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4 October 2005
BBC+India
It has been quite some time since these pages visited the BBC-India nexus. In the space of two weeks, the BBC has had at least five special interest articles featuring India. The first one made the case for some exotic words that ought to be assimilated into English if only for their picturesque definitions and tongue-teasing pronunciations -- one such being 'nakkele' from Tulu meaning a man who licks whatever the food has been served on. Of course, nakkele itself has been presumably borrowed from Tamil since 'nakku' means 'to lick' and 'ele' means a leaf, or in this case the plantain leaf out of which people eat their food in South India. There are other wondrous gems too -- madh from Albanian meaning a strange fascination for facial hair and plimplampplettere from Dutch for skimming stones.No BBC feature on Indian food and its viral spread in the United Kingdom is whole without somebody patting themselves on the back for the colonial days. Some get posthumous titles, some monetary honoraria, some mentions in one of the Houses and Sake Dean Mahomed was acknowledged with a green plaque in commendation of his enterprise when he established the first 'curry house' in the UK.
BBC added its mite to the furore on corruption in India with its two bit-pieces on the raids. While one featured a grassroots-based radio raid in rural Gujarat, the other was about the CBI nationwide raid to which BBC added a drily wry disclaimer: "Corruption is endemic in the country".
