The other day, I was waiting for a friend in the lounge of the India International Centre (IIC), an oasis sharing a border with the magnificent Lodhi Gardens in Delhi.
The place was filling up with the usual teatime regulars when I spotted another friend, Ashoke Chatterjee, former executive director of NID.
I happened to be carrying a copy of The Indian Quarterly, the literary and cultural magazine brought out by the same publishers as Verve. I took it across to the other end of the room, where he sat with two people who were not exactly my friends, but more than nodding acquaintances, in a large circle of people. When I began to take the magazine out of the plastic sleeve (its purpose to protect the cover) one of them made a face signalling disgust: “Why do you use plastic?” she asked without even a perfunctory nod or how-are-you. Nor did either express any interest in the magazine. Perhaps they were green warriors. But does that give them the licence to be rude?
A few days later, a good friend who prides herself on being the mistress of etiquette, ticked me off for putting a cube of ice in a glass of red wine that, I hasten to add, was in April much warmer than the ‘room’ temperature that it commands. “That is just not done,” she muttered, and sped away.
This story is from the May 2017 edition of Verve.
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This story is from the May 2017 edition of Verve.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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