Horn NOT Ok, Please!!

After the ban on beef and the insistence on screening of Marathi movies, the Maharashtra Govt has now banned the ubiquitous `Horn OK Please’ that stares at you from behind most trucks!

Reason? It makes people honk all the more! Seriously! What will they ban next? `Buri nazar wale, tera muh kala!’ because it’s racist??

Of course, we honk like our lives depend on it. We are truly the `horniest’ nation on earth, going by the incessant cacophony on our roads.

An aside here. Durex, that maker of luxury condoms, in a recent survey, has ranked India the 8^th most `sexually satisfied’ nation on earth! How the f@£$ did they arrive at that dubious conclusion? By totaling the sales of their products plus pills plus spermicidal creams?? Am I missing something here??

There, now I’ve gone way off topic! Horny so-and-so! Come back, you ill begotten son of a what-not…

No `Horn OK Please’ now? Seriously?? After the decades it took me to figure out what this pithy slogan really meant (Want to overtake me? Horn loudly as you do so, ok? - Please!).

Good men have made hobbies, even careers out of recording, if not actually authoring the verses one sees behind trucks, busses and rickshaws.

If any of you have seen the hilarious, rib tickling, rip roaring Pakistani stage drama `Bakra Qishton Pe', you will remember Professor Nizami’s sher-o-shayairi competition  with his neighbour Mirza.

Mirza asks him "Tum ne kitne deewan padhay hain?"

The professor replies "Sher-o-shaiyari jaan ne ke liye deewan padhna zaroori nahin hai - truck padho, rickshaw padho, bus padho!"

Of course, Delhi is the most culturally bereft city in the country. Sad, considering that the likes of Meer, Ghalib and Zouk once habited its courts. The hordes of Punjabi jats that descended on it after partition completely crushed its fragile culture beyond recognition.

So once where you reveled in a

Zameen-e-chaman gul khilati hai kya kya

Badalta hai rang aasmaan kaise kaise,

behind a truck, today all you get to see in Delhi is a `Sonu te Pinky di gaddi'.

Where indeed have the mighty fallen..

Yet, here are some gems that I’ve managed to pick up in my travels – mostly along Sher Shah Suri’s Grand Trunk Road..

`Ameeron ki zindagi, fruit aur cake pe,

Driver ki zindagi clutch aur brake pe!’

Anyone familiar with Delhi’s traffic and obnoxious drivers will easily identify with

Kaun kehta hai ke maut aayegi aur main mar jaoonga,

Main toh Dilli ka driver hun, cut maar ke nikal jaaonga!

And here are some from Pakistan..

Yeh jeena bhi ko jeena hai? 

Jhelum ke aage Dina hai!

(Dina is a village about 20 Km ahead of Jhelum)

Itna dubla ho gaya hun sanam tumhari judaai se

Ke khatmal bhi kheench le jaate hain mujhe chaarpai se

Kis kadar khush nazar aate hain mere shehar ke log

Aaj akhbaar na padhaa ho kisi ne jaise.

Ya Ilahi kya ghazab hai, khat ka aana bandh hai

Ya mohabat kam hui hai, ya dak khana bandh hai

Ya Ilahi, tujhe maloom hai, nahi dekh sakta apni biwi ka bewa hona

Wo jo mar sakti hai mere liye, mujhe manzoor us ki khatir randwa hona

Aadmi aadmi ko dans raha hai

Saamne saamp baitha hans raha hai

Kismat azma chuka hun, kismat azma raha hun

Kisi bewafa ki khatir rickshaw chala raha hun

Na jawan hotay na dil lgatay,

Na karte muhabbat, na rikshaw chlatay

Sawaari pichhay Kareena Katrina,

Driver aggay Paseena Paseena

Or the simple but oh so effective `Aag lawaan teri majbooriyaan nu!!'

Professor Nizami was absolutely spot on. For true shayari, you don’t need to pore over the deewans of the greats. Just read buses, trucks and rickshaws!

Irrespective of what Mr Phadnavis decrees, Horn will always be OK, Please!!