'Air dash' was mentioned as an expression in common use in India during a BBC Radio 4 programme, Fry's English Delight, presented last week by the ubiquitous author and broadcaster Stephen Fry.

The actress Nina Wadia enacted a sketch with actor Nigel Carrington, using the following expressions: prepone, done the needful, outstation, air dash, half pants, superfine, batchmate, speed breakers, undertrial, VVIP people and chit fund.

Fry asked Richard Shapiro, an editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, to 'speculate on which Indian words might make it into English in, say, 20 years' time'.

'I rather like 'preponed',' offered Fry. 'But what effect might India's new status as an emerging economic power have on the English language? Did you know the city of Bangalore has become a verb — to be 'Bangalored', means to be laid off due to the outsourcing of call centre jobs?'

'Not only Bangalore, could be Hyderabad — I have been Hyderabaded, too,' confessed Fry, possibly referring to his colourful sex life.

Shapiro said there were 'nice Indian coinages like 'maha' — some of that stuff might not travel so well to the rest of the English speaking world but 'being Bangalored' is great, of course, because it is a place name turned into a verb — there aren't very many of those. You can be 'Shanghaied' (meaning forced conscription).'

Fry reminded listeners of the existence of Hobson Jobson, 'a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases'. He also pointed out that 'English famously has been a mongrel language, an insatiable borrower. Britain's colonial past imported many new words.'

He recalled that the playwright Tom Stoppard 'had fun with Indian English' in his 1991 radio play, In a Native State, in which the actress Felicity Kendall uttered the following line: 'While having tiffin on the verandah of my bungalow I spilt kedgeree on my dungarees and had to go to the gymkhana in my pyjamas looking like a coolie.'

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  Spoofed: Mark Tully

Poison pen

Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie may no longer be in the land of the living but this has not prevented enterprising publishers from trying to ensure their output does not cease. Thus, they challenge imaginative contemporary writers to produce novels in the style of the departed authors.

However, it is not very often that journalists find their prose style is copied. But the BBC's former correspondent in India, Sir Mark Tully, is so famous that an article allegedly written by him, excoriating Sonia Gandhi, has gained wide circulation on the Internet.

A senior colleague forwarded me the article, 'Sonia Gandhi — A Blot on the Nation by Mark Tully', with the comment: 'An excellent analysis of the state of the country. Good read.'

Sections of the article were highlighted in red, yellow and purple. There was more than a communal tinge to the article but there was also enough personal detail about Tully to convince gullible readers that he was indeed the author.

But Tully's partner, Gillian Wright, has now crossly dismissed the article as a poisonous spoof.

'Mark did not write this, nor does it represent his views,' she told a friend. 'We are trying to trace who is putting this rubbish out, but in the meantime we would be very grateful if you could let whoever sent it to you know that this is the work of some Internet poison pen.'

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  Tribute time: Syed Anwar Hasan (top) at his farewell; (above) Nirmalya Kumar

Farewell, Tata

One by one the heads of various Tata companies got up last week at a farewell party to pay tribute to Syed Anwar Hasan, who is retiring after 50 years' service with the group.

The party was held at the Taj-owned Crowne Plaza St James Hotel. Having started on October 1, 1963, with Tata in Dalhousie Square in Calcutta (where he came under the influence of Russi Modi), Anwar moved to Jamshedpur where he was mentored by J.J. Irani before arriving in London 14 years ago to take over as director of Tata Ltd.

First in line to pay tribute was former British diplomat Dr David Landsman, who has succeeded Anwar as director of Tata Ltd, the top job in the UK.

He was followed by Dr Ralf Speth, the German-born chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover; B. Muthuraman, vice-chairman of Tata Steel; Dr Karl-Ulrich Khler, another German who is chief executive of Tata Steel in Europe; and Dr J.J. Irani, the former managing director of Tata Steel.

I mean this in a nice way but the occasion reminded me of the scene from The Godfather when the heads of 'the families' gather to pay tribute to the patriarch Vito Corleone and hold peace talks with him.

Also present was professor Nirmalya Kumar, of the London Business School, who now sits in Bombay House in Mumbai as chief strategy adviser to Ratan Tata's successor, Cyrus Mistry.

Calcutta boys do well only when they leave Calcutta, said Nirmalya, who lived in Calcutta for the first 23 years of his life, 'because talent meets opportunity outside Calcutta'.

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  United: Virendra Sharma and Priti Patel

India day

Virendra Sharma is a Labour MP while Priti Patel is a Tory but they came together as chairman and vice-chairman of the Indo-British All Party Parliamentary Group to celebrate Indian Independence in the House of Commons last week.

Also present in the members' dining room were a number of Indian and British parliamentarians, including Praful Patel, India's heavy industry minister, and Greg Barker, Britain's minister of state for energy and climate change.

Barker, appointed de facto 'minister for India' by David Cameron, revealed that when the centenary of the start of World War I is marked next year, the crucial contribution of one million Indian soldiers will not be forgotten.

Attia evening

The distinguished film director Waris Hussein tells me he and his sister Shama Habibullah are organising a 'sort of literary evening' at the Chelsea Arts Club in London next month to mark the birth centenary of their mother, Attia Hosain (1913-1998).

Attia, who grew up in Lucknow, settled in London in 1947. Her novels include Sunlight on a Broken Column and Phoenix Fled, while Distant Traveller includes some of her unpublished fiction.

I retain warm memories of an afternoon chatting to Attia in the company of Waris and Shama.

For his mother's event on October 28, Waris will have to air dash back from serving on the jury of the 15th Mumbai Film Festival from October 17 to 24.

Waris is probably the most successful director of Indian origin to have worked outside India. One of his feature films from 1972, Henry VIII and his Six Wives, will be shown at the festival.

Tittle tattle

There has been plenty of coverage on the BBC and elsewhere of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's iconic 'I have a dream' speech in Washington on August 28, 1963, which galvanised the American civil rights movement.

Picking up a copy of Private Eye while shopping in Sainsbury's last week, I had to laugh. The satirical magazine's humour is, as always, wicked.

Under the bold headline, 'Obama Pays Tribute to Martin Luther King', there was a picture of the US president match Dr King with the words: 'I have a drone.'