‘I have myself given birth to quite a number of infants. They were all pretty vocal when they arrived, but such an earth-shaking noise as this newborn baby made I have never heard.’
V. K. Krishna Menon was a bachelor and hated people with large broods of children. In his early career as a barrister, a couple with three girls in tow called on him and suggested that he accompany them to a theatre as they had an extra ticket. The sixsome waited for a bus and the first one had only room for four (no overloading). The second one came after five minutes and had only three vacancies and the third had two. So they decided to walk the distance instead of being late for the show.
Menon with his walking stick was tramping on the cobbled-stone pavement and tuck-tuck-tucking. The father, already irritated with not getting the bus, remarked, ‘Dammit, Krishna, can’t you put a piece of rubber at the end of your stick?’
Pat came the reply: ‘If you had put one at the end of yours, we would have got into a bus.’
A man went into a bar and ordered a drink. After he had finished and got up to leave, the bartender asked, ‘What about the bill?’
‘I have already paid,’ he replied and left. Soon after, another man came in. He, too, ordered a drink, drank it and left saying that he had already paid.
The third customer came in. As he was drinking, the bartender told him, ‘Before you two men came here, they ordered drinks and left, telling me that they had already paid. What do you think about that?’
‘Stop arguing and return my change,’ the man said.
S.K. Singh, our ambassador in Islamabad, has a gift of putting everyone at their ease. During a recent visit to Delhi he happened to call upon some friends who have a precocious five-year-old daughter. After having exchanged pleasantries, with his friends, SK felt he ought to talk to their daughter. In his most charming diplomatic manner he asked the child:
‘Beta, what school do you go to?’
The child told him.
‘And what are your favourite subjects?’
The child rattled off her favourite subjects.
More questions followed; and answers given. SK thought he had done his duty as a guest. The child decided it was her turn to ask questions.
‘And Uncle, what do you do for a living?’
‘I am an ambassador. Beta do you know what an ambassador is?’
The child nodded her head wisely and replied: ‘Yes, Daddy has one.’
A Punjabi matron emigrated to England taking her only son with her. She took to the country like a duck to water. But her boy missed his village and began to waste away. Ultimately the lady took the boy to the local doctor for a medical check-up.
‘Does the boy eat well and sleep well?’ asked the medico.
The lady replied in her Punjabi English: ‘Na, na doctor sahib, na eatda, na saleepda; but weepda hee weepda.’
Kakey da Hotel is a very popular eating-place in Connaught Circus. It started off as a humble Kakey da Dhaaba with stools and charpaees laid out on the pavement and the tandoor, handees and pateelas placed in the open. With prosperity the kitchen went into the rear and a dining room was furnished with tables, chairs as well as a wash basin. One evening a patron having finished his meal went to rinse his mouth in the wash basin. He proceeded to do so with great vigour: gurgling, spitting and blowing his nose. This ruined the appetites of the other diners who protested to the proprietor. Kakaji went to the rinser-spitter and admonished him, ‘Haven’t you ever eaten in a good hotel before?’
‘Indeed, I have,’ replied the errant patron, ‘I have eaten at the Taj, Maurya, Oberoi, Imperial, Hyatt.’
‘What did they say to you when you rinsed your mouth making all these unpleasant sounds?’
‘They asked: “You think this is Kakey da Hotel?” And threw me out.’
This Khalistani anecdote has been sent to me by Kanwaljit Kaur and Manohar Bhatia. A Khalistan Roadways bus plying between the state’s major towns had a Nihang conductor. ‘Where to?’ he asked a young Sikh passenger before issuing him a ticket. ‘Amritsar,’ replied the youngster. The Nihang conductor gave him a clout on the head and said, ‘It is Sri Amritsarji Sahib.’ The youngster quickly corrected himself, ‘Yes, of course! One for Sri Amritsarji Sahib.’ The next passenger was a Hindu. ‘Where to?’ asked the Nihang. ‘Sri Ludhianaji Sahib,’ replied the other timidly. He too was rewarded with a clout on the head. ‘Only Ludhiana, no Sri or Sahibji,’ admonished the Nihang before issuing him a ticket. The third passenger happended to be a wordly-wise Marwari. When asked for his destination, he replied: ‘Nihangji, kindly give me a ticket for Sri Amritsarji Sahib; thereafter I will go on foot to my village.’ The Nihang was pleased: ‘If you are not completing your journey by this bus, no need for a ticket-shiket,’ he replied.
