More Salt than Pepper - a Collection of Articles

I am reading a compilation of articles - More Salt than Pepper - by Karan Thapar. The articles have been appearing for many years in Hindustan Times under the title Sunday Sentiments.

Although I had read some of the articles, most were unread. The pieces are not about observations on politics and current affairs but reflections on anything you can think of - humour, people, books, trivia, including politics and current affairs.

The book has clubbed together similar articles under different sections and each section starts with a cartoon; each cartoon reflects an aspect of Thapar’s personality and illustrates the common theme of the articles to follow.

Those of you who are familiar with Karan Thapar and his interviews will find the pieces just like him: incisive, witty, sarcastic, and patronizing and grumbling at times. But above all, the pieces are fun to read and also very short.

Here are the nuggets of some of my favorites.

London the most civilized city in the world:

“I have just returned from a weekend in London, the city I consider the most civilized in the world. Civilized is not just a heritage or history, not merely culture and it’s a lot more than manners and behaviour.

London is a microcosm of the world. Oxford Street is witness to almost every nationality, skin colour, sex and dress style known to man, woman and transgender.

London has the best of everything – television, theatre, museums, shopping even news papers and magazines.

However, it’s the third quality that is the most important of all. It’s the Brutishness of the Londoner – and here I mean the natives – that makes the city truly special. I mean two characteristics – the British upper-lip and their sense of privacy. No matter what happens, they don’t make a fuss. If you spill your red wine over a damask table cloth, your hostess won’t get into a tizzy, If you stumble out of a pub and puke, no one will shout at you. They will just step aside and move on.”

I have never been to London. If you have, let me know your views.

Now in his middle or late fifties (I don't know the exact age), Thapar is a widower for over a decade, but people who don’t know that often ask him whether he is married – and he finds it difficult to answer the question. He doesn’t want to say 'no' because it’s untrue (he is married although his wife has passed away) and also because 'no' is a cruel reminder that his wife is no more which is emotionally wrenching.

Nor can he say 'yes' - because it’s only partially true (his wife is dead). However, he finds 'yes' more appropriate, and he settles for it. But at a party – where he is mostly asked this question – it leads to another question – where is she.

See what happened when he once tried to get out of the ‘yes no’ trap – and plainly said his wife is dead.

But once – and only because I was a wee bit tight – I answered with a bald, blunt, brutal truth. This is how it went.

‘Where is your wife?’
‘Dead.’

‘What do you mean? When did that happen? Oh God, how terrible! You poor, poor chap.’

The person got into a terrible fluster. In fact, he went beetroot red. I knew I was being heartless but who told him to start (the conversation) by assuming I was married and that my must be around? The fault was his. However, after a bit, I decided to soften the blow.

‘Don’t worry. She died thirteen years ago. You weren’t to know.’

It worked. His face broke into a smile. ‘Well,’ he said, his confidence restored. ‘Time for round two. I’d try again if I were you. You need a woman by your side when you head for the grave. Your second wife is bound to outlive you.

And then she can face the question, “Where’s your husband?’”

Check out this video where Thapar is interviewing his guest. Once you know him, you will be able to relate his views and wit with him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ruO7DiMx8

The Bolted Door

Surprisingly, some incidents have a way of surviving the ravages of time. However dated they might get, they still manage to bristle with humour.

Last year, my parents were with me in Bangalore for one month. Mostly, they were indoors as this was their second visit and on the first one they had visited most of the spots that attract tourists in Bangalore.

One day, my father had briefly ventured out while my mother and I were at home. I was talking to my mother while it occurred to me that I had to go out on a personal errand. I walked to the door, unbolted (we have old-fashioned bolts) it and gently pushed the door. The door refused to open; someone had bolted the door from outside.

There was nobody within shouting distance I could call and have the door unbolted. It was not very long since my father had left for market, so he would take sometime to return.

Who would open the door? Who had bolted the door locking us inside? Was it a mischief of the building kids?

Although I was not venturing out on an extremely important chore, being disallowed to go out when I wanted to felt stifling. It was like being denied freedom.

I started pacing about in the room. I had told the landlord to replace the bolt outside with the one whose latch could be arrested with a lock, preventing a mischief monger from bolting the door from outside locking us inside. The owner procrastinated replacing the bolt, and here we were…locked inside.

My mother’s concern wasn’t so much about the present predicament as about a distant possibility: what if I was alone, famished (I don’t cook at home), wanting to venture out to eat and found myself locked without any one within earshot to come to my rescue. “We have to get it changed today,” as my mother said this, we heard a gnashing sound: someone was unbolting the door. My father was back from market.

“Who bolted the door,” my father asked as he stepped inside. “The do-gooder didn’t tell his name,” my mother replied.

My father was as perturbed about someone having bolted the door mischievously as my mother. He started deconstructing the mystery, but couldn’t figure out who did it. As his analysis failed to yield any plausible culprit, he turned his wrath to the landlord.

“When you introduced me to that guy, I understood he was an ‘all promise no service’ type,” he told me.

I told him that during my last one-year stay, this had happened for the first time; but failed to calm him.

Few hours later, while we – my parents and I - were lunching together, my father suddenly intoned, “ohhh..." “What happened?” my mother and I looked up and asked.

My father had loosely recalled that he had unmindfully bolted the door while going to market (my father is sometimes forgetful - like me - and always in haste – unlike me).

After my parents left for Calcutta, I reminded the landlord of the offending bolt, but somehow he never replaced it (he has fixed costlier things, though). I never forgot the bolt because my parents didn’t let me.

Though since then the bolt has never caused me trouble, it has sometimes reminded me of the incident and given me light-hearted moments.