Sign boards in the country..!

Monday, October 18, 2010 - Quite often while traveling in the country I come across signs that really make me laugh, but before I go on to those I remember standing at a bus stop and having a good laugh at a bus parked in front of me, “What’re you laughing at?” asked the conductor as he prepared to ring the bell. “At what’s written outside!” I said and watched as he got off the bus and looked at words painted on the side: This was during the days of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency and she had brought in a 20 point programme with slogans which she had wanted splashed on every available surface including outsides of buses. The conductor looked and scowled, ‘The Nation is On The Move!’ the slogan said. “So what’s wrong?” he asked. “Look at the sentence beneath!” I laughed. “Maximum speed 15 kmph!” .

I don’t remember the conductor sharing my humour but some passengers did, luckily Mrs Gandhi didn’t hear my wisecrack or I would have shared jail space with many imprisoned at that time.

Here are some others: This one was outside a famous temple, it said, ‘Make sure that your shoes are not stolen by someone’ As I looked at that sign I wondered what I was supposed to do? Stand outside the temple making sure no one stole my shoes or going inside and praying mighty hard no thief was around?

And this one was outside a dilapidated restaurant, ‘Our public bar is not open because it is closed!’ Thank you barman, thank you for explaining that not open means closed, you must have had one too many to have written such a notice! Right?

This one in another bar, ‘Do not drop cigarette ends on the floor as they burn hands and knees of customers as they leave’ Now isn’t this interesting? It means that the drinks inside are so strong that customers leave crawling! Or did the manager mean something else? Another strange feature all over are pictures of gods and deities at places where people spit paan or use as a urinal. I’ve found this quite funny, as if it is meant for these gods to be wall-keepers, but this sign on a wall was meant to double check on this, it said, ‘For god’s sake don’t pee here’ It had pictures of every deity to see that not a single person would escape his god’s wrath if he did!

Such signs give you a laugh and make journeys interesting, especially when driving behind a truck, ‘Horn OK please!” He’s not telling you his horn is okay, he’s telling you to please use your horn, okay?

—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com