Deccani Hindustani is a constant source of amusement for northerners. Whenever I happen to be in the erstwhile domains of His Exalted Highness the Nizam I try to veer the conversation round to make them say hao instead of haan (yes) or nakko instead of naheen (no). The words sound sweet when mouthed by young puttas (male urchins) or puttees (female urchins). The other day I was in Hyderabad’s Patthar Gatti bazaar looking for Urdu publications. The going was very halloo halloo (slow) because of the chaotic tangle of cycles, cars, tongas and flocks of black-burqa ladies going to Laad Bazar to buy lac-n-glass bangles. I stopped beside a dargah beneath the Char Minar where a fellow was lustily blowing through his shehnai hoping to drown out other noises of the city. I heard a lot of hao’s and nakko’s and asked my escort for an explanation. He told me an anecdote about a Lucknavi gentleman who on a visit to Hyderabad had like me wanted to know the reason. A highly literate Hyderabadi friend replied: ‘Janaab-i-wala, educated Andhras always say Jee Haan for yes sir, it is only the illiterate who say hao”
‘You always say Jee haan, you must be highly educated.’
‘Hao’
An anti-Establishment joke: A vagrant, finding no place on the pavement, parked himself at the feet of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. At midnight he was woken up by someone gently tapping him with his stick. It was the Mahatma himself. ‘You Indians have been unfair to me,’ complained the benign spirit. ‘You put my statues everywhere that show me either standing or walking. My feet are very tired. Why can’t I have a horse like the one Shivaji has? Surely, I did as much for the nation as he! And you still call me your Bapu.’
Next morning the vagrant went round calling on the ministers. At long last he persuaded one to join him for a night-long vigil at the feet of the Mahatma’s statue. Lo and behold, as the neighbouring police station gong struck the midnight hour, the Mahatma emerged from his statue to converse with the vagrant. He repeated his complaint of having to stand or walk and his request to be provided a mount like the Chhatrapati’s.
‘Bapu,’ replied the vagrant, ‘I am too poor to buy you a horse, but I have brought this minister from the Government for you. He …’
Bapu looked at the minister and remarked: ‘I asked for a horse, not a donkey.’
Shri O.S. Bhatnagar from Mathura sent us a portion left out of the complaint made by a hapless passenger, whose ablutions resulted in his missing his train.
‘While me fall down in hurry to ride the going train I was saw the dam guard shouting the whisle and moving the flag (which contry it was I didn’t now), but he keep standing on the platefarum not try enter to the compartment. Was he go by aeroplan to next stashun?
‘Make a juge inquiry and sent the results to bearded Happy Time Lion in his den at Horn Bye Road, Mumbai, who passed to me.’
One must not be too hard on a poor fellow whose knowledge of a foreign language is elementary. Much funnier are linguistic faux pas committed by those who assume familiarity with a lingo without really knowing it. I recall an angry letter written by a teacher of English to the chairman of her school. ‘Dear Sir, I wish to resignate …’ The sound of words often causes confusion in simple minds. A semi-literate but rich businessman intending to make a bequest to a co-educational
institution was dissuaded from doing so by one who wanted the money for his own boys’ school. ‘Do you know that in the coed school boys and girls share the same curriculum?’ he asked the donor. ‘Moreover, they matriculate together.’ To drive the point home, he added: ‘And worse than that they spend most of their time in seminars.’
The bequest was never made.
My short piece on Indian mispronunciation of English evoked many examples from our readers. One from the South is indignant that I should have lampooned the Tamilian accent because: ‘The very best English is spoken in Tamil Nadu. And the worst by the Punjabis.’ Professor Viswanathan from Mangalore writes about his English teacher’s advice that the ‘Jorality of the composition lies in the dadabudality in the usage of words.’ (For the life of me I cannot work out what the learned teacher was trying to say!) He also wrote to say that a Sikh doctor diagnosed some ailment as ‘penewmonia’. That sounds like a very sick Sikh joke!
winston Churchill, when asked for permission to allow sixty MPs to go up on a trial flight of a newly-designed aircraft, said a firm no. ‘I think it would be disastrous if suddenly the country were plunged into sixty by-elections. Besides which, throughout my long public career I have always maintained that it is unwise to put all your baskets into one egg.’
