Humour, especially subtle humour, plays a very important role in our lives like a tonic. Our lives become routine, robotic, dull and boring without humour. Here are two funny incidents, which happened in my life long long back.
I used to take active interest in a library in Mirjala guda, Secunderabad during my school days. One day I was sitting in the office of the library. A member asked me ” Secretary”. I was rather embarrassed and responded immediately by telling her that I was not the Secretary. Actually she wanted to take the Telugu book titled ” Secretary” written by the then popular female writer Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani.
The second funny incident happened in 1976 at the time of my job interview in the headquarters of Maharashtra State Electricity Board. I waited for my chance to be called and waited for some time. People were coming and going and none was calling me. Finally I asked the attendant or peon as to why I was not called. He enquired me about my name. I told him that my name was Sivaram. He told me to give the full name. I told him my full name. He told me that he already called my name, what he called actually was ” Pochi”. I didn’t understand, who this ” Pochi”, was. So I didn’t bother to go into the interview room. He actually cut my name into pieces and as such I didn’t understand what he meant.
Forty years back I read a hilarious story about corruption in a Telugu weekly titled ” My Well is Stolen” . The story in brief is as below.
A poor farmer desperately wanted to get his daughter married but he didn’t have sufficient resources. Someone advises him to approach a Bank for seeking the loan. The Bank Officer tells him that he can obtain the loan only on the grounds of constructing a ” Well”. He told the farmer that the sanctioned loan would be paid to him only after deducting the Officer’s share. The farmer was left with no choice but to agree. Loan gets sanctioned and the farmer performs his daughter’s marriage happily. Actual twist in the story starts right now.
After some time the Officer asks the farmer to pay back the entire loan amount. The farmer seeks some more time, which the Officer bluntly refuses and threatens immediate action. The farmer gets fed up and gives police complaint stating that his ” Well” was stolen. The Inspector gets the shock of his life. The farmer then shows the evidence, according to which a ” Well” of such and such dimensions was dug in such and such plot bearing such and and such survey number, which happened to be the farmer’s land and the Inspector understood as to what happened.
