Letters

Article in the Mid Day

Mrs. Nandini Sardesai sure loves her meat. Overheard at the Dilip Sardesai tribute by Farokh Engineer (read Farokh Engineer on Farokh Engineer) she was overheard saying:’ Yes, I’ll come for dinner but it has to be non-veg’.

‘Madam Sardesai the unidentified man replied: ‘ aaayyeee shapath, I promise you, you will not see anything green on the table.’

They took off towards the dais as I, an NRI got my real taste of lightly mayo-ed chicken sandwiches, chutney and cheese, mini wadas and sugarless tea.

While waiting for the keynote speaker to be introduced by my new hero Rajdeep Sardesai, Kunal Vijaykar got up 7 times to adjust his collar. I thought this was a heads up for the function to begin.

‘And now, someone announced, his back to the audience, ‘Mrs. Sardesai will give the guest of honor Mr. Farokh Engineer a gift’.

Five minutes later there was no sign of any gift — Only Farrokh, in a powder blue suit, empty handed, looking very much like a bouncer at a senior’s club quipping in Marathi to the general audience and Mrs. Sardesai biting into what must have been a chicken patty.

If this had been a live broadcast….

My new hero Rajdeep Sardesai opened the attack against Farrokh, reeling him in and coaxing tidbits from the life of the honoree Dilip Sardesai. Not to digress but i saw Dilip’s 200-odd live from the terrace near Brabourne Stadium. Not to name drop but the terrace belonged to Shashi Tharoor.

My still new hero Ranjdeep Sardesai threw the gauntlet thrown to Farrokh — the gauntlet being — tell us about your experiences with Dilip Sardesai. Oddly enough Farrokh must have heard him say — tell us as much as you can about yourself in an hour.

And so it began. Farokh Engineer. Life as a dadar bawa. The first Indian playboy cricketer –, at which point Kunal rose again and doffed his collar. Podar college. Being selected the wicketkeeper of The World XI over Allan Knott and some other Aussie. Issues with Venkataraghavan — which have all been sorted out, Farokh’s 92 before lunch just missing the century at chepauk — did he chicken out or was it just not to be — discuss amongst yourselves. A truly informative educational section on what it was like to keep wicket to the fab four spinners of the time and finally some slight he’d received by a selector during his career.

Farokh dismissed any sort of grudge or pushback against the selector fellow with –’Arrey yaar jaaoon dey’ he said in Marathi. ‘ Parsis don’t have a mean bone in their bodies.’

Of course only Diana Eduljee could have stood upto differ — holding onto a mean Parsi bone clearly plucked from Farokh Engineer.

She admonished the imaginary bone she held in her hand while berating playboy cricketer about some insults he’d hurled at her during some OCA or such other acronym meeting.

Cue Kunal and his collar.

Diana and Farrokh spoke over each other like they were both guilty of something and then agreed that never mind their spat which the media hyped – the said acronym was a waste of time and money.

After this minor glitch, the questions poured forth and the answers came glib, fast, funny, insightful from the very charming spontaneous Engineer, I couldn’t help notice I said to myself ‘wait a minute isn;t this supposed to honor Dilly Sardesai? But no one had noticed and no one seemed to mind that the Dilip Sardesai event was hijacked most brilliantly by India’s first playboy cricketer.

By the end, an enthralled audience of 100 led by Kunal Vijaykar rose to its feet. Next year I suppose they’ll get Kapil Dev to tell us about Tunbridge Wells!

Wouldn’t miss it for anything.

Advertise because telepathy does not work.

From Ranjit to Raell’s Inbox, Fri, 18 Oct 2019, 01:26 AM

there is no pain, suffering, misery, poverty or strife in Colorado. no sense of the world outside.

they have a history of farming, not so much cowboys and catlle.

if it weren’t for ski-ing places like where we were would not exist. well certainly not for tourists.

now there’s legal pot so there are other kinds of tourists.

hotels there are v spacious and full of pampered people with hot tubs, steam rooms, gondolas and biking and hiking trails. my kind of place for a few days. got a terrible rash from the tub. eyes, legs everywhere.

went out for a very good steak once but then we had a full service kitchen so we heated up frozen grub and ate. lovely yellow kiwi fruit.

well all visitors do is hike and say isn’t that pretty about 10 times a day. lovely vistas. my lungs were fine at that 8000 feet altitude even went up to 12000 feet.

what news of mumbly? tej? I see quasar’s every brilliant thing posts on FB. he is promoting himself well.

as dad used to say — advertise because telepathy does not work.

keep in touch. promise not to mix and match.

