— M.C. Joshi

Lucknow

Peace pipe

•The ongoing peace talks between India and Pakistan have generated more expectations than concrete results. It’s evident that the Pakistani leadership is engaging India at the diplomatic level but continues to bleed it dry. It hopes that a weak India will finally give up its claim on Kashmir and also lose its pre-eminent position in South Asia. Meanwhile, Indian expectations of normalcy with Pakistan are based on a false premise that a democratic, united and economically vibrant Pakistan would allow economic and cultural engagements between the two countries and thus take the focus off Kashmir and terrorism.

— Amit Pradhan

Baroda

Salad days

• If I ever chuckled, from the first line to the last, it was on reading Gopinath Mavinkurve’s ‘Middle man’.The middle of a middle-aged man does have much to do with food, especially gulab-jamuns or rosogollas, if you like Bengali sweets. But there is a simpler way out — begin with a plate full of salad and end your meal with more salad, eating only salad through it. If you fill your stomach with salads alone, neither will you yield to temptation nor will you sport a paunch.

— Parimal Y. Mehta

Mumbai