ULTAPULTA
Tour de force
Jaspal Bhatti

Whenever any of your near ones head for a journey abroad, they ask you, "Bataye aap ke liye bahar se kya layan?" If they don’t ask you, then you do the honours of handing them a long list of things to be bought from there.

There was a news report recently that 30 MLAs from Punjab have left for the Europe. It is obvious that they are not going to participate in the overseas Parliament session. So let’s not go into the details of the purpose of the visit.

If a common man gives these MLAs the things he wants from abroad, the list would be like this. "Sir, can you please bring some uninterrupted power supply for my farms." The poor farmer is made clear that electricity cannot be brought in a suitcase.

Another person chips in, "If you are going abroad, can you bring a weather prediction machine". The MLA replies, "At present, just pray that the weather stays fine so that I don’t miss my flight."

A tipsy fellow requests an MLA to bring a few bottles of whisky as liquor has become very costly in Punjab. The MLA explains, "What’s the need of carrying bottles from Europe when they can be easily smuggled from Himachal".

An irritated Punjabi asks, "If you can’t bring anything for us then why are you going abroad?" The MLA patiently explains that they are going there to study how Parliament works there. To this, he says, "What is to be studied there? Instead the European politicians should come here to study how our Parliament or Assembly works here amid walkovers, violence and slogan shouting."

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