What's common Between SRK's daughter and Madonna?

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Any guesses? Well... Recently, Shahrukh Khan got a summon from the Jaipur high court for smoking in public at an IPL match. Déjà vu, ain't it? Can't help but remember that a few years ago, how he was told that smoking was uncool by the then Union health minister Ramadoss, when he was 'caught in the act', again at an IPL match. And just this February, when an HT survey called him one of the top role models in the country, it was a little girl who asked 'the most sensible question'. None other than SRK's own daughter. "How can you be the HT survey youth role model if you smoke?" Shahrukh himself tweeted, as his dotty saying. He was apparently reprimanded by the lil' one who wants him to quit smoking. While one may get awed by the superstar status, I'm rather....

Do you want gutka banned?

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More than seven months after the Centre's new food safety law banned tobacco containing products, the Madhya Pradesh government has been the first state to implement the ban, starting April 2012. Its mandate is very clear, no sale and no manufacturing of any food that contains tobacco. And one man I know there - an IAS - of great intelligence and power - but who sits in one of a not-so-great-looking-nor-luxurious little room - has made it his business now. I spoke to him over the phone after he had already conducted more than 1000 raids in over 50 districts - all in less than 2 weeks' time. How's that a big deal? Considering that, barring the northeastern states, Madhya Pradesh is highest consumer of gutka and other smokeless tobacco products in the entire country. Considering that, 31 per cent....

Dear India, you may now please take a bow!

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Can you imagine a country that added 200000 crippled children each year? Little children. Under 5 years of age. Those who just wanted to spend their time in play and run and squeal with laughter. And couldn't. And when they grew up - couldn't walk to school. Couldn't get any jobs. Couldn't marry. Couldn't move out of their villages. Yes, that was our country a few years ago. A very painful sight. And yet, today, I am pleasantly surprised. 13th Jan 2011 was when we last sighted a polio case in our country. Two-year-old Rukhsaar still lives with it in Howrah, West Bengal. Unfortunate, but fortunately the last. On 13th Jan 2012, India has completed its first ever polio free year. Millions of people in India and around the world have waited with baited breath to just be able to say it out and....

Dear Mr Farhan Akhtar...

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It would be an understatement to say I am huge fan of yours! Of course I loved Dil Chahta Hai and Rock On and Zindagi... and much against my apprehensions, your version of DON1. Man...but you are good at this stuff! I love your goofy laugh you know, the way you just kinda blurt it out and I like the fact that you play down to earth - relate-able - roles, sing in that...erm...how do I put it... 'unique' voice of yours and like your step-mamma once beamed on air - You are truly an Indian idol! I am with her on this. You are the kind of man, I thought, I'd like to work for. But before you go on and launch yourself further, I would like you to read this carefully. I gathered this info sitting in a small rectangular room of a must-be-40-something woman, whose....

Just like any other eight year old

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Frankly speaking, you don't know what to expect till it is in front of your eyes. Going to meet an eight-years-old kid dealing with epilepsy, even after many 'such stories' may not spike one's curiosity initially. But the moment you get to see the child's somewhat toothless grin...something pops up in your brain afresh - the feeling of hope and the story of survival. "At (the age of) four, shaking started in the legs, spread to the whole body. It used to happen at regular intervals," Sanjay Singhal recounts on camera. His somewhat shy wife fills me with more from behind the curtain. Kanika was just a child. Normal. Never had they imagined that their lil' princess could land up with 'fits'. Epilepsy is, simply put, a brain disorder in which a person has repeated seizures over time. It occurs because of some permanent changes in the brain....

Uff…these Spaniards!

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I have always been asked a lot of questions on who all celebs I have met at my work. Shahrukh? Big B?.. dadada...and I have always had to patiently explain to the first timers that health journalists have more to do with doctors and scientists, etc etc. Obviously, meeting an F1 world champion was never even a dream... But this Thursday morning, there he was...the dream Spaniard! All of F1 red and with clear brown eyes... Chacha Nehru hospital in Delhi is known for treating kids - especially for polio. I had never been there though. While I was waiting for Alonso to arrive, I understood why it was so famous. Very well maintained and friendly, caring physicians. I was just fretting over missing my morning chai ...and just like that the man arrived. It was a black Audi. Now I am very partial to....

Of shrapnel & splinter & blast victims

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Sneaking into a hospital ward after a bomb blast in your city, isn't the most popular thing to do. But not, if you are a journalist. 5 days after the Delhi High Court blast, after my colleagues were done reporting live from the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in the Capital, on the deaths and injuries and so on, I sneaked in. It is an advantage, at times, to step in so late into the scene. The hospital security doesn't recognize you as one of the 'Press-walahs' and so,you don't get thrown out, not immediately. So I went in, and this is the story. I didn't have to work too hard finding my way to the blast victims' ward 1. 10 of them, at least, in this ward. You are not really sure how to approach them. But you do. You tell them you are from the....