Indian Writing

The fastest woman bowler in the world. First Indian woman to take 10 wickets in a Test match. Part of the team that won their first Test against England.

From a DNA interview:

Hailing from a small village, Chakdha, near Kolkata, Jhulan took to bowling because the boys would not let her bat. Today, batswomen around the world are cursing those boys…

On her 10-wicket haul:
It feels very nice. But the important thing is that India won. If I bowl well and the team loses, there is no point celebrating.

On her idol:
Glenn McGrath. Every day I dream of meeting him. It hasn’t come true so far! McGrath has amazing accuracy and maintains impeccable line and length. Like a bowling machine, he keeps bowling on the same spot all day along. I liked Javagal Srinath too.

On life in the fast lane:
I can clock up to 120kph. After our victory at Taunton the English captain, Caroline Edwards, came up to me and said, ‘You are the fastest bowler in the world.’ It felt really good.

“The King of Action meets the Queen of Words.”

This is how a billboard at Haji Ali advertises the new Rendezvous show where Simi Garewal will meet Jackie Chan.

According to Garewal,

“Jackie was wonderful. He didn’t hide anything, didn’t evade any question. He wasn’t ‘image-conscious’, in fact he spoke about aspects even more than I could have asked for. He revealed things that aren’t even there in his biography! Graciously, he was the one who knelt and thanked me!”

Rediff has this excerpt from the interview:

Simi: Your early childhood has become the stuff of legends. Right from the time when you were born.

Jackie: I was born in a poor family. My mum carried me for 12 months. When I was born, I was 12 and a half pounds. Big baby! Giant baby! My parents did not have enough money to pay the bill.

Simi: Because she had to have a caesarian operation.

Jackie: Yes. Am talking about 50 years ago. Those were big… big things for us. They were going to sell me to a British doctor.

Simi: So is it true that they had no money to pay for you so they were going to sell you?

Jackie: Yes! The doctor said. “Ok I want the baby! I’ll give you $120 then I’ll pay the bill.” A friend of my father said, “Charlie… No! That’s your only son. If you sell him, you might not have another one. Don’t do that” We borrowed money from our friends, so everyone gave $10, $10 and they paid the bill.

Amazing.

Picture Rediff.

Tom Cruise has apologised to Brooke Shields.

American actor Tom Cruise has apologised to Brooke Shields for criticising her use of antidepressant drugs while suffering postnatal depression after the birth of her first daughter. According to Shields, Cruise, a member of the Scientology cult which condemns the use of antidepressants, came to her house and apologised last Thursday.

‘He came over to my house and he gave me a heartfelt apology,’ Shields said on Friday on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. ‘And he apologised for bringing me into the whole thing and for everything that happened,’ she added. ‘Through it all I was so impressed with how heartfelt it was. And I didn’t feel at any time that I had to defend myself, nor did I feel that he was trying to convince me of anything, other than the fact that he was deeply sorry. And I accepted it.’

How convenient nice that he apologised just the night before Shields was to appear on the Jay Leno Show.

I had posted about Konkona a couple of days ago. That was before I discovered her Being Konkona interview on CNN-IBN, where Anuradha SenGupta asks her about her Mrs Iyer accent:

Anuradha SenGupta: Do you remember the accent that you had as Mrs Iyer in Mr & Mrs Iyer?

Konkona Sen Sharma: Yes, I do remember some of it. You know what happened to me after doing that film? I had to do a play in English and I kept talking in a South Indian accent. The accent stayed with me for a while.

It’s a fairly mediocre interview, on the whole, but the most irritating thing was this bit about the “South Indian accent”. It’s a Tamil accent she means, of course. The South is a big place, and diverse, and everyone doesn’t speak in one South Indian accent.