Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

PHOTO: ANU PUSHKARNA

Gags and more Surender Sharma chooses dishes with simple names at Blanco in Khan Market

He has a knack of attracting people with his humour. So, when he reaches Blanco, a standalone restaurant in Khan Market, the staff seems more than waiting for his gags. And he doesn’t disappoint them. As he makes himself comfortable in the all white and black themed eatery, the server places a menu featuring sushi, Vietnamese barbequed chicken, Armani and American dishes. The waiter begins reeling out the names of the dishes in an American accent without a pause. Before he can finish, Sharma intervenes, ‘Arre bhai Hindi mein bolo. Before you finish, I would forget the names of the dishes you reeled off.”

The waiter starts all over again. Unimpressed, Sharma asks, “Do you have masala tea and maybe some grilled sandwiches,” adding, ‘aise khatarnak naam ke khanon se to zubaan bhi razi nahi” (Dishes with such tongue twisting names don’t suit my palate).

He seems averse to food but clarifies, “I prefer home cooked food — simple dal, roti, rice and vegetable. I love urad ki dal. I am fascinated by jalebi makers. I tried to make jalebis once. I made a huge hole in the filter cloth. All the ingredients made an easy way to the huge vessel of oil and got wasted.”

As the grilled vegetable sandwich with eggplant, tomato, grilled vegetables like capsicum, mushroom slices, zucchini and iceberg lettuce is laid on the table, Sharma quips, “This is so well decorated I would feel bad undoing it.”

Not everything about Sharma is funny though. The man who wrote three books, Buddhimanon Ki Moorkhatayain, Bade Bado Ke Utpad and Mansarovar Ke Kowwe, always had an inclination for serious poetry. “I feel agonised when I can’t write on the Gujarat violence. The standard of poetry is continuously falling. My column appeared in ‘Sandhya Times’ for 12 years. When its editor changed, my column was done away with. I wrote for five years for ‘Dainik Bhaskar’. In one of my articles I wrote against Shankaracharya and he got arrested. I wrote against Ambani also, so my column was scrapped there too. Now many newspapers and magazines ask me to write in favour of a particular political party, but I bluntly refuse,” says Sharma, enjoying sesame crispy roll with sweet chilly dip.

Sharma, who never took up his family business — manufacturing Ayurvedic medicines — is currently an advisor to the Railway Ministry. Speaking or writing, his sense of humour was always apparent. He says, “I don’t look intelligent but I was. I studied in Sri Ram College of Commerce. Because of my sense of humour, my seniors became my friends in college. By the time I reached the final year, I became popular with girls too. Those who would rag them, I used to rag them with my bunch of seven students. That was in the 1960s,” says the poet who was a great friend of the late Rajiv Gandhi.

“Once, apparently pleased with my blunt repartee, Rajiv Gandhi gave me a house to live in for seven years,” he recounts over ice cream. “We would often have jovial exchanges. He had a tremendous sense of humour. He hated chaploosi (flattery). Once he told me, ‘I have seen many hasya kavis in Hyderabad. I would bring one to Delhi to break your monopoly’. I retorted, ‘I have also seen many Prime Ministers.’ No one could do that! He laughed. He even invited me to join politics but I didn’t.”

Sharma makes his money through humour. “Radio and channels give me Rs.1 lakh per month. Organisers of hasya kavi sammelans abroad also give me that amount for one programme. I have always run my kitchen smoothly,” he concludes.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail