Nostalgia, | Unstoppable After Seventy

Touching, Washing Feet as Rituals

IT IS A STRANGE coincidence that online and print media flashed the two news items on the same day: one about the Nagpur Mayor, Dr Nanda S. Jichkar, BJP, taking her son to

the US as her private secretary and the other about former minister Kapil Sibal deriding a little known Bharatiya Janata Party worker for washing the feet of a party MP.

Sibal strongly reacted to the later – and reports that the worker also drank the water with which the feet were washed. He immediately related it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the man every Congressman loves to hate (though the PM had nothing to do with it). Sibal forgot to mention that the first political leader to hit headlines for similarly washing the feet of his mentor was none other than a Congress leader, Dr Shrikant Jichkar.

The late Dr Jichkar, whom I knew personally, was not some illiterate unknown worker but a former Maharashtra minister, once India’s youngest MP and one reputed to be the most educated politician in India as he has the largest number of degrees.

In Maharashtra, the second initial is usually the father or husband’s name and some may have wrongly thought the two Jichkars, both from Nagpur, were related, just as many may have thought that S. B. Chavan, whose feet Dr Jichkar had washed, was the borhter of Y. B. Chavan, the state’s first and most famous Chief Minister. But I knew Dr Shrikant’s wife was Rajashree. A little search revealed the Mayor’s husband was an RTO named Sharad.

And neither Kabil Sibal nor any other Congress leader was outraged about Dr Shrikant’s act. None of them issued statements condemning him. What prominent Congressmen do becomes reprehensible if done by an unknown, lowly, BJP man!

An office-bearer of the Congress Party killing his wife and trying to burn her in a hotel tandoor (a furnace) or youth Congress workers in a special train looting shops at stations along the way are their own actions and the party chief has nothing to do with them, but if a BJP man violates traffic rules, Narendra Modi is to blame for it.

Whether owing allegience to a leader simply because he belongs to the dynasty and wagging tails everytime his/her name is mentioned is any less than washing feet is for people to decide.
But before anyone from another culture is shocked or surprised at these Indian traditions, these oriental customs have to be understood in their context. There is someting oriental about them, alien to the occidental mind. A Chinese-American teacher in my journalism school six decades ago said that a floor has to be kept “so clean that you can eat off it.” Then she would explain that people don’t eat off the floor in China. I told her I undeerstood what she meant, as I was an oriental too.

In Uttar Pradesh state of India, someone passing by a Brahmin known to him on foot or a bicycle, used to say “Pai lagoo panditji” (I touch your feet, learned one). This verbal feet touching – whether the Brahmin was really learned or not – comes from generations of customs that have lost their original meaning and have been ritualised – like most of Hinduism.

I do not know whether the custom, even in its ritualised form, continues or not, but I do remember the days when Pandit Kamalapati Tripathi, then Chief Minister of UP, used to meet visitors with a single chair for himself in the room. Every visitor had to touch his feet first. It is said Tripathi used to remember months later a visitor who did NOT touch his feet and hold that against him.
He was a Congressman but Jawaharlal Nehru was not blamed for it. Feet touching is one of the first such rituals Modi stopped after becoming India’s Prime Minister, a fact never acknowledged.

Feet touching or prostrating on the ground at the feet of a learned and revered person was considered a mark of reverence for hundreds of years in India. At a parents’ day in a school just 30-35 years ago, I used to see an eminent scientist in full suit prostrating before the swamiji (post on June 30,2017: A Spiritual Space Scientist) who ran the school. It was a sign not only of respect but also humility, a virtue regarded highly in Indian culture.

The story of Dr Nanda taking her son to USA as Secretary though he was not an employee of the Municipal Corporation of which she is the Mayor also seems to have got a big play in the media because she too belongs to BJP.

Without defending her, I am reminded of the story of the first Chief MInister of Andhra Pradesh, Tanguturi Prakasham (being a Brahmin, he was always addressed as Pantulu or Panditji, as Nehru too was). The first linguistic state of India, Andhra, had Karnool as its interim capital, with many offices in tents.

Like all Congress chief ministers, he too faced opposition and ouster moves by factions in the party itself, one led by Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, who later became India’s President. In the state legislature there a no-confidence motion was moved against Prakasham for appointing his own son as his PA — just what the BJP Mayor of Nagpur did.

