a sharp dip in tourism, caused by a brutal civil war that raged across Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions until 2009, meant that we were often the only foreigners in town. We rented an upstairs apartment with five bedrooms, cold showers and a rudimentary kitchen, and shopped at the local markets. Several times a week, we'd stroll down to the beach to order fresh seafood in ridiculously affordable restaurants while gazing out to sea and feeling the sand between our toes. When friends and family came to visit, we'd traipse off to different parts of the island with them, stopping to hike through tea plantations, amble through ancient ruins or spot leopards and elephants on safari. On one occasion, a friend splashed out on a night at a hotel called Kandalama. Clinging to a hillside among house-sized boulders, it was deliberately shrouded in vegetation to the point where it looked like the jungle was slowly devouring it. I'd never seen a hotel like it. I learnt that the architect who designed the hotel was Geoffrey Bawa and that he'd designed numerous others around the country, as well as prominent public edifices like the parliament and the residential home of the president, both in Colombo. I also discovered that guests could stay in Bawa's retirement home on a former cinnamon and rubber plantation in Bentota, midway between Colombo and Mirissa. Loading Years later, during my most recent Sri Lankan visit, I included a two-night stay at Lunuganga – a Sinhalese word meaning 'salt river'. Bawa purchased the property as a weekender in 1948, then spent 40 years transforming it into a tranquil haven where he would live out his final years (Bawa died in 2003, aged 83). Ten rooms accommodating 20 guests are spread across a 15-acre (six-hectare) estate wrapped inside the embracing arms of Dedduwa Lake. I'm escorted to a spacious room that once served as a gate house. It contains timber ceiling beams and columns, teak furnishings, a king-sized bed, courtyard plunge pool and concrete floors that are cool underfoot. Other options include Bawa's personal suite, a glasshouse and a gallery that previously housed the architect's art collection. While my room includes Wi-Fi connectivity, there's no TV. Lunuganga is unapologetically designed as a distraction-free getaway for canoodling couples, so on that point I feel isolated. However, there's no shortage of melodious songbirds to keep me company.
The Age
10-05-2025
- The Age
Can a second trip somewhere outdo the first? Follow these tips for recapturing the magic
This story is part of the May 11 edition of Sunday Life. See all 13 stories. The most content I've ever felt in life was when I lived by a beach for six months in Sri Lanka. After working for seven years in the Middle East, my wife and I decided to take some time off and learn to be parents to our infant son before we submitted to the grind of daily life back home in Melbourne. Mirissa, the coastal town we settled in, is close to the island's most southerly point. Ordinarily, it would be busy with backpackers who'd stay in cheap lodgings and spend their days lazing about on its coconut palm-shaded beach. But a sharp dip in tourism, caused by a brutal civil war that raged across Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions until 2009, meant that we were often the only foreigners in town. We rented an upstairs apartment with five bedrooms, cold showers and a rudimentary kitchen, and shopped at the local markets. Several times a week, we'd stroll down to the beach to order fresh seafood in ridiculously affordable restaurants while gazing out to sea and feeling the sand between our toes. When friends and family came to visit, we'd traipse off to different parts of the island with them, stopping to hike through tea plantations, amble through ancient ruins or spot leopards and elephants on safari. On one occasion, a friend splashed out on a night at a hotel called Kandalama. Clinging to a hillside among house-sized boulders, it was deliberately shrouded in vegetation to the point where it looked like the jungle was slowly devouring it. I'd never seen a hotel like it. I learnt that the architect who designed the hotel was Geoffrey Bawa and that he'd designed numerous others around the country, as well as prominent public edifices like the parliament and the residential home of the president, both in Colombo. I also discovered that guests could stay in Bawa's retirement home on a former cinnamon and rubber plantation in Bentota, midway between Colombo and Mirissa. Loading Years later, during my most recent Sri Lankan visit, I included a two-night stay at Lunuganga – a Sinhalese word meaning 'salt river'. Bawa purchased the property as a weekender in 1948, then spent 40 years transforming it into a tranquil haven where he would live out his final years (Bawa died in 2003, aged 83). Ten rooms accommodating 20 guests are spread across a 15-acre (six-hectare) estate wrapped inside the embracing arms of Dedduwa Lake. I'm escorted to a spacious room that once served as a gate house. It contains timber ceiling beams and columns, teak furnishings, a king-sized bed, courtyard plunge pool and concrete floors that are cool underfoot. Other options include Bawa's personal suite, a glasshouse and a gallery that previously housed the architect's art collection. While my room includes Wi-Fi connectivity, there's no TV. Lunuganga is unapologetically designed as a distraction-free getaway for canoodling couples, so on that point I feel isolated. However, there's no shortage of melodious songbirds to keep me company.
