“Want cheap ovens? Fly Air Deccan”
That amazing headline comes to you courtesy Rediff:
October 21, 2005
October 20, 2005
Vikram Seth on The Times of India
When he complained about the lack of substance in newspapers, writer Vikram Seth was asked to be the Editor of ToI for a day.
Given that ToI isn’t quite a paragon of journalistic virtue, it comes as no surprise that Seth was able to come up with a strong critique:
Seth meticulously critiqued all the other editions as well, and tarried a little longer on the Mumbai front page. “I notice they’ve carried my picture with Aamir Khan bigger than Delhi has. Maybe because Aamir is a Mumbai boy. But frankly, I wouldn’t have taken this photo at all. I would much rather have carried the big picture of Saddam sitting in court inside a cage. While I recognise that you need to generate a certain amount of hype. I’d have been more comfortable if my photo hadn’t been taken on the front page at all.” Then came the self-deprecatory quip that he invariably uses to take the sting off every critical remark: “Besides, it wasn’t even my best picture. I look like I have three chins, and quite bald.
But clearly the three chins camouflage an enormous intellect. Or would that be the bald cranium?
An error in the calculation
When you see this:
HUNDREDS of people flocked to a village in central India overnight to see if an astrologer who forecast his own death would indeed die as predicted.
You know this is coming:
But the 75-year-old man survived.
…followed by this:
Kunjilal Malviya, who lives south of the Madhya Pradesh state capital Bhopal, had been meditating in his house after announcing he would die between 7.30pm and 9.30pm (AEST) Thursday.p> A police official confirmed the astrologer was fine and quoted his family members as saying the prediction failed because many of those gathered had prayed for him to live.
October 18, 2005
It’s for your own good, you know!
Delhi’s high court orders closure of a school located nearby. Ostensibly this is out of concern for the kids’ health — although for some reason it was the Bar Association which moved for the closure.
The Delhi High Court today asked NDMC to relocate around 300 students of a Primary School situated near the court and hand over possession of the land to Land Development Officer.
The order came from a Division Bench of Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma on a petition filed by Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) which said the students’ health was getting adversely affected due to high level of air and sound pollution.
October 10, 2005
A child not named Tsunami
When is an earthquake a blessing? Or in other words, why are some kids not named Tsunami?
Reuters reports that Manzoor Ahmed Mir of Uri dug with his bare hands for 18 hours to rescue his wife and newborn son after they were trapped under rubble by the earthquake.
Mir has now named his son “Zalzala”, or earthquake in Urdu.
“It’s a blessing from Allah that they are alive. He brought the earthquake with him so I have named him Abid Zalzala,” said the 35-year-old farmer.
Boy born before South Asia tremor named ‘earthquake’ - Yahoo! News
October 7, 2005
Punctuation abolished
Just another lovingly crafter sentence from The Times of India:
First it was poor form but he could tide over that it was felt then came his tiff with Chappell which snowballed into a full fledged row now another problem of a completely different kind has reared up from nowhere