"We had a situation where we have six serious patients, all
frothing and convulsing. I had
only three ventilators available. Who would we give the ventilators to? You may say the worse patients. But how do we know
who was worse?”
Dr Farokh E. Udwadia, eminent physician, The Hindu, November 25, 2019
"We used to take a brown
paper bag full of sweets to St Mary’s School (Bombay) where
I used to study. Everybody would get two sweets each. They would sing a song for me and make me feel so special. Walking down the corridors of the school on my
birthday with this brown paper
bag felt wonderful because I
would be under the spotlight.”
Boman Irani, actor, Hindustan Times,
December 2, 2019
"The older vintage cars need to
be maintained. Each car is
special. Even the drivers who are given the responsibility of driving the vintage cars must be careful and take them on short drives every Sunday. The cars must be cleaned on a daily basis and
detailed at periodic intervals.
Also, one should keep them in
the garage, away from the
sun, heat and rain.”
Yohan Poonawalla, businessman and
car aficionado, The Times of India,
November 28, 2019
"Even in courts problems range from leaky roofs to tiny or no
toilets. In fact, 100 out of 600 courts do not have a women’s toilet. Not for the petitioners, not for the lawyers or the judges.”
Shireen Vakil, Tata Trusts, Civil Society, December 2019
"They may have put in a billion dollars. But then if they make a loss of a billion dollars every year, then they jolly well have to finance that billion dollars. So it’s not as if they are doing a great favor to India when they invest a billion dollars.”
Piyush Goyal, Union minister,
belittling Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ decision
to invest a billion dollars in India that is
expected to create a million jobs, The
Free Press Journal, January 22, 2020
"Britain becomes a second-class satellite to Trumpistan or it gives concessions to tax-dodging
international capital and
becomes Bringapore.”
Farrukh Dhondy, writer, The Times
of India, December 30, 2019
"If living here for 70 years does not prove me to be an Indian, I don’t know what does. I am not afraid, I am not anxious, I am angry that
such a law has been imposed on us.”
Naseeruddin Shah, actor, referring
to the Citizens (Amendment) Act,
mid-day, January 23, 2020
"The only occasional obstacle I faced initially in England was when local people struggled to pronounce my surname. Unlike some other Indians, I had decided not to anglicize my firm’s name. I was content for it to be recognized in the UK as being of Indian origin.”
Sarosh Zaiwalla, senior partner, Zaiwalla and Company, mid-day, February 4, 2020
"When we started, there was
no organized bakery firm in the market and it was either the
high-end shops in five-star
hotels or local bakery outlets.”
Kainaz Messman, founder, Theobroma Foods Pvt Ltd, Mint, January 31, 2020
"How long should citizens monitor and ensure that no hoardings come up in a heritage precinct?”
Dr Anahita Pandole, gynecologist and green activist, on spying a hoarding on Marine Drive, The Times of India, January 26, 2020
"The police are accusing us (protesters
at Morland Road or Bombay Bagh)
of causing traffic jams? In Bombay?”
Women anti-Citizens (Amendment) Act protester quoted by Deepanjana Pal,
columnist, Hindustan Times,
February 9, 2020
"The few improvements —
reducing exemptions in income tax, for example — have been outweighed by many increases in discretionary power. This amounts to an increase in bureaucratic
power — more government,
not more governance.”
Naushad Forbes, co-chairman, Forbes
Marshall, past president Confederation
of Indian Industry, chairman, Centre for Technology Innovation and Economic
Research and Ananta Aspen Centre,
The Indian Express, February 5, 2020
"In advertising, I learnt that half of what you spend goes waste, you just don’t know which half.”
John Abraham, actor and filmmaker,
whose mother Pheroza is a Parsi,
MumbaiMirror, February 10, 2020
"It was also in Ahmedabad
(and Gujarat more generally)
that Narendra Modi and Amit
Shah first sought to systematically tame and control the press, the universities, and civil society organizations, in preparation for what they would seek to do at an all-India level after May 2014.”
Ramachandra Guha, columnist,
historian and author, Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World, Hindustan
Times, February 9, 2020
"India’s logistics costs are
double that of Bangladesh and triple that of China.”
Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar,
whose late wife Shahnaz was a Parsi,
The Economic Times, January 15, 2020
"There are bigger budgets today, but we are still not in a place where we can merely live off theater. That’s why I am exploring work in ads, corporate gigs and web shows. The uncertainty of
this business can be taxing but
I do it because I love it.”
Meher Mistry, theater actor,
MumbaiMirror, January 19, 2020