The Opposition had Communist stalwarts like P. Sundaraiah and Nagi Reddy. My friend the late G. Krishna, who had covered the legislature, told me of the fiery speeches of the comrades, the machinations of Sanjiva Reddy in engineering the no-trust move and the moving reply to the debate by Prakasham Pantulu .

Prakasham had earned millions as a Mylapore lawyer in Chennai and sacrificed all the wealth for the freedom struggle (travelling in what Congress leader Sashi Tharoor called the cattle class with followers and asking if someone had bought a ticket for him as he had no money to buy). He was called Andhra Kesari (Lion of Andhra) by Gandhiji as he bared his chest to British bullets during the freedom struggle.

The Chief Minister told the legislature that he had appointed his son to take care of him as his PA because he was a patient of prostate enlargement, as a result of which he had no control over bladder and bowel movements – a condition in which no outsider appointed as his PA would care for him.

The speech, according to Krishna, was so touching that it literally brought tears to the eyes of the Opposition leaders who crossed the floor to the CM’s seat, held his hands and said sorry to Prakasham Pantulu before withdrawing the no-confidence motion.

It is not known under what circumstances the Mayor showed her son as her PA. She did not even appoint him as a PA formally. Her act cannot be equated to that of Prakasham Pantulu, but it does remind me of a Chief Justice of AP High Court who, just days before his retirement, wanted to go to some place in the USA for medical treatment (of course at government expense). This was challenged in a public interest litigation.

But none was filed against many Indian leaders going abroad for treatment even though Indian hospital standarads have improved so much that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj opted for a kidney transplant in India

Sibal, in his tirade, asks if BJP members of Parliament would wash Modi’s feet and drink that “dirty water”. Whether Jichkar, who drank the water off Chavan’s feet, drank ‘dirty’ water or clean water after washing the feet clean first is not known. The same is also not known in the case of the BJP worker.

But what is known is that washing feet clean before any ritual is very highly valued in Indian traditions — something even Kapil Sibal cannot find fault with.

Veteran Journalist Kuldeep Nayar, RIP

VETERAN JOURNALIST KULDEEP NAYAR passed away today, at the age of 95, perhaps bringing to close with him an era of honest reporting in this age of fake and paid news.

Thousands of journalists, political leaders and people in public life condoled his death — some of them not even knowing the names of his 15 books or his name itself. Former Shiv Sena leader and now Maharashtra Congress president Sanjay Nirupam tweeted “Veteran journalist Shri Kuldeep Nayer’s demise is a big loss to Indian journalism. He was a peace activist & a great nationalist. Have fond memories of working with him in Rajya Sabha. Beyond The Line & India after Nehru were his most popular books. My condolences to his wife Bharti.”

Nirupam does not know that Kuldeep spelt his name as Nayar, unlike most Punjabi Nayyars and one Punjabi who adopted the Malayalam version, Hollywood film-maker Meera Nair.

And his most famous book on (the then) current affairs was ‘Between The Lines’ not ‘Beyond The Line’ as mentioned by Nirupam, who perhaps did not read Kuldeep’s bylined column of the same name. The condoelnce served only to remind readers that he, Sanjay, was a member of Rajya Sabha.

A Pakistani daily, The Express Tribune, distorted RIP (Requisit in Pace or Rest In Peace as commonly understood) to ‘Rest in Power’. Had he hankered after power, he would have cashed his job as IO in Press Information Bureau, later, or as Press Secretary to Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Anyone who is 80 and waiting near the exit gate of life, for it to open, is likely to read most obituaries and write on them. Sticking to my practice of writing only personal recollections when eminent people die – and not what is already in public domain or on Internet – I recall meeting him several times.

As the Editor-in-Chief he visited The Indian Express daily (then undivided) at an edition which I had launched as the first chief sub-editor. Talking to him I mentioned his student days in the USA.

A close friend, the late Dr Singammal Iyengar, told me that when she went to the USA for the second time for her doctoral studies at the Northwestern University at Evanston near Chicago, he was in the prestigious Medeil School of journalism at that university. As a ‘senior’ she bossed over all the Indian students, helping them overcome the culture shock and teaching them expected basic behaviour.

Her contact with journalism was minimal: she thought the United News of India (UNI) news agency which he headed when she ttold me about “that boy Kuldeep”, was a part of the United Nations!

