The ToI trilogy- Part 3- The Return Of The Kings (and Queen)

Today is Sunday, an ideal time to write this post. There are two reasons- one is that I am (sort of ) free and the other because it is the day when I suddenly start liking the paper, ….until tomorrow.

Swaminathan S Anklesariya Aiyar (uff!!) ,M J Akbar and publish their weekly columns today.

The first guy could be an Indian equivalent to Steven Levitt, the author of ‘Freakonomics’. His writing does not mask the sarcasm and the pure hatred for the foolishness that goes around in the world. Today he wrote a column about how the death toll caused by Mumbai suburban transport system is easily much higher when compared to that of the Bhopal Tragedy. No offence is meant here for those who lost lives and their kin in this one but the hue and cry raised over Bhopal is infinitely higher when compared to the ‘sighs’ one usually hears when a railway accident occurs. He has also given figures (actually collected!!) to support his view. His discourse on the upcoming Iran-Pakistan pipeline and many more before that have always kept me spell bound!! His columns are tight, no flowery words, no beating around the bush.

The other guy M J Akbar, normally writes about Muslims and other minorities and their hardships but occasionally does divert and yet produces splendid columns. His columns have their own style. He will first build a background to the problem and then start attacking it. His words are not as sharp as Swami but are words of a moderate guy who is just plain frustrated with the way things work when it comes to the bureaucracy. He is not a Ninja like Swami who kills everyone within reach but a saint who has had long penance and is yet to see the fruit of it.

Both these columns are the single most important reason I turn to the editorial page on Sunday. Else, my life would be equally unaffected if I was to read the comics and the fluffy Times Life supplements.

I am not including Chetan Bhagat or Shobhaa de in this list as they somehow are not upto the scratch when you compare them to these guys. Chetan Bhagat is a wannabe, Shobhaa de is too much page 3 compared to these rockstars!!

You must be now wondering, if Shobhaa de isn’t the queen, who is? My friends, it is another columnist called Bachi Karkaria. She is not so regular on the Sunday editorial but tidbits of her do appear on weakdays as well. She is the perfect woman you should go to if you have to know the proper usage of the words. She uses the perfect mix of English and Hindi (and Gujarati) which is fun to read. In the middle of all this fun, she talks about her issue which ranges from the very serious to the very frivolous.

Then there is a steward of this kingdom called Jug Suraiya. This guy although more popular than most of the writers I mentioned above, does fall short on content. He too, has a strong command of the language. His writing too is fun to read just like Bachi’s and gives you a very different outlook on the problems we face today as a nation. Be it potholes or Bofors, his writing style is very different from the others. But inspite of all this, the kings are kings!!

Well, I now come to the end of my trilogy. Hopefully, someday, I will be back again with the sequels to this trilogy. I just wish ToI does give me enough reasons to like it more. I hope that you, give me enough reasons to write more on ToI!!

“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it”- Elizabeth Drew