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1 week ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
The globalisation of English has taken a lot of the foreignness out of foreign travelBunny and I are in Torino, Italy. And Bunny is eager to try out the conversational Italian she has picked up through assiduous practice on the Duolingo app on her cell phone. We go for a morning coffee to Caffe Mulassano, the 118-year-old establishment that looks like what the inside of an antique jewel box should look like, all burnished gleam and gilded glow.
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1 week ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
It might be spam, hoax, or fraud, but we’re always at our phones’ beck and call If you’re reading this column, chances are that before you finish your cellphone will ring, demanding an immediate response. Should you answer or decline the call?
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2 weeks ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
Why foreign pipples cutting jokes about how we are telling like that only? No doubt one foreigner putting up in Amsterdam itself, having a desi missus who has learnt him about how we are doing gupshup, put it on social media like a bullet to cut jokes about us for timepass. Mind it, we can also cut jokes about foreign pipples.
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2 weeks ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
Could India and Pakistan be unwitting pieces in a devious game of Chinese chequers? Two Chinese generals, Mi and Yu, congratulating themselves on the success of their Operation Springing Tiger. Mi: Even if I do say it myself, our secret plan worked out very well. In fact, it worked out even better than I had hoped it would. Yu: It certainly did, didn’t it? All thanks to the predictable actions and reactions of the two players who played our game without even knowing it.
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3 weeks ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
There is a different country within the country which is our hostile neighbourI haven’t met Hasan for many years, but I’m sure he lives in the other Pakistan. Bunny and I first met Hasan in Calcutta in the 1970s. He lived in Dhaka in East Pakistan, and would visit Calcutta for medical checks, and to shop in the city’s New Market. He had a dry wit that made him an engaging conversationalist, and we spent many engaging evenings together.
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3 weeks ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
A cautionary tale about a destructive destitute and his mystifyingly generous benefactor Once upon a present time there was a streetside beggar, but though penniless, he was quite content with his lot because he had a rich banker who would give him whatever he asked for. Such donations were supposed to be loans, but both beggar and banker knew that there was no way that they could ever be repaid.
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4 weeks ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
On arty-crafty terms replacing good old-fashioned wordsAn Australian friend has sent me an article from a local newspaper which says that the Down Under continent is being ‘uplifted’. Is the land of Oz levitating to the top of the world? Not quite. ‘Uplifted’ doesn’t have anything to do with geology. Or with such gravity-defying, cosmetic surgery procedures like tummy tucks and double chin eliminations, but is the latest addition to the argot of the hospitality industry.
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1 month ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
We keep inventing names for those who rule – or want to rule – over usIs Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s sidekick, the archetypical broligarch? Are broligarchs like him turning America, the world’s most vaunted democracy, into a broligarchy? Broligarchy is a word coinage that combines the term bro, the abbreviation for brother, with archy, derived from the Greek word for rule or govt.
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1 month ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
Digital tech has eliminated geographical distance but enlarged the emotional distance between peopleWe’ve never had so many ‘friends’ in our lives. And we’ve never been so friendless. One of the causes of this paradox is digital technology and the networking it provides via Facebook and similar sites. The more time we spend with our e-friends, the less time we have for old-fashioned friends, the kind you could see, and hold, and who would, literally, present themselves to you as you would to them.
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1 month ago | 
timesofindia.indiatimes.com | Jug Suraiya
And they’re back. Barely had the hills stopped echoing with the murderous crescendo of terrorist bullets, hardly had the gunsmoke cleared, when the tourists were back in Pahalgam, taking selfies by the picturesque Lidder River, enjoying the hospitality of the local hoteliers and restaurant owners, thankful that it was back to business, almost as usual.
