Off the record

Kak and Renuka Shahane-in their Surabhi grins, exhorting viewers to vote for Manu Dadlani on Dec 7 between 12 noon and 4 pm. Well, I won’t. I wanna know what’s happening to poor Lanka! But as mentioned earlier, since one is not a member of the Khar Gym, it’s doubtful that Dadlaniji gives two hoots for the diarist’s vote. Point is that by getting the Kak-Shahane duo to interject at crucial points in the India-Sri Lanka cliff-hanger- that- almost-was, on his behalf Mr Dadlani has ensured that he not only gets the Khar Gym voters’ attention but the nation’s as well. And does it mean that from now till February next year all our cricket matches will be interrupted by PR spiel for politicos?

Train tale

Though the diarist had taken a vow not to bore you with Train me purse kho gaya aur phir mil gaya variety of stories but living in Mumbai it is virtually impossible to ignore the local trains. So here is a story about that Great Lifeline of this Great Megapolis (excuse the hyperbole). Promise, it’ll be short:

The other day the diarist was travelling with motorman I H Khan on the Ambernath-bound local. Barely had the train slowed down at Thane station when six persons approached Khan saheb and asked him to to open his cabin door. As images of hooligans attacking motormen flashed through no doubt Khan’s mind the Group of Six entered and surprise! surprise! proceeded to garland the train’s speedometer. Err…was this the G-6’s version of the slow-clap for CR’s notorious tardiness?

But it seems they merely wanted to honour Khan saheb as the “charioteer who was carrying the bride-ie the train (If you thought it was the `chariot’ sushh!!) to the groom-ie Kalyan Station.” The baraatis then plied the motorman-by now thoroughly confused with the mixed metaphors-with a shreefal (auspicious coconut) and Rs 51 as pooja offerings.

Letter-perfect

This item is dedicated to Ramyah! No, that’s not the diarist showing appreciation for the buxom beauty. Just saying thanks for some inspiration. Having tried plastic surgery, silicon…er…enhancement, cosmetic dentistry Bollywood wannabes are now into numerology. Needless to natter, the latest star to join the bandwagon is Ramya who has added an `h’ to her name, hoping to enhance the box office chances of David Dhawan’s Bade Miya Chote Miya and Banarasi Babu.

But Ramya(h) is not the lone hopeful. Her long list of worthy predecessors include Karishma Kapoor, who dropped the h from her name, producer Suresh Groaver who added the extra a to his surname and Partho Ghosh who dropped the h from his name. However, Nirmal aka Aditya Pancholi who morphed to Panscholi, reverted to his original surname a year later after failing to find the spectacular success that was supposed to come with the new name.

But the person who could teach today’s lot a thing or two about name changes is Parikshat Sahni. Starting life as a mundane Ajay Sahni he changed his name to Parikshit. Then realised to his chagrin that the second part of his first name resembled an expletive that is also a bodily function and so changed it to Parikshat. Last heard he still calls himself that.