The Big Fat Joke Book

by Khushwant Singh

  Once upon a time there was a preacher who wanted to collect money for the church. He was told that horse-racing was the quickest way of getting it. So he went to a horse auction but finding the bids too high, bought himself an ass. He entered it in the local races. To everyone’s surprise the donkey came in third. The next morning, the papers had headlines on their sports pages reading: ‘Preacher’s ass steals show.’

  Encouraged by the donkey’s performance, the preacher entered it for the next race. It romped in first. The next morning’ papers carried the headlines: ‘Preacher’s ass in front.’

  The bishop was outraged and ordered the preacher to get rid of the animal. The preacher dutifully gave it to a nun. The papers heard of it and reported the event in the headlines: ‘Nun has the best ass in town.’ This time the bishop was furious and ordered the nun to dispose of the animal. She sold it to a farmer for ten dollars. The next day, the papers reported: ‘Nun peddles ass for ten bucks.’

  The signboard on the door of a lawyer’s chamber reads: ‘Where there is a will there is a way; where there is a way there is law; where there is law there is a rule; where there is a rule there is a loophole; where there is a loophole there is a lawyer; and here I am Mr …, advocate.’

  R.E. Canteenwala gets malicious pleasure in translating foreign names to get a laugh. A Chinese friend named Who Flung Dung was addressed as ‘Flying lump of shit’. Most unkind!

  Names in one language can often be uncomplimentary in another. Canteenwala should know that the common Indian surname, Das, means turd in Swedish. The commonest Scandinavian surname, Lund, and the name of the German Parliament, Bund, refer to the fore and aft of the human anatomy in Hindustani. Then there was the South Korean ambassador, who later became foreign minister, whose name was Bum Suk Lee. What about Canteenwala? How would it sound as bawarchikhaneyka? His own community, the Bawajis, provide the funniest sounding names in India.

  A person, looking for a house, contacted a property dealer. The only house available at a reasonable rent was known as ‘Bhoot Bangla.’ The man got the address, proceeded to the house and rang the bell. Two men came out. The househunter asked, ‘Sir, is it true that this house is haunted?’ The two persons looked at each other and replied: ‘You better ask someone living nearby; we died more than fifty years ago.’

  Banta Singh was living in a DDA ground floor flat with his 12 children. A family planning motivator called on him and asked him somewhat acidly, ‘Banta Singhji, how is it that you have so many children?’

  ‘Sab ooper vaaley dee mayta hai—it’s all the gift of the One above—’ he replied, pointing to the roof.

  The family planning man promptly went to the first floor, got hold of Santa Singh who occupied the premises and had his nasbandi done.

  A couple of weeks ago I received an anonymous letter from Islamabad containing an unsigned poem entitled, ‘A User’s Guide to Indian Causology’. I found it extremely witty and biting in its satire. I reproduce it in full for Indian readers.

  When the monsoon fails and the sun drums down

  On the parched Gangetic plain

  And the tanks dry up and dust storms blow

  Where once were fields of grain

  When hunger stalks each village hut

  And famine grips the land,

  It isn’t Mother Nature’s fault—

  It is the Foreign Hand!

  For this is India, you see,

  Not Germany or France,

  And nothing here is blamed on God

  Much less on quirky chance.

  Here evil has a fingered form

  Both alien and planned

  It is that darkly subtle limb—

  It is the Foreign Hand!

  When Hindu lads hack Sikhs to death

  In peaceful Delhi town

  When Rajiv’s corns are acting up

  Or the Bombay bourse goes down,

  When the pesky little Nepalese

  Insist on things like borders

  When once-tame Tamil Tigers balk

  At taking South Block orders

  The reasons for this mischief

  I think you’ll understand

  It’s those meddling foreign digits—

  It is the Foreign Hand!

  So when you’re in a Delhi lift

  Beside a buxom dame

  And you give in to the natural urge

  To pinch her husky frame,

  Confront her adamantine glare

  With a visage mildly bland,

  And say: ‘It wasn’t me, my dear—

  It was the Foreign Hand!’

