Comedian-in-Chief of the USA

Recently when I was talking to one of my friends Radhe, he mentioned that he watched a few days back the deadly one-liners of Bush on YouTube and he almost split into half laughing. While it is such a disgrace to America for having elected someone like Bush for two terms, on hind sight one may feel it is a historical necessity for future generations for centuries together to take this as an example of whom to never elect. Coming back to the one-liners, I just searched on the net and compiled a score of them to commemorate and commiserate his two terms. Here they are. Straight from the mouth of the Comedian-in-Chief of the United States of America

Health Hazard caution: Some may cause you to be sick to the last bone.

• This is an impressive crowd—the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite, but I call you my base.
  


• For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.


• I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.


• I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.


• I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right.


• I think war is a dangerous place.


• I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here.


• If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - so long as I'm the dictator.


• It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber.


• This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.


• I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being President.


• Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people and neither do we.


• Do you have blacks, too? (To Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso)


• When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.


• You're free. And freedom is beautiful. And, you know, it'll take time to restore chaos and order - order out of chaos. But we will.


• It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.


• I think we agree, the past is over.


• And there's no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail.


• We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.


• I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.

Headline Howlers

Of all the varied professions I have been in, I find the print media job, especially editing, the most stressed out. Some days, news just pours in moments before the page sign offs and the editorial staff have to race against time. During the thick of the things, working under enormous pressure and constraints of font type and size, column lengths, single lines which limit the number of alphabets, the headlines given some times unwittingly create double meanings, different meanings and outright embarrassing howlers. And they pass through at least two levels of validation before they get printed. I too was guilty of such howlers during my stint. Here are a few that I remember to have caused me to smile and sometimes split with laughter.
A recent one on Delhi Police coming down heavily on jaywalkers:-

Police Begin Campaign To Run Down Jaywalkers

A not so recent one on Bush and Iraq

Bush Wins Vote On Iraq, But More Lies Ahead

Headline for a story on the Golf Champion, Tiger Woods using his own golf balls during practice sessions.

Tiger Woods Plays With His Own Balls, Says Nike

Headline for a news item on scraping the bottom of a ship, Queen Mary

Queen Mary Gets Her Bottom Scraped

After packs of dogs have created havoc by attacking students of a college in Hyderabad recently, one newspaper headline said

Squad Helps Dog Bite Victims

Some more gems from the memory lane

Clinton Lies on Lewinsky

Iraq Head Seeks More Arms

Panda Mating Fails - Vet Takes Over

Cold Wave Linked To Rising Temperatures

Two Ships Collide - One Dies

Miners Refuse To Work After Death

Eye Drops Off Shelf

New Vaccine May Contain Rabies

March Planned In May

Crash Courses For Pilots

Man Found Dead In Graveyard

Dead Man Returns

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge

When some two decades back, after a gap of several years the endangered bird, The Great Indian Bustard was sighted, one newspaper headline screamed

The Great Indian Bastard Sighted

There are some great headlines too. There was this village in Kerala where the villagers unanimously resolved not go to movie theatres. The headline was

Hicks Nix Pix

There are some like this one passed on to me as legendary by a distinguished senior editor, now no more. In fact this gentleman had taunted me when I was a sub (cub) editor to give a catchy headline to the following one line story:-
“A lunatic has sex with a nurse and escapes from the asylum.”

I tried several but none could satisfy him. The catchy one, he said was

Nut Screws, Bolts.

It is a different matter though that one day, actually night, the same gentleman has put a file photograph of late Sanjay Gandhi on the front page instead of Rajiv Gandhi who was on a visit to the state. That too overruling the persistent objections of a junior on the same page duty. I can never forget the face of our executive editor and the chief editor the next morning.

Print Media can be not only informative but also entertaining at times.

Funny English

When I was teaching English in various colleges during the most part of 90s, my introductory lecture for the fresh batch of students always was on the importance of learning correct English as well as the craziness of the language. As anecdotes on the pitfalls of incorrect English, I used to regale the students with examples of grammatically wrong and incorrect spellings on sign boards. The opening example of how even missing an apostrophe could be disastrous used to be “ A bread shop owner by name Anu had a sign on his shop--- Anus bakery- The best loafers in town.” My students never missed the apostrophe again and were always careful with verbs. Child beer for Rs 50 only, Trespassers will be Persecuted, Pubic Phone- call charge Rs1/-, are some of the other examples I used to repeat year after year.

