A recently discovered document sheds new light on the wartime leader’s ‘iron curtain’ address

It was a speech that electrified the world, one that coined a phrase that was to characterise the political era that followed the second world war. But its content could have been very different, reveals a document freshly unearthed by a historian researching the life of Winston Churchill.

On 5 March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, before a huge crowd which included the US president, Harry Truman, Britain’s wartime leader issued a famous description of the political division that was opening across Europe between the Soviet-dominated Communist east and the western democracies. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” Churchill declared, “an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”

Reaction from Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and Republican presidential candidate.

Astra Lost in Space anime, Shinkalion film, 2019 Godzilla film, Fly Me to Saitama film, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim game also nominated

I am a committed fan of Danish Sait's lockdown videos. Formally, these videos with their minute observational detail of how a variety of people discuss the lockdown (like a man saying to his cook "Jaya, you're not a maid. You're a mermaid") are pithy commentaries on social attitudes, without the self-importance of social commentary. Because of their intense goofiness—Sait wearing a huge moustache as a beauty-parlour deprived woman, using tissue boxes, Bacardi bottles and dumb-bells to represent cellphones—even the most pointed comment dissolved by laughter, is taken, without sticking meanly in your throat.

My favourite sketches are of Pyaari Bakri and Gopal the Goat, featuring Cow-shik the Cow. They are full of appallingly excellent puns like "why you are looking like rogan, no josh?" The story is a proper rom-com, starting with mouth-watering mutual insults, GG admitting his love with, "I'm in love with the sheep of you" and PB being a jealous cat about, well, a cat. With Eid, will their story end like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak? I'm keeping hausla and preparing myself. But my love for PB, is also personal.

Pyaari Bakri, I could listen to you all day, because you speak in Dakhni. I've lived in Secunderabad. "Kya dillagi karen ji" will switch on my dreamy smile in a second. But, it also reminds me of my Chawal mama who spoke in Dakhni. Not really my uncle, but a close friend of my parents from their Air Force days. I changed his name from Shahul to Chawal with my baby accent, and it became a pet name. Chawal mama told stories, especially of being hoodwinked or bamboozled, with the incipient giggle, self-deprecation and your-deprecation, the delight in outlandish behaviours and atranga characters, even those who wronged you, which come bundled with Dakhni, and make its musciality delicious. He teleported this humorous self-awareness into English. Pyaari Bakri, saying, "Gopal, kaiku itna chindi dikhra", instantly reminds me of Chawal mama exclaiming "that fellow, woh toh rascal nikla sweetheart!" Such humour sees two sides, one's own misfortune and its comedy, laughing at behaviour, not individuals.

It makes life an eccentric, liveable adventure.

I love accents. They bring out the idiomatic taste of language, the way coriander stems highlight a gravy's tendency. The distaste people have for (non-firangi of course) accents, yaniki snobbery, is so #BoreMatKarYaar. Snobs look down on people who say pijja or pis-za instead of peet-za, as provincial. Anything more provincial than snobs? Their palate cannot recognise the salty heaven of an overloaded Haji Ali pis-za, the joyful corruptions in chance encounters of languages, food, music—yaniki creativity in undesignated locations.

Imitating accents is tricky. Done generically, crude outlines of sound, it becomes a way of not knowing; of stereotyping to mock and diminish. Accents done precisely, require attention to a language's entire idiom, its way of being—context. It becomes a way to know and enjoy particularity and difference.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com

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A day after the new BMC chief Iqbal Chahal took over, he spent the day visiting Nair Hospital, which is a designated facility for COVID-19 patients, and Dharavi which has the highest concentration of positive cases in the city. Apart from taking stock of the situation at both places, Chahal also had discussions with the hospital staff, patients as well as residents of Dharavi.

Chahal visited the Nair premises on Saturday morning, accompanied by Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani and hospital dean Dr Mohan Joshi. Chahal also interacted with the doctors and nurses about the issues they are facing, and told them that they could raise their concerns with him. "He wore a PPE and also visited the wards and met with patients to inquire about their health. The purpose of the visit was to understand the ground realities and also take feedback from the staff.

Chahal took stock of the community toilets in Dharavi. Pic/Suresh Karkera

He has asked the hospital staff to approach him with any requirements," said Dr Gautam Bhansali, consultant physician with Bombay Hospital who accompanied Chahal. After Nair Hospital, Chahal visited Mukund Nagar in Dharavi. He also took a round of the community toilets. He asked the ward officials to ensure that the toilets have a steady supply of handwash and that they are cleaned regularly.

He directed the ward officials to take up contact tracing more comprehensively. "The commissioner has asked for the total number of people, who tested positive from dense slum pockets and those who lived in residential buildings. He wanted to understand the ratio of patients who have tested positive from both areas. He has also asked us to identify more high-risk patients and place them under quarantine," said an official.

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