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After a sabbatical, Shail returns with the popular weekly column, News in Verse. Our poet-journalist brings to us four pieces of news this week: charpoy on sale in New Zealand, Bronze and Gold Medals at the Tokyo Paralympics, a prized betrayal of the Taliban and Covid vaccination in the Nilgiris. A Different Truths exclusive.
Remember the Charpoy, the common man’s cot not something everyone sought? You know what? It found a way to be comfy furniture, a leisurely local ambiance for every village creature. Guess what? It’s now reached international acclaim being marketed in New Zealand – quite a name! ‘Vintage Indian Daybed’ it’s called Being sold for NZD 800, that’s almost forty-one thousand bucks in Indian rupees. Believe me! It’s not a tease. A household item looked down by many an urban dweller on to the global ramp, an outstanding seller. Will sales abroad bring a charpoy vaapsi very much like the yoga romance back in a form so foxy?! Shooting a Win And you thought Indians only knew how to play cricket, maybe, a gilli-danda here, a chakde India there! Mistaken you are, as the Tokyo Paralympics show – our athletes are winning in leaps and bounds, disabled people from little towns with big spirits and even larger grit, not one to allow a handicap to call it quits! 19-year-old Avani shoots like none other can winning a shot even before the perfectly-abled man. First a gold, then a bronze, bringing to the country medal swans. A spinal cord injury could maim any other’s journey. Not Avani Lekhani! A Prized Betrayal After all that furore, the Taliban are unhappy! How could the world not celebrate their win? What they had accomplished according to them, not sin! Then, why oh why did the American military disable helicopters and planes on a spree?! ‘Betrayed’ they feel for being deprived of all that they had seized which was prized. A ‘national asset’ is what they call the loot left behind by a nation’s misplaced policy to boot. Smirk! Smirk! The only thing sensible done by the US – leaving back machinery decapitated thus! Spiriting the Covid Vaccine Still surrounded by people who fear the vaccine? Mulling whether to swim the wave or trust a medical machine? An administration has found its clever little way to achieve a 100% vaccination display! So, in beautiful Nilgiri hill town where the weather is inviting apart from people who, for a drink or two are fighting a brilliant rule is quickly implemented. “Want a drink? Get vaccinated!” One will do for now. You can purchase liquor and how! So, if you see a long line outside a vaccination centre like the ones near a liquor blender you know now, the reason behind it all – it’s the desire to rush to a spirit stall!
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