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Showing posts from November, 2010

Akshta in Sept + Oct + Nov

Sajjad Mama : Charming personality of sweet heart and tongue

Last week on You Tube, I was watching an interview of O P Nayyar being taken by Amin Sayani and my thoughts as they always happen with the word ' Sayani ' veered towards Sajjad Mama known to the otherd as just ' Sajjad ' or ' Sajjad Sayani ' . An uncanny similarity between the two Sayani personalities was their gift of gab with charm of sweetness. Y'day when I learnt about the passing away of Sajjad Mama, all those incidents of my interaction with him rolled out like a movie film. He was a professional photographer and had several stories to narrate of his adventures of freelance photography. My earliest memory of him was during the period of ' Bhiwandi Hindu Muslim Riots'. I was in my single digit age by then but his vivid narration of going to Bhiwandi amidst all the mayhem prevailing and taking still shots, getting them processed at Kodak (that was the only film processing studio in Mumbai ) and then mailing to BBC in London wa

4 hours to cover 2.3 km distance : Singapore Malysia Border Travel

• What are the different type of trees planted along the divider on the road that joins Singapore and Malaysia border post? • How many of these have flowers? • What type of fruits does a palm tree have? • What is the height of security fence that is been put along the highway? • How many cameras are fitted on the poles and how their angles are maneuvered remotely? • What happens to the car engine when it is running for several hours without car moving few meters every 10 minutes? These and many such questions were answered as we trudged along 2.3 km long road after passing Singapore immigration and before entering Malaysia border. It took us 4 hours to cover that distance. Would this long wait have been avoided? I think the answer is No. Immigration officials did open most of the gates and they handled the papers quickly. There was no stoppage for baggage screening. It is just that cars kept on pouring during morning hour of Deepavali holiday adjoining the weekend.