City Light...

Trick Of The Trade
The first rule of journalism. Strict discretion, so that when you break a news, you don't ‘break’ somebody’s life and livelihood. Let the law-and-order enforcement officials do their duty, we’ll just tell you the reality, with discretion, of course. The place is a night haunt, with lot of people hanging around, suddenly realising that they need a puff, or a paan perhaps, or a packet of gutkha (Gutkhas are banned, aren’t they? But who cares!). But it’s past midnight. All the shops are closed. Police patrol is doing the rounds. And you are desperate for that smoke.
Just chill. Take a good look around, and try to locate a paan kiosk where lights are still on. The shop is shut, of course. Only the shutter is not completely fastened. You go near the shop, pick you lose change and push the money through the half-closed shutter, and whisper whatever you want: A gold flake mild, a goa, a gai chap...
You are thrilled at getting a smoke at two in the morning. You want to light up immediately. As you do so, a voice inside the shut shop pleads, please move away from the shop lest the police get the whiff..."

Fashion In The Time Of Flu
She is a public relation officer with a private company and she is petrified about the current swine flu scare (or shall we call it Influenza A H1N1?). Anyways, while she has filled the house with stakes of face masks to combat the flu, she is also warming up the positive side of wearing the mask. For one thing, she does not have to spend an enormous amount of time in front of her mirror and with the make-up kit. You just wear a good looking mask, and probably a pair of dark glasses, that’s it. Only thing is that you never remove them in public, be it in the office, or while meeting a client. Then, when you are wearing the mask, you can actually make faces at someone, without that person noticing it. What fun! Besides, the mask also give you the excuse to avoid people you don’t want to meet or say hi to, in office or anywhere else. If that person complains, you can always say, it wasn’t me. Everyone’s wearing the same masks, aren’t they?