Vive la difference
It was my second day in London. The ceremony for the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism was about to begin at the Thomson Reuters building in Canary Wharf, one of London’s major financial centres. I waited at the venue, a hall on the first floor, while friends and family from India were taking a nicotine fix on the ground floor. One of the two men was dressed in a pyjama-kurta, the other in a jacket and trousers, the woman in a jumpsuit. As they walked through, the receptionist (who was not a South Asian) asked them, “Is this for Dee-waali?” Frazzled, one of them replied, “What?” He repeated, “Is there a Dee-waali celebration upstairs?” A family member replied, “No. There is a journalism award ceremony upstairs. See, there is a signboard there.” Amused, they walked off.