I even had a bite of fake fish.

From Ranjit to Raell’s inbox, Sat, 26 Oct 2019, 7:01 PM

great vegan grub with abe, m, r, be j and d at blossom.

imitation everything. I even had a bite of fake fish.

raffi is in the navy and becka his wife is a mechanical engineer.

abe is doing his memoirs.

raffi was on a US sub patrolling china.

good time. got a topi and wedding book from them.

Letter during the Lockdown

From Ranjit to Avi & Malini’s inbox, 21st March 2020 10:02 PM IST

well here we are keeping the mandatory 5000 mile social distance maximum. the guardian says nyc is the american epicenter of the problem. here PM has called for a janta curfew and has ordered us to get on our balconies at 5pm on sunday and rattle our cans and applaud the essential workers who are risking life to keep some arteries open.

might be quite a sound that –1.3 billion people making a big noise. then again we’re always late so it might take place at 6.

bombay may be shut down, i can’t hear any sounds of the city except for crows and pigeons but i can tell you on my walks to the market and past it, people don’t seem scared at all. going about their business without masks in that heat induced lethargy as always. but what a blessing not to hear the non stop honking of cars, buses and motorcycles.

for avi: the football shirt sellers have been shut down. one of the poor fellows got the virus and the police came and muscled them out of the stalls. Half an hour later they were back doing business; so were the cops with their sticks. this went on for a day or so but now after the PM speech everything has been shut down. no visas are being issued
for india and outbound people are getting their fists stamped to remind customs at the other end that they are to be quarantined.

we have as of yesterday something called a super spreader: one kanika kapoor, a star singer tested positive for the virus after doing nothing about her symptoms en route from london and attending huge parties potentially spreading it around. she faces six months jail time.

then again bombay is still wide open if you know people. sooni and firdaus are buttoned down in place while their daughter is awaiting a return visa to india. ava please don’t charge around the city without a mask.

i think this will be the story of the year, next one’s being about the economic fallout and recovery.

i am sure we will be fine. just take the simple precautions

Letter during the Lockdown

From Ranjit to Avi & Malini’s inbox, 25th March 2020 3:38pm IST

how are you? the ny times tells a sorry tale but when you look at the manhattan statistics they are not all bad.

avi scares me with his trips outside. he should either cut them out or cut them down. pl stock up on food. there are rich people in their cars parked along a bania’s dookan but there’s little on offer.

today nikki and ramu went to the bazaar, stood in a line for an hour and come back with veggies and stuff. we had masala dosas for lunch.

raell feels that everyone needs to stay inside. all dopes like her seem to do is lie down in a/c (it is hot here) and forward every idiotic thing that beeps on their phone. you would be surprised to know that a luddy like myself has quite an online thing going.

raell used her silver thali plate with dosas, achaar and daal chawal to draw a bleak picture of the future. the food stained portions of her plate she used were supposed to be my lungs on fibrosis. her daal stained fingers ran all over the thali and stopped at the only clean parts. these were two spots that were under 2 katoris. these were areas of something… i forget what.

anyways, i don’t believe her. she is a more a messy eater than i have compromised lungs

let’s see what crockery we have for dinner tonight and what lessons she can teach us with them. pity she’s a vegetarian — i wouldn’t mind having my heart being compared to a pile of bones.

i am beginning to think that it’s a lot safer downstairs then up here with her.

royal china is open. the cake shop opposite is slightly open. the petrol pump is open, the atm at the pump is working, there are over a million essentials on the street but you’d be hard pressed to see anybody. but you can be sure they are there behind

prime minister modi gave another folksy, slow boring speech yesterday.

nothing new to glean here except that there are no hindi words for social distancing. he has shut india down for the near future. no flights in or out. cant go to alibag, pune goa, or cant get into the city.

uday rohit and immediate family all hunkered down in alibag (no cases yet) but not much staff reporting there. they had to send the carpenter to buy vegetables.

if they keep this sort of lockdown up it will become a haven for a black market. then i want to see what happens. still i must say bombay is taking this lockdown very seriously. firdaus’ dental practice has shut up. wonder what happened to malini’s mental practice.

a day is too long to get through — one thinks of getting through the afternoon, then the evening, then night is easy.

please avi and malini take care

i am ok here on the kulsum terrace, not bathing, brushing teeth or washing hands.

what can i tell you — it keeps people away!

much love and resistance to you all. just keep spirits high.