HISS MASTERLY PSHEEEEW!!

Lying in the dark, I forced my breath through pouted lips. All I could produce was a dull ‘phooh’. I blew again. And again. Phew! I nearly got it, but not quite. During my sixteenth vain attempt I was struck by a cruel object and I cried in anguish. When the lights came on, I saw my elder brother, a cane in hand raring to smite again.

"I thought I heard a snake hiss,” he said apologetically. “I was merely brushing up my whistling skills,” I howled amid sobs. He consoled me with a promise to teach me the ropes of whistling.

As a kid, learning to whistle was one of my unfulfilled dreams. Therefore, when my brother taught me to whistle through the lips, I began showing off to all and sundry, giving unsolicited solo whistling concerts gratis. I even whistled ‘bhajans’ at family prayers. I was mostly off-key and at best I sounded like a whistling kettle. Nevertheless, for the first time in my life, I felt like a man. But not a 'complete man' that a present-day suiting ad exhorts every man to be.

For, in my opinion, whistling through the fingers (under the tongue) was the hallmark of a 'maestro' and my repertoire lacked such a faculty. Besides, it was the possession of this art form at their fingertips which gave the tough cookies watching the roadside acrobatics or the tumultuous mobs at the town hall recitals their rightful place in the sun,

Therefore, I wrung my hands at my inability to emulate those worthies who whistled merrily through their fingers. After a bit of cajoling, my brother helped me fill this glaring flaw in my character.

My whistling ‘Arangetram’ came when I went to see one or those black and white South Indian films in which the actors fought most of the time and mouthed a few lines between the bouts to get their breath back. During each outbreak of fighting I whistled through my fingers with wild abandon out-whistling all my co-revelers in the eight-anna seats. During the interval, a bloke with a shock of oily hair who sat next to me, himself a great exponent of whistling wizardry, paid rich tributes to the resonance of my whistle, predicting me a place in the "Whistler’s Hall of Fame." I hung on his lips as he offered a few tips on improving the pitch. “Keep it up” he said patting me on the back. And he gave me a toffee. It was a toffee that I never ate. For I kept it as a trophy for a long time after my 'resounding' triumph.

WAGGING TONGUE

(Continued from the last post A Tongue Of The Slip

The power of the tongue is aptly illustrated by this anecdote: Once a gaggle of women were taken on a sight-seeing tour of the 'Niagara Falls.' The tour guide, after explaining all about the falls, finally announced, "Now , ladies, if you can interrupt your talking just for 10 seconds, you can hear the mighty roaring sound of the Niagara."
With this backdrop, it was no wonder that a garrulous aunt of mine was fondly called 'Tongue-sten' within the family circle for her rapid-fire blabber like the outburst of a stengun.
When we refer to the first language we learnt from childhood, we call it the mother-tongue and never the father-tongue(poor father!) even though it is the father who gives the tongue-lashing when the children play mischief. So, when we talk of the mother-tongue, I always remember the story of a lady candidate seeking a job, who, in her application form, had mentioned her mother- tongue as 'Spench.' When questioned about this at the interview, she replied, "My maternal grandfather spoke Spanish and the granny spoke French. So my mother speaks a combination of the two, which I call 'Spench'. Explaining further she said, "Since my my father's mother-tongue is German, my children's mother tongue is going to be 'Spenchman'.
And finally, when the General Elections come, look at what happens. Politicians click their tongues having tasted the spoils of power hoping for more. They approach the electorate with their tongues hanging out, drooling at the mouth, trying to catch your fancy with tongue-twisting slogans such as 'Cast costly crosses(X) to cobble credible class-creed-class crusade'. Like snakes in the grass with their bi-pronged tongues, they will promise you the moon only to retract later. When that happens, don't be tongue-tied. Loosen your tongue and speak your mind out. Then elect the right one(if you can find any) and stick your tongue out at the rest.
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A TONGUE OF THE SLIP

Continued from the last post Tongue-in-Cheek Trivia

There are people with slippery tongues who call a 'Burning Train' as 'Turning Brain.' A friend of mine has this habit of mixing up words in a spooneristic style. "I hissed the mystery classes", he would say(meaning, he missed the history classes). Or, "I tasted a whole worm(meaning he wasted a whole term). But best part was that each time his tongue slipped, he would apologise saying, "Oh, it was only a tongue of the slip"(sic).

