Latest news with #Camphor
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
A cold case, a TMC leader's film debut, and a burning question: What happened to Manisha Mukhopadhyay?
It is one of the most famous cold cases in West Bengal. One fine day in early September 1997, senior Calcutta University (CU) official Manisha Mukhopadhyay disappeared without a trace, leaving behind an elderly mother who believed her daughter's disappearance was linked to her proximity to Left Front bigwigs at the time and never gave up looking for her. Now, over a quarter of a century later, the story of Mukherjee's disappearance is set to come to the big screen in director Arindam Sil's next film Karpoor (Camphor) starring Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders Kunal Ghosh and Bratya Basu, a state minister. While people involved in the film said Ghosh's character was loosely based on then CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas, one of the most powerful leaders at the time, Ghosh told The Indian Express, 'It is based on a political thriller. I am acting as the state secretary of a political party. But that doesn't mean that I am playing Anil Biswas. This is my debut film, and I asked Arindam to tutor me in the art of acting.' Mukhopadhyay was the assistant controller of examinations at Calcutta University, and this resulted in her proximity to frontline CPI(M) leaders at the time. According to her mother Chinu, who later moved court alleging that her daughter had been murdered, the CU official knew many secrets, and this was the reason for her disappearance. According to reports at the time, on the day of her disappearance, Mukhopadhyay was on her way from the city's Bhowanipore area to visit her parents in south Kolkata and got into a cab with her husband and nephew. After her husband alighted from the cab on the way, the CU official and her nephew continued on their way, but a few yards down the road, Mukhopadhyay told her nephew to get down from the taxi. He initially refused but eventually got down near the city's Golpark area, and the taxi sped away. That was the last time anyone saw Mukhopadhyay. The police struggled to make much headway, and the investigation subsequently stalled. Two years later, after Chinu Mukhopadhyay found some photographs among her daughter's belongings, the police again reopened the case. This time, the police received several reports of Mukhopadhyay being sighted, from an ashram in Purulia to Bodh Gaya to Assam. But no solid lead materialised, leaving the probe faltering again. Before entering politics, Ghosh was a political reporter and editor and, according to people in the TMC, used to be close to Anil Biswas. 'Kunal da was very close to many CPI(M) leaders, including Anil Biswas, and he saw Biswas closely. So, he is an ideal choice for the role,' said a senior TMC leader. Bratya Basu, the state education minister, will play a detective who investigates the case.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Film with TMC netas to tell story of Calcutta University official Manisha Mukhopadhyay, who vanished like 'karpoor' in CPM era
KOLKATA: One of Bengal's enduring "political" mysteries - the 1997 disappearance of a senior Calcutta University official believed to have been close to seniors in the erstwhile Left Front regime - is going to come alive on silver screen, with several senior netas from other side of the political spectrum playing pivotal roles. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The storyline of the film 'Karpoor (Camphor)' revolves around the sudden disappearance of CU assistant controller of examinations Manisha Mukhopadhyay in Sept 1997. She left behind an elderly mother, who kept looking for her before giving up. Mukhopadhyay's appointment to a key post in the state's biggest university, her "proximity" to frontline CPM netas some of whom survive till this day and her sudden disappearance - just like camphor (karpoor in Bengali) - came to be seen in academic and political circles as representing the total politicisation of the education sys-tem under the LF regime. Politicians - from the party now in office in Bengal - play key roles in the film, adding to the chatter around the film. Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh plays the all-powerful state CPM secretary, Anil Biswas, and state education minister Bratya Basu enacts the role of a former homicide section officer-in-charge posted at Lalbazar, the Kolkata Police headquarters. "The movie bears a resemblance with an interesting case. The retired police officer recounts how he probed the case and the obstacles he faced," Basu said about his role. Actor Saheb Chattopadhyay plays a character having "shades of" current LF chairman Biman Bose but TMC spokesperson Ghosh's performance as the soft-spoken, mild-mannered Biswas - credited for CPM's durability and its all-steamrolling "party machinery" - may be the most keenly watched. Ghosh has often expressed his admiration for Biswas's political acumen. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now 'Crime thriller rooted in real political event' Different theories floated around Mukhopadhyay's disappearance with occasional reports of her being spotted in Nepal, Goa, and a temple near Purulia's Ayodhya Hills. The movie, based on Dipanwita Roy's novel 'Antardhaner Nepathye (Behind the Disappearance)', will trace the circumstances behind her disappearance and the probe," director Arindam Sil said. Eight months of research, involving documents, court papers and interviews, led Sil to believe the CU official left "the trail of a scam involving incredible amounts of cash". Bundles of mark sheets were allegedly found at her home. A CPM veteran flagged her disappearance in 1997, the case was reopened in 1999, but then closed for lack of evidence amid allegations that some CPM seniors had "blocked the probe". "This is the time for idea- and concept-driven movies and this subject has several layers and unanswered questions," said producer Firdausul Hasan. "The Bengali audience's tastes have evolved with exposure to international films and diverse content, and 'Karpoor' - being a crime thriller rooted in a real political event - fits the bill. Our approach will not sensationalize the subject. It will offer viewers a layered exploration of social, political and psychological complexities. " CPM leaders differ. "It is a political ploy to tarnish the party's image. The case was shut long ago and the allegations were found to be baseless. Trinamool leaders should focus more on the current flaws in the system rather than dig up the past," said CPM veteran Rabin Deb.
