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This happened a few days ago while talking to my friend Rufus on my cell and suddenly found him walking next to me; yet we continued conversing to each other through our instruments! Made me think the wily mobile is sure taking over our lives!

                   Another friend who boasts everyone in his family has a phone, and who himself carries two, called me out for dinner, along with his family. “Hi,” I said as I walked into the hotel lobby.   “Hello,” he said, winking at me, “you got the reservations?”

  “What reservations?” I spluttered, “I thought you were taking me out?”

  “Without reservations I cannot leave the country damn it!” he shouted, as he smiled at me, waved me in and continued yelling into his rather tiny phone while I looked on sheepishly.

                     His wife, a pretty woman and a mother of two equally good looking teenagers was already sitting inside the restaurant, along with her children. They looked like one big happy family as they all talked, shouted, laughed and cracked jokes…into their own little fancy phones!

              “You’re coming in a little late,” said his pretty wife, smiling at me with her eyes.

              “No,” I said, “I’m right on time.”

              “But if you come in late you’ll miss all our kitty party action!” she cried into her cute little mobile, leaving me mortified at my stupidity.

             “Hi uncle!” said his daughter across the table.

              ”Hi!” I said, “My word you’ve really grown, stop calling me uncle.”

               “Uncle,” continued the girl talking into her yellow tinted instrument, “you’ve got to allow Jenny to come with us; we’ll see she comes back by eleven. Promise uncle, promise!”

                She grinned at me and winked and I sheepishly winked back at her and turned to her younger brother, who seemed lost in thought.

                “How’s school?” I asked

              “Algebra was terrible,” said the boy, “but I’ve taken notes and I’ll give them to you.”

             “I don’t need any notes,” I smiled, “Luckily I don’t have to study Algebra anymore..”

             “I can give you my geometry notes too if you’ll come out with me,” said the boy grinning at me and pressing his heavyweight German phone tightly to his ear with anticipation. I looked away quickly and studiously studied the menu. “You’re become very quiet,” said my friend giving me a nudge and sitting next to me.

             “I guess you all are very busy” I said, looking at his smart cell lying still on the table. “But you can’t remain so quiet,” continued my friend shouting into the second phone, I’d forgotten he had.

             “We’ll organize a lovely kitty party just for you!” said his pretty wife at my side looking at me coyly.

            “No your dad isn’t coming along” said her daughter smiling at me.

           “We’ll study Algebra and geometry and some new topics together,” said the son winking at me.

           I fled the restaurant, ran outside and heard my mobile ring. “Hey”, said my friend’s voice, “we haven’t chatted for a long time, let’s talk now..!”

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In his budget speech a few days ago, the Indian Finance Minister Mr Chidambaram announced to the nation that taxes on dog food would be lowered by ten percent. Members of the Indian Parliament looked askance at him, not that they didn’t want their dogs eating cheaper food, but wondering whether this was the forum to announce something so trifling.

                                   I feel the Finance Minister who I believe was going through tremendous stress as he prepared the budget wanted to give his speech a few light touches. “I need to make my colleagues laugh!” he must have pondered as he looked at his pet dog.

“Woof! Woof!” replied his devoted pet.

“Hey that’s a good idea!” Chidambaram must have thought and brought dog food in on a lighter vein.

                                But we Indians have a terrible sense of humour and Chidambaram’s jest just jettisoned. I wonder why? Even after being ruled for quite a few centuries by the wildly waggish and witty British we haven’t really learned to laugh have we?

                             I can imagine Lord Sandhurst or Cornwallis returning after inaugurating the first Indian railway or laying the foundation stone for the Howrah Bridge, “How was your speech dear?” asks his wife.

“Very, very funny!”

“Did all the people laugh?”

“Nobody did!” whispers the Lord.

                               And that night the Lord with heavy heart pens a letter to his Queen, the Empress Victoria, “Your majesty we need to teach your subjects to laugh!”

“Laugh?” asks the Empress.

“Yes laugh!”

“Let them be!” writes the Empress.

“Why?” asks the stubborn Lord.

“Because my dear Sandhurst, if they start laughing, they may laugh at us: Our pomp, our pageantry, my dress sense, your hat, our cricket, our language!”

                        And so Mr Chidambaram it’s not your fault at all that your pokerfaced wit wilted that day. But outside in the dustbins, dogs, fighting for every scrap that is thrown, tearing each other for spoilt food and bits of refuse, snarling at each other to get to some bit of luscious spoilt filth, and suddenly yelping as they see poor, poverty stricken people also joining them to look in the rubbish bin, start laughing!

“Ten percent off on dog food!” they giggle as they run away from garbage dump.

“Is a lot of money saved!” guffaws the beggar scavenging the heap.

“A great finance minister..!” chortles the rich industrialist looking out of his mansion at thoroughbred dogs patrolling his billion rupee mansion.

                         Somewhere in the realms of heaven or hell, the late Empress and her Lords turn to each other with a wry smile.