  When Kamraj Nadar was Congress President, he used to come to Delhi to attend meetings, conferences etc. When in Delhi, he used to stay with Pandit Nehru. During the course of breakfast, lunch, dinner etc. Kamraj Nadar used to impress upon Pandit Nehru the comfort of wearing lungis. ‘It is very convenient for going to the bathroom and walking in the garden, lying down in bed etc.’ He promised to send a dozen lungis to Pandit Nehru from Madras.

  Pandit Nehru got angry and replied: ‘Mr Nadar, lungis are for you South Indians. If I wore a lungi, how will I do shirshasana?’

  A gentleman, very proud of his wit, while leaving for office used to say to his wife: ‘Good-bye, oh Mother of four!’

  One morning, his wife, who had had enough, retorted: ‘Ta ta! Father of two!’

  That ended the husband’s witticisms.

  Here are examples of some charming misprints. In Pune, a devout truck driver has printed behind his vehicle: ‘God is grate’. And a butcher advertises his wares as ‘Farash meet of Pork sold here’.

  The best is the signboard on a bakery:

  ‘Bakery Number One

  Dilruba & Sons

  The biggest loafers in town.’

  On a rain-soaked night, an infant tumbled over the railings of the Howrah bridge and fell into the Hooghly river below. The weather did not prevent hundreds of Calcuttans from flocking to the spot and watching the proceedings, but no one attempted to save the drowning child. At last an old American tourist jumped into the water and did the saving. Later, when he was being interviewed by the radio and TV, complimented on his bravery and asked to say something, he roared at them saying, ‘Bring forward the rascal who pushed me from behind.’

  Once a couple had one of their usual quarrels; as a consequence of which, they stopped talking to each other. Unfortunately the husband was to attend his office very early the next morning. So he wrote on a piece of paper, ‘Please wake me up at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning,’ and kept it beside his wife’s pillow.

  His wife read it and went to sleep.

  He woke up very late the next morning and got very angry. He looked ferociously at his wife, but she calmly pointed towards his pillow. Under his pillow he found a piece of paper. On it was written, ‘Please wake up, it is 6 o’clock now.’

  A Sardar walked into a household appliances store. The owner was busy tallying his accounts and his eyes were glued to his ledgers. The Sardar told the owner, ‘I want that VCR.’ Without taking his eyes off the ledgers, the owner replied, ‘No, Sardar, that is not for you.’

  Our Sardar felt insulted. He thought that the shopkeeper was biased against Sardars. Next day, he arrived at the shop clean-shaven and without his headgear. He asked for the same VCR. The owner, who was again busy tallying his accounts replied without raising his head, ‘No, Sardar, that is not for you.’

  The Sardar was perplexed. How could the shopkeeper guess correctly that he was a Sardar? So, the next day, he went to the same shop disguised as a woman, in churidar and pyjama, head covered with dupatta, and asked for the same VCR. The shopkeeper again replied without raising his head—’No, Sardar, that is not for you!’

  Puzzled, the Sardar asked the shopkeeper how he guessed that he was a Sardar without raising his head. ‘Very simple,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘That is not a VCR. That is a washing machine!’

  A mother and her convent-raised young daughter were riding in a taxi one eve
ning through a midtown block notorious for street solicitation. ‘What are all these women waiting for, mother?’ the girl asked.

  ‘They’re probably meeting their husbands after work,’ replied the woman hastily.

  ‘Aw, c’mon lady,’ grumbled the taxi-driver, ‘why don’tcha tell her the truth? She’s old enough.’

  ‘Please mom,’ said the girl, ‘I want to know.’

  Looking daggers at the back of the driver’s head, the woman carefully explained the situation. When she had finished, the daughter asked, ‘But, what happens to the babies those women have?’

  ‘They grow up,’ the woman replied, ‘and become taxi-drivers.’

  Emperor Akbar was bending down to pick up a couple of coins that had dropped from his pockets when Birbal tiptoed behind him and administered a harmless tap on the royal behind. The king leaped up, and flew into such a rage that he ordered Birbal’s execution. When he calmed down slightly, however, he announced that Birbal would be given his freedom if he could come up with an excuse more outrageous than the original act.

  Birbal promptly said, ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t know it was you—I thought it was the Queen.’