Los Angeles Times
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The best L.A. spots to sip a classic martini in style
March 4, 2025 3 AM PT A martini is a martini, and a martini is more than a martini. No cocktail commands greater cultural status. Blinking on neon signs outside corner bars and perching in the hands of a century's worth of Hollywood characters, its image lives in our heads. The martini is a badge of power and world-weariness, in real life and fiction, the stuff of American life. In the new millennium's drinking renaissance, the name and stemware have been co-opted as conduits for restless, relentless reinvention. Who among us guzzles espresso Manhattans with the same fervor? I'm a martini purist (London dry gin and vermouth, stirred, twist or olives depending on the day's disposition) but not an ideologue. I'm more interested in a conversation about details — I also favor two dashes of orange bitters, an addition with historical precedent — than I am in an argument about absolutes. When the thirst for a proper martini arises, the setting matters. Cities like New York and London nurture establishments that emphasize the ritual: carts, tableside stagecraft, solemnity and wit in equal servings. In Los Angeles, though, the finest places for martini drinking tend to center vibes, the seats of glamour that come in many guises: old, new, shiny, noir. Plenty of my favorite restaurants serve wonderful martinis — Camélia , Greekman's , Camphor and Si! Mon are four that come to mind — and the pros at serious bars like Thunderbolt and Death & Co. understand that a great martini usually begins with a conversation between customer and bartender. The following 13 places, though, exude martini-ness. The moods they conjure, as much or more than the menus or hospitality, make sipping the clear, searing elixir from a frosty glass feel somehow predetermined. No matching places! Try changing or resetting your filters Showing Places Hollywood American Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison The oak paneling, the patina'd murals, the booth favored by Charlie Chaplin, the still-relevant Hollywood crowd (a few famous faces but mostly the creatives and executives who make Tinseltown tick): Musso & Frank, approaching its 106th year in business, remains one of America's archetypal settings for the imbibing of martinis. Be it at a cloistered table, the mirrored bar in the 'new room' or along the endless counter on the restaurant's opposite side, servers in candy-red tuxedo jackets deliver your drink in a 2 ½-ounce glass. It arrives accompanied by an iconic sidecar nestled in crushed ice in a hammered metal carafe. I knew, after my first Musso's martini years ago, that its taste was a Platonic ideal: searing, intense, pure. What I didn't yet grasp was the recipe: straight gin (Gilbey's, a now lesser-seen brand, has long been the well), stirred, garnished with Spanish olives brined in the kitchen. No vermouth. I tried not long ago to impose my personal martini preferences on the bartender; something strange appeared, an aberration. Lesson learned: Don't mess with the Musso's intangibles. Route Details Santa Monica American $$$ By Bill Addison On a recent Friday, Dylan Meek was playing the Steinway & Sons piano in the Georgian Room, singing a silky cover of Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy.' My friends and I occupied the three seats nearest him at the curving bar anchoring the room — a subterranean den of swank restored as part of the overall renovation of the Georgian Hotel, an Art Deco landmark originally opened in 1933. Black leather booths line the opposite ruby-red wall, hung with rectangular mirrors and vintage posters. The menu leans Italian steakhouse; I'm happiest with fried olives and chunks of balsamic-drizzled Parmesan as snacks and starters like grilled prawns and oysters Rockefeller, all of which happen to pair nicely with martinis. Route Details West Hollywood Cocktails By Bill Addison What a welcome sight to see the ebullient whirlwind of Dimitri Dimitrov — Tower Bar's maître d', who left for six years to help Sunset Tower Hotel owner Jeff Klein run members-only San Vicente Bungalows — returned to his rightful kingdom as of last September. Shiny new hot spots come and go, but Klein has helped Tower Bar retain its position as a Hollywood seat of power since he purchased the building in 2005. During awards season, tables in the dining room, many strategically positioned behind discrete partitions, can be especially hot currency. 