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Scaling new heights

IN INDIA, A young woman, a national volleyball player Arunima Sinha, who had her career and her life nipped in the bud a couple of years ago when a group of men threw her off a moving train in Northern India, is preparing to reclaim her life by climbing the world’s highest peak, the famed Mt. Everest.

Arunima Sinha spent months in hospital in the depths of despair after the horrific assault led doctors to amputate her leg but she is determined to scale new heights now that she has taken inspiration from another sterling woman, Bachendri Pal, the first woman who conquered the formidable peak which beckons mountaineers from all over the world.

Her meeting with Pal, who heads the Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF), led her to sign up for and train under the latter. Last week Sinha returned from training in Uttarkashi mountain range and is now raring to take off for the expedition which is likely to take place in May. Sinha, who now uses an artificial limb. is likely to be accompanied by a couple of other mountaineers on the expedition which is being sponsored by Tata Steel.

Sinha gives the credit for her amazing bouncing back to her brother, an army man and says that when she lay in hospital for months she decided she would get rid of her bitterness by doing something with her life that would send out a message that disability cannot be a stumbling block in the way of success.

We will keep you posted about this young woman’s journey as the hoists the Indian tri-colour on Mt. Everest.

Justin better change his ways

JUSTIN BIEBER MIGHT have thoroughly disgraced himself with his bizarre and very often offensive behaviour in public but we still were shocked to know that the teenaged singing sensation was recently saved from a horrific death by paid assassins who were hired by a jailed convict Dana Martin.

According to reports, Martin, currently undergoing solitary confinement while serving a two term life sentence for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl, hired the assassins to castrate and murder Bieber because he had “changed.” Martin is an obsessive follower of the teenager who created a fan following around the world with the brilliance of his vocals but has recently been grossing out many with his erratic behaviour, including smoking in public. Singer and actor Selena Gomez who was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Bieber recently split from him and said she is better off now and that he needs to grow up!

Matin, who has a tattoo of Bieber on his calf, meanwhile, has warned that he will continue to hunt down the singer. It can’t be a very easy time for Bieber living with the knowledge that there is someone on the look out for him…

Ben Kingsley to don Gujarti attire

HOLLYWOOD ACTOR Ben Kinglsey got a priceless Academy award for this role as Gujarat’s favourite son and India’s beloved bapu, Mahatma Gandhi, in Richard Attenborough’s film, ‘Gandhi’.

Decades later, Kingsley is all set to reconnect with the western Indian state, this time to present his latest film, Iron Man 3, which is scheduled to premiere at one of the multiplexes in the state in end April, a week before it premieres in other parts of the world. He plays the role of the villain in the movie.

Reports say that Kingsley has asked his agents and public relations people to fit him out in traditional Gujarati attire including its colourful headgear, kediyo and dhoti. Knowing how much of a man with an eye for detail this splendid actor is, we are sure his team is scouring the alleys and by-lanes of Ahmedabad’s textile ‘mandis’ to find just the right ensemble for him to charm the audiences. Kingsley is reportedly keen on mingling with the audiences who will arrive at the multiplex for the premiere. We are wondering if he is learning a bit of Gujarati too, to go with his attire…

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