It was a pleasant surprise to get a mail from Madhur Bhandarkar. It took a while to realise that he was not the famed Bollywood film-maker, but a public relations officer of a public sector bank. Surprises did not stop there: Fellow reporters had umpteen stories to narrate about celebrity namesakes they had bumped into in the corporate world. Just to name some, a Vikram Seth heads a leading retail chain. An Albert Pinto does PR for another public sector bank. As for Spices Board member Abul Kalam, he has learnt to answer to people calling him Abdul Kalam. (Long live the Maulana.)

‘Rest' Bengal

Since the day West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, announced her decision to change the name of the State, Bengali gatherings invariably end up discussing alternative names. At one such gathering, the talk veered around to jokes about the famed Bengali laziness and laid-back work culture. At this point, a colleague came up with an excellent suggestion that he said would fit the state to a T — ‘Rest' Bengal. Didi, did you hear that?

Bank@the speed of coffee

The next time you think your bank is too slow attending to you, do pause and ponder on what this senior official and close associate of banks observed recently. The gentleman said some US banks take a few days for an account to be opened; and over here, we have banks that claim they can open an account before your coffee cools.

The US banks could certainly take some desi lessons. Or, they can offer to open an account before your cold coffee reaches room temperature; considering how cold it gets in some parts of the US; this is probably true already.

When ‘gobi' got gory

Battles have been fought over pork and beef, beautiful women and treasures, but this gruesome murder in Bangalore would leave the Chinese bewildered about the costly impact of the popular but faux Chinese delicacy, the gobi manchurian . A few days ago, a customer in a restaurant, obviously a gobi manchurian fan, picked up a fight with the restaurant owner that the dish was overly spiced. The argument led to a physical tussle between the two and the customer got killed. For over 24 hours, tension prevailed in the area and the restaurant was shut for more than two days. A human life for gobi manchurian ? It can happen only in India.

(Dis)honourable mention

B. S. Yeddyurappa may have been forced out as Karnataka's Chief Minister, but he has certainly gone ‘ places', so to say. The huge mining scam and all the local shenanigans under his regime recently caught the eye of an unlikely, redoubtable forum: The Economist . With the wily local leader out of its hair, the BJP can now return to needling the UPA, the respected international weekly said in the last issue. This being politics and therefore not too strangely so, the party in the Opposition would be doing so about the same cause that felled ‘BSY': Corruption. The parent power

Recently, a brand of apparel held a ramp walk contest for children at its stores in Chennai. No less than 2,000 children registered for the event. What's more, many parents simply refused to take no for an answer when told their children didn't qualify.

They brought various pieces of evidence to support their claim and brush off the organisers' objections. One such was a picture of a child posing with New Zealand cricketer Daniel Vettori. “How can my child be incapable of walking the ramp? He posed with an international cricketer for this photo!” said a mother. 

In the face of such an ‘ unassailable' argument, the organisers had no choice but to capitulate.

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