"My first visit to Chhattisgarh" joke
IT was my first visit to Chhattisgarh and tried to show off my knowledge of plants to my Chhattisgarhi guide and mentor, Shyam Lai Chaturvedi. He listened with rapt attention while chewing paan. I point to the ipomoea and tell him that although it is a noxious weed, since it is in flower all the year round, Guru Gobind Singh gave it the name Sadaa Suhaagan-ever in marital bliss. Chaturvedi spits out betel juice and tells me that Chhattisgarhis have a more appropriate name for it. "It grows everywhere where there is garbage. You cut it down to the roots and it sprouts again. You stick a branch of it in the dust and it becomes a bush. There is no way you can get rid of it. In Hindi they call it be-sharm-without any shame. Chhattisgarhis have coined a better name for the pestilential weed: we call it paaliteeshan (politician)."
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