Before becoming self-critical, cynical and in-fighting as of now, Parsis were known for their sense of humor. But since the passing of humorists Dr Jehangir Wadia, Adi Marzban, Pheroze Antia... we have become very serious. Thus it was comforting to read Cyrus Broacha’s random thoughts and flights of fancy on frailties of Prakashes, Kapoors, Dalals, Dariuses, Paramjits, Himanshus, Dhirajes, Swaminathans and a host of others who color the book with their body odors, flatulence and onion-worship. Not to mention their love for (and fear of) their mothers, holding hands with another male, nodding their heads non-stop, their pavement-phobia and scratching their unmentionables.
Broacha’s humor is less like Marzban’s (remembered for his hilarious Parsi Gujarati ‘nataks’) and more like Behram Contractor’s (alias Busybee, known for his sharp wit and take-offs in his columns in The Times of India, Mid Day and Afternoon Despatch and Courier); less like P. G. Wodehouse’s (the creator of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster) and more like Stephen Leacock’s (the Canadian spoof specialist and author of Literary Lapses and Nonsense Novels).
Like in Leacock’s and Busybee’s humor, send-ups and take-offs are the key notes of Broacha’s book.
Broacha is a stand-up comic of national repute but some of his spoken jokes do not translate well in written essays. With an effective spoken delivery, lifting of an eye-brow and pregnant pauses a stand-up comic can arouse the audience to laughter and prolonged applause.
For a book, this is not always possible. A naughty joke with a raised eyebrow and pursed lips can animate the listeners into a frenzy of clapping. The written word does not have eyebrows and lips. It has to have something extra to retain the readers’ interest.
Repetition is the hallmark of good comedy, written or oral, but at times Broacha’s repetitions stretch too far, especially when he exaggerates his exaggerations. To use a cricket terminology, he lofts many sixes but going for more he gets caught in no man’s land.
Readers will enjoy Kunal Vijayakar’s Foreword which informs them about Broacha’s obsession with humor.
The book is divided in two parts; Book 1 starts with questions from readers — mostly females, often non-Indians — on how to deal with the average Indian male. The question-answer format is entertaining if you read three to four chapters at a time. But more is not merrier.
I enjoyed the following amusing lines in the book:
"The (Indian) wife’s job is absolutely parallel to a trampoline artist’s. She has to bounce around the dinner table attending to each and every person’s need... She has to jump from chair to chair like a bunny rabbit on speed serving hot food."
Broacha broaches on Indians’ obsession to comb hair with Wodehouse-like wit. "A flurry of wrists and fingers and the comb would be returned to the back right pocket barely visible to the naked eye (although I see no sense in the phrase because eyes, as you all know, are almost always naked as a rule)."
"The male would have to answer to his mother-in-law, his second cousin’s step-daughter, his son, his own maternal grandmother, all at the same time. A few of our ancestors, like the legendary Ravan, could cope with this as he had on good authority, ten heads (one shudders at his dentists’ bills.)"
"And never forget Kim Jung’s dying words, ‘A vice may well be vice, but it’s better to be greedy than needy.’"
Book 2 is more philosophical, deciphering the incoherent thoughts of — you guessed it — the average Indian male. I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek (or is it cheek-in-tongue) chapter on Aryabhatta’s concept of zero and how his "nothingness philosophy" explains Indians being always late. I thought the originator of zero-concept was former Indian Test spinner B. S. Chandrasekhar!
I better submit this review for Parsiana readers right away before I am accused of suffering from Aryabhatta’s zero-syndrome.