New-age Ramayana

A young second generation Indian-origin boy in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of "Diwali" to his younger brother, this is how he went about it...

" So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something.... Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so..... he decided to get his wife and his bro along... you know...so that they could all chill out together. But Dude, the forest was reeeeal scary shit... really man.....they had monkeys and devils and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked with darts and bows and arrows... so it was fine.

But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed... all the gods were with him... So anyways, you don't mess with gods. So, Ram, and his bro get an army of monkeys... Dude, don't ask me how they trained the damn monkeys... just go along with me, ok....

So, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta's ass in his own hood.... Anyways, by this time, their time's up in the forest..... and anyways... it gets kinda boring, you know... no TV or malls or shit like that. So,they decided to hitch a ride back home.... and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home...they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice... and they didn't have any bars or clubs in those days... so they couldn't take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and shit... and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also....so it was pretty cooool.... you know with all those fireworks.... Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks... and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding..., that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks... you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that was how, like, this festival started."

The mother fainted..

Job application goof-ups

An old boy assures me that the following are real howlers found in job application letters/resumes. After each gaffe, there’s a remark from the selectors’ panel…

(current and ex-pupils, pay attention)

Cover letter: "I would be prepared to meet with you at your earliest
convenience to discuss what I can do to your company."
That's what we're afraid of ...

Resume: "It is my professional objective to obtain a position which
allows me to make use of my commuter skills."
I think we can oblige.

Weaknesses: "Suffer from prickly heat in summer."
Sounds uncomfortable.

Cover letter: "Enclosed is my resume for your viewing pleasure."
We can hardly wait.

Cover letter: "You are privileged to receive my resume."
We'll try not to let it go to our heads.

Objective: "To mature in the field of human behavior."
Good luck with that.

Experience: "10 years of experience in financial budgiting and
transactions rigistering."
But limited experience with the spell-check function.

Cover letter: "Please overlook my resume."
If you insist.

Cover letter: "I am submitting the attached copy of my resume for your
consumption."
Yum.

Skills: "Grate communication skills."
Yes, but can you talk and chop at the same time?

Experience: "Responsibilities included recruiting, screening,
interviewing and executing final candidates."
Seems kind of harsh ...

Cover letter: "Salary demanded - $65,000."
Would you like that in small, unmarked bills?

Strengths: "Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer."
Would that be Mozart or Beethoven?

Education: "B.A. in Loberal Arts."
Did you minor in ear piercing?


Cover letter: "I've updated my resume so it's more appalling to
employers."
We're pretty shocked already ...

Cover letter: "Seek challenges that test my mind and body, since the
two are usually inseparable."
Glad to hear it.

Cover letter: "My intensity and focus are at inordinately high levels,
and my ability to complete projects on time is unspeakable."
At these extremes, some things are best left unsaid.

Everything's tamasha now

... so thinks Pritish Nandy, and I have been saying the same thing myself for ages.

I only worry about payback time, because unlike Nandy, I still have many years to live, probably, and my daughter certainly does.

A new language in the making

I saw yet another johnny-come-lately private college (where they charge you several lakhs and take four years to 'teach' you how to be a waiter in a restaurant) advertise itself as an 'educational resort' in the paper the other day (by the way, those who 'teach' there are never called teachers or lecturers or professors, they are invariably called faculty - even in the singular. And they give 'bachelor' degrees...)

I have noticed in my own neighbourhood something called a 'Dental Inn'. Soon, I'm sure, they will call ICCU-s cardiac resorts, too.

Once you start corrupting language, you have opened the door to all the forces of chaos, dissolution and decay. Anyways... chillax.

A whole year at it!

Well, well – ‘Wanton whimsy’ was started upon a whim, and lo! It’s one year old already.

I hope a lot of you folks will say ‘Happy Birthday, and many happy returns’.

One thing I can vouch for: it’s hard work, no matter who you are, to be funny and off-beat at a stretch without being merely vulgar and fatuous. Even with help. So I need more help here. Not only by way of encouragement from my followers (may their tribe increase), but with frequent inputs of good stuff.

And also, I need more comment. In contrast to my other blog, my readers here are strangely silent. Feeling shy? … by the way, the best comments I have got in this one year are the one which was a witty rejoinder to something I had written, and the one which said this blog had completely restructured the mental image of me that the writer had built up on the basis of hearsay about my reputation.

Since this is a ‘whimsy’ blog rather than merely funny, I am also open to suggestions about new directions in which it may venture. Meanwhile, I’ll think of things on my own, rest assured. I remember Holmes telling Watson with a touch of pride in his voice, quoting Shakespeare, ‘I trust that age doth not wither, nor custom stale, my infinite variety’.

For now, I sign off with a little poem about one of the founding fathers of modern economics, Adam Smith, written by Stephen Leacock, who like me trained to be an economist, but later became a writer of humour. This has been quoted in Amartya Sen’s latest opus, The Idea of Justice:

Adam, Adam, Adam Smith

Listen what I charge you with!

Didn’t you say

In a class one day

That selfishness was bound to pay?