Linguists vouch for the fact that in many languages(tongues) world over, the the tongue is used as feminine gender. In Hindi for instance, the word zuban(tongue) is feminine. Meri zuban, one would say implying that the word is feminine. Same is true of Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French and German. There must be some reason for his ground rule., that came about during the evolution of languages. Is it because the almighty God, to compensate for the deficit of muscle mass, bestowed upon women this highly specialised muscle tissue? Or, is it because women as a class have an inborn skill to put this small bundle of flesh to it's maximum use? Read on, Sir/Madam, for an insight into these premises.

Just listen to what William Congreve, the 17th century English dramatist, had to say about one of his female acquaintances: "She has that everlasting rotation of the tongue, that an echo must wait till she dies before it can catch her last word."

Then, Charles Dickens once exclaimed, 'Tongue, well, that's very good thing when it ain't a woman's". Why, even the great bard of the yore W. Shakespeare didn't lag behind by saying, " You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. Lucky that in days of Mr Shakespeare, there were no women's' lib activists. Or else they would have lynched him and the world would have poor by one great poet.

(Continued in the next post Wagging Tongue )

TONGUE-IN-CHEEK TRIVIA

Which is the most flexible part of human anatomy? The tongue, of course. For, it can wriggle like an earthworm with bellyache, lash out like a whip, roll like a porpoise, twist like a well-cooked vermicelli, wag faster than a tail of courting lapdog and dance with agility that can make Michael Jackson look like someone who is taking correspondence course in dancing, having just reached the third lesson.
Besides, the tongue is stronger than the teeth, because it can heap choice abuses on a passing desperado thereby vastly improving the chances of one's teeth being displaced out of their sockets. Therefore the the tongue is that errant member which, more often than not, needs reining in. If people are unwilling to hear you, better it is to hold your tongue than them. So, teach your child to hold his tongue, he will learn fast enough to speak.
The tongue can make and mar men and their empires. Someone with a silver tongue can sell goggles to a blind man (or ice-cream to an Eskimo), while the one with evil tongue may get bitten by sanest and mildest of poodles. A sharp tongue is a guaranteed means of supplying you with enemies in their dozens. In fact, a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows sharper with constant use!

SHARPEN,BUT HOW..

There was a neighbour of ours whom we called 'Mr Sharp Tongue' for his harsh and angry talk. My 8-year-old son was quite perplexed about the reason behind that nick-name. That was until one day he came up and triumphantly announced, "Papa, now I know why you call the uncle Mr Sharp Tongue. This morning, soon after he brushed his teeth, I saw him sharpening hid tongue with a plastic strip!"

DON'T SWALLOW!

Once a chemistry professor asked one of his students to name certain chemical compound. The student racked his brain for some time and then said, "I know the answer, sir. It's on the tip of my tongue and I can't get it out." To which the professor said with a wry smile, "In that case get it out fast and certainly don't swallow it. Because the compound happens to be Potassium Cyanide."

To be continued in the next post A Tongue Of The Slip

IDIOMAGNOSIA PART - 2

For the students of Idiomagnosia( refer Idiomagnosia part - 1 for the definition) there can not be a better subject than our friend Bill. He appears to be the originator of many idioms but by accident rather than by design. Once, while he was an in-patient at a hospital for a fracture he sustained, he narrated to me how he broke his bone. " Yesterday our domestic fowl (cock) had vanished and during the search operation I was chased by an angry bull and fell into a ditch. But I told the doctor that I fell while riding a bicycle," confided Bill with a conspiratorial wink. " You are the only one to whom I revealed the true Cock and bull story! "

Bill's incarceration at the hospital provided me with further Idiomagnotic tid-bits such as 'my blood boils when the day temperature goes up'. Or, 'I did not shake hands with that blood bank technician because he always has people's blood on his hands'.