A look at Kuldip Nayar even in his later days shows he must have been a very handsome, tall, Punjabi youth. Many girls wanted to be noticed by him and told Dr Iyengar that he never socialised (that is, dated) and vanished after classes.

So Singammal summoned him to the canteen and asked why. He told her that as soon as “school” ended, he went to work for his pocket money. Educational loans were unheard of in India and most Indian students worked, some even in restaurents and motels. This led to a joke by Dr Laxmanswami Mudaliar (or his twin brother Dr Ramaswami), who as Vice-Chancellor at a convocation where Chester Bowles, the then famous US Ambassador in India, said in his welcome speech, “I am told in America, you give degrees for dishwashing.”

The intended pun was to say that American universities had degrees even in subjects like dishwashing, with a dig at students getting degrees after washing dishes in a restaurent.

Kuldeep was very quick on the uptake. He guessed that I was referring to the incident narrated by Dr Iyengar. He laughed it away, saying, “Oh, in those days, I had no money and had to work.” Having started his journalistic career in Urdu newspapers, he never wrote to show off his knowledge of English and even admitted wirting was not his forte.

But humility certainly was. At least twice I took students of the journalism departrment, as a teacher in charge of their Delhi ‘study tour’, to his house and he spent quality time with them. I remember him chiding the Head of Department for bringing the students late. “You must teach them to keep time,” he had said.

I regret that in my book on Indian journalism I wrote (as a joke, mentioning that he was a hihgly respected journbalist in India) about Kuldeep Nayar’s arrest by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency. I said someone described him as “Journalist-in-law”. He was the son-in-law of Bhimsen Sachar, the first Chief Minister of Bombay Presidency (before states were reorganised) and brother-in-law of the late Justice Rajendra Sachar.

But then who would remember such trivia. I hope journalism students would remember at least Kuldeep Nayar

The Tragicomedy of Contrived Humour

HUMOUR, THEY SAY 😊, is a serious business. Or, has this too become a cliche and so not funny any more?

A sense of humour is a prized possession every man wants to be known for. Women find it more attractive than appearance or affluence. In a mixed company, a sense of humour gets more appreciation than any other attribute.

Never does the difficulty of writing humour become so obvious than when you are trying to be humorous on purpose, without the humour

: Gurazada

coming from your inner self, when you are not being natural and when it is contrived or “made to order”. Very few have the ability to write humour when their own thoughts are bordering on pathos, like the poet Thomas Hood (‘Bridge of Sighs‘, ‘On Her Deathbed‘ and several other poems born of despair and tragedy) who, it is said, wrote ‘lighter stuff’ and humorous lyrics for a living.

I always held that the greatest pleasure of knowing the English language was being able to read and understand P. G. Wodehouse. For those who want legal humour, there is Henry Cecil (No Bail for The Judge, Brothers in Law) and Richard Gordon (‘Doctor in Love, Doctor at Sea) for medical humour.

But then, humour and pathos are believed to be closely related. Natya Shastra (the ancient Indian treatise on the science of drama, dance or make-believe) holds that humour is born out of pathos, Pu. La. Deshpande, the great Marathi humourist, told me in an interview around 1961. He explained it at great length.

: BeeChi

Humour is a safety spring of life that absorbs the knocks and bruises life causes. Life is a tragedy you can survive only by enjoying its humour, I recall him saying decades ago. The humour of PuLa and of Sharad Joshi, the Hindi humourist who read prose at every important gathering of humorous poets (Hasya Kavi Sammelan) and was applauded for it, was of a more enduring, impacting brand. It had depth and subtlety which many others, who believed in slap-stick or banana-peel humour, lacked. PuLa has no equal in India.

In Raj Kapoor’s magnum opus, Mera Naam Joker, the circus

joker, making everyone laugh, was a melancholy character. It was too subtle for the Indian audience of last century, as proved by its failure at the box-office — a big blow to the master showman. Another great showman, Charlie Champlin with whom he was often compared, tried to bring out the tragedy of contemporary life through comedy in films like Modern Times, King in New York, The Kid, The Great Dictator, Limelight and The Tramp.