Of all doctrines, that was the Pith.

Wasn’t it, wasn’t it, wasn’t it, Smith?

In a rare lapse into elitism, Sen quips, paraphrasing Shakespeare from Twelfth Night, that ‘while some are born small and some achieve smallness, Adam Smith has had much smallness thrust upon him’. I leave my more erudite readers, especially the economists among them, to figure out what Sen means!

Egad!

Just saw a sign on a college-goer's T-shirt:

Save petrol, avoid girls.

What is the world coming to, when this kind of opinion has become so widely-held that it is being publicly proclaimed?

Anniversary coming up

This blog will be one year old in a week's time. Any comments/suggestions/requests/words of advice from readers who have stuck with me all this time?

Authentic Valentines

With tomorrow in mind, I was musing with my daughter that I first met her mother on a certain February 14th. And I am glad I did.

Little boy in love

A 15-year old took me aside to ask how they say 'I love you' in French. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The fellow writes the kind of English I did when I was in class 2... not that that is an uncommon thing these days, but imagine him trying to be amorous in French to impress his girlfriend!

Mysterious universe and some fun

The scientifically minded (who also have a sense of humour) might enjoy these doggerels.

The first, in praise of one great scientist,

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night.

God said 'Let Newton be', and all was light.

The other, written much later, is a wonderful riposte:

It couldn't last - the Devil, howling 'Ho!

Let Einstein be,' restored the status quo.

Campus recruitment circus

This link which I found on twitter (the first good thing I've found so far, I think) was too good not to share with my readers - especially those who have gone through the B-school campus recruitment circus already, a few who are about to face it and chewing their nails, and those a lot younger who are still fantasizing about it (and their parents too, of course).

Many thanks to Omkar Mazumdar/'splashyellow'.

Creativity, character and exams

We were once again discussing the perennial grouch of pupils against examinations - that they test crude memorising power to the detriment of far more valuable attributes like creative imagination, character qualities and so on. I asked how many people would have ever passed through school if they were tested for whether they were Einsteins and Tagores, and how they measured up against ideal characters such as Lincoln, St. Francis and Sri Ramkrishna. Predictably enough, there was a deafening silence which said everything...

Engineering wisdom

Some gags are too good not to share. Here's one such: What part of the car causes the most accidents? Answer - the nut that holds the wheel.

Marital bliss!

My mobile service provider keeps sending me a free joke every day, and an inordinate number of those are about the nasty side of marriage! One said the wife complained to her husband 'Dismiss this driver at once - he nearly got me killed!' to which the husband replied, 'Please give him one more chance...' and another defined marriage as a ceremony which involves putting rings on the fingers of a woman and chains on the hands and feet of a man. It must be a rabid misogamist who thinks up and circulates jokes like these. Strange that women subscribers haven't started protesting in large numbers. Or is it that they merely smirk, and don't care a hoot?

Ring in the new...

A wise guy told me recently that New Year's Eve was the night when millions of people got miserably drunk, frozen and broke in the quest for happiness, and a few thousand businessmen encouraged them lustily while counting their profits in warm offices before laughing all the way to the bank the next morning.

It should be clear from the above that I do not believe in special days. I had a very quiet and restful night myself, after watching crowd antics on TV for a while - exactly as I have been doing every time for almost two decades, to my entire satisfaction. My best wishes, for whatever they are worth, to all my readers nevertheless.

Intelligent life

I found this cartoon in today's newspaper irresistible: A says to B 'My calculations prove the existence of intelligent life on the moon'. B says 'If that's true, how come they've never contacted us?' and A replies irritably 'I don't think you're paying attention'.

Grassroots wisdom... Copenhagen listening?

The other day I had gone shopping, and there was this young vegetable vendor yelling lustily at hesitant customers - dordaam korben na, ei bela ja paren kheye nin, 2012-te duniya shesh hoye jachchhe - (don't haggle, eat all you can while you can, the world is coming to an end in 2012)!

Good to see that people - especially those who have to live toughly - can make a joke out of such things.

Happy families

The young husband says over the phone he can't come home in time for tea; the workload is too heavy. The pretty wife says 'No problem, I'll have another companion today, fitter than you, more attractive...' The jealous husband, all work forgotten, comes rushing home, only to find that the wife is having tea with a particular brand of biscuits.

A gist of an advertisement feature I just saw on TV. I wonder about the tastes and I.Q.-levels of the target audience for which this sort of thing is designed. I'm sure they comprise 90 percent of our young educated population in their 20s and early 30s. Isn't India shining?

Walk while you talk

I was joking only a few months ago that perhaps people actually believe that because it is called a mobile phone, you cannot sit or stand still while talking on it. Now Idea mobile service has come to this town, and Abhishek Bachchan urges everybody in the ad. to walk while they talk. So now I'm sure...

I wonder what the Delhi Police is doing about this ad...

Wow!

I have been regularly posting on this blog for the entire course of the year, and I see this is the 43rd time I am writing here.

And yet so many people are firmly set in their opinion that I am a grumpy, grouchy old man who can neither laugh nor make people laugh...!