Date:07/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/07/stories/2008100759080300.htm

‘Shopping till the last drop’ is the buzzword. With an air of festivity pervading all over the city due to Dasara, Diwali and Sankranti arriving in quick succession, all the shopping malls and multiplexes are recording a brisk business.

Exhibitions on grand scale including The Hindu-Eenadu Lifestyle Show and the all India gold and diamond jewellery fair attracted several enthusiastic purchasers.

Taking advantage of shopping mood, several freebies/special discounts are offered for purchase of electrical appliances and consumer durables. The payment of bonus and production incentives by several public and private sector managements has further pepped up the spirit among the salaried classes. Hopefully, the dhamakas and freebie offers notwithstanding, one would go by quality and performance of the items one buys instead of becoming a ‘catch.’

Shifting loyalties

BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu is a great orator and one loves to listen to him as he laces his speeches with humour. During his media conference last week, he remarked that there was shortage for all commodities like diesel and LPG in the country, but not political parties and TV channels whose number increased by the day.

Also, the media should carry every day the details of politicians such as - in which party they were in on the same lines as the market rates column, he said, obviously referring to the shifting of loyalties by many politicians, particularly to join the new Praja Rajyam.

Pun results in fun

An intelligent pun on a word can result in lots of fun and if the audience is a gathering of doctors and other intellectuals, the fun would be all the more enjoyable. The annual conference of Orthopaedic Surgeons Society was held at the Andhra Medical College Old Students Association here and doctors from different parts of the State had turned up. However, only chairs in about one tenth of the hall had been occupied and this had made an apparently piqued Additional Director of Medical Education T. Ravi Raju to comment “the organisers must have made good arrangements for the participants to visit tourist centres in these parts and that had made them outstanding personalities”. This outspokenness of Dr. Ravi Raju made entire audience burst into laughter.

Plainspeak

Some acerbic comments would also invite applause. Director of Centre for Policy Studies A. Prasanna Kumar, at a meeting got up to confer the K.S. Gupta Memorial Award on the first woman IPS officer, Kiran Bedi, said that some time back, in a particular context referred to the independence struggle and the sacrifices made by freedom fighters and commented: “Then, our leaders who should have been in power were in jail but now leaders who should have been in jail are in power.” There was thunderous applause, an indication of the ‘respect’ with which people behold our leaders.

(Santosh Patnaik, Prabhakkar Sharma and

R. Jagadeeswara Rao)