Chaplin is said to be the only comedian who could make you cry when he laughed and laugh when he cried. That reminds me of the role of Johnny Walker in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s classic Anand. Known only for slapstick, brainless, not-so-subtle humour, Johnny plays a drama actor who humours Anand (Rajesh Khanna) on his deathbed and realising that Anand was aware all along that he was dying, keeps up the pretence. He then runs out crying that he would not let the curtain fall. Even recollecting the scene brings tears.

Many great writers have used humour to take up social issues, like T.P Kailasam (1884-1946) and BeeChi (Rayasam Bheemasena Rao, 1913-1980) in Kannada as did in Telugu, Gurajada Apparao (‘Kanyashulkam’-1892) Mokkapati Narasimha Sastry (‘Barrister Parvateesham’-1924). ‘Kalki’ Krishnamurthy (1899-1954) lives in the Tamil magazine that shares his pen name today.

Gujarat,’s Tarak Mehta, who died last year, had cult following in Hindi TV with his “Oolta Chashma” comedy serial, while some like Vinod Dave and Narsinh Mehta had combined journalism with humour. Hindi had a great shortage of humour writers but by the time I met Harishankar Parsai at Jabalpur in 1966, he was already a known Communist sympathiser working for his ideology.

Every language literature in India has eminent humourists and every generation has its own prominent writers. The tenor and insight of each generation’s humour varies. Some of olden days may cease to be funny now. Some jokes of today could not be imagined yesterday. We laugh WITH some writers and laugh AT others who are out of tune.

In every language, humour has been used to draw people’s attention to social issues and motivate change for good. Humour has played a great rule in the success of many films but in most Indian-language mainstream films, like ‘Ganget Ghoda Nhala‘ (Marathi) of Raja Paranjape (1910-1979), it remains very crude and often vulgar.

Hindi TV comedian Kapil Sharma’s life has been turning into a tragedy and cricketer-turned-comedian-turned-minister Navjot Singh Siddhu is resorting to buffoonery in Pakistan in his third role – as a politician.

Comedians becoming mere jokers will turn humour into tragedy.

Not Just Blind, Also Silent On The Voiceless

Related image — **After Gulzar’s ‘Koshish’, a laudable *‘koshish’* by the government**

A WORD THAT WAS used too frequently in recent political debates in different contexts – so frequently that it has almost lost it’s meaning – is ‘empowering’.

Just 2 days ago I wrote on this blog how empowering the white cane, audio books or the enhanced ability of touch are to the blind. Most of the blind use not only touch but also sound and smell to great advantage.

They have these faculties far more developed than ‘normal’ people. Most ‘sighted’ people can hear without listening, see without noticing and touch without feeling. And they take these facilities for granted, not even thankful for having them and doing little for those denied them.

Elsewhere, I mentioned Sateesh Sehgal. a Delhi friend who was retained in Mumbai by filmmaker Gulzar for the entire duration of the filming of his classic film ‘Koshish’ starring Sanjiv Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri, as he did not want a single scene in it which would not go with the deaf and dumb. A perfectionist like him would never compromise.

Sateesh, an expert in sign language, used to tell me how British and Indian sign languages differed. In English showing a ring on a finger meant ‘married’; showing a nose-stud or a Mangala sutra did it in India. He tried to compile an Indian dictionary of sign language. I could give only moral support.

So it was gratifying to receive a mail from a young relative working as a ‘special teacher’ for the dumb, a Press Information Bureau release that the government has brought out ‘The First Indian Sign Language Dictionary’ of 3000 words. It was launched by Thaawarchand Gehlot, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment.

The dictionary has been developed by Indian Sign Language Research & Training Centre (ISLR&TC) under Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

The basic aim of the ISL Dictionary is to improve communication between the deaf and hearing communities. It provides much information in Indian sign language to the deaf, bringing them into the social mainstream. New words will be added to the dictionary later.

As per 2011 census, there are 50, 71,007 deaf people and 19, 98,535 with speech disability in India. So it was decided by the new government to develop the dictionary to provide them with legal, medical, technical and academic terms along with daily use words. The ISLD has videos with subtitles in English and Hindi terms to help deaf children learn English.

It has everyday terms, 237 legal terms like “Affidavit”, “Acquittal”, over 200 academic terms explaining words like “Nervous System”, “Rotation” and “Revolution”, etc. from subjects like physics, geography, biology, maths, etc. 200 sign videos for medical terms, 206 videos of signs for 204 technical terms used in vocational training or in computer courses.

