Grave Humor

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It is not often that our Police, especially Traffic Police, display world-class humor.

So, I couldn't take my eyes off the photo of a charming ad by Cyberabad Traffic Police that appeared in DC, today.

It has a lovely picture of a green lawn with crosses (tombstones). In front of one of these is a Hutch Puppy sitting crouched and having a bemoaning look.

The ad warning motorists against use of cell phones while driving has the caption:

"I can't follow U everywhere".

That recalled a series of Hutch ad campaigns with the Hutch Puppy:

"Wherever you go, our network follows"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIR7ONGd2FM

Classic Stuff....original?

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Talking of graveyard humor, I recall the epitaph of the hypochondriac:

"Will you believe me at least now?"

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Can Death be the subject of humor?

Hear Thurber talking about the genesis of his famous cartoon, "Touche!":

"...This drawing was originally done for the New Yorker by Cal Rose, caption and all. Mr Rose is a realistic artist, and his gory scene distressed the editors, who hate violence. They asked Rose if he could let me have the idea, since there is obviously no blood to speak of in the people I draw. Rose graciously consented. No one who looks at 'Touche!' believes that the man whose head is in the air is really dead. His opponent will hand it back to him with profuse apologies, and the discommoded fencer will replace it on his shoulders, and say: 'No harm done, forget it.' Thus the old controversy as to whether death can be made funny is left just where it was before carl Rose came up with his wonderful idea..."

I wish I could write prose like that...sigh!

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And then Jerome K Jerome:

"...The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned around to reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked round again, Harris and the pie were gone!

It was a wide open field. There was not a tree or a hedge for hundreds of yards. He could not have tumbled into the river, because we were on the water side of him, and he would have to climb over us to do it.

George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other.

'Has he been snatched up to heaven?', I queried.

'They'd hardly have taken the pie too,' said George.

There seemed weight in his objection, and we discarded the heavenly theory...."


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The joke in our University years about graves that I recall with pleasure after half a century is of Nikita Khrushchev (NK).

He toured India with Marshall Bulganin during the Nehru era. And everyone of us loved NK. He had a plump figure with a bald head, a cherubic face and a grin that belied his iron hand that could dethrone dead Stalin from his cult status both ideologically and physically. NK had his remains removed from Red Square where they were lying buried alongside Lenin's.

During the height of the Cold War one-upmanship, the joke goes that NK and his delegation went to the US on an official visit where they were taken to the lab housing the latest American medical marvel:

"We have just succeeded in an operation that can bring dead folks back alive."

NK rebuffed:

"This is nothing...our scientists have succeeded in making objects go faster than light."

The Americans were astounded and on their return visit to Stalin's tomb they begged NK to show them the lab where objects travel faster than light.

NK quipped:

"You bring that Stalin guy back alive; and you will see me run faster than light."

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