Latest news with #Erratica
Time of India
5 days ago
- 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.
Time of India
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Rate of girth
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 Space for customised sizing expands for women Anne McClain finally took a walk up there. She couldn't go on the 2019 NASA mission because there weren't enough medium-size spacesuits; she'd requested a size change after her previous outing. Looks like even the sky's not the limit for gendering. Bet some MCP, as in Mission Control Pig, had rolled his eyes and muttered, 'How much do American women want? Svetlana Savitskaya would have been blasted into Siberia instead of history if she'd made any such fuss. They're getting Prada and Axiom-designed space suits for the 2026 Moon landing; now they want customised size too! Really! Give them an inch and they want to become rulers!' Really? Ask any woman on earth and she'll say, 'Hey size matters more for women, so will you guys pleease zip up about yours!' There's the other height of discrimination. If immigration hadn't become thin ICE, I could've joined NASA, National Association of Short Americans. Its 'member', CNN's Belle Adler mentioned it when we were together on a Jefferson Fellowship programme, Hawaii. My shortcomings were exposed at its very start. My bag didn't arrive for a full five days, and Honolulu stores had no Petite section. Ubiquitous mumu would have fitted me, but not East West Centre dress code. Fellow-sizee Belle rescued me. Myriad lemons are thrown at the U-5 team. Low life, we are constantly 'overlooked'. My social demands as Bombay Times editor threw bonsai me among swaying palms of vertiginous models. When I had to pull up my growing boys, I had to first ask them to sit down. Now my teenstalk grandson sweeps the air like a searchlight and teases, 'Where are you, Ga?' Age reconciled me to being longitudinally challenged; now the problem is latitudinal. Gravity may have been proved by an apple, but it drags the female form closer to a pear. Try finding a dress that's S on top, L at the hips and M in between. No wonder, the 'measurement' problem in quantum mechanics is among the toughest of physics conundrums. Hindutva may be squeezing us into a culturally incongruous one-size-fits-all nation, but I'd welcome a static 'Hindu rate of girth'. *** Alec Smart said: 'Peace needs a yearlong Mother's Day.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Red-faced East
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 now more toxic than exotic The East Is Red was a 1965 musical extravaganza hailing Mao Zedong's shaping of Chinese Communist Party. Its title song ('Dongfang Hong' in the original) became Cultural Revolution's unofficial national anthem. And also unofficially that of Bengal's ultra-Leftin those lal-salaam days of 'China's Chairman amader (our) Chairman.' However the east is now more in the red. The fault lies not only with colonies-and-credit-grabbing West. If the sun has been setting on it, we only are to blame. Centre and town-planners alike. 'Neglect of the east' was a cri de coeur,'cry phrom the haart' long before Mamata raised her fist against fiscal unfairness. This stuck record of '60s Calcutta found an unlikely avatar when I lived in Bombay for the next decade. Handling 'News in Pictures' at Illustrated Weekly, I'd get an avalanche of images for calamities in remote corners of the world. But for floods in Orissa, photographic drought. The Red Fortress barricaded itself during Jyoti babu's long hold. Then,'for one, brief and shining moment', his quasi-capitalist successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharya promoted the state as gateway to emergent east, Land of the Rising Tigers. Now Bengal Tigress wants to get it out of the red by bringing in the world via Biswa Bangla melas. Country, state, city, same to same. For companies, 'Going south' means downward slope. For urban wannabes, it means upward mobility, whether in Mumbai, Kolkata or Delhi. In the first, west is also best. East is not a socially leavening agent anywhere. Mumbai, city of Kipling's birth and early childhood, seems determined to honour his dire 'twain shall never meet' prediction. Engineering marvels keep linking its west with south. But central city's eastern flank remains unseen, unserved by Viksit Bharat's breathless forerunners. Despite the fact that space and sea-views of these once-depressed dock and mill areas are now manna for heavy-breathing developers and muse of their hyperventilating hoardings. Stepchild east waits in cautious hope for the Sewri-Worli connector that will speed it to the blandishments of west and south. But braces for monumental disruption, diversion – and extra dollop of delays. *** Alec Smart said, 'The whole world (and planet) is sending a desperate May Day call.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