Mint
04-05-2025
- Mint
Sri Lanka travel: Skip touristy Galle and Bentota, head to Kalutara
I take a beat before entering Kalutara Stupa, one of the most sacred sites on Sri Lanka's Buddhist trail. That's when I spot the elaborately carved semi-circular stone slab at the entrance. The sculptural design comprises a half lotus at the centre, surrounded by concentric bands showcasing a procession of animals, a foliated pattern and geese. The local accompanying me to the temple tells me that the sandakada pahana, commonly known as moonstone (not to be confused with the gem mined nearby), is a unique feature of Sri Lankan culture and Buddhist architecture. 'It first made an appearance in the later stage of the Anuradhapura period (377 BCE-1017 CE), synonymous with the Golden Age of Sri Lanka, and was typically positioned at the bottom of staircases or entrances of religious buildings," she says. The Kalutara Stupa, one of the few hollow stupas in the world, houses 74 murals, each depicting a different aspect of Buddha's life. It is centred on a Bodhi tree (a sacred fig), one of the 32 saplings taken from Anuradhapura's Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi, said to have originated from a branch of the tree in Bodh Gaya in Bihar under which Buddha found enlightenment. But I'm taken by the rich artistry of moonstone, which evolved through centuries and is said to symbolise the cycle of samsāra in Buddhism. In the Significance of Sinhalese Moonstones, a study eminent Sri Lankan archaeologist Senerat Paranavitana in 1954 wrote about the religious symbolism of the sandakada pahana, deducing that the concentric layers that progress inwards symbolise the journey from the outer states of consciousness to the final inner core of nirvana. It appears to me that the moonstone is the stepping stone to inner peace. I stand in the sacred space, looking at the numerous people chanting and praying. In the backdrop the eponymic Kalu River, which translates to 'black river", flows serenely. Located just 43km from Colombo, Kalutara is a bustling city often overlooked by travellers in favour of its popular neighbours Bentota and Beruwala. A closer look reveals an illustrious history that combines cultural diversity and colonial heritage. Kalutara was once a thriving hub for the spice trade, and remnants of its colonial past can be seen in the many structures with Portuguese, Dutch and British influences. These include Richmond Castle, an Edwardian mansion built between 1900-1910 and the country seat of a mudaliyar (local chief). The manor was abandoned when his marriage fell apart, but visitors can enjoy a stroll through the garden, explore the architecture, and visit the in-house museum. I head back for a long walk on the premises of my hotel, a showcase for Sri Lankan master architect Geoffrey Bawa's architecture. Heralded as the father of tropical modernism, Bawa created a new style of architecture suited to his country's hot, humid climate. Anantara Kalutara Resort was commissioned in 1995, but sat idle for 15 years after Bawa's death till his protégé, Channa Daswatte, took it up. Today, the luxe hotel, sandwiched between the Indian Ocean and the Kalu Ganga, seems alive with Bawa's spirit. 'His original designs include the main building, with the towering gable roof, open arrival hall, lobby lounge, and upstairs bar," says Lashan Liyanage, front manager, as he shows me around. Also read: Celebrating an evil giant's failed love story in Cornwall It's easy to see the hallmarks of Bawa's design in Daswatte's work: a blend of colonial scale, Sri Lankan aesthetics, and the subtle transition from indoors to outdoors. Natural light and ventilation spill between the colonnades, while Sri Lankan-inspired open pavilions invite me to dawdle. That afternoon, a strong gust of rain and thunder leads to the discovery of a fine shelter: the Geoffrey Bawa Library, modelled on the architect's study and a showcase for furnishings designed or owned by him along with many of his architectural drawings. The rain ultimately washes out my lagoon-side dining plans, but there are no complaints as two servers wheel out a cart bursting with a melange of dishes. An array of spicy sambals and sweet relishes vies for attention with delicious curries, including lobster, fish, chicken, and prawn. The ubiquitous dhal (with a dash of coconut milk) is flanked by delectable vegetarian foot soldiers: pumpkin curry, tempered potatoes, sweet-and-sour aubergines, curried raw mango, and stir-fried green beans. Fresh salads, pickles, and papad round off the stunning display. I slowly partake of the food, trying to uncover the many layers and flavours: Dutch, Portuguese, Indian, English, Arab, and Malay. Deepak Barua, executive chef, points out a major difference between Indian and Sri Lankan cuisines: diversification. 'India is a large country, with many states and very specific styles of cooking and cuisines in different regions," he says. 'Sri Lankan cuisine, meanwhile, is predominantly non-vegetarian and its location on the coast makes a vast variety of seafood available." Rice is the building block of the food in Sri Lanka. Once known as the granary of the east, the country grows numerous varieties, each with its own aroma, flavour and texture. The fibre-rich red rice and the fragrant white samba are the perfect accompaniments to fiery curries; other varietals are used to make traditional pancakes (hoppers) and rice noodles (string hoppers). The chef tells me about other interesting places nearby: the large mangrove forest that's a biodiversity hot spot and best explored on a boat safari, and Fa Hien Cave, believed to have been the temporary abode of the ancient travelling monk Fa Hien. The large number of foreign tourists I spot in cafes, restaurants, and attractions reiterates the fact that Sri Lanka is back on the tourism radar after a series of setbacks, including a deadly bomb attack (2019), the covid-19 pandemic, and the country's worst economic crisis (2021). Tourist arrivals to the teardrop-shaped country surpassed two million in 2024, the highest number of annual tourist arrivals since 2018, and the country aims to amp up the number to three million in 2025. Most travellers, however, gravitate towards the more popular towns such as Kandy, Galle, Nuwara Eliya and Hambantota. As I look at the sea in Kalutara, a charming small town that's off the tourist radar, I realise that the natural beauty truly offers a chance to slow down, breathe in the smell of salt in the air, and unwind. Also read: Climbing into Peek-a-boo, crawling out of Spooky Gulch: A Utah canyoning tale