Correspondent N. Sharna from Ramgarh (Bihar) sends a clipping of a tender for supply of school equipment put out—of all people—by the office of the District Superintendent of Education. It invited ‘Quotationers’ to make offers for the following articles:
1. Bras and Bell—1 kg with wooden humber
2. Jumetry set in wooden box
3. Glob—8” dymiter
4. Bucket (Balti) 10”
5. Spad Nos of tata
6. Aluminium mfg for one later
7. Wooden Black Board 1 big 5” × 3½” for shakhua wood with two kari
8. Wooden Black Board (Small) 31½” × 2½” for shakhua wood with two kari
9. Maps: India world Tirhut Commissionary and West Charaparan Rajnaitik and Historical map of Bihar historical approved by survey department.
10. Charts: Digesting system skelton Health sanitation historical Bhawan Kala Darshan Shambi-dhan Jiwa Vigyan Bhawtik Vigyan Rashayan Vigyan.
Now you know why Biharis are amongst the most illiterate in India.
Robert Atkins, MP had this dig at Khrushchev. At a public meeting the Soviet leader was denouncing Stalin. Somebody from the audience shouted: ‘As one of his colleagues at the time, why didn’t you stop him?’
There was deathly stillness. Khrushchev thundered, ‘Who said that?’ There was no response. After a long and petrified silence Khrushchev replied to his question himself, ‘Now you know why.’
Epitaph-collecting is my favourite hobby. I have quite a few witty farewells to life in my repertoire. Two Monsoons by Theon Wilkinson, who indulged in the same ghoulish pastime, has added two gems to my collection. A soldier drowned in the Chenab has this on his tombstone: ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord’. Another one in Peshawar runs: ‘Here lies Captain Ernest Bloomfield, accidentally shot by his orderly, March 2nd, 1879. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
There was the boss of a firm in Australia where absenteeism was endemic. He spoke to the workmen: ‘Looking about me I see a number of faces that are not here; what I have to say applies particularly to those who are absent, and I hope they will listen attentively and make a note of every word.’
A similar story is about a signpost at a road junction. ‘This way to Timbuktu—if you can’t read, enquire at blacksmith’s opposite.’
Some signs have a macabre sense of humour as one leading to a cemetery: humour as one leading to a cemetery: ‘One-way traffic’. An exhortation to city dwellers when they come to seek peace and quiet in the mountains: ‘Keep still and listen to the silence’. A number of Aussies follow the instruction and one asks: ‘I cannot hear anything, can you?’
Vice-Admiral Lord Mountgarret was addressing an all-male gathering of sailors where everyone present knew as much about sailing as he. His Lordship who had by then imbibed more than his share of spirits decided to talk about his sexual exploits of which he claimed to have had many more than they. The next morning while His Lordship was nursing his hangover in bed, Her Ladyship ran into a member of the previous evening’s audience while she was out shopping and asked him how her husband’s speech had gone down. ‘He was a roaring success,’ the man assured her.
‘I am so glad,’ said Lady Mountgarret. ‘I was terribly worried. He’s only done it three times, you see. The first time he was violently sick. The second time his hat blew off, and the third time he got all tangled up in the sheets!’
It is a great pity that our legislators lose their tempers so readily. Much more can be achieved by ready wit than by angry demonstration, yelling slogans, abuse, fisticuffs or walk-outs. I recall an encounter between the late Feroze Gandhi and a senior cabinet minister, given to acid remarks about everyone and with an exaggerated notion of his own ability. This minister was said to have described Feroze Gandhi as the ‘Prime Minister’s lap-dog’. Then he had the misfortune of getting involved in a financial scandal. Feroze Gandhi was scheduled to open the debate in the Lok Sabha. He is said to have walked up to the minister and within the hearing of the Treasury benches said: ‘Mr So-and-So, I hear you have been describing me as a lap-dog. You no doubt consider yourself a pillar of the state. Today I will do to you what a dog usually does to a pillar.’