I also used to entertain the students with examples of how crazy the language is in spellings and pronunciations. Over the years, I compiled several hundreds of such examples. Here are a few of them to tickle your funny bone.

• The rule is that the rule doesn't always rule.

• There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

• When the stars are out, they are visible, but
When the lights are out, they are invisible.

• If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

• Come on, let's polish the Polish furniture.

• The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

• Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

• How can 'A Slim Chance' and 'A Fat Chance' be the same?

• Why are 'A Wise man' and 'A Wise guy' opposites?

• The bandage was wound around the wound.

• She did not object to the object.

• The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

• Boxing rings are square.

• A guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor it is a pig.

• The traveler decided to desert his dessert in the desert.


• The farm was used to produce produce.

• If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

• Although the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, we must be grateful that the feminine pronouns after 'She' don't become 'Shis' and 'Shim'.

• How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

• I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

• When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

• You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

• No sooner had my eye fallen upon the tear in the painting, then this eye of mine began to shed many a tear.

• It's not ridiculous, but entirely sensible to ship by truck and send cargo by ship.


Some other day, I will share funny Newspaper headlines.

Rumble on Ramayana

I grew up on Ramayana and Mahabharatha in my childhood, the illustrated versions though. As I matured into an immature fierce leftist, I devoured the book Ramayana Visha Vruksham (Ramayana- The Poisonous Tree ) by another immature leftist writer, Ranganayakamma. Though I loved the book at that point of time and used to quote profusely from the book to prove Rama did not exist, a decade later ( matured into an immature Capitalist sympathizer) when I re-read the book, I realized it was a complete trash. The adage, “ If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, confuse them with bull shit” suits best for this book. The point I wanted to make is two or three decades back a writer could trash Ramayana and Rama and still not get beaten up or shot at. We did not have then the saffron brigade demolishing mosques and lynching communities or green berets planting RDX in temples and public places. So it was very amusing to me following the recent high drama on the Rama Sethu ( Adam’s bridge ), where every politician had a ready sound bite.

This piece is just an attempt at humour. Malice to None.

A film buff like me who has dreams of making a film one day but doesn’t have money applies to National Film Development Corporation for finance to produce Ramayana. The NFDC did not want to take a call on its own scared of the controversy that has recently blown across the country. So NFDC formed a committee with all government departments to go through the script and comment. Here are the comments from each of the departments.

The National Commission for Women:- We strongly object to the portion of the script where Dasaratha is shown as bygamous having more than one wife. That portion needs to be deleted.

The Ministry of Child Welfare and Family Planning:- The script shows Dasaratha having four children. This negates all the progress we have made in convincing people to have not more than two children. The script needs to be amended accordingly.

The Ministry of Labour:- War being a hazardous industry, and Viswamithra has used both Rama and Laxmana in war with Demons while both of them are still minors , this depiction will be construed as a case of child labour. Also there is no record of being paid any compensation. This may also be deemed to be violatory of the provisions of The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Such references in the script may be removed.

The Ministry of Women Welfare:- Sitha appears to be a minor at the time of marriage. This depiction can be construed as violation of Child Marriage Act. Such reference should be removed from the script.

Home Ministry:- The entire episode of Ravana and Maricha plotting and executing the abduction of Sitha is a punishable crime. Maricha should be booked for abetting abduction and Ravana booked for abduction. The script needs to be suitably amended.

The Ministry of Animal Welfare:- The episode of building Rama Sethu by Monkeys and making them participate in the war is depicting Violation of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Hence this needs to be deleted.

The Minitsry of Women Welfare:- The depiction of Sitha being asked to enter the fire pit to prove her purity falls under the purview of IPC 498 A, which is enacted to prevent husbands mistreating the wives. This is a non- bailable offense. This portion should be deleted.

In view of the above recommendations from various ministries, the NFDC finds itself with no script at all. Hence, NFDC informs the applicant, it is not in a position to finance the film.