The question of answer
1) You wake up late yet again. You don’t want to be late for work as you have an important call in the morning. You get ready in record time. You are about hit the road when you encounter the kizhathu mami (ground floor mami) and she greets you with a question: office-ku poriya pa? (Are you going to office?). You curb your impulse to say “illa, central station la sonpapdi vikka poraen. (No, I’m going to central station to sell sonpapdis)” and instead mumble a gentle ‘yes’ in reply.
2) You signal a share auto to pull over. The driver asks, “Enna sir share auto va?” You come within an ace of saying, “No, I wanted to know how you are dealing with fuel price hike,” but you don’t because you don’t have the nerve to mess with an auto-driver. You get into the auto that is already loaded with more people than the population of Australia and brood over cowardice and population until a hot chick hops in the next stop.
3) You are waiting in cafeteria for a seat with your lunch plate/box. You look around desperately for a seat and find one of your acquaintances gorging on thayir sadham contentedly. You give a wry smile that’s tantamount to saying “You’ve had enough. Now get your posterior off that seat”. But that’s obviously lost on your acquaintance who says “enna ennum sapadaliya? (Not had lunch yet?)” with a pleasant smile.
4) It’s 9pm. You are breaking your head with an issue but cracking it seems harder than comprehending Arundathi Roy’s essay. You are on the verge on turning mad when you get a message in OC: machi, still in office? :|
No points for guessing what’s common to all these situations: dumb questions. Questions to which they already know the answer but that doesn’t deter them from asking. Questions that make you wish you didn’t live in a civilization so that you could spear everyone who asks such questions and throw them to crows.:P Questions that make you want to adorn them with hot tar. :P
Someone said one can judge a man by the question he asks. I am not sure if he/she is still alive but if he is I’m sure going to whack him over the head with a blunt instrument because what he said was one hundred percent untrue. Everytime you think you have a measure of how much dumb a person is, they make you to reassess by throwing an incredibly dumb question at you. Some people never cease to amaze me with their interminable array of dumb questions.
The day after a haircut is the most dreaded day in a guy’s life. There are people who think their soul won’t rest in peace if they did not ask in their lifetime at least fifty people “You had a haircut?” with a surprised look that one has when peeping into guy-next-cubicle’s payslip. :P But there is consolation here. This question being not uncommon, one can put to use the time one is at the mercy of barber, pondering over a variety of funny replies to this question. I always have a dozen answers in stock for that question and choose any one based on age/gender/designation of the questioner. ;)
One day I was returning home from office by train hanging on foot-board as usual. I boarded the train at Sanatorium station. The train came to a halt in Chrompet and I got off to make way for others. As I stood waiting for the train to start, a young man who wanted to board the train walked up to me and asked me a question that I felt pummeling him to a pulp: ”sir, is this ladies compartment?” How could an educated guy -well, he looked like one - who spoke in English not deduce that a decent guy - I look like one at least - wouldn’t get into a ladies compartment? Now, what’s the name of the bloke who said ‘there is no such thing as silly questions.’ If you ever run into him, tell him from me that he is a cuckoo.
2) You signal a share auto to pull over. The driver asks, “Enna sir share auto va?” You come within an ace of saying, “No, I wanted to know how you are dealing with fuel price hike,” but you don’t because you don’t have the nerve to mess with an auto-driver. You get into the auto that is already loaded with more people than the population of Australia and brood over cowardice and population until a hot chick hops in the next stop.
3) You are waiting in cafeteria for a seat with your lunch plate/box. You look around desperately for a seat and find one of your acquaintances gorging on thayir sadham contentedly. You give a wry smile that’s tantamount to saying “You’ve had enough. Now get your posterior off that seat”. But that’s obviously lost on your acquaintance who says “enna ennum sapadaliya? (Not had lunch yet?)” with a pleasant smile.
4) It’s 9pm. You are breaking your head with an issue but cracking it seems harder than comprehending Arundathi Roy’s essay. You are on the verge on turning mad when you get a message in OC: machi, still in office? :|
No points for guessing what’s common to all these situations: dumb questions. Questions to which they already know the answer but that doesn’t deter them from asking. Questions that make you wish you didn’t live in a civilization so that you could spear everyone who asks such questions and throw them to crows.:P Questions that make you want to adorn them with hot tar. :P
Someone said one can judge a man by the question he asks. I am not sure if he/she is still alive but if he is I’m sure going to whack him over the head with a blunt instrument because what he said was one hundred percent untrue. Everytime you think you have a measure of how much dumb a person is, they make you to reassess by throwing an incredibly dumb question at you. Some people never cease to amaze me with their interminable array of dumb questions.
The day after a haircut is the most dreaded day in a guy’s life. There are people who think their soul won’t rest in peace if they did not ask in their lifetime at least fifty people “You had a haircut?” with a surprised look that one has when peeping into guy-next-cubicle’s payslip. :P But there is consolation here. This question being not uncommon, one can put to use the time one is at the mercy of barber, pondering over a variety of funny replies to this question. I always have a dozen answers in stock for that question and choose any one based on age/gender/designation of the questioner. ;)
One day I was returning home from office by train hanging on foot-board as usual. I boarded the train at Sanatorium station. The train came to a halt in Chrompet and I got off to make way for others. As I stood waiting for the train to start, a young man who wanted to board the train walked up to me and asked me a question that I felt pummeling him to a pulp: ”sir, is this ladies compartment?” How could an educated guy -well, he looked like one - who spoke in English not deduce that a decent guy - I look like one at least - wouldn’t get into a ladies compartment? Now, what’s the name of the bloke who said ‘there is no such thing as silly questions.’ If you ever run into him, tell him from me that he is a cuckoo.
Hilarious,.. :-) the last part, in particular! :-P
ReplyDeleteBut, will make me think twice before I ask you a question again! ;-)
@rajaji: he he. thanks machi :-)
ReplyDelete