THE FINE ART OF PJ-ING - PART TWO

Righto. I had approximately two comments asking for Part 2 of this series (eh? What series?), which is enough for me to crack the knuckles and hit the keyboard (or in my case, flex the thumbs and hit the keypad).

Today, a very important lesson.

Double Entendres

DEs (as we shall affectionately call them) are the life and soul of PJs. A wise Chinese comedian once remarked, Doublo Entrendro Mastero woh hai PJ mastero, and by saying this he effectively won over PJ makers from both countries, confused Sino-Indian border residents and the six surviving victims who saw Chandni Chowk to China.

DEs usually involve finding a double meaning. Unlike in the previous lesson, where we learnt how to break down a word, DEs involve changing the meaning of the whole word itself. What this sadly means for the word in advisement is that if it doesn't have a double meaning, alas, it cannot be DE-ed. That is to say, the DE-ed cannot be done.

Let me demonstrate with an example:

Q: What do you call an orientation program for electrical engineers?
A: Induction programme

Get it? Thanks to the slightly more cerebral nature of DE jokes, fewer people are likely to get them. But the quality is higher than the deconstructed-word jokes, often deemed by critics as 'desperate'. One more example:

Q: Marketing a quad-urinal must be very easy. Why?
A: It always has 4 Ps.

SubType: The Audience Engagement type aka the Interactive Double Entendre aka IDE

DE jokes are at their most potent when someone else begins the conversation, rather than you delivering the Q and A by yourself (some call this technique audience interaction). For instance:

Person 1: Alright. Goodnight
You: Mortein

Here, Person 1 has no right to throw a brick or some such object at you because he invited the joke upon himself. Some more examples of such interactivity:

Person 1: So much theft happening in manufacturing companies these days.
You: Must be the work of the Steal companies.

As you would have no doubt appreciated, audience interaction jokes are very contextual. Spinning this into a standalone, single-delivery PJ would be slightly desperate looking and wouldn't have the impact :

Q: Why is there a lot of theft happening at manufacturing companies these days?
A: Because of the Steal companies.

See?

Phew, enough for today. Practice your DEs, be good, and please buy some life insurance or atleast keep a good brain surgeon handy.

PS: Yes, I know some of those jokes are recycled. Kindly forgive.
PSS: The Goodnight-Mortein joke is the second most annoying IDE in the world, only behind Tata-Birla

A SHORT TRIP TO THE GASTROLOGIST - A SHENOY

So Rajiv obviously ate something that didn't agree with him. And even if he tried to dodge the issue, his roommates constantly spoke of getting gas masks unless he did something about it.

So along went Rajiv to see a doctor who was examining what the problem was.

"This IS a strange case, my boy."
"I know."
"Could you flatulate?"
"What?"
"Uhm, could you fart?"
"Oh yeah, sure."
"I mean, now."
"Oh, ok."

*AAAAAAAAAAAA*

"Good heavens, that's the weirdest flatulence I've ever heard!"
"Yeah, but the funny thing is, the next four ones will sound weird too, then the cycle repeats."
"Eh?"
"Here, sample this."

*EEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

"That is weird! Keep them coming, but let me get a gas mask first."

*IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII*

"Hmm. I think I can predict what the next two sounds are."

*OOOOOOOOOOOO*

*UUUUUUUUUUUU*

"Yep, thought so."
"So what is it, doctor?"
"Not to worry. It's a strange, but cureable disease."
"What's it called?"
"You, my young friend, have irregular vowel movements."

==
Dedicated to that  master of Shenoys - Narendra Shenoy
PS, for those of you who don't know what a Shenoy is, check this out.

COD GAMES

ANSWER: Square roots

PS: I know, old recycled joke. Kindly adjust. 
PSS: Obviously inspired by this piece of brilliance.

THE FINE ART OF PJ-ING - PART ONE

It was sometime in the summer of '03 that I discovered that I had a penchant for creating PJs. Actually, sometime I should tell you that story. It's quite interesting, and one that has frequently been exchanged with friends over some refreshing alcoholic beverage.

Anyhoo. I realised that if I was ever going to famous/notorious, then PJs are pretty much the only thing I could bank on. I know. When you compare the following reactions:

• "Oh wow, another six! This guy is just magnificent! What a player!"
• "He plays the guitar sooooooooo well! Marry me!"
• "Wow. 92% again! What a genius!"
• "Grrrrrrrrrrrrroan... Get lost, you idiot! Always making stupid jokes!"

 The last mentioned doesn't really match up. But what the heck. The only cricket I was good at was memorizing stats. The less said about my musical adventures, the better. And I had as much a penchant for engineering as Mandira Bedi has for thermonuclear physics. So PJs it would have to be then.

I surprised myself, being able to churn them out with annoying frequency. Also, thanks to the munificence of telecom operators, SMSes were largely free. And those forward-happy days, noone minded getting a few jokes in their inbox as well. Malayalam and English connived well to provide a few intra-lingual jokes too. Good times.

But why on earth am I ranting here about my life story here? This was supposed to be a course in the fine art of creating and delivering PJs, no?

Wait, wait, I can hear you screaming. What credentials do I have to teach you about the noble art of PJing, I can hear you and your angry picket-sign-adorned mob bellowing. You're right.
But you should probably just trust me when I say I have a knack for PJs. I know this is a highly immodest claim, but I did start the PJ thread on Pagalguy (it's sadly gone from being a groan haven to a forwardzzz thread now) and people have issued death threats after my sniglets. Oh look, here's one now, conveniently.

Which brings me to the dangers of PJing. It's not an occupation for the faint-hearted. The talentless, ugly, unathletic, jobless (I think I've got the credentials bit down pat now), perhaps. But delivering PJs is often wrought with death threats, being on the receiving end of the trajectory of various blunt objects and general abuse. So, learn your skill well, young apprentice. But let the dangers be known to you. A good life insurance policy would not be a bad idea.

