Introducing the Ahujas

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a 16-year old with a crush on a girl on the school bus, must be in want of a less embarrassing family.

In the case of Arjun, his family is so personally embarrassing to him that not even his best friends know that in addition to the 6 siblings he admits to (the ones he can’t deny since they go to his school) there are another 6 making up the total brood at home. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, his mother’s about to add another to the collection. Arjun’s father Rakesh Ahuja is a politician – the Minister for Urban Development – and he has two great passions; his lust for pregnant women which leads him to keep his wife almost permanently in a state of pregnancy and lactation and his determination to improve the city infrastructure for which he is responsible by building lots of flyovers.

family, India, Karan Mahajan

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What I know about the game of cricket could easily be written on the back of a postage stamp. I do know however, that a cricket commentator once said” The batsman’s Holding, the bowler’s Willy” which I consider (almost) side-splittingly funny. “Batting on the Bosphorus’’ is not quite so funny but it did make me chuckle quietly to myself on plenty of occasions. It’s an account of the summer the young Scotsman travelled the eastern reaches of Europe meeting cricket teams in the most unlikely of settings in the continued hope of scoring his first “international century”.

The premise is that the cricket-mad Bell visited a medium who made several predictions which in combination with a chance thought (the words “Ukraine” and “cricket” popped into his mind) inspired him to surf the net and find out whether his beloved sport was played in eastern Europe. After several months spent e-mailing contacts from Minsk to Istanbul, and working in a methadone programme centre to raise some funds, Bell set off on his adventure.

Angus Bell, cricket

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If you are thinking of house-sitting in France this summer and are worried that you won’t be able to communicate with your hosts’ cat, then this is just the book for you. When the cat says meow, is it trying to say, “Here comes a fur ball,” or “I did not break that vase”? All will be revealed in Henry Beard’s mini bilingual book of catspeak. With English phrases given first followed by French translations in italics and accompanied by illuminating illustrations, each page gives us a rare insight into the inner workings of a feline brain.

We are first introduced to The Major Cat Parts (of the body), and these are followed by The Basic Cat Wardrobe consisting of a bell, flea and tick collar, and name tag.

Cats, French, Henry Beard, John Boswell

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