The late Murli Deora was one of the few persons in the country to know that Manmohan Singh was going to be prime minister. Deora enjoyed an excellent personal equation with Singh. Whenever the latter came to town, the Congress leader would book a room for him at the Cricket Club of India in Churchgate. I got to interview Singh on one such visit. Gentle and extremely soft-spoken, he was an excellent host. He offered cucumber sandwiches and Early Grey, and himself poured the chai in my cup. When Singh was the RBI governor he would walk down to the Strand Book Stall off PM Road looking for the latest books on economics. The irrepressible shop owner Shanbaug would jump to attention when Singh entered through the glass door sans any security.
SALMAN ANSARI
When Will The Folks At BMC Begin To Care?
It is mandatory for BMC contractors to put up boards at sites mentioning their names, description of the work, date of commencement and proposed completion. But not anymore. The workmen with their JCBs dig up roads and drains any which way they want, cutting electrical cables and water pipelines. Many citizens are unable to take out their cars since the ramps at their building entrances have been demolished. The BMC doesn’t care a damn and if citizens post their complaints on its X handle, no one bothers to act. As for elected representatives, most have already done the vanishing act.
With Online Shopping, You’re Never In A Pickle
One of the best thing about online shopping is that you can get anything from anywhere. And this includes pickles. You can get Varanasi Sardarji Papadwala’s red chilly, carrot and lehsun pickle, or gongura and avakka pickles from Hyderabad or dry mango pickle from Jaipur or chundo from Jamnagar or green chilly ann limbu pickle from Indore or tender raw mango pickle from Thanjavur. You are literally spoilt for choice. Mumbai boasts of its Bedekar and Kubal pickles. Lalbaug has entire shops selling these pickles near Chivda gully. Annapurna stores near Matunga kabutarkhana imports pickles from the South. It also sells typical items like ‘vepilakatti’, which, when mixed with til oil, goes well with dosas.
Tailpiece
A car had the Marathi alphabet ‘Shi’ written on its rear glass. When asked about it, the driver explained that it was the equivalent of ‘L’. The ‘shi’ meant ‘shiktoy’ or learning!
(Compiled by S Balakrishnan)
