11092026-LSTL-01.qxd 9/10/2026 7:51 PM Page 1 c m y b BILLY JOEL’S BRAIN SURGERY Singer Billy Joel revealed undergoing brain surgery to help relieve symptoms of normal pressure hydrocephalus, a disorderthat he was diagnosed with in 2025. TRIBUNE Life CHAT UP TRIPTII, AP DHILLON AT IPHONE LAUNCH Triptii Dimri and AP Dhillon made a rare joint appearance at the Apple launch in Cupertino, California. The tech giant on Wednesday unveiled its much-awaited iPhone 18 Pro series models, including iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max, alongside its foldable iPhone Duo. Triptii and Dhillon were spotted together at Apple Park. Triptii shared pictures from the day on her social media handle. RANI MUKERJI HONOURED Rani Mukerji was honoured with the Raj Kapoor Special Contribution Award at the 62nd Maharashtra State Film Awards ceremony in Mumbai on Wednesday. Rani, who was born and brought up in Mumbai, said the award holds a special place in her heart. Ananya Verma SOCIAL added Punjab to its map on Wednesday, opening its new outlet on the top floor of HLP Galleria Mall in Mohali’s Sector 62. It’s the chain’s first stop in the state, and the rooftop setting gives it a bit of breathing room compared to the usual mall food-court crush. The space leans on local touches without losing SOCIAL’s familiar look—a few Punjab-inspired corners mixed into the brand’s standard design. Two kebab platters anchored the tasting: Nonveg platter built around chicken tikka, jalapeno cheese chicken, tandoori momo chicken and mutton seekh with pita and mint chutney; and a vegetarianleaning spread of hara bhara kebab, Multani mushroom, tandoori soya chaap and achari paneer tikka, served the same way. Sugarcane juice, a virgin mojito and something called the Sanskari mojito drink rounded out what people were sipping. Executive Chef Vipin Thap- Kebabs & cocktails mark the restaurant chain’s debut in Punjab, with Chef Vipin Thappar picking his top three off the menu par pointed guests toward three dishes in particular—the butter chicken biryani, the butter garlic prawn, and the China Box, which he rated above everything else on the table that afternoon. The Mohali opening takes SOCIAL’s India count to 60, adding another stop to the chain’s expanding map. LUDHIANA | FRIDAY | 11 SEPTEMBER 2026 Netas turn back the clock to 80s Ministers, cricketers and movie stars all had the same idea this week—rewind the clock and let the Internet decide who did it best Ananya Verma Social rolls into Mohali All set... Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor serves as a main judge on India's Best Dancer Season 5, bringing her iconic 90s star power and dance expertise to the panel. E VERY few months, the internet wants to look backward. This time it landed on the 1980s, and somewhere between a prompt box and a punchline, a good chunk of the country’s political and film circuit decided to play along. The trend itself is deceptively simple. Feed a current photograph into an AI tool, most people are using ChatGPT or Gemini and ask for period clothing, a touch of film grain and big hair, and out comes a portrait that looks lifted straight from an old family album. It is not a filter so much as a full rebuild, and that is exactly what has made it so shareable. Piyush Goyal was among the first to bite, vibing his way into a retro portrait that had social media comparing him to a Hindi film hero. Kiren Rijiju followed soon after, posting himself leaning against a car in a blazer and sunglasses, captioned with a shrug about being “forced” into the nostalgia everyone else was chasing. Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha joined in too, posting a retro portrait alongside his wife Parineeti Chopra, both leaning into voluminous hair and bold, unmistakably vintage styling. Anurag Thakur threw his hat in as well, sharing a moody, cassette-and-armchair throwback of his own. Chirag Paswan’s post carried the caption “Vibing to the 80s trend...” over an image that looked convincingly like a dug-up old photograph—vin- tage Ambassador car, faded election poster and all. It was AI-generated. Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh got in on it too, posting an AI-styled portrait with his wife. But the more charming turn came from the people who refused to let a machine do the remembering. Renuka Chowdhury skipped the prompt entirely and pulled out an actual magazine cover from the decade. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made the point outright, captioning his own throwback with a line that read almost like a rebuttal to everyone else’s prompt-box efforts: “Didn’t need AI to generate that 80s vibe and aesthetic”. Shashi Tharoor joined the same camp, sharing a few real photographs of himself from the decade. Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan kept it simpler, just “80s called, I answered” under a photograph with no machine in sight either. Across the aisle in Himachal Pradesh, Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur gave the trend its own twist, digging out a real photograph of himself from the decade in a sweater and blazer. There is something oddly disarming about that split. One half of the Internet is asking a machine to imagine a past it never had, while the other is simply reaching into a drawer. Both versions ended up in the same scroll, and somehow neither felt out of place next to the other. The wave did not stay confined to politics for long. Former cricketer Irfan Pathan joined in with a run of AI por- PARINEETI CHOPRA & RAGHAV CHADHA CHIRAG PASWAN JAI RAM THAKUR KIREN RIJIJU PHOTO CREDIT: INSTAGRAM ANURAG THAKUR traits, one in denim and a bomber jacket, another dressed sharper in a blazer, writing that he was not ready to let the trend end. Poet Kumar Vishwas found his way PIYUSH GOYAL into the mix too, and from Bollywood, Sonakshi Sinha shared a story with her husband Zaheer Iqbal, while Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra posted a joint retro AMREEN KAUR SEKHON & VIKRAMADITYA SINGH picture captioned simply, “Back to the 80s.” By the time the week wound down, the 80s trend had done what these things rarely manage — pulling ministers, crick- eters, poets and film stars into the same nostalgic frame, some built by AI, some pulled straight out of an old album, all of it, somehow, part of the same story. Spreading the word! Shivani Bhakoo The educators, writers, students and literary enthusiasts from a cross section of society gathered to celebrate the release of three new books by veteran educationist, poet, translator and author Gurshminder Singh Jagpal—The Song of the Amaltas, Soulcraft: Poems on the Lessons That Last, and The Space Between Bells. The three books, different in form yet remarkably kindred in spirit, converge upon one enduring truth: the lessons that matter most rarely arrive in a lesson plan. They are lived, noticed, endured, c m y b Gurshminder Singh Jagpal releases three books — The Song of the Amaltas, Soulcraft: Poems on the Lessons That Last, and The Space Between Bells remembered—and eventually understood.The occasion featured Harpreet Kang, Dr Aziz Parihar and Jas Preet as key speakers, each bringing a distinctive perspective to Jagpal’s multidimensional literary and educational journey. As a translator, Jagpal has carried into English the poetry of some of Punjab’s significant contemporary voices: Poems by Surjit Patar (2016), The Other Shore of Words by Jaswant Zafar (2016), I Wish to Be Your Poem by Sukhwinder Amrit (2018), and The Chip of the Mind by Swarnjit Savi, the Sahitya Akademi Awardwinning work, published in English translation in 2026. The release of the books revealed the other dimensions of the same creative life—the author looking inward and the educationist looking back. Harpreet Kang spoke of the breadth of Jagpal’s work and its grounding in lived experience rather than literary posturing, observing that his writing possesses the rare ability to make readers pause before things they have begun to overlook—the ordinary moment, the child, the teacher, the remembered gesture, the quiet act of kindness. Dr Aziz Parihar turned the spotlight on another important dimension of Jagpal’s literary journey—the act of translation.