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Time of India
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
A Thursday
Bachi Karkaria's Erratica and its cheeky sign-off character, Alec Smart, have had a growing league of followers since 1994 when the column began in the Metropolis on Saturday. It now appears on the Edit Page of the Times of India, every Thursday. It takes a sly dig at whatever has inflated political/celebrity egos, and got public knickers in a twist that week. It makes you chuckle, think and marvel at the elasticity of the English language. It is a shooting-from-the-lip advice column to the lovelorn and otherwise torn, telling them to stop cribbing and start living -- all in her her branded pithy, witty style. LESS ... MORE So much more crashes along with a plane A dear friend perished in the Ahmedabad Indian Airlines plane crash of 1988; our domestic carrier still hadn't merged with Air India. No remains of his body were found and his wife lived with a hope she could never bring herself to bury. That flight had originated in Bombay so there would have been more whom I could have lost, and thankfully didn't. But Ahmedabad was my town-in-law, I still have close family there and closer friends. Any of them could have been on board AI 171 last Thursday. To date I know only of one. She missed her flight that morning; her not being on time turning to timeless – and incredulous – gratitude. And perhaps not a little mixed feelings thinking of those who did not get away. What then about Viswashkumar Ramesh? I have often pondered over what it must feel like to be the sole survivor of a tragedy that kills hundreds? Or, worse, the rest of your family? I've been so haunted by this sudden death because it struck in a place I love for many reasons, most of all for its contradictions. No city can be one-dimensional; but Ahmedabad is defined by its dichotomy. The resident deity is Rokda, cash, mounted on dhandho, business, but it is equally home to the most vaunted of IIMs, schools of architecture, design and dance, to so many litterateurs and artists. Aspiration is the common factor, the desire to make life better. Yes, it was also on board that Dreamliner which turned into nightmare. An Ahmedabad-London flight represents the vast percentage of Gujaratis who straddle both places. Those who went to Britain to improve their circumstances or their families going to visit. Or, in the case of software engineer Prateek Joshi, bringing his family to live there with him after six years of struggling for clearances. The one image I can't get out of my head is that of the selfie he posted just before take-off. His own mission-accomplished glow, his beaming wife, his three little kids smiling with yet-not-fully-grasped hope but with definite joy of finally being full-time with Papa. All vapourised in 30 seconds. A one-way ticket as Prateek Joshi never intended it to be. *** Alec Smart said: 'Accident compensation is a contradiction in terms.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Taco Bhel
Bachi Karkaria's Erratica and its cheeky sign-off character, Alec Smart, have had a growing league of followers since 1994 when the column began in the Metropolis on Saturday. It now appears on the Edit Page of the Times of India, every Thursday. It takes a sly dig at whatever has inflated political/celebrity egos, and got public knickers in a twist that week. It makes you chuckle, think and marvel at the elasticity of the English language. It is a shooting-from-the-lip advice column to the lovelorn and otherwise torn, telling them to stop cribbing and start living -- all in her her branded pithy, witty style. LESS ... MORE Street food always comes up Trumps It also gets tarreefs. Wall Street has been unkind to versatile taco by associating it with a guy who's merely versatile in changing his mind/policies/friends/foes. Its acronym has been particularly snarky to a President for whom all things Mexican are difficult to swallow. It's doubly delish that TACO was dished out by a street called Wall, coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong. Should I succumb to the temptation of bringing in the 'strong arm' tactics of the present POTUS? Na–chhod do. Letit pass. 'Trump Always Chickens Out' has bred a brood of jokes, but the ones laughing all the way to the bank are street-smart dealers who bought when a tariff announcement took a bite out of a stock, and sold when a rescinding made it regain its mojo. Takings have been plumper than a Butterball turkey since Trump has see-sawed 50 times on tariffs since he returned to the menu. So, there's much Thanksgiving there. 