Laughing For Fifty Years And Still Laughing!

You sent me on a regression hypnosis with that word “Guide”. Back in the day, there used to “Answer bank” or “Question bank” series where likely questions asked in an exam were deposited. Many publishing houses exclusively trafficked in this material that medicated anxiety and pain triggered by the examination jitters. These resources provided some form of relief and solace to the confounded students brought up in Indian education system. They were available in various flavours: “essential guide”, “advanced guide”, “all-in-one guide”, ""friendly guide”. I don't know if these other public-service “guides” and “banks” are still around.

There was a time or season [April] when these open terraces were seized by fanatics who immersed in such rote chants early in the morning. A trespassing kite player was scorned as a dissenter who didn't contribute to this National “Memory” Bank. For a brief period, I grew up in a building facing a residential school. In the early hours , even before the birds wriggled out of their nests, these assiduous birdies used to flock to the terrace of the school building and recite their chants. Our education system necessitates such learning. A foreign envoy visiting our educational institutions would mistaken our formal learning in schools for specialised training in military academy to churn out spies modelled after Mr Memory in The 39 Steps [1935 thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock].

 

Have a review and order. You might also enjoy this original article where the below poem was cited.

How To Get On In Society

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

By John Betjeman

 

That link goes to a paywall for FT.
Anyhow... I moved the reply to this other thread...

 

What a wonderful and warm rambling about Wodehouse books ! I have not read PG Wodehouse after college time . Your this post makes me want to go and get one !

I know how some " serious reading people " turn up their nose at popular and humorous books , as though reading them is so demeaning for their mind !
As a student , had to read Humbolts Gift and Travels with Charlie for NonDetail Reading . I dont remember really enjoying those . But there was another compulsory reading which I did enjoy , it was " Pygmalion"
But , always comedy is good to read . It adds so much life to a dull routine day .
Ofcourse , i like Sujatha and Balakumaran writings . Still , my all time favourite is Bagyam Ramaswami .

 

Dear Sri,
You know what,i am an avid reader of novels,i like humor,but sadly I have never read a book of pg wood house.he must be good for I have not heard of anyone not loving him and Jeeves.
I have crude taste.i like James Hadley chase,nick Carter,robert Ludlum,jeffery archer,sidney Sheldon. And love movies of James Bond.
Sadly pg will have to wait for me to read him in my next birth,where u and me may meet again.
Kamal

 

Wodehouse despised Indians during his life, when he was in HK, and later when he lived in USA. And long after he is gone, India is where he is remembered, and enjoyed the most.
The Hindu : Wodehousian magic
In one review, there is this rationale:

"Much of Wodehouse’s appeal lies in a remarkably smooth serving up of a verbal stew of rather lumpy elements: English slang, American slang, literary allusions, needless abbreviations, mixed metaphors, fussily precise details about trivialities … He loved outlandish similes, particularly those drawn from the natural world: “She uttered a sound rather like an elephant taking its foot out of a mud hole in a Burmese teak forest”; “She looked like a tomato struggling for self-expression”; “The fact that he was fifty quid in the red and expecting Civilization to take a toss at any moment had caused Uncle Tom, who always looked a bit like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow, to take on a deeper melancholy.”​

I have a few jewish friends in my adopted land; and these are young people, born well after the war. However, they'd never buy anything German. A self imposed embargo on all/any economic transaction with Germany. Indians are a forgiving lot; we had read history, learnt about the atrocities, and swindles, and still enjoy the writings about the shenanigans of those who thought us as a smelly, and idiotic race of people.