Tata ... OK TATA

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before you move inwards ... must warn you this one is slightly serious ... I am missing something around me and am bemoaning the loss of a great institution ... India is shining ... no better proof than the huge trucks rumbling up and down the golden quadrilateral ... there are many pluses ... our puny overloaded 6 wheeled trucks have grown into 10, 14, 18 and 22 wheelers ... multi axle rigids, semi trailers, etc are terms commonplace in the Indian Highway Dictionary ... but something has died ... where are the bright red, yellow and green wooden bodies??? replaced by cold steel from Volvo, Tatra and MAN ... where are the cleaners sitting on the roof holding up dirty banyans in the wind ... after a quick scrub at a roadside pond??? the new trucks all come with built cabins ... so no more open skies....

www.bong.com (pls webmaster let the URL be)

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just for timepass ... pretend this is a dictionary Harry: a name prefixed to Potter ... suffixed to 8 english kings and now to a prince ... Harry: resident of Eastern Indian state when he comes out of his "home territory" Tam: the god of TV sales and marketing ... adds up those little "peoplemeters" and comes up with figures which say that the sum total of viewership of all news channels put together is greater than 100 ... I guess with PIP being the vogue on new age idiot boxes ... I COULD have the (avoidable) pleasure of watching 2 channels at the same time??? Tam: resident of southern Indian state ... also check out "Tam Bram" Tam Bram: high caste resident of southern Indian state Surd: a funny number which involves the square root of minus one ... also an imaginary....

A Ruined Saturday (Why every journo must read 8 newspapers a day)

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Lightning does not strike the same place twice ... cool ... I almost buy that argument ... but how about MANY lightnings (?) striking together??? ... hark back to 0700 Saturday, 31st December, 2005 ... here was I ... looking forward to a family lunch ... on my day off ... and there was some (GRRRRR) reporter of DNA ... bursting on to the front page with a report of an (extremely unfortunate) incident of rape ... on MY turf ... then came the lightning bolts 1. the DNA article was read but (oops) ignored (including yours truly) by all 2. but ... sabse tez (had to be the b***ers) read, digested and acted ... 3. "breaking news" (never mind the incident took place on 28th night) 4. Assignment: "Hello ... Hello ... Sapta ... is the Bombay office sleeping" (well ... we were trying to....