Of Holidays and Nature's Oxymoron

Foreign Desk in-charge Vandana Ramnani recently took a well-deserved break from her usual work routine. She travelled via Uttarkashi to a little-known tourist spot called Raithal, 182 km from the holy city of Rishikesh.

And from what she had to say about the "awesome" trip, we can only imagine how fulfilling Vandana's tryst with Nature was.

The river Bhagirathi is so very pure and beautiful and as you come down and see the Tehri dam it gives you the sense of danger ahead. What if it would break. I'll call it nature's oxymoron. On the one hand you have beauty and on the other the sense of destruction which may befall... the magnitude of destruction.

Of Glad Tidings and Good Wishes

It's the time to make merry - the sheer number of weddings, infants and new jobs over the past few months has been mind-boggling.

Legal eagle Krishnadas Rajagopal tied the knot with The Hindu lass Anima Balakrishnan. Another legal eagle R Balaji has also reportedly taken the plunge into married life. Setuka Mahajan will do so with a Bangalore-based engineer early next month. Also waiting in line are Hanit Kaur and Ratul Ray Chaudhuri. And I suppose you already know about Manash Pratim Bhuyan.

There were resignations galore too. Shambhu Jha took off for Aajtak. Sovi Vidyadharan found greener pastures in NDTV while Ratul did so in Reuters, Bangalore. Liji Ravindran's taken time off for research even as Prasant Kumar Sahoo and Shohini tried their luck in the pink papers. Ashutosh Joshi left for Business Standard, Mumbai.

On the plus side, there are plenty of interesting newbies too - including News Editor Rezaul Laskar's wife who joined the Desk recently. And the interesting case of Sumit Upadhyaya who gave up life as a reporter for the rewards of the Business Desk. And of course all our friends who were enjoying themselves abroad - Achinta Borah is back from France while Manoj C G and Sukanya Mohapatra just returned from assignments in Singapore.

And as for the storks who came visiting, it seems girls were more in demand this time around. Alok Sharma was blessed with a daughter (Jhanvi), Kiran with P... (she's reportedly mulling over names beginning with P) and Richa with ??? (Yep, her little one hasn't been named yet) And we hear Jitesh Wadhawan's infant son Kabir is looking more and more like him. So, don't be too surprised if he grows up to be a journalist.

Anyhow, we offer everyone (and others whose names were inadvertently missed) our heartiest congratulations.

Update 1 Parul Sharma's gone right ahead and joined The Hindu. And as for Kiran's newborn - the two-month old has been named Paridhi

Of Good Samaritans and Mobile Phones

Chandigarh damsel Misha Pillai has quite a reputation of being a Good Samaritan. But even Misha was taken aback by what two youths in this bustling Punjabi metropoils did for her.

Our story begins with hubby Jasbir presenting Misha with a swanky new mobile phone. On November 3, Misha was commuting to office in a rickshaw - yapping away to glory to her dear husband.

Suddenly, two guys on a motorcycle slowed down near the rickshaw, snatched the phone from her and zipped away leaving behind a tearful and shocked Misha. Two other youths (also on a bike) witnessed the incident and sped off in pursuit.

As for Misha, she informed the police but was told there was little hope of getting it back since she could not provide any details on the phone-snatchers.

Back at her office, she found two youths waiting for her. Wonder of wonders, they had her phone with them. It turned out that the youths had followed the snatchers to another city, had an altercation (one of them sported a black eye), got the handset back and searched the phone's contact list to get in touch with Misha.

Well, Misha dubbed them Good Samaritans but we prefer to stick to this 20th-century idiom - What goes around comes around.

Of the TV Journo and the Sea

Zee Business anchor Mriganka Dadwal got her first glimpse of the sea recently. It seems Miss Dadwal was covering a fashion shoot in Pondicherry and was returning to her quarters when she spied the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal. She screamed so loudly that the driver of the car is said to have lost his hearing.

Anyhow, the poor guy immediately applied the brakes and watched as Miss Dadwal ran down to the water's edge and started splashing around in obvious delight. Well, we all know how much fun being on the beach is. After all, it was Mriganka's first tryst with the sea. We wish her many more such wondrous experiences.