'Good friend Modi' may not use the TACO jibe about 'Good friend Donald', but 'taycos' have plenty of takers in Gujju-land. In fact, Taco Bell has Mehtamorphosed to Taco Bhel, stuffed with anything. This has also been the fate of the traditional quintessential Bombay dish. Indeed noun has become verb; it's been 'bhel-puried'. Actually all dishes 'Make-see-kun' have been revolutionised, ordered from outlets called Pancho Villa, and polished off in a 'Zapata'. That's when the hungry aren't leaning towards 'peeza'. Masalafied Mexican and Italian have a pan-Indian following but nowhere more than in Ahmedabad. Remember, it was called the experimental theatre of Hindutva, but I've always found it to experimental theatre of food. Anything goes, even ingredients/toppings/fillings that don't conventionally go with one another. I'll get sarson da saagified for saying this, but culinary 'new normal' was first institutionalised in the khao galis of Amdavad. Like in another context, if others gave you a 'goli', they'd give you an ice 'gola' – in 22 flavours. The laadiwalas' of Manek Chowk had innovative pani-puri pani long before fancy fusion chefs started serving it in cutesy containers, and at distinctly uncutesy prices. Yes, there may be plenty of Ahmedabaddies, but I'm all for streetside Ahmedagoodies. *** Alec Smart said: 'Drones are now the worker bees of the war-hive.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Hazy Angrezi
Bachi Karkaria's Erratica and its cheeky sign-off character, Alec Smart, have had a growing league of followers since 1994 when the column began in the Metropolis on Saturday. It now appears on the Edit Page of the Times of India, every Thursday. It takes a sly dig at whatever has inflated political/celebrity egos, and got public knickers in a twist that week. It makes you chuckle, think and marvel at the elasticity of the English language. It is a shooting-from-the-lip advice column to the lovelorn and otherwise torn, telling them to stop cribbing and start living -- all in her her branded pithy, witty style. LESS ... MORE It's in the news but I'm confused Last weekend, TOI put me in a quandary. Saturday's top edit was called 'The Importance Of Being Earnest'. It wasn't about Wilde's misplaced baby. It was about untamed consequences of international misunderstanding. Deploying examples from military history it conveyed real-time caution to the seven delegations of multi-party MPs who've fanned out to present the truth about Pak-sponsored terrorism. The edit warned that this important attempt to remove any misunderstanding about our position harbours a possibility of the message itself being mis-understood in any of the targeted 33 countries. Ignoring Hindi jihadis – and subtly promoting its own USP – TOI pitched English as the best medium for the message. I'll say 'Three, or rather 33, cheers!' to that. Provided the messengers themselves – 'experienced and articulate' though they are – have been fully briefed not only on What, but more so on How. Why? Because, like truth and Tharoor, English is seldom plain and almost never simple. Then STOI rah-rah-ed Banu Mushtaq's International Booker win. No problem with that. It's the equal applause for the translation that's causing my confusion. Illa, illa, I'm not thoo-thoo-ing Deepa Bhasthi's raw, hybrid English moulded to the contours of colloquial Kannada. I'm all for empire currying the King's angrezi. But then what happens to the previous para's stance? Imagine the Babel if our diplomats start adding their own idiomatic tadka? More to my point, do aforesaid 'global-outreach' MPs have linguistic handlers? Parroting script no can do. Complex questions will demand nuanswers. One misstep could make the whole exercise stumble. Earlier remarks on Col Sofiya further complicate this 'propah-improppur English' business. The MP mantri tried shrugging off a bigoted and sexist slur as a mere 'linguistic mistake'. The SIT will hopefully rubbish this MCP's men-dacity as SC did his non-apology. My question concerns Dr Ali Khan. Call me elitist, but how 'linguistically' equipped are those cops tasked with fine-toothcombing all his past posts written in professorial English? With 'anti-national' the semantic chameleon of our time, I hope no dis-understanding there. *** Alec Smart said: 'Mumbai' metro stations submerged. Undergrounded. ' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Persona non manga
Bachi Karkaria's Erratica and its cheeky sign-off character, Alec Smart, have had a growing league of followers since 1994 when the column began in the Metropolis on Saturday. It now appears on the Edit Page of the Times of India, every Thursday. It takes a sly dig at whatever has inflated political/celebrity egos, and got public knickers in a twist that week. It makes you chuckle, think and marvel at the elasticity of the English language. It is a shooting-from-the-lip advice column to the lovelorn and otherwise torn, telling them to stop cribbing and start living -- all in her her branded pithy, witty style. LESS ... MORE Held in terror by Don Alphonso and Salim Langda Pray heed the plight of the Person Who Doesn't Like Mangos. Other minorities know naught of our marginalisation, discrimination, the looks ranging from sheer pity to sneer contempt. We are the pariahs of polite company – sliced, cubed, pulped, if not skinned alive and stoned. As the first basket of blushing Lalbagh lifts its hay veil, as the first Gulabkhas spreads its fragrance, the rest of the country awakes to life and salivation. I sink into inescapable hell. Soon the Don himself swaggers through the street, his flag-bearer trumpeting his arrival, 'Haaa- poos!' He overpowers every mall foodhall and street stall, establishing his dominance. His eager followers, nay worshippers, are swept up in the fervour of ecstasy. I get swept into the corners of ridicule. 