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	May 15, 2000

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The Train Drain
What's this? Trains on demand? When students in West Bengal realised that after taking an entrance exam in Calcutta on April 30 they had barely two days to get to Bangalore for another, South Eastern Railways (ser) saved the day for them. The Train Drain

Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee had given her nod to an "examination special", a 21-coach, Howrah-Bangalore train. "More than 1,100 students boarded it," says ser's General Manager R.N. Malhotra. Mamatadi was so pleased that she promptly ran a similar Delhi-Bangalore service the next day. So it wasn't just Bengal that got lucky!

Facts on Fiction
When it rains, it pours prizes. Within weeks of Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer comes the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction for 2000 for Amit Chaudhuri's Freedom Song: Three Novels, the collection of his first three novels published by Knopf in the US last year. Says his wife Rosinka: "Amit called up after the ceremony (last week in LA), and we were talking about the others on the shortlist (that included a former Pulitzer winner). He was surprised at how well the book was received in the US." Surprised? But why?

Jokes Apart
He entered a contest as a joke. So when he was told he'd won a chance to meet Carlos Santana in Tokyo, Tabrez Khan, 21, thought it was a delayed April Fool's joke. Wrong. Last week, the Bangalore-based student met the legend and even Eric Clapton who was accompanying Santana on his Japan tour. And though "my father is an avid Santana fan but I'm more partial to Steve Vai and Joe Satriani", Khan can't help but add that the experience "was just unbelievable". So what did they talk about? Well, Santana kept saying "namaste" and that he loves India and Sanskrit. As for Khan, he said "hi" and then gaped. Can't blame him.

Come September
There's good news all around for Sophiya Haque. The former Channel V veejay, who's done a hot dance number in Mani Ratnam's latest film, Alaipayuthey, has followed in Malaika Arora's footsteps in another department too. She's getting married. This September. You've probably guessed already ... the lucky man is former V managing director and long-time boyfriend Jules Fuller. As good friend A.D. Singh says, "Finally they will sing the last note of their love song together." Oops, he didn't quite mean it the way it sounds.

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