PJs for Posterity

Time: Between 2 am and 3.30 am

Place: Rahul Guest House, Hampi

At the best of times, JN and I cringe at the PJs (poor jokes, for you sane people) that we are subjected to listen to by SA and DA. Our plight was even worse one night in Hampi when what seemed like an entire township of mosquitoes invaded sleep and kept us all awake through the night.

Did you know that most nights, for the entire night, mind you, the entire village of Hampi does not have power? Most times of the year, the place is unbearably hot. Even August nights, supposedly the monsoon season, were very difficult to with no power and a feasting populace of mosquitoes.

I preserve them PJs here, for posterity. Don’t expect to find them too funny, they never are! ;-) But somehow, at that moment, we tried to ignore the mosquitoes by managing to laugh at these.

* What is the similarity between mosquitoes and monkeys?

--- Both start with the letter ‘M’.

* What is the similarity between TV journalists and mosquitoes?

--- Both want one bite (byte) at a time.

* What is the difference between Manipal Hospital nurse and a mosquito?

--- The nurse asks permission before taking blood.

(To which JN wanted to know why Manipal Hospital. Why? Why? But why? She went!)

* What is the difference between Microsoft and Hard Rock Café?

--- One is a software company and the other is a restaurant chain.

(JN, for some vague reason, had said the answer was ‘constipation’! Yeah, don’t ask!!)

The alternative answer was that one is soft and the other is hard! (Sheesh!)

This following one was a particular favourite by next morning. I was complaining about how the damn mosquitoes should just bite and get lost instead of buzzing near the ear (the sound was like that of an ambulance, so said SA). The conversation led to how once you kill one of those creatures, others pounce on immediately, and bravely. DA said that they should be given a Param Veer Chakra, the gallantry award, for their head-on bravery. I said it would have to be given posthumously and we all started giggling at it. DA, gravely says, “Don’t laugh. It’s a gallantry award given posthumously, you shouldn’t laugh.”) The giggles turned to hoots, of course.

DA’s logic was that the mosquitoes go home by 4.30 am after which we could sleep. After much nonsensical jokes, I don’t know whether the mosquitoes went home or not, but we managed to sleep around that time. JN and I like to believe though that we fainted from the excessive smell of Dynamite, DA’s deo that he sprayed, to fumigate.