various  places  in India  and  having  stayed  in  about  ten  different  towns, there was one thing common – I  was  made the  butt of  jokes on Sardars.  The  jokes  would  not only pour  from  those  who  were  jealous  of  my  academic  achievements  but  also  from  some of  my very  close friends. The only  difference  was  that  while those  who  envied me blasted the jokes at my face when  we  were  standing  in  a  group,   whereas  my  close  friends   would  do me the courtesy of looking  at me politely and saying “If  you  wouldn’t  mind, can I crack a  joke on Sardars please?” and  a  smile  from  me  would  be  taken as  an affirmation.  Either way, the jokes would be humiliating and offensive. When my friends and colleagues would be laughing out loud looking at me,  I had  little  choice  but  to  smile and  show  spirit. But how many times a day can one take such ribbing sportingly? In my case, during college, it would come at me two to three times a day, and later when I got a job, it would happen twice or thrice during every social gathering.

Coming to the jokes proper, what do ‘Sardarji Jokes’ have in common? What characterizes them and sets them apart? Firstly, they all have a protagonist who is a Sardar. Secondly, this protagonist is idiosyncratic and an abject idiot  who probably has   an  IQ  of  a  primary school  dropout. All of his decisions are not only irrational but also comic. In the last  thirty years, during most of which I have been at the  receiving end of these jokes, I  have  observed that  neither  the  IQ  nor the  idiotic persona  of  the  protagonist  has  improved. But there is one thing that has surely changed – the fact that Sardars in real life have come a long way. They have penetrated every profession, every service, every walk of life and they have progressed and prospered in leaps and bounds. I in my life am yet to find a Sardar in India or abroad who is struggling for a means of livelihood.  They’re happy with whichever field they pursue, and are prosperous. Don’t take my word for it. Look around yourself and you will be forced to believe what you see with your own eyes. This dichotomy made me wonder sordidly – if  hardly any real  characters  with such miserable skills exist, why do such  jokes  abound  all  over the social  networks?

I began to look around to find the answer. After  talking  to hundreds  of  people including those  who forward the  jokes  to  me and  you, the hilarious  truth which I  unearthed was  that even  those  who compose these  ‘Sardarji Jokes’  have  never found or met  an  idiosyncratic  Sardar, and  both the  joke-creators  and the  joke-forwarders  are  living  in a Fools’ Paradise. It was then that I realized that the real life inspirations for these jokes lie not in the actions of any actual people but the psyche of the ones who spread such hallucinated stories themselves. It is simply akin to the ghost stories which would scare a kindergarten child. As  one grows  older  one is no  longer scared or amused  by  them as  one realizes that the  ghost  does  not exist. In the same  way, I  was  surprised  that  the people  who  still find juvenile amusement through a make-belief idiosyncratic Sardar are yet to realize  that while they still clamour and laugh, their  Sardar  has  moved on miles ahead. And then it struck me that it was not just a single friend of mine, but thousands of denizens bunched up together in this Fools’ Paradise. It could not be helped , so  I blew an uncontrollable  guffaw at them all!