Humour despite Covid

Covid is not going away soon. Even after vaccinations, people are getting infected. But yes, because of the vaccination, the infection is mild. But the after-effects like muscle pain, cough, fatigue and run down feeling linger on.

When a whole family is infected, you have to isolate each person in a different room. All others agree to wear a mask but 92-year-old granny refuses. After few days, she starts coughing at night. Another 68-year-old lady had already got infected a few days ago. Now, both ladies are isolated and sleeping in different rooms. From your room, you hear someone coughing. Cough syrup in hand, you wear a mask, go shake up one lady, feed a spoon of cough syrup. Hoping for some relief. Go back to your room and try and catch some sleep. 

Some time later, you hear the coughing again. This time, it seems to be from the other room. Once again, you mask up and take the cough syrup in another spoon. You feed the cough syrup to the second lady. It gives her some relief. You realise that you had fed the first dose of syrup to the wrong patient who wasn't coughing. Case of mistaken identity. You return to your room only to be reminded of a similar incident on a warship some 50 years ago.

A ship at sea is manned 24 hours divided into 'watches' (like shifts in the factories) of four hours each (except the period between 4 to 8 PM which is further sub divided into1st Dog watch and 2nd Dog Watch). These watches are named like 'Middle watch' from midnight to 4 AM. 'Morning watch' comes next from 4 AM to 8 AM and so on. For those personnel required to close up for duty at 4 AM, the quarter master is informed in advance to give a shake-up at 3.30 AM. Depending on the size of a ship, it has number of officers under training (or watch keeping officers as the Navy calls it). These under-trainees live in a small compartment called Junior Officers Mess. It has number of multi-tier bunks. Now the quarter master's assistant comes at 3.30 AM with his torch in one hand. He doesn't know who is sleeping in which bunk. He shakes up one officer and flashes his torchlight saying 'Good morning Sir, shake up routine for morning watch'! The officer mutters saying, 'Not me!' 'Sorry Sir' says the duty sailor. He then shakes up the officer in the next bunk and gets a very disapproving 'Not me!' again. This goes on till one of the officers points him to the corner bunk on top. By that time, the watch keeper had already got up with the commotion caused by shaking up seven other officers wrongly!

My waking up and feeding the wrong Covid patient with cough syrup brought back the memories of our Watch-Keeping days in the Navy almost 50 years ago! Covid can induce humour too. Besides all that gloom.

During the Covid lock down, Ghumakkad kept up the spirit of our readers. Some of the stories which the readers liked are listed below. You may click to browse the picture stories.

Covid Couldn't Deter Us

Take the Virus Head On

A Squirrel Comes Home

I Got a New Life- A Corona Survivor's Tale

Bouncing Back in Lockdown

Stay Home Stay Safe- What a pair of Kittens teach us

Breaking Free in Lockdown

Every Day Is A Sunday

Lockdown Is...

We have to live with the virus and its mutations. Just follow the precautions and get vaccinated. Keep going with your life as usual.

The Contest

We had featured a picture of Covid Testing Strips in our online captions contest KBG-77, the 77th edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad. One testing strip showed Negative result and the other had two lines indicating 'Covid Positive'. Our readers were very imaginative in interpreting the picture. We received 47 interesting captions as listed below. We thank all the readers.