My friend Sateesh Sehgal’s dream is coming true after almost half a century.

On My Blindness, With Apologies to Milton

white cane — **Are we blind towards the blind?**

ONE OF THE FAMOUS POEMS by John Milton (Don’t know? Ask Google) is ‘On His Blindness‘. That set me thinking — of MY future blindness.

One of my parents went blind due to glaucoma (eye pressure) months before death. I was told that it was genetic and so I must get checked. Expectedly, when I did, it was glaucoma. Anyone whose parents (or one one them) had glaucoma MUST have an eye-check, I was told, After expensive field vision tests thrice, I was just told to take care. No surgery was advised. Perhaps it was too late.

So, resigned to turning blind (again, I hope, just for months before death) I downloaded seve Image result for John Milton ral of Librivox audio books. After hearing 19 books of P. G. Wodehouse, it occurred to the old cerebrum: Without sight, how can I know which book to hear and how to start it on the device?

So that set me thinking about blindness and trying to find my way around with eyes closed. I recalled a delightful essay by E. V. Lucas, (who? Google again) which I read decades ago, about a small puppy he named ‘Lord of Life’ for its liveliness. Just to know how the puppy looked at the world, Lucas went around on all-fours looking up at people and things.

That gave him a new view of the world. But how about people who had no vision, or sight, at all? After my social work group organized a vintage car rally with blind navigators carrying route directions in braille, it occurred to me that the whole society/community/country is blind – to the plight of the blind.

So I planned (but could not put through) a public awareness drive with several persons marching blindfolded, running into people, bumping into things, carrying placards on how to treat the blind and respect the white cane – the worldwide symbol of the blind.

It was again in my social work days that I learnt about white cane, mobility training and serving blind people (“The curry is at 9 0’clock and Dal at 3” would make it clear to them when an Indian food plate is kept before the blind). In those days a blind Ph.D. student told me how she could match the colours of her saree and blouse. She associated a colour with each texture she knew by touch – like rayon, linen, cotton, silk, poplin or Georgette.

Editing reports for a consultancy firm, Erin, I found there a blind telephone operator who remembered people by voice, could dial numbers and give extensions. He was also the captain of the state’s blind cricket team.

I recalled interviewing as a cub reporter some 60 years ago, an Indian professor of New School of Social Research, New York, who went around that bustling city with the help of just a white cane.

In India he would have fallen into road potholes or on uneven footpaths, abused, pushed around, bumped into and shouted at by many: “Are you blind?”

He WAS blind.

Or was it the sighted people around, blind to his white cane and black goggles, who were really blind?

Indian Media In a muddle

Image result for newspaper — **Without creibility, just a pile of waste paper (*Raddi*)?**

A ‘NATIONAL’ INDIAN DAILY (no, I don’t mean notional, though a 80-year-old typing on phone can make such mistakes) has shed copious tear, both in print and digital versions, over a ‘dancer’, known for vulgar record dances, not being allowed to dance in the plane on an international flight.

The same newspapers makes it a point to report every time Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi’s diaper is changed or he cried. The flirtations of film stars and idiotic speeches of morons passing off as leaders of political parties get most space in the print media or time on TV channels. We heard of Malala, the Pakistani girl shot by Taliban for seeking education for girls or the man who shared the Noel Prize with her, Kailash Satyarthi only after she was shot or he got the prize.

All that they did earlier was pushed out of news space by frivolities which do not “inform, educate or entertain” – the primary purpose of journalism .- Titillation or pandering to baser human cravings are things that boost up newspaper circulations or TV viewership ‘ratings’.

Unfortunately people at large are interested in glamour and reel heroes in place of real ones. And that is the main argument advanced by media for the new trend of sensationalization they indulge in. It is disgusting!

Recently I heard a discourse in which, departing from his usual religious issues, the speaker spoke of the respect that should be paid to the national flag, as Independence Day of India (August 15) was around the corner. He narrated the story of an Army officer who got a telegram that a son was born to him and was granted leave to visit home by his commanding officer. Just then a report of terrorist activity near the borders came. The CO told him to select some efficient and committed soldiers to be rushed to the spot.

