Pune Notebook

But an issue which still remains close to her heart is the fact that Azad Hindustan did not welcome the women from their regiment who were stationed at Malaysia. Nehru had said that since they were second and third-generation Indians staying abroad, they could not be given citizenship. In fact, it still takes six months to process their visa if they have to visit India, she rued.

Armchair activist
Recently, at a press conference called by a crusader for railways and roads, the scribes were rather disappointed to discover that what appeared to be a hard news story about the present plight of railways, turned out to be plainspeak on a bumpy surface.

The crusader started off the conference by distributing a single-page handout to the media representatives who had made it to the occasion in large numbers.

To the scribes’ surprise, the handout hardly contained any substantial information on the opinions or the course of action proposed by the crusader against the railways for its deteriorating services.

Then it was time for the question session which proved to be a hilarious conclusion to a supposedly serious conference. When asked about the steps taken by the crusader to lodge his protest against the railways and his future course of action, he said wearing a confused smile,“You are asking about what I’m doing? Well I have called press conference. Is that not enough?”

Different strokes
Parliamentarians are representatives of the people drawn from different sections of society. And as such, it is assumed that their thoughts and actions reflect and affect the thought process of the masses they stand up for.

At the friendly cricket match between teams comprising school students at the Engineering College Grounds recently, there was a heated debate in one team about selecting the star eleven who would finally make it to the field, as the number of aspirants were more than the required score.

With two strong groups, the student leader of each was actively participating in the deliberations to ensure that all his best friends were included in the team. As the argument heated up one of the opposing group student screamed in desperation,“You have been acting worse than Jayalalitha to include your friends in the team”.

“I am not Subramanium Swamy either to be dumped like an insect”, shot back the other, as everyone burst into spontaneous laughter ending the debate on a hilarious note before the match finally began.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
It was supposed to be a theme party. The organisers rested their case on the `Titanic’ mock-up in plywood, thermocol, tin, PVC pipes, etc. As the evening ripened into night, the frigid smattering of early birds seemed to portend more distress than the iceberg that made the Titanic history.

Well, we turned out to be wrong. When the clock struck the party hour, the venue (Ambrosia) was awash with revellers. The floor was packed. The tin-and-plywood walls would surely have given way if it wasn’t for those random nails that deflated some enthusiasm and ensured that the sides of the enclosure avoided conscious physical contact.

If the prop had been a real ship however, the DJ would have been keel-hauled. A popular disc jockey in the early 90’s, he seemed to have got stuck in that groove. Despite the CD player skipping tracks and the DJ spouting inane lines (“Let me see you all in the air”. – Did he think this was a Mission Impossible bash?) and the dhabha fare, the only ones who didn’t have a good time were the cops parked on the way back to the city who patiently took down everybody’s vehicle registration number. Or maybe they did, who knows?
[Contributed by Anuradha and Davinder. Compiled by Edwin Skau]