Then, a young exam-going student had once come to me complaining of excessive fatigue. I told him that his problem was due to over-exertion."Stop burning the mid-night oil hence-forth, " I advised him. A week later he came back without much relief. I enquired if he had been following my advice. "Yes, doctor," he said dumbly. "Now-a-days, whenever there is mid-night power cut I only burn candles; not oil."

Then there are tricksters who pretend Idiomagnosia just for fun. Jason is one such person. He had some problems with the municipality and I bumped into him while he was on his way to the house of the local blacksmith who also happened to be a municipal councillor. "Going to curry favour with the councillor, Mr Jason?" I enquired. "Nothing of that sort," quipped Jason taking out a blunt rusty axe out of his bag and showing it to me. "I just happen to have an axe to grind."

A similar story is about a locksmith who was arrested at a casino and produced before a judge. The judge asked him, "what were you doing in that gambling den when the police raided it?" The locksmith looked down sheepishly and said, "Your Honour, I was making a bolt for the door."

Finally, there are those who see idioms in any sentence when there are none as amply demonstrated by this anecdote: A man fell into a deep ditch and struggled unsuccessfully to climb atop. Soon a large bunch of curious onlookers gathered around the ditch, but no one offered to help. When the desperate man shouted, "Give me a hand, please," everybody in the crowd applauded enthusiastically!!!

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IDIOMAGNOSIA - PART 1

"Dr John, I am taking a coffee break.Keep a watch on this patient till I return," I instructed the house surgeon. Yet, when I came back, John had already left the ward but not before keeping a wrist watch on the patient's belly as a mark of his obedience! For, John suffered from a malady which I called Idiomagnosia.*

Now, lured by the asterisk, you need not search and yell for a footnote. Because the above asterisk is nothing more than an asterexasper(meaning an asterisk with no corresponding footnote). You need refer to a dictionary for the word Idiomagnosia either, since the word is of my coinage and may be considered a sniglet(any word that doesn't appear in dictionary but should). So, let me explain the meaning.

Idiomagnosia is a condition often found among literates in which the affected person is mentally blind to the true meaning of a given idiom or phrase due to ignorance real or feigned. To make the term more clear, I will illustrate it further.

Take, for instance, the case of George. He told me about an incident that strengthened his belief in astrology. According to George, a newspaper astrology column had once predicted for him ' a significant windfall in the near future.' Shortly thereafter, as he was returning home from his office, a thunderstorm broke out and a sudden gush of wind that got trapped in his umbrella flung him on to the ground. "As rightly prophesied by the astrologer," confessed George, "I had a real bad windfall."

A news item appeared a few years ago about a man who was rendered unconscious when he was hit by a heavy book. Even funnier was the fact that he was hit by a police officer. Apparently the officer's superior had given instruction to call the man to the police station for interrogation and he didn't co-operate, to 'throw the book at him' (which means slap a case against him). The police officer did just that. He threw a hardbound law journal at the poor man.

To be continued in next post......


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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

" How could you dish the dirt about a language that is full of beans? You must be nutty as a fruit cake, " I protested. It was a retort to my friend's charge that the English language betrays the English people's fixation on food and eating. Yet, once I regained my cool, I realised that if one looked at the words I used to register my protest, it bore out my friend's theory about the English language. I chewed over what he said and did a bit of digging, for the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

It was not a piece of cake, but I discovered that my friend, indeed, knew his onions. That is when I could piece together an English 'sham' sandwich with meaty fillings.

Fish and (potato) chips, bacon and eggs, and , of course, the tea are integral to the English chow. And, maybe, to the English polity. For while the Tories have bigger fish to fry and liberals have had their chips at the hustings, the tough eggs in the kitchen cabinet are busy trying to save the bacon. The opposition, to whom scandals and gossip are meat and drink, cooks up a political hot potato to raise a storm in a tea cup, leaving the treasury bench with egg on their faces.

When the English football team brings home the bacon, the fans go bananas. But when the rivals make mincemeat of them, the players do not fast in penance but eat pie, albeit an humble one. Despite the beefed up security, the football hooligans in mutton chop whiskers run amok around spaghetti junctions turning the town into dog's dinner. The tabloids give the team a good roasting, revealing juicy bits in spicy details, declaring them as dead mutton.

