Latest news with #Pelikan
Mint
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
Lounge Loves: ‘The Beast Within', fountain pens and more
For seasoned connoisseurs of fountain pens, the Pilot Elite 95S may not come anywhere close to a Montblanc, Sailor or Pelikan, but it surely is a pocket-friendlier option if you are in the market for premium writing instruments. I have always had a soft corner for fountain pens, especially ones with hooded nibs, and the Pilot Elite 95S is every bit as stylish as a pen can be. It's also incredibly slim and lightweight, just the right size to tuck it into a shirt pocket. You can post the cap to turn it into a full-size pen for ease of writing. It comes in two colour combinations—the black-and-gold version is a classic one, while the burgundy and ivory is more unique—and in different nib sizes. You can either use cartridges or the converter to fill it up with your favourite inks. At ₹ 13,000, it is not an impulsive buy, but one to cherish for a lifetime. The Japanese drama Glass Heart (Netflix) might be schmaltzy but the fashion is on point. The story is about the elusive musician Naoki Fujitani (played by Takeru Satoh), who forms a four-member band. Takeru is draped in billowing trench coats, which, in keeping with his personality, look like shells he can disappear into. His persona transforms on stage, where he's in floral shirts, sleeveless vests and striking accessories like chokers and earrings. Each character is styled differently; band manager Miyako Kai (Erika Karata) slays the double-denim look. But the scene stealer is Toya Shinzaki (Masaki Suda) of the rival band with his ear cuffs, layered chains, tattoos, spiked hair and nail art. He screams rock star. Of late, I seem to be enjoying animated series meant for kids a lot more than any of the gore and horror that seems to be reigning the OTT space. One such series, which I discovered recently, is Amphibia. It centres on three friends, Anne, Sasha and Marcy, who are magically transported to a world inhabited by anthropomorphic amphibians after opening a mysterious Calamity Box. They get caught up in a war between toads and frogs, and end up hopping between adventures and misadventures. The story has underlying subplots of transformation, friendship and coming-of-age. It's a wonderful fantastical world to lose yourself for an hour or two daily. When Lounge writer and former crime reporter Rudraneil Sengupta handed me a copy of his newest book, The Beast Within, I cringed quietly. Gritty police procedurals aren't ever on my reading list, having briefly covered the municipal corporation as a reporter and seen the city's underbelly IRL. If there's murder afoot, I prefer the bodies to be elegantly discovered in libraries and the business of crime solving to be conducted over tea, maybe cocktails. I wasn't wrong; Rudraneil's book is every bit as bleak as it promises to be, and with every page, it gets bleaker, but then, there's a moment when your resistance melts and you can't help but marvel at the language, at the plot and dialogue, at his deep research and his understanding of the people and the systems humming beneath what we see of Delhi. Put it on your reading list.
Gulf Today
01-06-2025
- Sport
- Gulf Today
Five-way tie at Dubai Open Chess Tournament
Top-seed Grandmaster (GM) Nihal Sarin scored an emphatic victory to bounce back into the lead after erstwhile co-leaders GM Mahammad Muradli and GM Aleksey Grebnev agreed to a quick, uneventful draw in Friday night's fourth round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. The three grandmasters have 3.5 points each and are joined in a five-way tie at the top by Indian players IM Rohith Krishna and GM Bharath Subramaniyam. Sarin, who was held to a draw by Krishna in the third round, repulsed a daring attack against his king by Israel's GM Yair Parkhov in securing the win. The Indian top-seed maintained a solid grip of the position and was poised to win material when Parkhov launched a kingside offensive punctuated by a rook sacrifice. Sarin did not have problems diffusing the attack and converting into an endgame where he was a piece up. The 28th-seed Krishna continued his stellar performance as he took down the ninth-seed GM Pa Iniyan, his first GM victim in the tournament, in a fashionable Queen's Gambit opening. Playing the black pieces, Krishna overcame a vicious attack that saw Iniyan sacrifice a pawn and then give up his rook for a knight to penetrate Krishna's kingside defences. Krishna, however, found enough defensive resources to neutralise Iniyan's attack and later forced an exchange of queens to convert into a winning rook-versus-knight endgame. Subramaniyam pounced on a costly oversight by compatriot IM A R Ilamparthi to pick up the win. Ilamparthi, playing white, had built a comfortable edge in the Pelikan variation of the Sicilian Defence until an unfortunate knight retreat on the 25th move allowed Subramaniyam to drop a devastating bishop sacrifice, which if taken would lead to Ilamparthi losing his queen. Ilamparthi chose to save his queen, but the tactical sequence still led to heavy material loss that ultimately decided the outcome. In the first all-GM encounter on the first board, Muradli of Azerbaijan and the Russian Grebnev shook hands for a draw after just four moves, effectively giving themselves a breather ahead of the expected tougher battles in the later rounds. The fourth-round results set up a highly anticipated match-up on the first board in Saturday's fifth round featuring defending champion Muradli facing the top-seed Sarin. Grebnev will take on Subramaniyam on the second board. Krishna will face reigning Asian blitz champion GM Ivan Zemlyanskii of Russia, who is among a group of eight players in joint second place with three points each, on the third board. Category B In Category B, Fide Master (FM) Mahdi Nikookar of Iran and Candidate Master (CM) Alankar Sawai Vandan of India remain the only players with perfect scores after four rounds. Nikookar defeated China's Zhang Zhi, while Vandan outplayed FM Syed Mahfuzur Rahman of Bangladesh. Nikookar and Vandan will contest the solo leadership in the fifth round. Tournament format, schedule, prizes The tournament follows a 9-round Swiss system with a 90-minute time control plus a 30-second increment per move. Games are played every day from 5pm, except the final round on June 4, which starts at 10am. The awarding ceremony is on June 5. The tournament offers a prize pool of $52,000 to be handed out to the winners of both categories. Category A, contested by players with a rating over 2300, has a total prize fund of $39,500 with $12,000 going to the champion. Category B, open to players rated below 2300, offers $12,500 in total prizes and $2,000 awarded to the champion. Special prizes will also be distributed to top performers among rating categories, unrated, youth, women, and UAE players. International arbiter team and live coverage International Arbiter Majed Al Abdooli of the UAE spearheads the tournament's international team of arbiters who will manage and oversee the competition. Chess fans from around the world can watch the Category A games live on the club's website as well as chess platforms such as and
