Lounge Loves: ‘Sprint’, the scarf hunter and more

The scarf hunter

When it comes to fashion history, several content creators focus on vintage pieces enclosed in glass in museums. But there are some who focus on tracking down vintage pieces in famous sitcoms like The Nanny and Absolutely Fabulous. A new kid on this block is Abigail Goodman, who lives and speaks Hermes, at least on Instagram. Want to know the year and name of the Hermes scarf Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) wore in a 2001 episode of Sex and the City? Or how many Hermes scarves go flying through the air in a scene from The Devil Wears Prada and what are they called? Goodman will take you on a short trip, spotting each scarf, matching it with the design from another source to zero in on the exact print, colour and name, making you feel like you too are a fashion detective like her. — Pooja Singh

Speed trap

American field and track athlete Noah Lyles made history at the Paris Olympics, bagging gold in the men’s 100m event. His pre-race antics—the energy and enthusiasm—was justified by the result. But who knew this enigmatic sprinter suffered from asthma in his early years. The Netflix docu-series Sprint has many such stories as it gives a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of athletes as they compete in the Diamond League, World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games. Renewed for a second season, Sprint features everyone from Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to Tokyo gold medallist Marcell Jacobs, looking at what keeps the world’s fastest humans going. — Nitin Sreedhar

Also read: Lounge Loves: ‘Big Dawgs’, Girish Karnad and more

Crackle and crunch

Rice flour based crunchy-munchies have always been a weakness, and I haven’t yet met a murukku I could turn down, no matter how badly made. For six weeks I’d held fast to a resolution to eat healthy, handing all deep-fried and sugary foods to friends and neighbours, and staying true to a carefully planned diet—until a friend arrived with chekkalu from Almond House in Hyderabad. Karnataka has the similar looking nippattu and Tamil Nadu thattai, but chekkalu has a taste that’s quite different. They’re crispy, crunchy rice flour discs flavoured with chilli, ginger, Bengal gram, cumin and curry leaves. That addictive and satisfying crackle and scrunch is incomparable. I think I’ll add chekkalu to my list of health foods. — Shalini Umachandran

Big screen magic 

The 1993 Malayalam movie, Manichitratazhu, is available on Amazon Prime and one can watch it every day if one wants to. Still, there’s no denying the magic of the bada parda. So, on Monday night, at 10.30pm no less, a cohort of my friends found ourselves laughing, singing and muttering dialogues as the re-released version of this Fazil-directed cult hit played out on the big screen. Presented in 4k resolution, the Shobana-Mohanlal- Suresh Gopi starrer is more vivid and the sound effects sharper. This meant the climactic scenes (#iykyk) had me on the edge of the seat, although I’ve watched them scores of times before. Setting nostalgia aside, seeing it again on the big screen underlined why it will always be the OG that set off a spate of remakes that have tried—and mostly failed—to recreate its magic. —Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran

Also read: The jewellery in ‘Emily in Paris’ tells an India story