'You don't like mangos?! What's wrong with you?! Are you anti-national, or wot?!!! Actually, I'm just hungry. There's nothing else on the menu. Especially if you are Gujju. Forget omnipresent aam ras. Even the skin isn't spared but is lavished with the rye-hing no vaghar bestowed on everything from bheenda to teenda. We Parsis seem to have adopted this mangi-ficent obsession along with the language and dress conditions for settling in Jadi Rana's Gujarat fiefdom millennia ago. We cook the ripe mango with mutton like we do everything from tomatoes to turiya. We uniquely pickle it whole, steamed and steeped in a mustard-spiked vinegar, earning brownie points or bucks with this Bafenu achar. Invited anywhere, I sit sullenly sucking my resentment while the rest of the table is spaced out sucking skin and stone. In humble Mumbai bhojanalay or hi-fly Bombabe restaurant, everything else gets its just desserts. Last week, it even drove un-evictable caramel custard off a toff Club's menu; actually, in an 'I kissed thee ere I killed thee' act, it smothered poor pudding to desecration and death. Mango may be the 'food of love' but no one seems to 'sicken and so die' of its 'surfeit'. My old aunt used to clear a shelf of her Godrej almirah for this summer visitor, pacing up and down her balcony awaiting the guy with crate and cry. She's gone to the great orchard in the sky where the aambrosial cup never runs dry, and where no keri appears perfect and ready to eat but turns out rotten at the core. That is 'the most unkindest cut-open of all.' Not just foods, everything bows-out to the 'King'. In my small, local readymades shop, you can't see the tees for this Dawood. I kid you not. Salim Langda, Malda Mastan, Lala Chausa will strut their hour about the state. Accompanied by molls: Don's own Pairi, Neelam, Dusseri, Badami or any aamrapalli as sweet by other name. Right through their stranglehold, we, disgruntled dishonourables, must remain silent. Bound by the 'Aamerta' code. *** Alec Smart said: 'MP mantri's Col Sofiya apology was just naam ke vastey. Just as his slur was naam ke liye. As is Prof Mahmudabad's absurd arrest.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
It took a conflict…
Bachi Karkaria's Erratica and its cheeky sign-off character, Alec Smart, have had a growing league of followers since 1994 when the column began in the Metropolis on Saturday. It now appears on the Edit Page of the Times of India, every Thursday. It takes a sly dig at whatever has inflated political/celebrity egos, and got public knickers in a twist that week. It makes you chuckle, think and marvel at the elasticity of the English language. It is a shooting-from-the-lip advice column to the lovelorn and otherwise torn, telling them to stop cribbing and start living -- all in her her branded pithy, witty style. LESS ... MORE To tell us that not only world, nation too is one family Several weeks ago, I 'columned' a diverse family that had lived happily together for ages but splintered when Biggest Brother began ordering everyone on how to love, pray, even eat. All the smaller brothers had to obey, or face his wrath. He pushed around second biggest brother mostly saying, 'Some relative of yours had fought with us 70 years ago, and moved to a separate house, so you too should leave this ancestral home and go live there!' Arre bhai, what logic was that? But, biggest is mightiest, no? Then, three weeks ago while some members were enjoying a lovely picnic, a terrible thing happened – but which miraculously restored their past proud unity. A quarrelsome neighbour had eyed the family's vast property right from the start – and now resented its growing stature in the community. That April morning, he brazenly swooped down, started getting violent, grabbed stuff and generally created mayhem of the most intolerable kind. Well, you can be sure our strong family leader wasn't going to have any of this nonsense. No, Sir-ji, he was going to protect his home with all his superior might. Not just that, he was going to teach the belligerent marauder such a lesson that it would 'make him remember his nani' – as an earlier head of household had so colourfully put it. Now here's the beauty of it. Biggest Brother stopped doubting second biggest brother's loyalty. Instead, he immediately coopted him to show the land-grabbing lout and world that the entire clan was united in this fight to the finish-off. Second biggest brother did not sulk, 'You kept isolating me, so why should I join.' No-ji, not for a nanosecond. He – indeed all smaller brothers – jumped into the fray, declaring, 'We are one family and we will uphold its honour as one.' Such a united stand won the day. And they all again lived happily ever after – nobody ever forgetting that 'Dividing, we fall.' Biggest Brother even coined a motto, 'Garv se kaho, hum Bharatiya kutumbakam hain!' *** Alec Smart said: 'New greeting thanks to our Star Warriors: 'May the Forces be with you'.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
