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festival, Paryushan, so the festival in the joke was Paryushan. The rest of the joke has remained the same.
But as I told Nirvano, jokes have their roots. You cannot change their context. Now, a Jaina couple will not be fitting. About Jews you can tell any kind of joke; their appetite is big enough, everything fits. But about Hindus, about Jainas, about Buddhists, you cannot just change the names. They will be absolutely unfitting, because they will not have any natural context.
India has no jokes of its own. All the jokes are imported -- fortunately there is no taxation on importing jokes! You can just change the names to Indian names, but it will not be right; it will not sound right. Even a joke has a certain context, a certain reference. It is not just a joke. You cannot implant it anywhere you like, it has a climate of its own. For example, a Jewish joke cannot be transplanted to another race because that joke has a history of its own.
Nobody writes jokes, you know. There are no joke writers. From where do jokes come? From the wisdom of the folk, hundreds of years... they pass through many hands, many situations and then they come to a refinement. Nobody can claim that he is the writer. And never try to change the names, because they will look absolutely out of context.
If you cannot find out to whom the joke should belong, just put some Jewish names in it. They are the only people rich enough, and it is for a particular reason that they can absorb any joke. They have suffered so much since Moses brought them out of Egypt in search of Israel. Their whole life for these four thousand years has been that of suffering and suffering and suffering.
I have heard about an old Jew dying, praying to God. His family was surprised at what he was saying. He was saying to God, "God, enough is enough! Now you should choose somebody else as your chosen people."
This stupid idea that Jews are the chosen people has been the cause of all their suffering. But suffering has to be somehow consoled -- some ointment for so many wounds. Jokes have grown in the Jewish context. They had to laugh; otherwise how to forget the agony? How to forget
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