Tag Archives: Joke

Akbar and Birbal: The Ten Fools

Nationality: Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Claremont, California
Performance Date: 3/22/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, German

Item:

“Emperors seem to be really whimsical people, who also have a lot of time on their hands. Actually, I don’t know if it’s all emperors or just Akbar. Anyway, one day, on a whim, Akbar decided that he wanted to find the ten biggest fools in his kingdom, because he’d had enough of being surrounded by clever and scholarly men. What a novel idea, don’t you think? So he sends his incredibly smart and witty minister Birbal, solver of every problem in his kingdom, out to retrieve these ten foolish men. He eventually returned with eight men, among whom some were supremely idiotic. Let me enlighten you. One of these guys was carrying a bale of hay while riding a horse. So Birbal goes up to this dude and asks him why he’s carrying the hay when he’s riding a horse, and so the guy replies that it’s because his horse is really, really old and weak and that he doesn’t want to burden him any further. I know, right? Now listen to this. Another guy was running down the road really fast and he collided with Birbal. The minister asks the guy where he’s off to in such a hurry and you won’t believe what the guy says. He says that he was saying his prayers in the mosque that morning and wanted to see how far his voice reached. So, duh, the first thought that came to his mind was chasing his voice. And okay, okay, last one. This third genius is looking for something in the street at night, and he can’t seem to find it. He’s looking under a streetlamp.  Birbal stumbles across him, quite literally, and asks him what he’s looking for so frantically. He explains that he lost his wedding ring in a dark galli (alley) a short ways away. So obviously, Birbal is confused and asks him why he isn’t looking in the alley, and in the street instead. Get this. This brilliant guy says that he’s looking in the main road because there’s more light there. Isn’t that hilarious? And so he takes these supremely stupid eight guys back to Akbar, who is upset that there’s only eight of them. So Birbal says, quite frankly, that Akbar is the ninth fool for thinking of such a pointless task. Offended, the Emperor demands who the tenth one is, to which Birbal just deadpans: ‘Me, of course, for agreeing to carry out such a pointless task.’ Ha ha ha!”

Context:

I was told the background of this story in due time: “There are several versions of this story, but the one with Birbal and the Ten Fools is the most popular. There’s a few other ones, though, like The Four Fools and Birbal, and also one that’s more or less the same as the one I just told you, except that the Rajput Birbal is replaced with a South Indian clever minister figure called Tenali Rama and the Emperor Akbar is replaced by the corresponding king – Raja Krishnadevaraya. I just chose this one because I like Birbal more than Tenali Rama and it’s funnier, because there are more idiots. I think the point that’s proven here is that a person who chooses to record the number of idiots in his vicinity is a bigger idiot than all of them combined, because there is no end to the idiots in any given part of the world.”

Analysis:

The notable point here is that the active participant, who is relating the legend, acknowledges that there are several versions and variants of this story, making the main frame of the story a taletype, and the multiple specimens of this story, told all over India, oikotypes. He also relates the story in a very humorous manner and involves the audience directly by laughing with them and asking them rhetorical, “Am I right?”-type questions to keep them engaged. In addition to this, he mentions two different (in region) but very similar (in character) elements to the story – the half-historical and half-legendary characters of Birbal and Tenali Rama, who are well-known all over the Indian subcontinent and are vehicles for many similar stories. Another point to be noted is the presence of a wedding ring in the story. The wedding ring is a traditionally Western and Christian concept that is a modern introduction into Indian culture, where a mangalsutra (wedding necklace) is more prevalent. It’s interesting because this variation in the story must have been quite recent, and also must have been engineered for the story to appeal to a wider audience.

Finally, this story is, essentially, a joke, but also a legend, because it takes place in the real world and may well have happened. Its humor mainly relies in the supreme stupidity of the people Birbal encounters, and the punchline, in which both the minister and the emperor realize that they were pretty idiotic themselves by wasting a week on such a nonsensical quest. The narrative poses the idea that one may have one’s moments of sheer brilliance, but no matter a person’s stature, an emperor, a clever minister, or a mere pauper, everyone has their own unique quirks, whims, and the capacity to be almost mind-numbingly idiotic when given the opportunity.

Nautical play on words

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Escrow officer
Residence: Bonsall, CA and South Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English

Jennifer has been a close friend of my mother’s since childhood and has always been an aunt-like figure in my life. Multiple members of her family have at one point babysat for me as I was growing up and our joint families have often celebrated holidays together. Currently a 55 year old, Christian white (though with Native American Indian heritage on her biological father’s side) woman who works in Escrow in Glendale, CA, she grew up in La Crescenta, CA.