Alright.

Chapter one: Deconstructing words.

The easiest and laziest way to make a PJ is to deconstruct a word. Let me give you an example. Look around you, spot any object. I see a bottle of Garnier (totally at random, I promise). Break up the word: Gar-nier. Gar-near. There you go, you've found the word 'near' within' Garnier'.

Now you need to make a possible PJ out of it. What's the opposite of near? Far. So, Gar-far needs to be the answer. So now you need a suitable question. Which could be: Which shampoo is never close to you? Ans: Gar-far.

(I know, that sucked, but it was just an example)

Let's try another one. I see my bean bag. Now there are more possibilities here. Search for alternate meanings for 'bean' or 'bag'. Hence, you can come up with the following:

Q: Where does Rowan Atkinson sit?
A: On his Bean bag.

Q: Which famous Mumbai-graffiti-advertising company sponsored the annual marathon of rajmas?
A: Bean Bhaag

You see? It's very simple. And yet, very powerful.
It gets even better with longer words. For example:

Q: What do you call it when your female sibling swallows a roll of Kodak?
A: Photos In The Sis.

Such big words are generally found in two major places:
1. Engineering colleges
2. Management schools

Which is why majority of your PJ artists tend to be engineer-turned-MBAs. Really.

Ok, I'm going to dwell on only that one lesson today.
So, children. Today's homework. For the next one week, carry out this exercise 3 times a day. For the first two days, just say it to yourself. And if you find it amusing enough, message it to 3 close friends. Trust me, message them. As much as you might feel the urge, don't tell it to them on their faces. They need to get used to the fact that their erstwhile normal friend starts cracking PJs. You'll know what I mean when you see their reaction for the first time. In a few lessons, we'll deal with possible reactions to PJs, and what speed you should be running away at.

Class dissmissed.

YES, A COD CONTEST!

Everyone's having contests on their blog. Why not have one myself, I thought. So here we go. A spot-the-pun contest.

Was chatting with a friend when this happened. You might need to be Tam (or thereabouts) to get this. Spot the pun!

Friend: Thanks for generally being around, ok va

Deepak: You're welcome, ok di #didyouspotanepicpunhere

Do leave answers in the comments. Oh. And what do you win? Eternal love. I don't have free books to give out yet (for that, go here). And you can raid my music collection whenever you want.

Update: Abhishek Chopra is the winner. Congratulations, Abhishek! You win a free trip to wherever you are right now!

HONEYMOON PACKAGE #FAIL

So this is the scene: You and your new wife (As in, you've just been married. Not that you availed of some Shaadi.com exchange offer) and you've decided to splurge that 20k you've saved up, on a nice little retreat in Kodaikanal. Why not, you say, it's a nice wonderful place, and it also happens to be in the author's homestate.

While you're getting up close and comfy, of course, you don't want anything to spoil that first moment. So the last thing you'd want to find in your room at that time is your third occupant walking in and saying, "I think I'll just sit down and read on the chair. Hope you don't mind" or "Hey, move over. Barcelona is playing Sheffield Wednesday today. How can you people sleep when such fun is happening on TV?" or "Mind if I smoke? Can't let the complimentary cigars go to waste, can we?"

"Wait, wait, rewind", you, the discerning audience say. "What be this nonsense?", you no doubt ask. "Aliya! Free cigars! Kollam!", the more Mallu of you might point out. But yes, the true chagrin and incomprehensibility comes from the discovery that there's a third member in this allegedly (see how I italized it to look like TOI?) intimate scene! A kabab-mein-haddi if you will.

Tell me then, dear reader, what you make of this.

Your guess is as good as mine.

PS: Thank you to my friend Mohnish for forwarding this to me. And that Yahoo! Group that's been watermarked on the image for finding it in the first place.

SOME ARSE TAKING

Warning: If you're an Arsenal fan, you're advised not to read further. Instead, head over to the blogroll, and read something funnier.

Well-known is my ability to take meaningless little things and turn them into full-length blogposts. So even if you're a delivery boy coming home to drop off some aata and oil (and a pack of Cheetos, don't tell anyone), beware, two minutes later there could be a blogpost with a few fabricated lines.

And while this is great for the Googlability of relatively unknown kirana stores, not too many would take kindly to being featured unsolicited on a blog that has 'dementia' in the title.

In any case, we come to this rather nice Twitter conversation I had with R about, well... You'll figure out.
==

Chuck: Arsenal's blog is called Arseblog? Aren't they just arseking for trouble? You could get arsearseinated on Twitter with a name like that!
 
R: We shall wait for a rebuttal from them. I'm also waiting to get to the bottom of this.

Chuck: They should have hosted that blog on say, Posterious. Oh well, what can I say. They're better thAN US.
 
R: Maybe they will rectu... I mean, rectify it. Soon.

Chuck: I don't think so. We'll have to get behind them.

R: Guess so. They're the butts of too many jokes already. Bummer.

Chuck: But what to do. They gaand do anything about it now, can they? They may just have to back off
 
R: Yes. And if they don't do so, we'll have to explain it to them using analogies.

Chuck: Last heard, a gent called Chandy was working on the same #doyouthinkitstimewestopped 

R: #ifyousayso
==

We'll be back after we think of something nice for Sheffield Wednesday.

PS: This exchange also reminded me of something one of the jokers (not sure which one) said: "The only thing #kvlt about Arsenal is that they have a manager named Arsene. So Urinal should be managed by Urine."
(Edit: Guilty party found)

==

Some absolutely brilliant comments just added to this post. Be sure to check them out.