The English know which side of the bread is buttered. While the IRA and Ulster Unionists eat each other for breakfast, the English remain as cool as cucumber letting the factions stew in their own juices. But they know when their goose is cooked. So when they have no more stomach for violence, they chew the fat across the negotiating table, and, in a ham-handed fashion, dish out goodies in the form of plum jobs for the Sinn Fein and the orange-men. By the way, do you know that toast is some thing you eat as well drink? Or that a man can either eat or marry a peach? Or that the stupid person can either be a pudding-head or noodle? And how about producing cheese from the milk of human kindness? Crumbs!

Finally, what is sauce for the English goose is sauce for the Indian gander. Therefore, it is no wonder that the decades of English rule have left us a creamy tradition that that eggs us on to curry favour with the powers that be and get on the gravy train in order to realise our champagne wishes and caviar dreams. But then, one need not teach one's grandmother to suck eggs!

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SCAMS AND SHAMS

Smart Coaching Academy for Multidisciplinary Swindles (SCAMS), a Deemed University constituted by the Department of Scams & Cons under the Fraudsters (encouragement of) Act 2015, invites applications from eligible candidates to enrol in the following courses:

Diploma in Animal Husbandry (Feeds and Fodder) - The course imparts training in rearing imaginary cattle, poultry etc. Also in indenting millions of dollars worth of fodder for the phantom (non-existent) animals and siphoning of allocated funds.

Diploma in Forestry (Poaching and Ivory Sciences) - Involves field training in shooting protected species from wild life sanctuaries. A special module to train in skinning of animals and processing of hides, besides sawing ivory.

Diploma in Printing Technology ( Stamps and Currencies) - Involves intensive practical training in engraving blocks for printing stamp papers and currency notes. Optional: Printing and leaking of question papers of GMAT, CAT, RAT and other competitive exams. Has immense scope as the international scamsters are likely outsource their fake paper requirements from our country.

Certificate Course in Cricket (Betting and Match-fixing) - Offers training in book-making through mobile and Internet. A special guidance on how to corner players at parks, temples, golf courses and toilets etc. is inclusive.

Diploma in Stock Technology (Insider-trading and Market Manipulations) - Trains in how to befriend corporate honchos and audit firms to collect classified information. Also in hacking computers of multi-national investment firms, mutual, pension and hedge funds to fish out their investment decisions.

Diploma in Pharma-technology (Spurious Drugs) - Trains in processing 'life-sav(tak)ing medications from chalk powder. Ingenious methods of recycling disposable syringes taught. Expertise offered on how to corner government supply contracts.

Eligibility and Qualifications: For all the above courses, candidates should have basic know-how in pilferage and bribery. Zero conscience is essential. Apprentice Certificate from 'Chambal School of Dacoity' is an added qualification.

NOTE: All the selected candidates will get free training in Grease-palm Technology and investment strategies (Benami and Swiss).

Write for application and prospectus enclosing demand draft for 50,000 bucks (10,000/- more for our Gold admission scheme) to ' SCAMS ', No. 420, Engulf & Devour Street, Con Town, Republic Of Pelfland.

Image Courtesy: http://www.transparency.am

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ALL SMOKE AND NO FIRE

When he heard the knock at the door, my hostel room-mate Ravi Nair sprang to his feet. He was sure it was Nandu, with whom he had an old score to settle. A streak of vengeance spread across Ravi's countenance as he lit a cigarette and drew a lungful of smoke.

Then he opened the door abruptly and spewed a thick cloud of smoke into the face of his quarry. As the pall of smoke began to lift, there emerged a familiar face. It was not Nandu but Ravi's father who stood at the door, fuming with rage. That was the last time Ravi smoked.

Or so I thought until I paid him a surprise call at his office a couple of decades later. I asked the receptionist where I could find Ravi. " Walk straight and look around, " said the lady at the desk. " From amongst a row of glass cabins in the hall, the smoky one that appears to be on fire is Mr Nair's." Then she added with a wink, " Rest assured that there is no smoke without Nair."