  This refers to an IAS officer who could read, write and even speak English. He once gave a ‘very good’ report of his subordinate officer, writing in his confidential report that the officer ‘hardly works’. It was only after the officers’ representation that the reporting officer clarified that he meant the officer was hardworking. When the same officer once went to inspect a BSF picket on Gurdaspur border, he made these brief remarks on the Visitors’ Book: ‘Jawans are healthy, horses are happy, I am glad.’

  Once a Jat went to Bombay. Going down a road he saw a very high building. He was amazed by it, and decided to count its storeys. As he was doing so a townsman saw him and decided to fool him. So he approached the Jat and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ When he was told the answer the townsman said that one had to pay two rupees for every storey counted. ‘How many have you counted?’ The Jat said ten and gave the man twenty rupees. As he walked away, the Jat smiled to himself, happy at the thought that he had fooled the other man, for he had actually counted twenty.

  A notorious tiger was on the prowl, terrorizing a village. So the villagers held a high level meeting to put down this menace. A brave Sardarji stood up twisting his moustache and flexing his muscles. ‘I can tackle this maneater single-handed,’ he boasted. ‘Give me a cowhide,’ he roared, ‘and remember, not a single soul should venture out tonight. Leave the rest to me.’ That night, disguised as a cow he stood as a bait waiting to ambush the tiger. Hours passed; suddenly the villagers heard someone screaming in great agony. They all dashed to the spot, only to find the Sardarji lying on the ground groaning and bleeding profusely. One of them asked the Sardarji, ‘What’s the matter? Did you manage to kill the tiger?’ Already some of the villagers had begun shouting, ‘Sardarji zindabad, Sardarji zindabad.’

  ‘Stop it you idiots! Traitors!’ he screamed. ‘‘Tell me first whose bull was it, whose bull was loose tonight!’

  An American and a Russian were arguing about the virtues of communism and democracy.

  ‘C’mon man!’ said the American, ‘in a democracy you get to express your views. You have freedom. You know, I can anyday call President Bush an idiot!’

  ‘What’s so great about that,’ said the Russian, unimpressed, ‘so can I!’

  A Sardarji went to the doctor to get some medicine as he was not feeling well. ‘This is pretty strong stuff,’ said the doctor, ‘so take some the first day, then skip a day, take some again on the third day and then skip another day and so on.’

  A few months later the doctor met the Sardarji’s wife and asked how he was.

  ‘Oh, he is dead,’ she told him.

  ‘Did not the medicine I prescribed do him any good?’ asked the doctor.

  ‘Oh, the medicine was all right,’ she replied. ‘It was all that skipping that killed him.’

  One night, Banta was walking homewards when a thief sprang at him all of a sudden. Banta and the thief had a terrific tussle. They rolled about on the ground, and Banta put up a tremendous fight until, at last, the thief managed to get the better of him and pinned him to the ground.

  The thief then went through Banta’s pockets and searched him all over. There was only 25 paise coin he could lay his hands on. The thief was so surprised at this that he asked Banta why he had bothered to fight so hard just for 25 paise.

  ‘Was that all you wanted?’ said Banta Singh. ‘I thought you were after the five hundred rupees I’ve got in my shoe!’

  After a number of years in England Natha Singh returned to visit his native village in Punjab. But he decided first to spend a few days in Bombay, and then a day in Delhi to pay homage at the Bangla Saheb Gurdwara near Connaught Place.

  He landed in Bombay and a friend received him. He enjoyed his sightseeing in Bombay and after a couple of days boarded a train for Delhi. He went into deep sleep in the train. The train reached Bhopal at about 8 a.m. Someone in the compartment switched on radio. And the Hindi newsreader’s voice said, ‘Yeh Dilli hai’. This woke Natha Singh up. He got up hurriedly, collected his bags, got down and went out of the railway station. He got into a cycle rickshaw and told the man to go take him to Bangla Saheb Gurdwara near Connaught Place. Now this clever Muslim rickshaw-puller of Bhopal smiled to himself, and was on his way.

  After two hours the rickshaw-puller, with a worried look, told Natha Singh that he had lost his way and would need to ask someone for directions. Then he got off and went to a nearby teastall, where he took his time over a glass of tea, joking with another rickshaw-puller about his stupid passenger.

