It was after many phone calls to assorted PR agencies and after being given many a run-around (as they say: bahoot papad belna para) that I was ultimately able to get an interview with the famous Lijjat Papad Bunny, the face of the multimillion dollar Papad industry and together with the dancing Nirma girl and the Hippo of washing powder Hippolin, an icon of the 80s Doordarshan days.
Crunching into a spicy papad, Mr. Bunny appeared relaxed and upbeat.
“It’s been a good year for us”, he chortled “with Shilpa Shetty being called Shilpa Poppadum in the British Big Brother, foreign interest in papads or poppadums has never been higher.”
Aaah. We get it at last. It’s the Indians who are at fault. They do not let Greg Chappell be honest. If this was in Australia, he could accuse the team captain of faking injury and happily insinuate that he clings onto his spot because he needs the money. Noone would ask for proof of his honest attempts at slander. It’s only in this blasted country that people take such things so seriously.
It takes an awesome amount of courage and moral conviction to go to another country, kneel at the doorstep of the family that you have hurt with your racial comments and beg for forgiveness. It takes even more courage if there is a whole Channel 4 telly crew recording every moment of your tear-soaked plea for mercy.
As Sourav Ganguly packed one rifle shot after another through the packed off side against the seamers and sashayed down the pitch to loft the spinners into the high heavens turning back the clock many a year, I am sure I was not the only one who had a lump in the throat.
The “Rang De Basanti” effect on the collective consciousness of the nation was evident once again today as Gen X gadget-activists came out in full force SMS-ing, emailing and 
Unless you spend all your time reading books or watching the mating lives of walruses on the Animal Planet (as opposed to those of beautiful people), you surely must know that the “will they won’t they” Aishwarya-Abhishek relationship recently became 
