It isn’t just Englishmen who suffer from Delhi Belly. Returning expats often suffer from the runs
When they visit the home country. You’re supposed to avoid tap water and too much spicy food. And I’ve never been able to find out whether it’s called ‘the runs’ because of the speed with which one has to get to the john or what happens when one gets there.
It’s not limited to Delhi but can happen equally in Darjeeling, Dhaka, or Deepalpur. But recently, the Australian A team got stricken in Kanpur, which they were visiting for the ODI leg of their tour. The Australian management said it was because of the food; the hotel management said the food was fine (No one said the staff routinely took it home for their families, but I’m sure they did.) The BCCI said it was the best hotel in Kanpur.
I wonder if they used the best hospital in Kanpur, because that’s where they had to take the fast bowler, Thornton, who missed the ODI series after playing one of the two Tests, which were both in Lucknow. Well, at least it didn’t happen on a ground. The original Delhi Belly afflicted a fast bowler, it is said, who followed through on his first ball after lunch in a helter-skelter race to the pavilion, which only ended when he was safely on the throne.
The hotel food has been tested, and found OK. Did they take a sample of Thornton’s leftovers, or did they just take a sample from the kitchen? And can’t food inspectors in Kanpur be bribed? Indeed, didn’t the hotel management have a long-term arrangement with the food inspectors?
I wonder if Ali Amin Gandapur is suffering from Delhi Belly. He should be suffering from something after resigning from the KP Chief Ministership. He is exactly the sort of person who will be drowning his sorrows. I don’t know if he’s seeking the company of Sharjeel Memon to do so. But maybe he can find topers in Peshawar who wouldn’t mind helping him.
One of the benefits of his resignation is that the CM House staff will no longer have to check behind the sofas or under the beds in case he is sleeping off his potations there. I have not heard if he ever took to the back seat of one of the CM’s vehicles, but there is the story of how Yahya Khan once caused consternation in the presidency when he disappeared, only to be found on the backseat of one of the cars in the garage, in a drunken stupour.
It seems that there is some delay in his resignation. Everyone thinks he wants to follow Imran Khan by being removed from office kicking and screaming. I think he’s drowned his sorrows so thoroughly that he’s in no condition to sign anything. His take on his dismissal is probably ‘Ess mulk wich talent di koi qadar nain.’ (There’s no value for talent in this country.)
Well, he’s stayed in his party, which is more than ex-Senator Mushtaq Ahmad has done. The only result of the Samud flotilla seems to have been his leaving the Jamaat-e-Islami. Israel should thank its lucky stars that that’s all that happened, for they don’t know what a great-hearted fighter Senator Mushtaq was and how narrowly they escaped him throwing them all into the Mediterranean. They don’t know what he could do if he got angry. Maybe they do, though, which is why they agreed to a truce before he began to fight.
The USA is busy tackling an autism crisis. It seems that 1 in 31 American children are born autistic. That’s 3.2 percent, which is low enough, unless you realise that means that primary schools taking in a new batch of 100 children would likely have three autistic children who would need special education. That’s up from 0.66 percent in 2000. There’s a theory that one major reason for the fall of the Roman Empire was the widespread use of lead pipes, which led to poisoning and brain damage and a loss of suitable people to run the Empire.
Autism is not idiocy. After all, Akbar was autistic enough not to be able to have learned to read, while George W. Bush was not only president but also went to Harvard, even though he was mildly autistic. Still, too many with too much progress on the spectrum, and you can’t find enough people able to do vital jobs.
So, is Trump right? Do expecting American mothers take too much Tylenol? Or too much paracetamol? Trump isn’t autistic, but maybe he embodies the malaise afflicting the USA.
