Mixed Shots

The K-to-K Dream

Kashmir to Kanyakumari is a political dialogue, patriotic song, or marathon’s equivalent of the Everest. A dream. A nursing assistant with 60 Para Field Hospital of the army is letting his legs run his dream—4,300-km from north to south within 50 days for a spot in the Guinness records. Naik Velu P. began his run from Jammu and will celebrate his 30th birthday on the way. The soldier from Tamil Nadu is no marathon rookie—he became the first Indian last June to run 1,600 km in 17 days, an Asian record. This K-to-K nymphet has bewitched many—like pro cyclist Adil Teli, a 23-year-old who broke the Guinness records by completing the trip in eight days.

The BEST Pay Is Heavy

Pay back in coins is not an ideal situation. Ask any BEST employee—those who run Mumbai’s buses and the power supply. The civic-run agency has been paying a sizeable portion of salaries of around 40,000 employees in coins over the past few months, giving their pay unwanted heft. BEST collects a massive quantity of coins from bus fares and power bills, and it had an arrangement with a private bank to “convert the chillars” to easy, manageable money. That contract ended last year. And so, BEST staff are getting around Rs 11,000 or more in coins as part of their salary. The flipside? Weighty problems—some employees have even defaulted on their monthly mortgage payment as banks don’t support bulk coin exchanges.

The Beauty Of Our Polls

Elections in UP provide myriad models to appreciate the beauty of our democracy. Or, throw in a model—the one from beauty pageants and music videos—into the ring. Diksha Singh, a Miss India finalist from 2015 and a Miss Body Beautiful winner, is contesting the Zila Panchayat elections from Jaunpur—her ancestral home where she studied till Class 3 before her parents shifted to Mumbai/Goa. Diksha is an independent from a seat reserved for women. “The place is stuck in the ’90s,” she says and intend to change the situation. A politician already, eh? 

Dial D For Double Dose

She tilted her head, pressed her phone between an ear and shoulder and continued talking. Hands free, she checked the disposable hypodermic syringe and loaded it with the Covid vaccine. Spirit-wiped the recipient’s arm and gave her the shot. And another one. Yes, a second shot. The auxiliary nursing midwife at a primary health centre in Kanpur Rural district of UP was busy on her phone when she, by mistake, vaccinated a woman in her 50s twice. The woman is fine, no serious side effects. The midwife has plenty of calls to make, though.

Lex Talionis

“Today after breakfast at restaurant, I naturally went to pay. Cashier hesitated to accept money. With great hesitation he accepted after insistence. I told him that we are from BJP. A party that respects all and protects all. Not DMK to do roll-call even from small businesses.”

Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha president Tejasvi Surya after meal at Sree Annapoorna restaurant in Coimbatore

“Dear Tejasvi Surya, we are glad to have served you at our restaurant. At Annapoorna we greet everyone with the same love and gratitude, in fact everyone comes forward to pay their bills. No one has forced us for anything free. As a token of love and respect we sometimes refrain from taking money from people who work for our society.”

Sree Annapoorna restaurant on Facebook.

Brevis

Illustrations: Saahil, Text curated by Alka Gupta