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Was just glancing at the headlines and found that according to the Colorado police, a young mother Nicole Uribe- Lopez tried to sell her baby boy to buy a second hand Dodge Intrepid! On the same page next to the horrifying news is the famous cartoon strip: Denis the Menace. Suddenly I see cartoon character Uncle George Wilson stirring. He looks across page and reads same news report I’ve just read, then looks out of his window, sees little Dennis approaching his house and an idea takes shape:

“Hey Martha I got a plan,” he whispers furiously to his wife.

“Now George you’re not goin’ to worry that lil’ fellow are you?” asks Mrs Wilson as she runs to the cupboard to take out a jar of cookies for Dennis.

“Martha you ever thought of owning a Dodge Intrepid?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the latest car! Comes fully equipped, music system and all!”

“And how dear George do you intend buying something like that wid your post carriers pension? You plannin’ a robbery or sometin?”
“Not exactly, but sort off!”

“Oh George, you know you won’t hurt a fly!”

“Martha I’m serious!”

“So what you plannin’ on doing?”

“Sell Dennis in Colorado!”

                         The doorbell rings before Martha can react and Dennis pours in, ambles to the cookie jar and grabs a handful. “Hiya Uncle George!”      

“Dennis you like to come to Colorado?”

“To see the Grand Canyon?”
“Nah, just fer a ride!”

“But I want to see the Grand Canyon, Uncle George. I want to peer down that big crack and shout Phooyeee!”

“Phooyeee?” asks a troubled George Wilson.

“Yeah Uncle George phooyeee!”

“No Dennis, no peering down any hole and saying phooyeee!”

“Uncle George, please!”

“No Dennis, no!” shouts Uncle George hysterically.

“George!” shouts Martha, “let the little fellow shout phooyee!”

“Nope!”

“Jes’ once Uncle George!”

“Nope!”

“Then I’m not coming!”

“I’m not takin’ you!”

“Have some more cookies Dennis, ” says Martha as she pushes him back to the cookie jar and smiles as Dennis grabs another handful.

“Thanks Aunt Martha, I’m off,” says Dennis and skips away followed by Ruff.

“I told you that kid’s a nuisance!” shouts Uncle George, “he jes’ spoiled my chance of getting’ a brand new car!”

“Phooyeee..!” shouts Martha as she looks out of the window, “you could have allowed him to say phooyee, couldn’t you?”

“You mad,” whispers Uncle George, “I don’t want anybody saying phooyee to me brand new car. Imagine after all dat trouble, to have a kid tell me phooyee! See I’m abandonin’ my plan since he wants to say phooyeee to me!”

                       Ah Uncle George, ain’t we all like you? We work hard at some plan, put effort into an idea, dream a dream, but one little phooyeee from someone and we abandon everything..!

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The English language is quite particular in its expectations and expects its users to be quite precise in its usage, however very often through goof ups by printers, editors and writers the public are treated to a choice of howlers and bloomers.                                            

                                  This morning I read a report quoting Vengsarkar the chief of selectors saying that “Rahul is an experienced player, so is Sachin. If something happens to Dravid, God forbid Sachin can lead.”

                                  I laughed out loud realizing that what poor Vengsarkar meant was that god forbid anything should happen to Rahul and not ‘god forbid’ Sachin should lead!

                                  Lots of newspapers have had such bloomers in their pages:

                                  In Bombay a local newspaper carried a report: A young wife while drawing water from a well, slipped and fell. Cries of alarm brought a lorry driver who was passing by. He immediately ‘drove’ into the well and rescued her!

                                 Poor housewife!

                                 From an All India Tourist Guide: About 160 kilometres from Calcutta is Santi Niketan which attracts a lot of scholars from all over the world. It is good to see classical Indian dancing and samples of other performing ‘rats’!

                                Some years ago the government did exchange a bunch of terrorists for a plane load of passengers at Kandahar, but I never realized it was a national habit till I read a news item in the Times which read, ‘the police said that a case of murder cum dacoity had been registered and efforts were on to ‘trade’ the suspects.’ I was a little perturbed till I was told later by the kind editor, that the police had still not been able to ‘trace’ the dacoits!

                               And from Goa from where I’ve just returned a report in the Navhind Times: ‘The dead body of a hotel worker was found ‘living’ near the Church square!’ Locals in Goa boast about miracles that have happened in this once colony of Portugal, but this I’m sure must have excited a lot of pilgrims till the paper corrected the mistake the next day: Sorry readers, the body was quite dead and only ‘lying’ in the square!

                                And in the south came this news item from a very established newspaper that had many women activists up in arms till the conservative editor in proper dhoti and kurta mentioned even ‘we make mistakes!’ The item appearing in the Classifieds section innocently said, ‘Wanted science graduates for selling engineering hardware and stenographers!’ A little like Vengsarkar’s goof up, don’t you think?

                              Like I said English is a hard to please mistress and we slaves who have decided to woo, use and sell her wares have to be careful all the time. I’d like to end with one that seems strangely too close to the truth for comfort: ‘The Maharashtra government said that sugar will be supplied on a ‘fist’ come first basis!

                             Whoa! Whoa! Was that a mistake or the truth?

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