As everybody knows, the principal measure of gender equality is arm wrestling. Guest on The Literary City, Darius “Tuffy” Taraporvala, is a well-known actor and TV boss. Taraporvala does not claim to be a literary person. He told host Ramjee Chandran, he doesn’t read, he doesn’t write, and he approaches all his acting roles rather mechanically, placing full trust in the hands of the director. But one skill he will claim is to be the arm-wrestling champion of Koshy’s. But, get this, Tuffy only arm-wrestles the women. 

Despite Taraporvala’s protestations, Chandran stressed that Taraporvala handles his roles easily, whether he's playing a petulant Mozart, a clueless spy Bernard Boursicot, caught in a honey trap with Shi Pei Pu, a Peking opera singer or one of the Marx Brothers. Chandran peels the layers off Tuffy in a fun, freewheeling interview.

Taraporvala, in the interview, comes across as extremely accomplished but also very modest. His career has taken him from dairy and mushroom farming, to being the head of NDTV and opening and heading the South Indian bureau at the popular news channel. In fact, Taraporvala is good friends with head of NDTV, Prannoy Roy and the two studied at the famous Doon School together. 

All-in-all the conversation between Taraporvala and Chandran is lighthearted, humorous and fun. We don’t have much to say about Taraporvala’s singing though.

The show then follows another fun segment, “What’s The Word?”. Chandran and co-host Pranati “Pea” Madhav (you have to listen to know why), dissect the word “duffer”. The segment covers words that are commonly used but we never think about the etymology of these words. Like duffer. The word is used regularly but did you know that it dates back to 19th Century Scotland. And it even has some Swedish influence. The word also has surprising other means (not innuendo, get your head out of the gutter you duffer) that have to do with mining and golfing. 

The episode also prompted filmmaker Jayshankar Pandit to promise to use the word “duffer” much more regularly. We don’t think he’d have much trouble to find candidates to use it on. 

Taraporvala, who has now moved to Goa, said in the interview that he is willing to give up the retirees lifestyle he’s leading in Goa and get back on stage, “provided some brilliant director asks”, he said.