The visibility in the cabin was down to three feet and I wished I had a fog-lamp. Then the draught burrowed a hole in the haze and Ravi peeped from behind the clouds with a sunny smile. After a bout of mutual back-slapping and catching up on news, I pulled him up for not wising up to the hazards of his vice.

" The only hazard I faced was burning my moustache when I lit a cigarette." said Ravi mockingly. " So I shaved it off. Besides, the lone smoking related death in our family in recent times was that of my uncle. He was crossing the road to buy cigarettes when he was run over by a speeding truck."

" But you may be right in a way," conceded Ravi as an after thought. " I heard of a firebrand anti-smoking lobbyist who went around snatching lighted cigarettes from smokers' lips and stubbing them out with his bare feet. The result? He died of cancer of the foot!"

" But the smokescreen of your nutty argument can't hide the harm you cause to passive smokers." I objected. " The only passive smokers here are my files, " Ravi shot back. " Look at them. They are well preserved because of daily fumigation."

" Let me confess, " declared Ravi with finality. " The truth is I can't kick the habit. Unless, of course, decreed by a Government Statute, cigarette companies are ordered to mix either asbestos with tobacco to make cigarettes fire-proof, or with gunpowder which will make them explode on lighting."

I realised that I was at the 'fag-end' of my conversation, as all my efforts to convince Ravi went up in smoke. As a Parting shot I said, " Well, some day I will insert a tube into your windpipe and connect its free end to a chimney stalk fixed on top of your head. Then I will fit a smoke alarm at the outlet so that each time you exhale the smoke, passive smokers an run for cover."

With that, I vanished in a puff of smoke!

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LOCK, SHOCK AND BARE-ALL

"My tools leaped, bouncing off the wiry coils of hair," recounted Sanju, my barber, referring to a shaggy head he tackled during the hippie era. "Yet, two hours and two twisted scissors later, I could subdue the shrubbery. But the end of the 'harvest' saw my salon crawling with colonies of dispossessed lice, ticks and bugs besides a baby centipede. He was exaggerating, of course, as is the wont of men of his tribe. But I kept mum letting him get on with my haircut.

"Then came the age of inverted pots," Sanju pressed on, spreading his tonsorial wisdom. "A generation of youth went around with their shaven heads glistening in the sun like leaky oil cans. Once sitting in the balcony of a cinema, I saw the screen images in full reflected over a sea of tonsured heads in the stalls - a kind of 'cranioscope' instead of the CinemaScope." Ignoring Sanju's wild imagination, I just said, "Uh-huh."

I thought of the current crop of cutting-edge-technology kids with their chisel 'n' mallet hairdos. Their hair styles mostly resemble leftovers of a dinner devoured by ravenous moths. A young bloke once told me irreverently that the parallel tracks carved out on the side of his head were for the lice to go on their morning walks!

"But, of all the weird hair styles, the pilot cut of yore was the hairiest," carried on Sanju wistfully. I squirmed in my chair. His allusion to the 'pilot cut' reopened an old wound transporting me to the mid-sixties.

Let me explain what pilot cut is all about. It entailed medium-clipped hair over the rear two thirds of the head blending into a long thick mop in front which was brushed sideways with a short parting. Unfortunately, as a 12-year old lad, my experiment with the pilot cut ended in a 'crop failure'. The then barber of mine, a wily old fox, chopped the hair on the rear of my head down to the scalp leaving a long bushy shock in front. The net effect was I looked like a bald ostrich with a frontal tuft.

But unlike the proverbial ostrich, I did not hide my head in sand till the status quo ante was restored(for being young and uninitiated, I was oblivious to the fact that the barber had created a monstrosity on my top). I attended a wedding where a rough-neck kept stroking my head with a feigned awe as if it were a rare meteorite rock. A thug tugged at my forelock causing me to howl in pain.

Then I felt that someone was playing tabla on my head. It was Sanju starting his customary head massage and waking me up from my trance. "Shall I give your hair the porcupine finish, sir?" he asked, making my hair stand curl. I answered in the negative not daring to shake my head lest he carved a 'lice track' on my head.




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