Friday, August 22, 2008

The professor and Cleopatra

Sometimes, everyday conversations or communications (mails, chats and the sorts) are so full of unexpected humour that you remember those conversations for long; they are stored in your memory for weeks and months and even years. And when you think of them, you smile to yourself or burst out in laughter. It happens to me all the time. I am driving my kinetic and I suddenly remember a funny episode and I am laughing while I am driving. I admit, I must look like a nut to those around me but I believe there will be some others who will think, 'She must have been reminded of something funny. It happens to me as well."
This week, I was chatting (gchat) with a colleague and to the utter bewilderment of those around me, I suddenly burst out laughing and all of them tried to have a look at my computer screen. My friend was to travel to Delhi and she asked her friend to book her tickets for Augustkranti Rajdhani Express. But, bless that sweet, forgetful professor, he instead booked her in a train called Sampoornakranti. Here's what she wrote to him and narrated and forwarded to me:
"Hi darling,
In which train you have booked my ticket to Delhi??????? It takes three hours more than Ashram and four hours more than Rajdhani..... I told you AUGUSTKRANTI RAJDHANI EXPRESS not some SAMPOORNAKRANTI EXPRESS (READ KHATARA EXPRESS) which your country cousin Laloo Yadav started on metregauge two years back ...... yeh kya kiya puchu aap ne... this khatara train reaches Nizamdduin at 10.35 whereas Ashram reaches at 7.30.....
Wait I will be a Krantikari when I reach Delhi through Sampoornakranti Express.... (Good that I checked otherwise I would have entered the Rajdhani.. ha ha and landed in jail without ticket)
Love
*******
(p s Now I realise certain people are not meant for certain things.. though I humbly appreciate your effort. HARD REALISATION THOUGH)
My colleague's absentminded friend reminded me of a professor who used to teach us English literature in university. He was, as can be assumed, very very fond of Shakespeare and one day, with his lovely cotton, weathered thela in hand, went off to a local theatre that screened English movies. He had, in great enthusiasm bought a ticket for Anthony and Cleopatra, having read in the newspapers an advertisement announcing the same. He did notice that an unusual number of boisterous, lanky, young men had turned up for the movie as he stood outside the theatre (back then, there were no multiplexes in Baroda), and he thought, a tad pleased: 'I didn't know so many young men read Shakespeare." He took his seat at the hall, and as the lights went off, catcalls rose from all over the hall. Again, our professor was surprised: a hall full of young men, but he thought, they somehow, if he could say so, didn't look like men who would have read anything, even a comic, or a label on a bottle, leave alone Shakespeare. Well, he was right. A blond, buxom woman came on the screen and when she started 'acting,' our sweet professor realised that this was no play of Shakespeare! It was a porn movie!
This incident still makes me laugh.

Now, here's another mail which again, for some reason makes me smile if not double me up with laughter. As I opened my gmail account one day, it was there, written to me by a friend from Mumbai :
"prerna........i think i have reached the peak of depression.!!!!!!!!!
i told u naa that maine shaadi.com me apna profile dala that.........i got 21 responses.....but itne GHATIYA ladke..........chi chi.........maine apni life me nahi dekhe...........

dekhna meri shaadi nahi hogi 35 saal tak.aur jab hogi tab kisi ghatiya se buddhe se hogi...aur mujhe koi naukri bhi nahi milege.......i think soon i ll turn to alchoholism or drugs...

alvida.......!

love *****"

I quite like the mock melodramatic ending: "... will turn to alcoholism or drugs... alvida!' I also like the beginning and my friend's very colloquial, conversational 'chi, chi...'

Now here's a third one. A friend of mine, who was a research analyst, was chatting (gchat) with me. I made the emoticon B-) in the chat and he wanted to learn how to make that. It's really simple, one types a capital B, the small - and the ) and B-) is ready!
I asked my friend to guess how to make it, or do some R & D. When he couldn't, I typed "B=Buddhu. You are buddhu." My friend, started typing: "B=Buddhu, B=Buddhu all over the chat window" and then "Prerna, it doesn't appear. I typed B=Buddhu but the emoticon doesn't appear!" I have saved the chat. I often go back to it and I am reminded of the time when my otherwise intelligent friend really got 'intelligence ransacked' for a few, brief moments! He admitted as such and wrote "i mean i dont know (why I did that)
something must have taken over me to think that
B=Buddhu could lead to that
i mean i thought a while before that
windows wasnt designed in india
so how can they have a buddhu sort of word to mean anything
but i stil went ahead and tried that"


Of course you did! You are such a sweet<3. Now, try that!
:-P

1 comment:

Anusha said...

Good one.. I was in splits after reading this, esp the email sent by your colleague to her friend. :-)