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.'
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