DIRTY EARRINGS
Kavitha Kumari – Cochin
A wealthy lady from Mumbai once decided to celebrate her forty fifth birthday with the inmates of the women’s mental hospital, in line with the new social trend. She set out distributing food packets, when one of them smiled at her and asked her for her gold earrings.
Being her birthday, she didn’t want to disappoint the mental patient and so played tactfully, ‘My earrings are dirty. I picked it up from a lavatory’.
‘Lavatory?; then I don’t want your stinking earrings. You can keep them’.
The secret of the earrings spread to other inmates, who soon gathered around the birthday lady.
‘Can you feel the stink, it’s from her earrings’, one said.
‘But she is still lucky, isn’t she?’ another asked.
‘Stop it!’, screamed a fat worried inmate, ‘Can’t anyone of you think of the poor fellow who swallowed it’.
THE MAGIC SHOW
Vanaja Kishore – Bangalore
At the tail end of the women’s club anniversary celebrations, it was the magic show. The magician performed several tricks to the amazement of the ladies, till he performed the egg trick.
He took an egg, covered it with his hat and waved his wand. The egg disappeared.
‘Where has the egg gone?’, the magician asked the ladies and pointing to someone in the middle asked, ‘Madam, can I have a look at your handbag’.
The lady gave him her handbag and he searched for the egg, but it wasn’t there. Disappointed at his failed trick, he returned the handbag to the lady.
Unable to believe the failure of the trick, a few women pounced on the bag to have a re-check, when the handbag owner screamed, ‘What a great magic, Mrs. Vincent’s lost gold chain has come into my bag’.
THE CURSE OF GOD
Blessy – Trivandrum
One day Jane happened to come home very late from college and her mother enquired anxiously.
A terrified Jane replied, ‘Mom you know my classmate Tulip; well someone stole her gold bangle from her handbag’.
‘Poor girl and what did you all do?’
‘We went to church and prayed’, Jane said angrily, ‘We asked Jesus to break the wrists of all those who wore stolen bangles’.
‘That’s right, you girls had done the right thing’, her mother stammered.
Jane retired to her room, and about an hour later she heard a knock on the door. It was her mother asking her, ‘Jane my love, are you sure you girls prayed only for bangles and not earrings. I’ve got a terrible pain in both ears’.
WIDOW RE-MARRIAGE
Damien Paul – Idukki
The local administration had introduced a widow remarriage scheme wherein a pair of gold bangles would be given away to widows upon their re-marriage. Lizzy proudly displayed her gifted bangles to her new husband.
‘Look at this pair of gold bangles, it really encourages women like me to get married again, else would have been a widow throughout’, she told her new husband.
The next day there was a call for Lizzy and her new husband answered it, ‘Lizzy is having her bath, can I take the message’.
‘Well just tell her that Sussane had called up. Tell her that I’ve married the carpenter and have got my fourth pair of gold bangles’.
‘It’s disgusting’, Lizzy’s new husband screamed, ‘Aren’t you ashamed and feel low?’
‘To be honest — yes’, Sussane spoke from the other end, ‘But it’s just one pair less than Lizzy’.
LOST AND NOT FOUND
Narayana Kurup – Trivandrum
A lady officer of the Chennai Corporation was on an inspection work when she suddenly noticed her gold necklace missing.
She called all the workers immediately and told them, ‘See, I’ve lost my necklace. If any of you find it, please give it to me and I will make you a permanent worker in the corporation’.
A week passed and no one found the necklace. She again called the workers and said, ‘It’s not necessary that you must find the necklace I lost. You may find any necklace but it should be at least forty grams in weight’.
ROYAL TRAITS
Thomas Pallickal – Kollam
A descendant of a certain North Indian royal family had a heart attack and luckily survived. The old man suddenly developed a crave for his granddaughter, whom he had never seen. His daughter Priya had eloped with a Christian boy to France about twenty years back.
The last he heard of them was the couple had died in a road accident with their daughter being safe in Paris. The old man sent the Interpol to look for her. The old man insisted that he would not blindly accept anyone as his granddaughter. ‘The girl will need to undergo a photo identification test, artifact identification test and also answer a few questions about her parents. Only then I’ll be able to decide’, he said.
On the appointed day, the teenage girl was produced before him and before he could see her properly, she seemed to get down to work.
‘What’s this grandpa; you have seven rings but not a single bracelet. Now look at your chain; for your age you should have a long thick one, not something like this. You didn’t have anyone to help you?’
The old man jumped in joy, ‘You are indeed my granddaughter and just like Priya; don’t care for people or their problems; only think of their gold’.
RING OF LOVE
Paul Mathew – Calicut
A happy looking Jane once told Rose, ‘You know something, yesterday David took me to the pizza shop and told me I was beautiful and he’s in love with me. See, he’s even given me a gold ring’.
Rose looked terribly upset when she told Jane, ‘What a cheat is he — last week he told me the same thing, but he hadn’t given me a ring’.
FOR THEIR SAKE
Kishore – Ooty
An husband and wife once set out to purchase jewelry. After an exhaustive search and examination of the available models, the wife finally opted for a unique chain.
The chain was weighed and found to be forty grams.
However the wife seemed to change her mind, ‘The design, look and price are all ok; but I think I shouldn’t take it. You see, I am sure, Mrs. Sheila and Mrs. Paul won’t agree that it’s forty grams’.
THE GREAT IMPULSE
Ramesh – Cochin
A first aider at a local zoo was treating a young mother for a monkey bite. Her confused five year old son was beside her.
‘That’s why we tell people not to feed animals’, the first aider said.
‘No I wasn’t trying to feed the monkeys’, the mother confessed. ‘It was an act of impulse. I saw something yellow glittering inside the cage’.
