Nano Buddho

Charlie, my old friend who was crazy as a coot, in the middle of making music at midnight under an electric moon in our first floor hostel room looking onto the stinking stretch of the sabarmati taught me my first words in Gujarati. Tame nanu gadhedo cho! means you are a cute little ass he said. I thought he was mixing Greek with Gujarati. (Nano the greek word means dwarf). But he wasnt. Nanu in Gujarati indeed means small. Here is to Charlie my friend — the first really small car of India with a three liter fuel tank. You will have to click on the image to make it bigger. But what is really funny is that at the unveiling of the car, Ratan Tata ‘jokingly’ told the mediapersons that they first thought of calling the car either Buddho or Despite Mamata. But finally decided to take the safer route. Mamata Banarjee the Trinamul Congress chief who thanks to the CPIM became the icon of farmers’ and farmworkers’ opposition to the Tata mini car plant at Singur is fuming. And Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the CPIM chief minister of the Left Front Government in West Bengal who thanks to the opposition has become the icon of stalinist neoliberal depravity must be gloating. Brand Buddha score goes up with the car hungry young people congratulating Tata and Buddha. Charlie, you can be proud of me. I can now make sentences in Gujarati. Aa baddha motu gadhedu che.  All these are big donkeys!