The flip side of humour
By Noel Lobo

A WET and dismal Monday morning; so here’s something to bring a smile to your lips, courtesy Brigid Keenan in the Punch Book of Utterly BritishHumour. Ten years ago she and her family lived on Poorvi Marg in Delhi. She wonders whether her neighbours complained about the ghastly smell of European food.

Anyway, here she was in the small garden, "an oasis in the dust and we take it very seriously". A few days after her arrival she was in the garden with the mali. He told her (she says) that he would have some celery ready at the end of the month. Greatly impressed at the speed with which he, aided by the Indian climate, could make things grow — only ten days indeed — she waxed lyrical on how much they all liked fresh vegetables. She went on and on till she suddenly noticed a puzzled look on his face. No wonder; it turned out that he was asking for his salary at the end of the month.

And now, a glimpse of the flip side of humour. I had complained to an old shipmate about a beef-brained editor who, having asked me for a contribution to her magazine did not bother to even acknowledge it. He replied: "I have no views on her (the editor) or her predecessor. All editors have a pen to grind, I suppose".

But the editor who gets the raspberry is the one who had just taken over Pune’s oldest English daily which was battling it out with the two giants of Western India. I had been a contributor for almost fifteen years and therefore had its good at heart. It was having a rough time trying to stay afloat, and in a misguided effort to help the new boy I had been sending him an occasional postcard pointing out the mistakes made by his sub-editors with a shabash interspersed at times.

I decided to call on him last week, unusual for me, as I always keep far from editors, whom I imagine to be extremely busy and important persons. After a few pleasantries — we had not met before — I asked if he had got a postcard the day before telling him that the word ‘Oman’ had been left out between the words ‘Royal’ and ‘Navy’ in a caption to a photograph showing some top officers of the Royal Oman Navy calling on the Army brass in Pune. After all, there is a slight difference between the Royal Navy and the Royal Oman Navy (even though the RN is but a sardine can compared to the leviathan it was when I was attached to it in 1949.)

"I can’t read your handwriting. Your postcards go straight into the basket", he said with a gesture towards his waste paper basket.

I was dumbfounded; not so my lady. "Where were you educated, if at all? His hand has been much admired", and we swept out.

No, this piece will not be shown to him.