Teddies are a girl's best friend
By Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Dec 28 — "That's my baby," shrieks Sapna, thumping the polished marble floor with high-heel ankle boots, as her hunting eyes, on trail of a millennium gift, fondly strike the snowy teddy bear on the sparkling glass shelf.

The "kill" doesn't catch her "guy" Rahul off-guard. He knows cute and cuddly teddy bears — beaus' woolly stand-in through weekends of seclusion — are a thousand year's gift of affection. For fondling and caressing.

His tough hands anxiously feel the hard wallet in the dirty denim's back pocket as the plus-two beauty wildly kisses and hugs the poor helpless teddy "like a long lost lover". "Cho chweet," she gabs before handing over the soft toy with extended arms, tenderly.

The yellow price tag on the feathery tail scares him. But then, Rahul is aware, in this materialistic creation, hearts are not had as gifts. No more. The battle for amour has to be won. With presents.

"Teddies are a girl's best friend. In your absence, of course," says Dhiraj Kumar of a Sector 35 card and gift shop. "Your flame can embrace him. Pet him. Neck him. Even talk to him. When you are off-premises that is. Expensive yes, but then love doesn't come cheap."

But to behold that gleaming smile that lady-love broke into upon receiving gifts, wasn't easy for Rahul. He had to borrow some dough from "unhooked" pals. Steal more from dad's satchel.

"But it was worth it," says the undergraduate excitedly rubbing his hands. "She clasped me tight and blew a kiss right there in the card shop. Wow!"

Rahul is glad. But Panjab University student Sanjeev Sharma is in a fix. His best friend has already presented a fluffy teddy to his "babe". Well, Sanjeev, you can always buy her jewellery.

"Go in for silver," advises Mohammed Suhail of a Sector 17 chunk jewellery shop, "It's the best, because diamonds may be forever, but then you have to be a prince to put a ring around her fair finger. Same is with gold. It is worth a king's ransom for a student. Instead, hear the silver payal 's jingle. A good one is costing Rs 500. Chain is even less expensive, just Rs 150".

Yeah, silver will brighten her up. But it might redden her dad's wrinkled visage. Better take care. Chocolates are safer for saying you care. Get her the ones nicely wrapped in the cool cane baskets with cheerful red ribbons around them.

"The package is impressive," says a Sector 17 card shop counterjumper Ajay Verma. "It's also cheap, costing anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 175. We have already sold over 60 of 'em".

Millennium 2000 pen-sets are also glistering in the stationery showroom windows, under the high wattage bulbs. If your "girl" is a book monger, gently slip the pen in her coat's top pocket. "You can gift her as many as you like," says Verma. "Good ones are priced at just Rs 25. Expensive ones go up to Rs 2,000".

Then there are the traditional gifts if you are of the old school. Cakes, perfumed candles, bouquets, table calenders, diaries — the list goes on and on.

Well, time for millennium bargain. Give gifts generously, while you can. Such magical moments — the life is made of — will soon slip away from your miser hands.

Airport terminal building neglected
By Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Dec 28 — Unfinished toilets, plaster peeling off the ceiling, inadequate seating arrangements, unsatisfactory canteen facilities make up the Chandigarh Air Terminal here.

After the introduction of a daily Delhi-Chandigarh-Delhi flight, the Jet Airways brings to the terminal more than 300 persons on Wednesdays and Fridays. When the Indian Airlines also operates flights on the Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar-Chandigarh-Delhi flights, the turnout more than doubles.

The terminal building, however, has been in a state of neglect.

Some months ago, work was allotted for the renovation and refurbishing of toilets on the first floor of the building. The work has been, however, left incomplete as the contractor is reported to have taken to a legal recourse following differences with officials of the Airport Authority that governs the terminal building here. As such, the passengers face a plethora of problems. In case of delayed flights, the passengers have no choice but to use stinking toilets on the ground floor.

Some fittings and furnishings have been damaged. The mirrors have been rendered useless. Soap solution is seldom there. Even the cleanliness of the toilets is far from satisfactory.

Until some weeks ago, the terminal building used to lie idle as only the Indian Airlines operated twice a week flight to Delhi and once a week to Leh. The proposals for renovation, expansion and even maintenance of the existing facilities were probably never taken seriously in the absence of adequate use of the building.

The terminal building has been waiting for a fresh coat of paint for a long time. Bare cables and airconditioning ducts, which are both broken and damaged, hang from the ceiling of the first floor.

Airline staff operating from the terminal building, too, are unhappy with the facilities available here. For example, the construction of a new room for the Indian Airlines staff by putting up a brick-mortar partition, is without any window or ventilator.

Small rooms have been carved out for the Jet Airways staff from a portion of the existing passengers' lounge. Some space has been taken away by the security staff for putting up metal detector and for physical frisking of visitors to the terminal building. Even the check-in area is congested as the bags of passengers travelling by the Indian Airlines get mixed up with those of the Jet Airways. Even after checking in of registered baggage, the problem continues on the tarmac where checked in bags are kept for final identification by passengers concerned before these are loaded on board the aircraft.

There is no room for the Security Officer or for the police staff on duty at the terminal building.