Allô Chatrath

    Tajamul Islam- World Kickboxing Champion from Kashmir, India. Bravo young lady. You have done the entire India proud. Jai Hind. Mera Bharat Mahan. Proud to be an Indian.

Having gone to Sector 17 Market Chandigarh on some work, I got delayed and decided to have my lunch there. Eating out for me does not mean going to 'The Taj' as I refuse to pay Rs. 300 per chapatti. Why should I pay for the so called ambience, which means fancy dim lights, carpets which are unsuited for Indian climate, and liveries of the waiters? And yes, the waiters wishing you in English! I saw the board  'Bhappe De Hatti' and went inside. In fact I did not go inside as the cashier was sitting in  the verandah taking money and issuing coupons. I was charged Rs.60 for a thali of two Amritsari Kulchas. Did you ask if the price included the  hugely popular GST? Honestly I do not know. The Cashier advised me to take a seat around a fragile looking plastic table placed in the open air. I sat down as advised and wondered what that over rated architect Le Corbusier would have thought of such use of the 'open spaces' designed by him and his nephew or c...

  I am working on a book of amazing illustrations of Hindu deities sketched by a French traveller to India 250 years back.......This is Lord Shani as sketched by the Frenchman.  

  Yes, that's me in a 'djellebah' in a village near the Sahara desert in Morroco (‘Djellabah’ -‘d’ is not pronounced- is a traditional long, loose-fitting unisex outer robe with full sleeves worn in Morroco and in the Maghreb region of North Africa and in Arabic-speaking countries along the Mediterranean)

 

  I was reading today's The Times of India when a news item therein about a theft in an under renovation house caught my attention. "Rs.3L new goods stolen from house under renovation" was the bold headline. It went on to list some of the goods stolen like 42 in screen LCD Tv, 10 new blankets, branded taps etc., etc.  But what got my goat was the mention of 'screw drivers' as some of the items stolen. Come on Old Lady of Bori Bunder' you surely are getting old! May I mention for the un-initated that 'Screw Driver' is also a popular cocktail made with orange juice and vodka....

                                                                                                            Photo Source: The Times of India  "Chandigarh's housing: An ode to cost, culture, climate & creativity" by Ms. Deepika Gandhi; The Times of India, October 28, 2021.  The learned writer forgot about one 'C'- cleanliness. Did Monsieur Jeanneret leave any clue on how to clean the dust which these 'jaalis' accumulate?