The officer told his CO, “I can see my wife and son some other time, but I cannot see the national flag falling now.” He cancelled his leave, rushed to the troubled area, bravely fought the terrorists and shot them down. Just when he rose from his bunker, thinking all of them were down, one dying terrorist showered bullets on him. The officer died fighting for the country, without seeing his newborn son or the wife he married just the previous year.

“No Indian news channel or newspaper thought the news worth splashing. Not a word was heard or read about the brave act. The world came to know about it from a BBC bulletin,” the immensely popular speaker said.

This seems to be a world trend. Recently, an extremely popular American talk-show, EllenTube, had the host Ellen telling the audience that she would begin the day with good news. She picked up a daily newspaper, searched for good news in most pages and threw the daily down in disgust. All news items were about some evil even or the other.

Newspapers everywhere are facing existential crisis. Many are facing closure. Great ones like The Gaurdian have gone online and are appealing for public donations. Journalism in all media has lost its credibility. Social media news id quicker and more effective, but being un-regulated, gives scope to fake news.

In India newspapers like those run by Lokmanya Tilak, Agarkar, Prakasam or Motilal Nehru were a part of the freedom struggle. They were run with a purpose. I remember Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Harijan‘ had a column titled “Weekly War News”, on Satyagraha in different part of the country.

The media’s argument “that is what the people want” to justify sensationalization and running after TRP (ratings) is the same as that used by bad film makers. It has been proved beyond doubt that if good films are made, people do see them. Only when some indulge in titillation and a few are creative does people’s taste degenerate. The fall in tastes and morality is a reflection of the failure of leadership in all fields.

Real leaders lead, not just follow popular trends.

On To My Last Journey

Yatra

NO. THIS IS NOT A SEQUEL (RATHER A PREQUEL – AS OBIT COMES AFTER FINAL DEPARTURE) TO MY POST ‘THANKS FOR MY OBIT‘ (OCTOBER 16, 2016 )

This is not about my ‘kicking the bucket’ nor was that about my real obituary -which would never be written anyway as I am not important enough for it. It is about a trip I am planning to the ‘Char Dham’ (four centres of pilgrimage) – Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri – next month.

Continue reading On To My Last Journey

Uzma, India’s Daughter, Returns

THE RETURN OF UZMA AHMED, A MARRIED INDIAN WOMAN IN HER 20s, who says she was forced at gunpoint to marry a Pakistani in the remote Buner district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan is a milestone in the history of diplomacy.

She was escorted to the Wagha border by Pakistani police on the orders of an Islamabad court and staff of the Indian High Commission, where she took refuge for several days. It was a touching scene to see the young lady,bowing down to touch Indian soil and apply it to her forehead in a gesture of reverence to her motherland

Continue reading Uzma, India’s Daughter, Returns

Non-Profits or Fake NGOs?

nonproft — **Funds always come for good causes**

YEARS AGO, WHEN I MENTIONED I WAS with some N.G.O.s, someone remarked with a smirk on his face, “Oh, then you must have made a lot of money”.

That symbolizes what many people think of Non-Governmental Organisations or NGOs.

imgres — **Eliminate the weeds to nurture real trees**

They are more appropriately called non-profits in the USA as not all government bodies need be without profit motive and private organisations include even firms working solely for profit. The UN prefers to call them voluntary organisations and an annual Day of Volunteerism is observed

The Supreme Court of India has recently Continue reading Non-Profits or Fake NGOs?

Slippers for a ‘VIP’ (Old Ones Will Do)

IMG-20170424-WA0016 — Ex-Prime Minister of UK David Cameron stands in London train as there was no seat. He did not shout “Do you not know who I am?” or beat other passengers for not offering him a seat. Indian MP or so-called “VIP’s” , of any party, would not have shown such restraint. And no ex-PM in India would have traveled in a train like a common man as David Cameron did

To Shriman Argeeji, Member RWA Managing Committee

Respeccted Bhau Saheb,

Congratulations for being in the news once again even before we could answer your letter to the Resident’s Welfare Association about the grave injustice done to you,an eminent member of a prominent caste to which some kings belonged, by Apartment security men, whom we have now removed (they were from North East, anyway (not amchi maanus).

We read in the newspapers that you have again had a brush with authority, now the Mumbai police. The reporter did not say how many times you beat the policemen with slippers. It may be because (1) he/she was weak at counting, (2) thought it was too obvious Continue reading Slippers for a ‘VIP’ (Old Ones Will Do)

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