A LUCKY FAVOR
Kalpana – Mysore
A leading retail store once put up a New Year super scheme. Every customer would be given a coupon and a lucky customer would be selected by a draw, and a gift of one kg. gold would be given.
A young women met the proprietor of the store and asked, ‘Why don’t you select me a winner?. You can give me only a quarter kg gold, and keep the rest with yourself’.
The proprietor looked shocked, ‘Hey look!. What a cute cheat we have here’. He added, ‘Listen, if you ever open a store like this and conduct a scheme like this, send word. I’ll do that for just hundred rupees’.
THE PROFESSIONAL ADORER
Joseph Kuruvilla – Calicut
Mrs. Radhika had bought a new necklace and was getting it adored by her servant maid.
‘This is really a great piece. You know last week Mrs. Dixit had bought a similar necklace, but I didn’t like it and I straight away told her that it’s not nice. She still gave me a hundred rupees. But this is really a great piece’.
‘Is it? Thank you’, Mrs. Radhika replied and walked off with the necklace.
Her servant maid followed her, ‘Can I have a look at it again?’
‘Sure take it’, Radhika gave her.
‘What’s this — not a single stone in it? Mrs. Dixit had two blue, one green and two red stones set in her necklace’
MEMORY RECALL
Deepak – Coimbatore
An old lady once visited a psychiatrist, complaining of poor memory. She showed him a picture of her grandsons and said, ‘These are my grandsons and I know them very well, but unfortunately I can’t remember their names now’.
‘Well your problems are obviously serious, but we’ll get over it’, the psychiatrist assured her.
He then prescribed some medicines and soon the lady rose to go, when the psychiatrist reminded her of her handbag.
‘Oh! Thank you doctor, I’ve got a broken gold chain in it for repair. My husband bought it thirty-five years back for only five hundred rupees. At that time you only had to pay four hundred rupees for a ten gram gold chain’ she cried out, ‘He’s dead and gone now and for this wretched memory of mine, I don’t even remember his name too’.
STRIKING BRIDE
Vanaja Kishore – Bangalore
The bridegroom had come from Dubai to see his bride for the first time. He hadn’t seen her before, even in a photograph.
‘Your bride is there’, his mother said, ‘Let’s see if you can pick her right’.
He saw three beautiful women before him.
He was too confused for a while, but soon walked to one of them and said, ‘You are my bride’
All were surprised. His mother asked him, ‘Hey, how did you do that?’
‘Its simple mom’, he told her. ‘Remember your letter, you said she is beautiful and had a strong passion for gold. Well look at her, she’s got gold bangles on both her hands without space for a single addition and she’s still got a few clenched in her right fist’.
DECEIVING GLITTER
Ashwin – Chennai
A man and his grown up daughter were on their way to attend a family function when a group of dacoits intercepted them and asked the daughter to hand over all her jewelry.
Trained in martial arts, the daughter flung into action and soon had the dacoits running for cover.
When the last of the dacoits had left, she told her dad, ‘You were perfectly right dad, when you bought me these; the world isn’t a safe place for women with gold. But just imagine you’ve got to fight even to keep this gild’
THE DEITY’S GRANT
Suresh – Coimbatore
A senior engineer from the Electricity Board once took his old mother, wife and children to a popular hill temple in the north. On reaching the sanctum sanatorium, he told his crowd, ‘Pray well, this deity is very powerful for whatever you ask, you will have it before you reach down’.
They prayed and got down, when one of his children cried out, ‘Grandma, where’s your gold chain?’
The old lady felt her neck and said calmly, ‘I am not surprised; your mother had wanted it for a long time’.
EXTREME PASSION
Nisha – Trichy
On the Grand Trunk Express from Delhi, a woman suddenly sprang up and pulled the emergency chain and brought the train to a halt. As her explanation was not satisfactory, the authorities initiated prosecution procedures when her husband pleaded for her. ‘She is a hysteria patient and suffers occasional attacks like this’, he said.
The authorities then brought a doctor to examine her, who listened to her story.
‘I had a terrible dream that dacoits entered the train, tied up my husband and pushed him off the train. They then snatched all the belongings here and started to leave. Just when I thought everything was over, one of them came back and snatched my necklace. I was helpless and in my desperation, I pulled the chain’.
The doctor was spellbound and summed up his assessment, ‘Let her go. I’ve not seen an extreme case like this’. He then went to the husband and said, ‘Believe me; I’ve never before seen a woman with such extreme passion’.
‘Thank you doctor’, the husband replied proudly, ‘I too love her very much’
TALK PLEASE TALK
Amaraambika – Ahmedabad
A certain mother once got a phone call that her son had met with an accident while returning from college, and that he was admitted to a particular hospital. She immediately rushed to the hospital only to be told by the doctors there, that he had slipped into coma.
She was taken to the bed where he lay motionless, and she was soon screaming and crying.
The doctors, nurses and the ward attendants tried to console her. They assured her that he would soon be regaining consciousness.
‘Hope he gets back quickly. I am so desperate to talk to him’, she cried.
She then sat beside him, stared at him and sobbed.
Then all of a sudden she started screaming ‘John, can you hear me…. now talk to me. Come on tell me… where did your gold bracelet go; tell me …?’
THE SPECIAL RING
Deepak – Coimbatore
A policeman died in riot control action very far from home. His body was immediately cremated and all his personal property was delivered to his wife. His wife wept as she received each piece of his property, until she received his ring.
She soon increased her weeping tone and called her daughter. The people present there were moved by the scene. The woman seemed too sentimental with her husband’s gold ring. The crowd looked at her and her daughter with much sympathy.
‘Rinku darling, look closely at dad’s ring, carefully’, she told her, ‘Rinku; don’t you think it looks a bit smaller?’
