"White on his moustache" joke

ONCE upon a time there was a rich zamindar who liked to end his day by taking a bowl of whipped cream malaee before retiring tor the night. He had a servant whose job was to get three annas' worth of malaee from a halwaae every evening. He became suspicious of this servant's honesty and engaged another to keep a watch over the fellow. The two servants came to an understanding. Instead of buying two annas' worth and pocketing one anna, they began to buy one anna's worth for their master and dividing the other two between themselves.
After some days the zamindar smelt collusion and hired a third servant to keep a watch on the other two. This time the three of them came to an understanding whereby they divided the three annas between themselves. At night they smeared their master's moustache with white paint. Next morning the zamindar spoke angrily to his servants, "I got no malaee last night. Why?" The servants protested that he had and showed him a mirror which showed the white on his moustache.
The gist of the episode can be concluded thus.
In the first decade of Independence only 25 per cent of India was corrupt; in the second, 50 per cent; in the third, 75 per cent and in the fourth, 100 per cent. Now we enter the decade when a white smear on the moustache fools the people that they have had their dessert.

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