December 15, 2005

Send me a note

And now for the semi-regular collection of semi-interesting gleanings from here and there...

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Eating Ramzan food on the street off Mohammedali Road in October, we spied the "Fatemi Tour" travel establishment. Among its various offerings was "Mumbai Sight Singh." (Someone reading this will remember this charming sign).

Which reminds me of the several months, some years ago, when at the eastern end of the northern subway (got that?) at Churchgate station, you could have seen a sign for a "Sher-E-Taxi" service to somewhere or the other.

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T-shirt seen on a muscular young man: "Aspen Colokado: Play with mind shee what you can find."

T-shirt seen on another young man: "If you can't beat 'em, VOLO'CM."

T-shirt seen hanging in Lucknow roadside stall: "Chempianship 65."

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From the Hindustan Times "Love Actually" column (December 15), this ad verbatim and in full (except, name changed):
    Hi Mumbai: I am Parag from Mumbai. I want to make friends who are care about freinds so any one intrested in long lasting friendship.

Yes Parag, but what should any one interested in long lasting friendship do after reading your ad?

***

On the front of a pencil case that's wandered into our home:
    Best wishes for you. Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object.

A little odd? But then I turned to the thing over, and found:
    Do not,for one repulse,forget the purpose that you resolved to effort.

Verbatim, down to lack of space after the commas. I swear.

***

We fight a never-ending battle with disappearing hankies. So I'm regularly dispatched to pick up some more. Getting bored with the usual white or blue checked ones, I thought I'd look for some wilder colours. And to my pleasant surprise, I find a guy on the Andheri station foot bridge selling hankies that are yellow, green and orange. I stop to check them out, and he's very keen to have me take them.

Then I see something odd, and look at them a little more closely. All have either "IA" or the Singapore Airlines symbol woven into them. These are not hankies, but headrest covers from aircraft seats.

Why would people steal these off planes? Why would someone actually set up a little stall to sell them? Who would buy these things, knowing that countless heads -- some of them oily -- have leaned back on them?

Answer to last question: me. I bought the lot. I plan to resell and make a tidy profit. If you want an oily headrest cover, send me a note.

Either a Rs 1000 note or a $100 note will do. Both, too.

6 comments:

Quizman said...

LOL. Enjoyed that.

Vikrum said...

Dilip,

Greetings from Calcutta.

I have a question:

Why do you change the names of the classifieds that you reprint online. After all, if the people are willing to use their real name in the paper (which has a far greater circulation than your blog) AND if the people want publicity (which would be the case since they are paying to put their name in the newspaper), when why do you change their names?

Dilip D'Souza said...

Vik, fine question! I hadn't thought of that. Maybe it's just that I feel a little bad for these poor souls, making fun of them. Should I?

Vikrum said...

Hi Dilip,

If the people print embarrasing things in the paper, then they sort of bring it upon themselves.

Now I don't think you'd write a post saying:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

- Jorge W. Bushman

So let the names stand.

Rickrum

Dilip D'Souza said...

Rickrum,

Who's Jorge W Bushman?

Vikrum said...

Vilip,

My name is Vadhekar.