Funny Incidents

 Some incidents you simply cannot put away from the mind. They keep coming back frequently to tickle your funny bones. I am narrating here 3 such incidents that make me laugh whenever I think about them.

Incident 1:

Fifteen years ago! I was travelling in Kolkata by tram. It was jam-packed with people and I somehow managed to grab a handle to keep myself steady. The tram was trudging along at a snail’s pace halting at numerous stations where scores of people were alighting or boarding. It was a hot and humid summer day, typical of Kolkata. The sweat and body odours of different varieties were aplenty.

One short little gentleman boarded the tram, managed to squeeze through small gaps between people, and finally stood before me. He looked irritated and annoyed with the whole environment and appeared completely frustrated, frequently wiping his forehead with his dirty handkerchief. After travelling for some time, he got restless and kept staring at me repeatedly. I couldn't make out why was he doing that. Did he find me quite handsome? Or perhaps funny!

After some time, he finally commanded to me sternly in Bengali, looking up at me (due to his short stature) “Ei babu moshai (hello mister), can you please turn your face to the other direction?”

Startled at this strange request, I asked, 'Why?'

'Because the air from your nostril is hitting my pate and I am feeling mighty irritated. Please turn your head in another direction so that your breath does not disturb me”. He snubbed back.

Holy Cow! I had never encountered a command stranger than this in my entire life. And look at his reasoning for such a blatantly implausible demand i.e. My breath was irritating him! Then my eyes roved casually to his pate and lo! The guy was completely bald and therefore he had every reason to get irritated by my breath. 

I had no option but to turn my head in another direction to divert the stream of hot air being discharged by my careless nostrils. :)  

Incident 2:

During my childhood, we had a maidservant in our home whose name was Champa. Sweet little Champa was from a very poor family and came to stay with us when she was hardly 10 or 11 years old. My parents treated her as their own child, and she was a playmate for my siblings. Though illiterate, she was quite intelligent with twinkling eyes and a completely jolly character.

My dad, in the later part of the day, would want to read that day's newspaper. “Champa, can you bring today’s newspaper?” And this would happen a bit frequently. 

Now, how on earth poor Champa would be able to identify the latest newspaper mixed with the stack of old newspapers? Initially, she would come to me or my sister, and beg us to help her. We used to trouble her by playing delaying tactics at which she would get immensely tensed up fearing my dad's anger. But we noticed that after a few times, she had stopped bothering us. Curious enough, we secretly asked our dad whether Champa was providing him with the latest newspaper whenever he asked for it.

Dad gave us a funny look saying, 'Of course she does! She is a smart girl, unlike you dumb chicks.'

We could not figure out how she managed it. My mom argued that maybe she would invariably pick up the newspaper which was at the top of the stack and had been lucky every time. In order to find out what her trick was, we decided to test her.

I had put that day’s newspaper below several older ones in the stack and asked her to find it out. And immediately she went about the job like a trained sniffer dog, picking up newspaper after newspaper, sniffing at them and keeping on the side till the correct one was picked up. Proudly she handed over the same to me with an extremely confident look of 'I can't be wrong'.

We were amazed by her intelligence. She had quickly learnt through her own observation that a fresh newspaper always had a particular smell which old papers would not and she used it smartly to cater to my dad’s requirements.

Champa was a gem! :)

Incident 3:

This is an incident from my primary school days. One day our teacher left the class for a short while and gave the students some classwork to complete till he returned. We were engrossed in completing the task when I saw a cow entering the school premise to graze. I showed it to my friend sitting next to me and we both decided to chase the cow out of the premise.

We went running out of the class towards the cow. The poor cow was grazing away to her heart’s content oblivious of our approach. Both of us grabbed the tail of the cow and before chasing it out decided to have some fun. So we started pulling the tail with full force. Sensing trouble the cow wanted to move out of the complex and started to pull away from the tug of war game, mooing frenetically. But we would not relent and pull her tail in the opposite direction with more vigour. This went on for about 2-3 minutes and we were having great fun, laughing to our heart's content.

In a trice, both of us felt that someone else had joined the game of fun. This person appeared from nowhere, caught hold of our ears and then started pulling away hard. We couldn't get any glimpse of him immediately, but the scene was of a three-sided 'Tug Of war” game; two of us pulling the tail of the cow and the third person pulling our ears.

Unable to bear the pain, we both screamed almost together, let go of the cow’s tail and turned back to see. To our horror, it was our class teacher!

The entire class broke into a roar of laughter. My ear pained a lot and became very warm. Rubbing it softly, we dashed back into the class.

Every time I remember this incident, a smile plays on my lips. :)