George Bush was sitting in his office wondering whom to invade next when
his telephone rang.

‘Hello, Mr. Bush!’ a heavily accented voice said, ‘This is Gurmukh from
Phagwara, District Kapurthala, Punjab .. I am ringing to inform you that we
are officially declaring the war on you!’

‘Well, Gurmukh,’ Bush replied, ‘This is indeed important news! How big is
your army’

‘Right now,’ said Gurmukh, after a moment’s calculation, ‘there is myself,
my cousin Sukhdev, my next door neighbor Bhagat, and the entire kabaddi
team from the gurudwara. That makes eight’

Bush paused. ‘I must tell you, Gurmukh that I have one million men in my
army waiting to move on my command.’

‘Arrey O! Main kya..’ said Gurmukh. ‘I’ll have to ring you back!’

Sure enough, the next day, Gurmukh called again.

‘Mr. Bush, it is Gurmukh, I’m calling from Phagwara STD, the war is still
on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!’

‘And what equipment would that be, Gurmukh’ Bush asked.

‘Well, we have two combines, a donkey and Amrik’s tractor.’

Bush sighed. ‘I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000
armored personnel carriers. Also, I’ve increased my army to 1-1/2 million
since we last spoke.’

‘Oh teri....’ said Gurmukh. ‘I’ll have to get back to you.’

Sure enough, Gurmukh rang again the next day.

‘Mr. Bush, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves
airborne...... We’ve modified Amrik’s tractor by adding a couple of
shotguns, sticking on some wings and the pind’s generator. Four school pass
boys from Malpur have joined us as well!’

Bush was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. ‘I must tell you,
Gurmukh, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military
complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And
since we last spoke, I’ve increased my army to TWO MILLION!’

‘Tera pala hove....’ said Gurmuk, ‘I’ll have to ring you back.’

Sure enough, Gurmukh called again the next day.

‘Kiddan, Mr.Bush! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the
war.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Bush. ‘Why the sudden change of heart’

‘Well,’ said Gurmukh, ‘we’ve all had a long chat over a couple of lassi’s,
and decided there’s no way we can feed two million prisoners of wars!’