  In the meanwhile Natha Singh was getting nervous and impatient. Luckily, he saw another Sardarji coming his way in a rickshaw. Natha Singh ran towards him and requested him to alight and listen to him in private.

  This Sardarji nodded wisely and got down and listened to Natha Singh’s woes.

  Natha Singh explained in a whisper: ‘You know, my rickshaw-puller seems to be a rogue. He has been taking me for a ride. Two hours ago I started in his rickshaw from the railway station for Connaught Place to go to Bangla Saheb Gurdwara and now he says he has lost his way.’

  ‘You have become impatient in two hours?’ said the other Sardarji. ‘I have been in my rickshaw for the last ten hours and my rickshaw-puller has still not reached Karol Bagh.’

  A general, a colonel and a major were having a heated argument on the subject of sex. The general maintained that sex was 60 per cent work and 40 per cent fun. The colonel said it was 75 per cent work and 25 per cent fun. The major thought it was 90 per cent work and 10 per cent fun. At the height of the argument, a private appeared at the door.

  ‘Let’s leave it to him,’ said the major.

  The private listened carefully and said with an air of absolute finality, ‘If you will pardon me, sirs, sex is 100 per cent fun and no work at all.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’ cried the astonished officers.

  ‘It is very simple,’ said the private. ‘If there was any work in it at all, you guys would have me doing it for you.’

  Sign outside a tutorial school in Meerut Cantonment: ‘Expert Kotching in English given here.’

  Notice in a DTC bus: ‘Eve-teasing is an offence. Passengers are requested to cooperate.’

  Outside a department store in Connaught Place: ‘Please note that we shall not be responsible for any rotten stuff unless it bears our label.’

  A store advertising a new brand of cough syrup: ‘Got a cold? Try our cough drops. We guarantee you’ll never get better.’

  Sign in Hindi outside a theka (liquor vend) in Meerut: ‘If you drink to forget everything, kindly pay us in advance.’

  On the rear window of a car (en route to Dehradun from Meerut): Always drive in such a way that your licence expires before you do.’

  When dying, Mr Smith told his wife, ‘Be faithful to my memory or I shall
turn in my grave.’ A year later Mrs Smith reached her heavenly abode and enquired about her husband. ‘Mr Smith?’ Gabriel told her, ‘Madam, there are a million Smiths here. Is there anything more you can relate to help identify him?’ ‘Oh, yes, my husband said he would turn in his grave if I was not faithful to his memory,’ Mrs Smith replied. ‘Oh! you mean spinning-wheel Smith.’

  A young lady went to a hospital and told the receptionist that she wished to see an upturn. ‘You mean an intern, don’t you dear?’ asked the kindly nurse. ‘Well, whatever you call it … I want a contamination,’ replied the girl. ‘You mean examination,’ corrected the nurse. ‘Maybe so,’ allowed the girl. ‘I want to go to the fraternity ward.’ ‘Maternity ward,’ said the nurse with a slight smile. ‘Look,’ insisted the girl, ‘I don’t know much about big words, but I do know that I haven’t demonstrated for two months, and I think I’m stagnant.’

  A news item in an American newspaper: ‘Thieves escaped with over half a million dollars from a bank last night. Police are baffled trying to figure out the motive for the crime.’

  A photographer was called to take a picture of a deceased person. After focussing he asked the son of the deceased person to remove the cloth from the face and said, ‘Smile please!’

  A rich man on his deathbed asked his wife to bury him without any clothes on. ‘I know which way I’m going,’ he explained. ‘I won’t need clothes up there!’

  When he passed away, his wife kept her promise. A few days later, just as the widow was preparing to go to bed one evening, the man’s ghost appeared through the window and said, ‘Get out my winter underwear and my tweed overcoat, darling. There are so many rich people in Hell now, they’ve installed air-conditioning.’

  After Rekha married Mukesh Agarwal, her chief rival in the film world, Sridevi, was eager to outdo her. She received a proposal from a handsome business magnate of the name of Mr Lal. Sridevi turned down the proposal without bothering to even look at the man. When asked the reason why she had done so, she replied, ‘I don’t wish to be known as Sri Devi Lal.’