No.	Name	Caption for KBG-77 Contest
1	Ajai Bhumri	हाय मार डाला
2	Amandeep Kaur	Golmaal hai bhai sab Golmaal hai
3	Anonymous	ज़िंदगी एक लाइनवा, फिर भी घमंडवा
4	Rakesh Bajaj	So Far so Good one or two!
5	Anonymous	Only jabs and precautions will help to eject the unwelcome guest - sorry pest.
6	Avinash Tiwari	Yeh to bas lakeeron ka chakkar hai
7	Avinash Tiwari	Rekhaon ka khel hai mukaddar. Rekhaon se maat kha rahe ho!
8	Bharat Ladha	Negative is the new positive
9	BR Natarajan	It's Now or Never!!
10	CD Sawant	Yeh Line Kuchh Ajib thi, Dusri Line Kuchh Dara Wani Hai |
11	C Raghuram	Read between the lines
12	Deepak Jena	Don't worry.. God is always on time.
13	Deepak Jena	Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.
14	GR Sreenivasan	Though Covid is unwelcome, testing made easy is welcome!
15	Himani Tiwari	Stay positive, test negative. If you test positive, don't be negative!
16	Himani Tiwari	Do laina sunaariya hoon, oops gala kharab hai, phir milengey quarantine ke baad.
17	J Ramamoorty	This Corona is not a crown but something to be kept away.
18	Jaishankar	One is happy when single
19	Kausalya Govindan	You shall overcome!
20	LS Bhargava	बुखार आया तो लिया दो लाइन का सहारा। लाइन हाजिर है तो परेशानी गैरहाज़िर है तो ज्यादा परेशानी।
21	M Vasudevan	Me, Wuhan born, inetrnational invisible, make many cry, for a few I am the money spinner!
22	Nidhi Bhargava	Two for sorrow, one for joy
23	Peter de Padua	Should happiness lie, in lines?
24	Peter de Padua	With hope in the heart and a positive mind, all difficult lines dissappear.
25	Poonam Bhargava	एक कहावत है-एक से भले दो, कोविड ने इसे बदल दिया-दो नहीं, एक ही भला
26	Poonam Bhargava	Number one is the winner!
27	Pradeep Siwach	Oh My God!
28	Pradeep Siwach	Oh No Not Me!
29	Prashant Jadenavar	Unless we are this corona test, let’s keep our negativity somewhere else
30	Radhika Sareen	Lakshman rekha....Raavan on the other side.
31	Radhika Sareen	One is happy and two is sad..
32	Radhika Sareen	ये लकीर इम्तिहां लेती है। भाग्य की एक ही लकीर काफ़ी।
33	Radhika Sareen	थोड़ा बहुत ज़्यादा की नहीँ ज़रुरत
34	Rajendra Singh	Precaution is better than cure !
35	RB Dhavare	Winning over Covid is like crossing a Hurdle in life.
36	Rekha Bhargava	Hum machinon ke daas hain  ye siddh karta hai
37	Ritu Bhargava	जीवन मैं आप कितने भी positive हो पर वर्तमान मैं रिपोर्ट negative आनी बहुत जरूरी है
38	Ritu Bhargava	The word negative is the most positive word today
39	Ritu Bhargava	Ek rekha se shanti, doosri rekha se ashanti! एक रेखा से शान्ति , दूसरी से अशांति !
40	Rohini Tiwari	A second chance given to live life to the fullest!!
41	Ruma Purkayastha	Standstill ! Endure!! Be patient !!!
42	Shereen Sultana	Ya is paar ya uss paar.
43	Supradeep Sen	Hell on Earth!
44	Veeky Baths	If you stay positive in a negative situation you win
45	Vinod Dhanuka	Unreliable
46	VV Ramani	Beauty and enlightenment
47	Yogesh	Beware, no shortcuts!

The Winners

Our Jury has selected the following five captions as winners of KBG-77. Congratulations to each one of them.

Bharat Ladha has won the KBG Caption Contest earlier too. An engineer from BITS Pilani, he lives in Vidisha MP in the lap of Nature. His caption 'Negative is the new Positive' was crisp and appealing.

Himani Tiwari is passionate about working with people with disabilities.  She is currently working as the accessibility and Veteran's services manager at a Community College. Himani is a foody and enjoys everything that has to do with art and music. A creative person and her caption encapsulated both the pictures of Covid testing.

'One is happy when single!', was Jaishankar's caption which hooked the Jury. It conveys the lighter side of Covid test results. A former Colonel, he has won the KBG contests several times. A blogger and an adventurer, Jai loves nature and wildlife.

'Two for sorrow, one for joy!' was the winning caption given by Nidhi Bhargava. She is no stranger to KBG readers having won the Contest several times. She creates designs with paper, jute, cloth or anything reusable. An environmentalist, she loves to be with Nature. 

Ritu Bhargava's caption in Hindi "एक रेखा से शान्ति , दूसरी से अशांति !" which means 'Single line brings happiness, the second brings misery!'  interpreted the two lines of Covid testing beautifully. Ritu has a masters in English literature from Jaipur University. Her interests are cooking music, dance and writing. She is a regular participant and has won several KBG Contests. 

Once again, congratulations to all the winners.

Despite such a drab and negative set of pictures, the readers continued to be creative. Special thanks to all the readers.

We promise the next caption contest will have a more pleasing picture!

Bye till then.

Stay connected.

                    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/1st October 2022

Postscript 2nd Oct 22

From Col Jaishankar who recalled another anecdote from his rich 'humour in uniform' collection. Thanks for sharing Jai.

Reminds me of my young officer (YO) days when I lived  in the single officers" annexe of the Officers' Mess The adjutant would give unearthly timings to the YO detailed as duty officer for night guard check rounds of the unit area .

This took over an hour going around the peripheral posts, the bada muayna (inspection) at the quarter-guard and  at the kot (armoury)  in a jonga (an army vehicle larger than a jeep). 

The duty NCO (non commissioned officer) would  arrive in the jonga a clear 20 minutes before time and start a loud knocking on the door of the YO detailed as duty officer. He would persistently knock till either you pulled on your fatigues and boots and went out or the senior subaltern yelled at you from his room to get out and let him sleep in peace.

😊😊

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