'Ah, no,' said Dimitrov to me with friendly gravity when I had the nerve to show up without a reservation recently. The short, unreserved bar has its own pleasures, though. It's a fine roost amid the center of action to nurse a potent martini alongside a shrimp cocktail, a chopped salad or the abiding hors d'oeuvres of entertainment industry hangouts, pigs in a blanket. Route Details Koreatown New American $$ By Bill Addison A favorite L.A. martini memory: Early last year, at the end of a draining workweek, a colleague and I met up for a meal at a restaurant that didn't quite meet its mark that night. We had an idea: Let's regroup at Here's Looking at You, where the restaurant serves a late happy hour menu from 8:30 to 10 p.m., during which the kitchen cranks out thick, dry-aged cheeseburgers embellished with peppery mayo and the sweet sting of fried onions. That night, Damián Diaz, who co-founded the nonprofit No Us Without You L.A. during the pandemic, was behind the bar. That night he stirred one of the most perfectly textured martinis I've had; those ingredients were emulsified. The care in his craft lightened our worries for a calming hour or so. Diaz moved on, but bar director Danny Rubenstein has long overseen one of the city's freest-thinking, stick-the-landing cocktail programs — while always respecting an elemental martini order. Route Details Beverly Hills Italian $$$ By Bill Addison Under new owners, Caffe Dante — originally opened in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1915, and so ingrained in the neighborhood it's a registered New York City landmark — dropped to a single name and expanded westward two years ago to the top floor of the Maybourne Beverly Hills. Dante's bartenders back east regularly teach classes in the art of the perfect martini; the craft is taken seriously on both coasts. The restaurant's signature martini mixes gin and vodka with a duet of vermouths, lemon bitters and a garnish of three olives, each different colors, plunged directly into the glass. If it's a two-martini night for me, amid a Cal-Ital meal of arancini and spaghetti alla chitarra or lemony branzino, I'll start with that house creation and then ask for a steelier drink (hold the vodka), which the bar staff skillfully accommodates. Dirty martini lovers will appreciate the piercingly briny rendition smoothed with an olive oil float. Route Details Culver City Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison Fans know the story now by heart: In 2019, two years before the scheduled demolition of a Culver City restaurant opened in 1962 by a pal of Frank Sinatra, power couple Hans and Patti Röckenwagner toured the space and felt called to resuscitate its swinging past. With partner Josiah Citrin, they landed on a hit: a 50-seat, time-capsule romp featuring tuxedoed servers preparing tableside Caesars; walls of portraits, abstracts and landscapes painted in the 1950s and '60s; and Continental steakhouse classics that are far better than they need to be. On any given night I watch customers sipping martinis out of large coupe glasses on every other table. For tasteful variation, the cocktail menu lists a Vesper made with impeccable balance. In 2023, after landlord negotiations appeared to stall, the trio's lease on the space was extended for five years: We have Dear John's until 2028. Another round to celebrate, please. Route Details Beverly Hills Californian $$$$ By Bill Addison The front bar at Wolfgang Puck's Beverly Hills flagship is the restaurant's most underrated nook. Most diners only breeze past the bar's dark walls and over its handsomely scruffy hardwoods on their way to the comfortably modernist dining rooms. But treat the space as a destination in its own right and its enveloping charms reveal themselves: leather-padded stools, buttery lighting, an engaging corps of cocktail pros. The cocktail menu revisits popular drinks through Spago's four-plus decades: a 1980s-era Harvey Wallbanger dressed up with a splash of sherry, a Paper Plane tweaked with Japanese whisky for the 2010s. A selection of current trends includes a Tiny-'Tini Trio with busy interpretations like a nonalcoholic version that combines Earl Grey tea, juniper, rosemary, oyster leaf, yuzu, cinnamon, kombu and brine. Ask any bartender instead for a classic dry martini and they oblige, bringing some very good blue cheese-studded olives to try on the side. Route Details Fairfax American $$ By Bill Addison An ode to cinematic Hollywood poshness and the first restaurant by the Hundreds streetwear co-founder Ben Shenassafar, the Benjamin takes a broad view of the martini with nearly a dozen variations. There's a riff with tequila and a nod to the martini's sweeter first cousin, the Martinez, fashioned here with Plymouth gin, Torino vermouth, Luxardo Maraschino and an orange twist. Circling back to a truer iteration, Ben's Martini comprises Monkey 47, Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth and a spritz of lemon oil, served with stacked waffle chips as Shenassafar favors. Bar director Nathan Oliver stirs an even drier martini if you ask nicely. The booths, in tufted sage-colored mohair fabric, have obvious allure, though I'm drawn to sip my drink at the bar, demolishing a wedge salad and chef Johnny Cirelle's precision-engineered cheeseburger. Route Details Atwater Village Eastern European $$ By Bill Addison Atwater Village restaurant veterans Scott Zwiezen and Anne O'Malley, who own long-running