Staying fairly far away in the North side suburbs, a visit to the bustling Nariman Point and the ride along Marine Drive brings the ‘de ja vu’ feel like a drive down memory lane, having worked for over a decade in the South Mumbai area during 2003 to 2014. From time to time we visit the NCPA, where we’ve caught up with wonderful films and plays.
Yesterday on the sidelines of the remarkable documentary film at NCPA that we saw, to our utter delight we bumped into one of our favourite TOI columnists and writers, the renowned, witty & ageless Bachi Karkaria ! Sweet, elegant and unassuming she actually held aside an old friend to chat with us saying ‘Wait, I’m chatting with two of my avid fans who think I write better than my old friend, Jug Suraiya, ha ha !’
During our lively tete’-a-tete’ she shared she and Jug Suraiya had a ‘writers’ connection from their ‘Kolkata’ stints and that her favourite authors initially were P G Wodehouse & Oscar Wilde and of course many others came later. That’s relatable given the witticisms, puns and play on words in the sharp socio-political messages in all her writings that we so enjoy reading in her satirical ‘Erratica’ pieces in TOI middle pages and other papers. Upon our introducing ourselves, she seemed fascinated with my wife’s typically Bengali name ‘Tandra’ and I suggested she use it for a character in one of her stories !
Working on Living 