Jennifer also, essentially, grew up on boats. Her family owned a boat, a beach house in Newport Beach area, and a place in Avalon, on Catalina Island, and she frequently spent time on the boat and going to and from Catalina during the summer. Her father also had a fishing charter boat on which he would take out people that wanted to go fishing, and, she said, “my mother would have been involved with boats for forty years.”

She related to me a sort of joke, or pun, that her mother used to make while on the road, driving, that makes a play on nautical vernacular:

“Oh, what’s in the road? A head?”

This is a pun on the phrase “Oh, what’s in the road ahead?” an expression that comes from looking out the window of the car, down the road, and wondering what lies up ahead. However, as a member of a  nautical family, at least in this usage, she’s not referring to a physiological human head, but rather the “head” from a boat, or the toilet. Thus, as Jennifer says about her mother, “By pausing when she does [between the “a” and the “head” of “ahead”], it sounds like there’s a toilet up ahead, in the road.” Jennifer relates that this joke is very typical of her mother, “Things like that, I grew up with, where she [my mother] would constantly…basically, be quizzing us and having fun with words, and seeing how you can change it, change the meaning by simply pausing or stretching a vowel.”

Dick Cheney and Lord Voldemort Joke

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 22
Occupation: student
Residence: Lima, Peru
Performance Date: 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Q: “What do Dick Cheney and Lord Voldemort have in common?”
A: They  both tried to kill someone named Harry!

 

This joke was told to me by my cousin who (like me) is a big Harry Potter fan. She said she had heard it from a friend who’d read this joke online shortly after Cheney’s accidental shooting of his friend, prominent Austin, Tex. lawyer, Harry Whittington in 2006. The incident took place in a Texas ranch where he and Cheney were out in the woods hunting quail: according to testimony, Cheney saw a quail near Whittington and shot, hitting the lawyer in the face instead. Mr. Whittington survived with no great injury. What caused controversy and resulted in this joke however, is that many people did not believe Cheney’s story since the ex vice-president was a seasoned hunter. To add to the fire, a few weeks after begin shot in the face, Mr. Whittington apologized to Cheney for all the scrutiny and negative conjectures that the media was spreading about him. In return, Cheney accepted the apology, but never issued one back.

 

Lord Voldemort is the nemesis of Harry Potter in the eponymous novel. He tried to kill Harry multiple times due to a prophecy that foretold his demise at the hand of the boy. Voldemort is also known to be ruthless, conniving and deceitful, qualities that people also attributed to Cheney.

Rajasthani Wedding Games for the Groom

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: dancer
Residence: Las Vegas, NV
Performance Date: December 18, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Marwari, Marathi, Hindi

1. The first time the son-in-law comes to his mother-in-law’s house,  the women in her family fill his mouth with sweets, and he can’t refuse.

2. The Son-in-law will also have to pick out his new wife from amongst all the women in her family (and servants). They will all cover their faces with their veils and group together. The new husband must recognize his bride by her hands and figure; if he picks her out, he gets to spend the night at her side. Otherwise, he has to sleep outside under the stars.

Just like for the bride, the marriage period is a liminal period of transition that needs to be eased. Teh groom is now responsible for his wife and is joining a new family.Unlike the bride’s experience though, the groom is not being tested like the bride for his courage, strength, intelligence, etc. This is probably a carry over form the dowry tradition, back in old days (and to this day in villages and conservative communities) the bride’s family would pay the groom’s family to marry their daughter. Thus, the groom’s family would put her to the test to make sure she was “worth the money” so to speak. Now, the dowry system is uncommon, but the practice of testing the new wife remains.

The Bird and the Cow

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 18 2013
Primary Language: English

Giovanni’s grandfather will occasionally tell the story of the Bird and the Cow to his grandchildren in order to instruct them on a lesson in life. The story goes as follows:
There once was a bird that was flying south for winter, but he had left too late into winter that the air was extremely cold. While he was flying, his wings began to freeze, and he could no longer continue to fly. He became completely frozen and fell to the ground. While on the ground freezing to death, a cow happened to walk past and noticed the freezing bird. The cow takes a crap on the bird and then walks away. The poo actually warms up the bird, and eventually the poo thaws him out. When the birds mouth is thawed out, he begins to sing for joy, knowing that he eventually will be out free. Then a fox that is walking by hears the singing bird thawing in the cow dung. The fox digs the bird out of the cow dung, and then he eats the bird.
There are three lessons that are meant to be learned from Giovanni’s story. The first is that not everyone who shits on you is your enemy. The second is that not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend. Lastly, when you are deep in shit keep your mouth shut.