Tidbits

Scene 1: I was coolly having lunch with the office colleagues while watching the television. They were showing this something adaalat program in which Rajat Sharma was interviewing, rather screwing, Shotgun (aka apne Shatrughan Sinha). If you have watched other interviews of Shatruji, you would have noticed that he makes sure he mentions that the role of Vijay in Deewar played by Mr Bachchan was actually offered to him first by Manmohan Desai, but he could not accept it for want of dates. He states this fact very assumingly. So far so fine – I was hearing something that I had heard many times ago. But suddenly from nowhere Rajat Sharma gave the mike to one young guy in the audience to ask a question to apne Shatruji. This is what he asked – so Shatruji don’t you think that your paucity of dates that time was the best thing that could happen to Manmohan Desai!!! I was taken aback, and so was Shatruji. But our actor turned politician has learnt to handle such pressure cooker situations (remember the allegations made against him in the parliament that he is a lazy person, wakes up at 12 noon and often misses the Lok Sabha sessions :) He quickly regained his humor – and replied – Aapne bilkul theek bola. Ab mujhe lag raha hai ki audience mein kuchh kaafi samajhdaar log bhi hain. Shatruji, you said that in front of the camera – but dil mein ye baat chubh si gai hogi :)

Scene 2: The Red shift: Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (Jyoti Basu’s successor) was being grilled by the media for his audacious statement (by leftists’ standard) made regarding his welcoming of FDI into West Bengal. Now even a class 2 student knows, that being a Leftist means – to shout against World Bank, WTO, IMF, G8, FDI, even though that’s beneficial for the nation. But Mr Bhattacharya had given the green signals to many MNCs to invest in West Bengal. To add to the severity of the situation Mr Basu was also beside him (since his illness, it is not very often that we get to see/hear him). This was another pressure cooker situation. Basu had gone almost dumb. I was itching my kidney to hear the reply. It was such a tense moment for those two, and it was such an enjoyable one for me. Finally Mr Buddhadeb had this to say – We are changing, Left ideology has to change to the modern trends. If what he said was true, then that’s a very welcome step for India – Gurcharan Das would have loved this moment as did I.

Scene 3: Personal front: I was amidst a technical presentation in office. About half the presentation was over. Then a lady in the audience raised her hands. I thought she had a question to ask me, so I paused. To my bewilderment, she said that she had a comment to make. I said go on. She told that she liked the matching of the background of my slides (I had chosen a gray color) and my mildly faded black jeans. Now God, what was that. I felt like pulling my hair. Actually she had hindered my continuity. My manager controlled the situation, but not before everyone burst into laughter. Actually that was annoying for me but I didn’t exactly dislike that comment from the lady ;)