Caught on camera

Now that everyone is talking about the affair between our first prime minister and the last vicereine of India, Lady Edwina Mountbatten, I can pitch in with my own little information on the subject. I was posted in London as India’s press attaché when Panditji came to attend the commonwealth prime ministers’ conference. All members of the Indian house staff, including the high commissioner, Krishna Menon, were at Heathrow to receive him. It was a chilly winter night. Panditji’s plane landed around midnight. Krishna Menon told me to ask Panditji if he wanted me to escort him to the hotel. Panditji snubbed me: “Don’t be silly! Go home and sleep.”

Panditji did not go to his hotel, but to the residence of Lady Mountbatten. While he was still at the half-opened door with Lady Mountbatten in her night gown, a press photographer who, I am sure, had been tipped off by Krishna Menon, took their picture. It was on the front page of The Daily Herald the next morning with the caption: “Lady Mountbatten’s midnight caller”. Panditji was furious. Krishna Menon passed on the blame to me. Thereafter, whenever I asked him a simple question, he snapped back at me. He wanted to visit a bookstore. I asked him what kind of bookstore he would like to visit, as London has many, specializing in books on the Orient, in rare books and so on. He snapped, “A bookstore where they sell books.” So we found ourselves in a large bookstore on Oxford Street. Panditji asked for all books written by Bernard Shaw, who had died a week earlier and was much in the news. I could not help asking: “Sir, do you get time to read books?” He looked me up and down and snapped: “Of course not!” That taught me to keep my mouth shut.

On his last night in London, he was again spotted with Lady Mountbatten dining in a Greek restaurant in Soho. The owner recognized him and sent for the press photographers. Their picture was in all the papers next day. I was summoned and roundly ticked off for no fault of mine. I was sure I would never be attached to Panditji again. But the experience did not change my opinion of him as a great visionary and one of the founding fathers of India’s secular, socialist democracy.

Home thoughts

Every time I am introduced to a new delicacy imported from a foreign country, I say to myself, surely we can grow or make it in India. For some years, among fruits I have relished the Kiwi fruit, which comes all the way from New Zealand. I was told it is being grown in Himachal. Why is the indigenous product not available in the market? Now there are imported grapes, apples and pears available at prices competitive with those of our homegrown fruits. Last year, some friend gave me a packet of wasabi peas from Japan. They are obviously cooked in horseradish sauce, tickle one’s palate and send a whiff of pungent sauce up one’s nostrils. They go very well with my evening drink. Why hasn’t an Indian firm thought of producing them? Then there is a new variety of biscuits with a taste of salt and sugar. The latest foreign invader is canned orange juice from South Korea. We have good orange juices made in India, but the Korean one is tastier. In a competitive market, customers look for the best and the cheapest — patriotism takes a second place. I have no doubt that if Indian entrepreneurs decided to stake their money in the production of top quality edibles, they would make handsome profits. Take the example of Haldiram. Ten years ago, I had not heard of this firm making Indian salties and sweets. Now it is all over the country with a chain of eateries in almost every metropolis.

Court order

Things people have actually said in American courts:

Attorney: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?

Witness: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

Attorney: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?

Witness: He’s twenty, much like your IQ.

Attorney: How was your first marriage terminated?

Witness: By death.

Attorney: And by whose death was it terminated?

Witness: Take a guess.

Attorney: Do you recall the time you examined the body?

Witness: The autopsy started at around 8.30 p.m.

Attorney: And Mr Denton was dead at that time?

Witness: If not, he was by the time I finished.

(Courtesy: Vipin Buckshey, New Delhi)

Loose motion

Question: Why do so many Indians defecate along railway lines?

Answer: Because they think locomotion accelerates the motion.

(Contributed by K.J.S. Ahluwalia, Amritsar)