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Apart
from being an accomplished comic, Ashok
Chakradhar is a very good poet. One of his
‘chutkula’ comes to mind. He recounts how his
car once broke down as he was waiting at a
railway crossing. When the gates opened up, he
tried to start his car, but nothing happened.
Now the guy behind him started to honk his horn.
Mr. Chakradhar opened the hood / bonnet of the
car and tried to fix the problem. The guy behind
him kept honking. Finally, Mr Chakradhar put his
tools down and went back to the car behind him.
He told the driver, “ We both have a problem. I
can’t seem to fix my car. Can you try fixing my
car and let me blow your horn ?”
My experience in writing for PD has turned out
to be like dealing with a few ‘horn blowers’. A
lot of really good authors have emerged from the
woodworks. Kumod Jha, Ravi Pandey, Som
Vishwakarma, Tarkeshwar Dubey, Rajesh Anand and
a great many more. But there are the horn
blowers too. Lest I be quoted again, the horn
blowers are a part of our community and we have
to live and work in their midst. It has been
said, “Nindak niyare raakhiye, aangan kuti
chawaye” (Keep your critics close to you).
However there are critics whose criticism adds
and enriches, and there are those who will burn
their house to burn yours, or those who will
split hair to find their personal biases and
insecurites in any and everything you say. Then
again, they are a ‘given’ in the equation of
life.
Coming back to Chakradhar... He was talking
about the kinds of things that evoke mirth. He
recounted this episode: A man was trying to
tickle a rhinoceros at a zoo. The rhino couldn’t
care less and was happily chewing on its food.
After watching this for a while, another man
standing nearby said, “You have been tickling
this Rhino for so long, but, what to talk about
making it laugh, he did not even smile!” The man
who was tickling the rhino got embarrassed, and
said “ maybe because he has a thick hide”. Now
when he said that, the Rhino began to laugh!!!
I am laughing too!
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