Laughing all the way to the Net Soaring onion prices are being lampooned on the Internet -- a reflection of a new breed of humour writers who're running riot on the web, chuckles Reena Martins
She's not cryin' anymore, Can't afford you is what she says; There's a smile upon her face; Tomatoes took my place... She's Not Cryin' Anymore... This ditty, composed by Goa's humour writer Cecil Pinto (with due apologies to Billy Ray Cyrus), is an ode to the onion, which has become the butt of Internet and WhatsApp jokes over the past few weeks. As the pricey bulb graces a ring in cyber space -- pictured like a ruby over a band -- one can't help but wonder about the funny bones behind the thriving Internet satire that leaves the user hungry for more. As one Facebook satire page says, Bahut bhook lagee hai yaar, subah se kuch nahi khaya (I'm very hungry, haven't eaten anything all day). These days, there is a joke for every occasion. The rising price of onions has been lampooned in varied ways. A cartoon being circulated on the Internet has a couple asking for two kilos of onions, prompting the vegetable seller to suspiciously ask them for their PAN card number. The latest joke doing the rounds is a WhatsApp message with the header, "Today's currency exchange rate". It says: 1 dollar = 765g onions; 1 Euro = 1.15g onions, 1 rupee = 12g onions. Cartoons from newspapers are scanned and circulated, as humour writers -- college students, advertising executives and others -- let their imagination run riot, thinking of funny one liners on topical issues. "There is this new breed of humour writers that is cutting edge," says Kunal Vijaykar, co-host of the television show The Week That Wasn't. "Even though Cyrus (Broacha) and I were the ones to start the irreverent humour trend, I feel jealous when I see this flurry of WhatsApp jokes, 90 per cent of which are very funny and come out within hardly a couple of hours of a newsbreak. We have to rewrite our TV script as we can't repeat the damn jokes!" Most of the jokes are targeted at politicians. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tours across the world have evoked considerable mirth. "I don't believe in maps, satellites and NASA,' says one message, and then goes on to add, just above Modi's smiling photograph, "I will travel myself to prove that the world is round." A lot of the humour is focused on Rahul Gandhi's lack of political experience. "We must work for the party," Sonia Gandhi says in one such joke. "Oh, who's throwing it," asks an excited Rahul. Political satire can take the form of innovative laws too. That's how US-based political satirist Nishant Jain pokes fun at the system. On his five-year-old Facebook page Testimonial Comics (with close to 9,000 likes), Jain this week drafted a Whistleblower's Protection Act "to protect lewd, perverted whistleblowers who make innocent ministers feel unsafe in their armored cars (with police escorts and barricades) composed almost exclusively of sacks of black money". It adds: "No minister or official in any governmental capacity need ever be afraid of loud, prejudiced, aggressive individuals eager to blow whistles at them just because they were walking across the street to exchange briefcases full of money from the corporation of their choice." Jain points out that the "bandwagon of humour" has got bigger now that the Internet has "exploded all over" cell phones, laptops and tablets. "I regularly read stuff that makes me insanely jealous of the writer behind it," adds Jain, who holds a master's degree in bio-mechanical engineering. Some of the jokes can be wildly irreverent. Take this one, which says: After the grand success of Coffee with Karan, xxx (television company) is coming up with three new shows: 1: Tea with Modi 2: Cerelac with Rahul 3: Cough syrup with Kejriwal. Thank God, it goes on to add, Morarji Desai is dead. A lot of the humour is on blogs. Actor Twinkle Khanna's blog entries -- where she takes on, with subtle humour, issues such as the ban on beef in Maharasthra or the hush-hush world of menstruation -- are now out as a book. Architect and humour writer Clement de Sylva's blog Bandrabuggers is a hugely popular book written in pidgin English. De Sylva, who has been writing for 10 years, says that positive responses never stop pouring in from those in his neighbourhood of Bandra. There are occasions when people take exception to a joke. Most of Pinto's funny posts centre on family and Goan village life, so every once in a while he gets accosted by someone taking offence at something he has written. "I try to be sensitive and not hurt anyone's feelings, but that's not always possible. Political correctness and humour don't go together." Like any other humour writer, Pinto revels in stories about his readers having a ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) moment after reading his stories. But one such story is most heartfelt. Some years ago, a Goan woman living in Dubai mailed him to say that she had found a way to deal with her husband who would normally come home from work in a bad mood. She started handing him printed copies of Pinto's jokes. The husband laughed out loud and stayed in good spirits for the rest of the day. "It really touched me that a stranger, thousands of miles away, got some relief from the drudgery of life through my humour. I was determined to write better," says Pinto, who grew up on Mad magazine, Asterix comics and the William books penned by the popular English writer Richmal Crompton. But what happens when the joke's on you? Ask Cyrus Broacha, theatre person, comedian and political satirist. "Everyone's becoming a comedian, so much so that there's this humour fascism," he says in trademark rambunctious style. "People will text you these recycled jokes -- often with sexual innuendos -- at great speed, but ask them to help you out with fixing your geyser and they're nowhere to be found. At the club you have men with straight laced day jobs putting their phones in your face to show you WhatsApp jokes. If you have to wear shorts for six days a week, at least for one day you'll want to wear trousers. So give me a break!" he adds. In the cyberworld, even the intermission hour draws chuckles from thousands of mouse clicks. Last week, when pictures of a drunk policeman on a Delhi metro went viral, adman and humour writer Bodhisatva Dasgupta's post pleaded: "Some empathy please. Some sense of humour. Some light heartedness. Some more, 'hey, take my seat' and less 'look at that policeman, drunk out of his head, what an a@#$%^e, he's supposed to protect us.' A little less aggression. A little more compassion, please. Even Batman has an off-day." http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150830/jsp/7days/story_39742.jsp Shares: 900. Likes: 1,300 and counting.