Great, original ideas. Copyright copying material.

A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "If I show you a really good trick, will you give me a free drink?" The bartender considers it, then agrees. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny rat. He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a tiny piano. The rat stretches, cracks his knuckles, and proceeds to play the blues.

After the man finished his drink, he asked the bartender, "If I show you an even better trick, will you give me free drinks for the rest of the evening?" The bartender agrees, thinking that no trick could possibly be better than the first. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tiny rat. He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out the tiny piano. The rat stretches, cracks his knuckles, and proceeds to play the blues. The man reaches into another pocket and pulls out a small bullfrog, who begins to sing along with the rat's music.

While the man is enjoying his beverages, a stranger confronts him and offers him a thousand for the bullfrog. "Sorry," the man replies, "he's not for sale." The stranger increases the offer to ten thousand cash up front. "No," he insists, "he's not for sale." The stranger again increases the offer, this time to half a million cash. The man finally agrees, and turns the frog over to the stranger in exchange for the money.

"Are you insane?" the bartender demanded. "That frog could have been worth millions to you, and you let him go for a mere five hundred thousand?" "Don't worry about it", the man answered. "The frog was really nothing special. You see, the rat's a ventriloquist."

Fine, fine..... I copy-pasted it from a joke site. Don't come suing in the name of plagiarism. I just used up the last of my pocket money. To be more precise, left-side ass pocket money.

That brings to mind one of my music gurus, the one I've looked up to whenever I wanted inspiration to make my keyboard sound like it had had a hangover - the walking, talking, belching jewellery store, Bappi Lahiri! He really took the cake when he sued Dr. Dre for copying his aweful music. What was he thinking? I'm talking about Dre; didn't he get anyone else?

Right after this incident, my second-in-line guru, Anu Malik [sorry, he is now Aanu Mallick] makes a mind-rattling philosophical statement that with music having just seven notes [felt like strangling that chap, doesn't even know his music correctly; there are twelve semitones], something or the other is bound to sound similar. Listen to his 'inspired' music that's a direct lift from 'The final countdown - Europe' and one gets the idea that Malik/Mallick/Male-lick can go creatively brain-dead to the extent of sounding just the same. Inspired, my foot!

Then there was a certain Kaavya Viswanathan who absent mindedly copied certain parts from a couple of other books. But it slipped her mind to make changes and sound a little more original. Can't blame her for that, what with all the hectic schedules at Harvard. Her case was even worse than that of Malik/Mallick/Male-lick. Two songs sounding the same are tolerable; not two books having nearly the same scenes repeated - just names changed. And then being nominated for an award.

But who am I to talk, I just copied a joke. Word for word, punctuation for punctuation. Ventriloquist punch line for ventriloquist punch line. I cracked an 'already cracked' joke. That means I cracked it further. Does that imply good jokes break? Forcible, excessive repeated cracking. Or maybe they just begin to look like a shrivelled old woman. Covered all over with wrinkles. With one ridiculously big tooth.

Whatever the inspiration, I salute the guy who came up with that winner of a joke. After a month-long examination and a little loss of hair [for the same reason], that joke cracked me up. One of those times when a manic laughter forces air out of the wrong end. It may have been the desparation or frustration. Of exams where they tell you to assume suitable data where printing mistakes have occurred. But who cares? I'd forgotten how to laugh for months. And make an uncontrollable ripping noise at the same time. The noise that starts with a p, ends with a p, having only t's and r's in between. No vowels. Not listed in the dictionary. Just plain old ophthalmic insult.

My laughs had become mechanical. More like an asthamatic attack - the only difference being that I was blowing out each Ha!, not drawing it in. So this joke was a lifesaver. Like those inhalers one uses in case the Ha! is being drawn in.

But now it has all changed. I can laugh aloud once again. Stupidity-induced six-pack developing convulsive action. Till Dad threatens to hit me with the large rice spoon in his hand.