Once I gave an example of a repartee in the Lok Sabha. I have just stumbled on a perfect gem—of all places from what must be one of the smallest democracies in the world, Uruguay. An angry senator was attacking a minister of government. The minister tried to interrupt the senator’s speech. ‘I haven’t finished yet,’ roared the senator, and went on in his near-defamatory tirade. Each time the minister tried to protest, the Senator yelled, ‘I haven’t finished yet.’ At long last when the speech ended, the minister asked, ‘Have you finished now?’
‘Yes,’ replied the senator, taking his seat.
‘Then pull the chain.’
Two IRA men were driving to the location where they intended to plant a time-bomb which one of them had in his lap. ‘Drive a little slower—this bomb may go off any minute,’ said the man carrying the explosive. ‘Don’t worry,’ assured the driver, ‘we’ve got a spare one in the boot.’
I owe this follow-up on the making of a minister to Dr I.C. Dawoodbhoy of Mumbai.
‘The son was expected from abroad after a five-year jaunt. The father invited his best friend to his house on the day of arrival and took him to a room where the son was to be shown in. He pointed to the four things he had placed on the table. ‘If he picks up the money,’ he said, ‘he will be a businessman. If he takes the Bible, he will be a pious, religious man. If the bottle of liquor, he will be a drunkard and a waster. And if he picks up the gun, he is going to be a gangster.’ Both of them waited behind the curtain and watched. As the son walked in he noticed the four items on the table. He opened the bottle of whisky and took a long swig; he pocketed the wad of currency notes, put the gun in his hip pocket and the Bible under his arm and calmly walked away. ‘Dammit,’ said the father, ‘he is going to be a minister.’
Once every three months or so an elderly lady who was once prominent in the women’s movement calls on me. She brushes aside my secretary, ignores the notice saying, ‘No visitors before 11 a.m. and thereafter only by appointment,’ opens the door and asks, ‘Can I see you for a moment?’ and without waiting for an answer enters the room. She is well-meaning and soft-spoken. I offer her a chair. She takes time to compose herself by covering her face with her hands and thinking deep thoughts. Then she bares her smiling face and starts the dialogue with the question: ‘Sardar sahib, tell me, where is our country going to?’
I shrug my shoulders and make some helpless noises which imply, ‘I don’t know.’ She is satisfied and puts her second question: ‘What are you doing about
it?’ I hold up my hands in a gesture of helpless resignation and reply: ‘What can I do?’ She tells me what a pleasure it is to discuss national problems with someone as well informed as me and takes her leave.
Lady Reading seldom lost her Viceregal poise and attended every function in spite of failing health. Sir Conrad Corfield, an ICS officer in India for twenty-two years, relates the following incident in his book, The Princely India I Knew. One evening, when the Viceroy’s orchestra was performing during dinner, she enquired about the title of the dance tune which was being played. No one could remember. So her ADC was sent to ask the bandmaster.
The conversation at the table changed to another subject during the ADC’s absence. He slipped into his seat on return and waited for an opportunity to impart his information. At the next silence he leant forward to catch Lady Reading’s eye and, in a penetrating voice, said, ‘I will remember your kisses, Your Excellency, when you have forgotten my name.’
A wealthy Maheshwari, the richest of the Marwari community, was complaining about his wife’s spendthrift habits to a friend. ‘One day she asked me for ten rupees, the next day she asked me for twenty and this morning she wanted twenty-five. She is the limit.’
‘She certainly is,’ agreed the friend. ‘What did she do with all that money?’
‘Main kya jaanoon’ (how should I know), replied the wealthy man. ‘I never gave her any.’
A firm which undertakes to destroy vermin has sent me its terms of contract. If its ability to kill pests is as great as its ability to kill the English bhasha then I can strongly commend it. Instructions are:
1. Before start the work empted every thing.
2. In the bed room cuboards to be empted.
3. When the Job is started, nobody can stay inside after fumigation to keep two hours in the Flat.
4. After open the Flat only clean with dry cloth.
Nurul Alam from Silchar sends me a few lovely samples of bureaucratic wit of the days of the British Raj. One is an entry made by an executive engineer in the visitors’ book of a Circuit House:
The Big Fat Joke Book Page 3
