Feisty Fatwa on hackneyed Humour

November 6, 2008 at 1:46 am | Posted in arbit, Bengaluru, criticism, Ethics, humour, nostalgia, sarcasm | 6 Comments
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I, Sheikh Abhi, ( who’ll be known as Sheikh Abhi-Dulha at the time of marriage), decree the following fatwa. This fatwa aims to radically improve the ‘Post-Nehruvian Indian Humour quotient’.

Editor’s note: “Nehru bit” added for extra scope, and does not suggest the writer’s extensive political repertoire.

Abstract:

Its a surprise, and deep shame, that generations after generations have endured shoddy satire emanating from rusty retired maamas,as pale as Stalin. Or athletic Aaanties, as stale as Palin.

They did not rise up to them, or flip ‘em the bird. They didn’t chuck these jokes out of their humour vocab. They didn’t. No. No.

They instead chose to tell it to us. Oh, the Humanities!!!

But, enuph is enuph. Its time for Change.

Background:

These jokes are easily identifiable with any Indian kid’s disturbed childhood. To avoid lethal exposure, I will be jotting down only some of them. Feel free to add more if you’re itchy.

The List, and its interpretation:

  • “Which is the most dangerous city?” asked  Master Maams. What ? What ? asked we, in full awe of Maams’ general knolij. “Electri-city”. Get it? Ha ha ha. Maams used to reply.

        It’s a pity we weren’t using WTF back then.

  • A particularly putrid, bengalurean variant would be the dreaded, “ Which is the biggest stick”? Maje-stic, maams would say, hardly caring about the kids writhing in agony.
  • Or its perverse inverse verse from the alternate universe. Which was worse. “Which is the smallest stick”? “Lip-stick”, apparently. No one would have dare guessed.

         I’ve not heard these for nearly 5 years. Hope they decay soon.

  • And there used to be this mother of all J-bombs. I’ll provide a short recap. For the uncut version. Run ‘line 1 – line 2’ some 5 times in a loop.

         Ramu:- “BJ.Franklin discovered Elecktri-kitty”.

         English Teacher:- “No, Ramu. It is pronounced as ilek’trisitee ”.

         I still don’t get the morbid fascination about electricity in so many of these jokes.( There are more like these, believe me) Probably that was the most happening thing back then. Positively shocking. The joke continues….

          Ramu’s Dad:”What seems to be the problem, Teacher?”

          Teacher:”Your son can’t pronounce ilek’trisitee”.

This joke’s punchline. Boy Oh boy!!!

           Ramu’s Dad:” What to do teacher. That is his Kapak-itee.”

So, basically suggesting ramu and his dad had some kind of speech impediment was supposed to knock your socks off, in times yore. Man, George Carlin would have created an 8th swear word, if he’d heard this joke.

  • And of course, the ever so popular, and recurring, “I don’t take any decisions, My wife is the home minister” joke. And all its mutated variants.

Khushwant Singh protested in vain,in some of his books, against this genre, and then for some reason, started vacillating between Sardar Jokes and chaddi-ke-neeche waala humour.

  • And we all know that it was your P.T Sir who was the stupidest man in the entire universe. And only he made the, “Stand in a straight circle” joke.

Now, If your P.T teacher was involved in a love-triangle, it offers some interesting punning propositions, of geometric proportions.

Results:

Here is an irrelevant experimental graph.

Conclusion:

I’m putting these and any that I may receive from fellow victims, in permanent quarantine. And I ‘umbly request you, not to pass on these family heirlooms to your kids. And one more fatwa – All future fatwas must always be in the paper publication format. I want to see the exact reasons behind the Mickey Mouse one.[1]

And, ya, I’m one of them.[2]

Senti – –

May 19, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Posted in nitk, nostalgia, Visions | 11 Comments
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So this is it. The bluesy feeling finally came. Initially, in small doses. But eventually, as time passed, and we came closer to the end [ if you could call it so], the senti-jolts were obvious and caused intense discomfort.

4 years seem to have swished by in a jiffy.

The realization of that, however, came a bit too late[ which was good, btw]. It probably started as soon as Inci got over. Random flashes- scenes from the past years, events of importance, the funner things in life that I experienced here
– appeared at times. And me got all pensive, which is, you can safely say, not normal; considering my nature.
A CnH strip, that probably describes my situation. With due apologies to Watterson.

Calvin
[Pls right click and open the image in a new tab, will ya.]

The last few days were unbearable. Every task that you did in college had some kinda tag associated with it. Last time this, First time that etc. Add to that a whole bunch of drippy farewell ceremonies. The senti-meter kept showing intense readings as the days passed.

Senti graph
[Pls right click and open the image in a new tab.]

Each of these peaks had some significance associated with it.

For instance, on 21st was the impulse outburst after the exams, the moment that I realized that I am an Engineer…

On 27th, after certain touchy fare-thee-wells, Chindu, Shishir, KK, and me set about strolling in the campus. We went to SAC. I delighted them with impromptu renditions of “If you come Today”, and “Another Brick in the hall”, with a booming voice atop the stage, and was well-received.
[ Three is a crowd, remember?].
Sat there contemplating, and discussing. What went right, what went wrong, memories etc. The discussion eventually became about IPL. So zip it…

On 28th, bored after packing, and late in the night, 2-ish, I set about doing a Noorie-like walk, taking a route from the 8th block, to Main Building, S.S, G.B and Coffee Dabba[was closed], SAC, S.J.A, and back. Trying to remember moments.

The remaining peaky spots on the graph involve reasons unbeknown to many. And probably realized by a certain close-knit set of friends. They know. I know. That’s pretty sufficient.

I’m saddened to leave the place that nurtured my academic curiosities, the place where I met a wide assortment of interesting people. Passers-by like me, driven by zeal to make the most of their stay, to find a purpose to their erstwhile directionless lives, and most importantly, the folks who were here just to have a jolly good time.

All of you made this place special. Memorable. Stand up, and take a bow….

To good friends, arch-enemies, SPICMACAYites, fellow tronixians, Bloggers, Tronix-Bloggers, room-mates, wing-mates, ENGI-INCI junta, all those people of the 7 batches , that I’ve had a chance to interact with, and uttermost importantly,
Our esteemed faculty.
I’ll miss you.

So, hoping that, “With the world being a small place”, “Keep in touch”, “ Ping me” and all other clichés turn out to be true in this case.

And as Watterson rightly said,

It’s a Magical World out there, Hobbes.

Lets go exploring…

P.S:

My room. 8th Block, 2, has the above lines etched as a means of frustu-graffiti. The kind soul who occupies it next is requested not to erase it, and other brags that I might have written there.
Final visit to Sunder’s was pretty senti too. The last full-maggi with half-fry there, and a hug later.

Other tata-bye-bye posts can be found at [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6],[7]
From Ol’ friends and new…

Quantification of sentimental feelings on a graph. Bad. Abhishek. Bad.

This post should have been written about a month ago. But, I’d so many things on my mind then and writing a post was not one of them.

MSpaint rwocks…

Right now I’m feeling bored…. Totally BORED.

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