Chandigarh Beat

Christmas greetings
Christmas is around the corner and that means 8230; Yasmin Dutta! As usual, the young lady has been busy with her scissors, sketch-pens and sippi-sitare and produced a giant-size card for the CN staff in the shape of a decorated tree. It came with one of her little verses:

Although it is not in the fault of the lords of the Press, Newspapers bring sad reports more, good news less.

Let us hope in the anxiously awaited New Year News spreads only laughter and not one tiny tear.

Pakdan-pakdai with the CM
The venue was the Vivek High School ground, the occasion their Drill Display and the chief guest, Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal. Badal sat surrounded by guards and keenly followed the drill. Perhaps he was wondering if his party colleagues would have benefited from similar discipline in their childhood.

One bunch of naughty tiny tots was visibly bored by the whole thing and began playing Pakdan-pakdai never mind that a VIP was in their midst. Parents glared and the principal, vice principal and trust chairman looked on helplessly as the laughing brats dashed around the venue yelling pakdai or tappa 8230; but Badal seemed quite comfortable in the midst of it all. And why not? Doesn8217;t he play a kind of pakdan-pakdai on the political field? He may even say tappa to himself when he catches his opponents by surprise.

Battling polythene
The Sector 17 traders8217; anti-polythene campaign continues apace and students dutifully troop around the piazza with their placards. But the battle against the plastic bag will not be won easily. For one thing, phari-wallahs will have to be dissuaded from using poly-bags. When asked to involve these petty vendors in campaign, traders immediately declined, saying that the Administrative danda should be brought in to change their attitude.

One of the students thought that quot;if the Administration banned the recycling of poly-bags that would also lead to decreased use.quot; Would it? Or would it mean more waste plastic blowing all over the place?

Hot and sour
Local scribes landed at the Paragon Model School in Sector 70 last week to cover the visit of the Chinese Ambassador. As minutes ticked past, they discovered that Chinese quot;punctualityquot; exceeds even the Indian variety. His Excellency turned up full two hours behind schedule, rushed around the school and left the place without saying a single word.

When the irate reporters took the organisers to task, he assured them that the Ambassador was heading back to Chandigarh to address the Press and they should come along. Oooh, insult added to injury. quot;Nope!quot; answered the scribes with one voice, quot;enough is enoughquot; and they refused to put in even one more minute on the dignitary8217;s visit.

Dirty, dirty, dirty
The Municipal Corporation is supposed to keep the city clean and it may challan those who create insanitary conditions. But what if the MC itself is the spoiler? On Saturday morning, a Chandigarh Municipal Corporation water-tanker chose to release dirty charcoal-coloured water all over a lawn in the residential area of Sector 38-A. The residents were not amused and if the driver hadn8217;t sped away when he did, he would certainly have had his ears pulled.

A senior MC official, when contacted, said possibly the guys brought a long-dormant tanker without cleaning out the rust.

Green wheels 8230;
Here8217;s good news for those who enjoy gardening: National Fertilisers Limited has opened a training centre and a mobile service for kitchen-gardeners complete with its own van. NFL Director Marketing S.K. Patra inaugurated the service this week by distributing kits containing seeds, seedlings and fertilisers to some local gardeners. Local manager O.P. Kaviraj snipped the ribbon on the van.

The centre will train individuals as well as staff of cooperatives and government agencies. The NFL experts offer technical know-how and advise on all kinds of vegetable and flower gardening problems including suitable varieties. Call em up at 704485.

For go-getters
The Go-Getters8217; Club at Hansraj Public School in Panchkula has their winter break programme all chalked out. From December 24 to January 2, six workshops art and craft, theatre, personality development, creative writing, computers, and art-of-living get underway. The workshops are open to students between the ages of four and 15 regardless of what school they attend. Enrolment starts on December 21 at the school.

Punjab8217;s bahu
Here8217;s a scoop from reader S.S. Sohi who writes in to say that quot;golden girlquot; Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, the speedy Miss who brought India Asian Gold in the 800 and 1,500 metre races at Bangkok, is Bengal8217;s beti but also Punjab8217;s bahu.Mukerian is her susural home to the parents of her husband, Avtar Singh. And of course, Avtar himself is an international class athlete he represented India at the Beijing and Hiroshima Asian Games. Before joining the Railways in 1995, he was a Junior Commissioned Officer of the 3rd Battalion of the Punjab Regiment.

Smile, please
Who can resist a camera? Certainly not the begging grandma in the photo that accompanies this edition of Cityscape. While she stretched out her hand, she also turned toward the lens. A good opportunity to reach the public, she must be thinking! And not to miss the models who, despite spending most of their time before the camera have not tired of it. While seven in the band of nine are least bothered about quot;who8217;s begging and who8217;s notquot;, an odd two do succumb to the generosity syndrome not missing to pose still!.

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