Dune, opened Bar Sinizki with Alexander Mirecki Tavitian, who previously ran Kaldi Coffee in the same space. It operates as a coffeehouse, cocktail haven and restaurant daily from 7 a.m. to midnight, some ambitiously long hours. Yet after less than a year in operation, Sinizki feels like an entrenched and useful part of the community. The Euro-chic cafe — checkered floors, marble counters, glinting tiled ceiling — sits only 16 inside, so evenings at the curving bar have an intimate aura, even if servers are rushing past from the kitchen, balancing plates on their arms. Plump, crisp-edged pierogi filled with mashed potato, cheese and caramelized onions; tartines overlaid with salami with good butter and mustard or trout rillettes; and a burger of mid-thickness with griddled onions and a lacquer of American cheese all complement a martini. A splash of sour-tart-sweet Leopold Bros. lime cordial gives an otherwise classic Vesper (vodka, gin, Lillet blanc) a respectful twist. Route Details Studio City Italian $$ Scott Warren is a character among characters. He blurs through his small dominion, a speakeasy with a hidden entrance in the back of Vitello's, a Studio City institution since 1964. Warren speeds from bar to table, delivering cocktails and food (delivered to him from a window connected to the kitchen), shouting conversations with regulars across the room, addressing the men as 'brother.' He has a list of two dozen smart, intricate cocktails that he mixes in a fury. Mention 'martini' and he may start pulling bottles of artisanal gin he recommends, though he'll ultimately defer to your tastes with graciousness. Vitello's also has an upstairs lounge called the Velvet Martini, but I prefer the namesake cocktail in Warren's company, tempered with a straightforward Caesar and a plate of lasagna big enough to feed two. Route Details Beverly Grove New American Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison Suzanne Tracht opened her Beverly Grove restaurant in 2002, but it was built to feel timeless. No surprise that its ever-stunning dining room — a set piece of chic wood paneling, flying-saucer-shaped lighting fixtures and other Midcentury Modern adornments — has been a filming location for numerous television shows, including, yes, 'Mad Men.' I thirst for a stinglingly cold martini upon entering, and I am never disappointed. The longtime star of her menu, which broadly follows a steakhouse format, is the pot roast, which transcends any clichés with its nuanced textures and faint sherry perfume. That said, it is also deeply comforting, as are crabmeat-laced deviled eggs, char siu-style pork chop and the silken chocolate pudding for dessert. Route Details Manhattan Beach Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison Steakhouses tend to flourish as high-end chains, as de facto corporate boardrooms and as slick dens of vice. I favor another model: the steakhouse as swank supper club. The Arthur J delivers Midcentury Modern plushness in Manhattan Beach — tongue-and-groove ceilings, horseshoe-shaped booths and curvy Eames-style chairs, geometrically patterned wooden room dividers — when there's no time to get away to Palm Springs. Chef and partner David LeFevre updates the chophouse blueprint with tweaks that give the classics renewed life. This is the place to savor shrimp cocktail, fresh and bouncy rather than rubbery; dry-aged, bone-in Kansas City strip steak; creamed corn sparked with Aleppo pepper; and thick fries cooked in beef fat, with malt vinegar and Dijon aioli. The foods favor a martini, as does the chophouse-style burger (combining cuts of ground chuck, brisket and short rib,, grilled over oak and crowned with Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon, shredded Emmental and caramelized onions), served only in the front lounge. The service is appropriately debonair, particularly when distinguished L.A. food writer Patric Kuh, who charms guests these days as the restaurant's assistant manager, circulates among tables. Route Details Bel-Air Cocktails By Bill Addison In the name of research, I sidled up to several of L.A.'s tonier hotel bars in the last couple of months. None match the opulence of the Bel-Air, singular in its surroundings of lush grounds and its unmistakable air of celebrity. In the bar, everyone jockeys for seats in the front space, or a table in the larger back room where musicians play jazz nightly. There's also a far quieter area across the walkway billed as the Living Room, where one can order the 'coldest martini in town' for $30, served tableside. I'm more drawn to the proper bar, for the energy of the crowd and most compellingly for Norman Seeff's photographs of icons that fill the walls. The images of Cher, Steve Jobs and Ray Charles are rightly famous … but I'll be over in the corner with my martini studying the 1990-era portrait of Whitney Houston, shown glancing over her shoulder playfully, looking like she's about to break into bouts of laughter. Route Details
