Indian street food vendors have their own charm. They may be unhygienic and do not conform to some people’s sensibilities but the aroma lingering around them never fails to draw crowds. Also, when these food stall or kiosks are gaily decorated, then resisting them gets tougher. But sometimes redoing a stall can lead to some hilarious situations, a colleague recalled. During a phone chat with his family back home, his father mentioned a popular kulfiwalla stall, from where our colleague bought delicious kulfi after school hours.

Our colleague’s father shared that the kulfi wala had decided to open a new stall with great pomp and show. But, unfortunately, his display board carried a horrible blunder that left him red faced. “The kulfi wala wanted ‘Badam (almond) kulfi’ painted on his stall but the painter, instead of writing Badam, wrote ‘Badnaam kulfi’ as he was unable to decipher the vendor’s handwriting. Every locality has a ‘mashhoor (famous) kulfiwala’ but we are lucky to have a ‘Badnaam Kulfiwala’ in our neighborhood,” the father chuckled. Listening to this, our colleague wondered whether, even if by mistake, sometimes our honest opinions get reflected unintentionally.

Lesson learnt

There is a famous saying in English: Once bitten, twice shy. This fit perfectly with Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh’s interaction with his fans. With his prompt oneliners, funny acts and gestures, the young actor always manages to steal all the attention. At a mobile launch event a few months back, the actor, in a fit of excitement, jumped into the crowd.

It turned out to be a messy affair for the actor, as the audience (most of them media professionals) surrounded him and didn’t leave until most of them took selfies with him. The same company came up with another mobile launch in Mumbai and, of course, the actor was again on the stage. This time too, the actor did all the funny acts and gestures but was careful not to try getting off the stage for even a single moment. Of course, his self-conscious act really disappointed many people in the front row. Seeing this, a senior journalist couldn’t help commenting, “This time Ranveer Singh was well- prepared and appears to have learnt a lesson from the previous episode.

Tailpiece

“Garbage in, garbage out!” quipped our in-house wag as officials scramble to find a solution for the Capital’s landfill crisis.

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Contributed by: R V Smith, Kunal Roy, Rakesh Kumar and Asha Ramachandran