If demonetisation was a period of long queues and fodder for comedians, it’s over to patriotism and nationalism now.

As stand-up comic Kunal Kamra points out, Indians didn’t need to go to a performance for their laughs anymore. He, for instance, went to an ATM queue to look for jokes.

There he found his lede. “Siachen mein hamare jawaan lad rahe hai” (Our soldiers are fighting in Siachen) had become the standard answer to probing questions.

“RBI ka debt kab kam hoga?” “Siachen mein hamare jawaan lad rahe hai” (When will RBI’s debts be reduced? Response: Our soliders are fighting in Siachen.)

Kamra calls it a “Shopper’s Stop coupon” used by the Indian government for dodging questions from “taxpayers”, who themselves cannot use the same coupon against the authorities (or bosses in their office).

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Here’s when the comedian brings an interesting twist to the plot:

 “If the conflict with Pakistan were to get solved, the government wouldn’t have any excuses left.  That’s when you’ll ask, ‘Why am I not getting clean water?’”  

Kamra is, however, worried about what he does have to dodge as a taxpayer – a fresh pile of poop outside his house every day.

“If JNU is an issue, so is the goo outside my house,” laments Kamra after joking about how some of the university’s students couldn’t even do away with their canteen debt, forget “destroying a country” which possesses nuclear weapons.

 “Nobody gives them medu wada!”