next when his telephone rang.

"Hallo, Mr. Hussein!" 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," Saddam 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 neighbour Bhagat, and the entire

kabaddi team from the gurudwara. That makes eight"

Saddam 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. Hussein, it is Gurmukh, I'm call ing from Phagwara STD, the war

is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!"

"And what equipment would that be, Gurmukh" Saddam asked.

"Well, we have two combines, a donkey and Amrik's tractor."

 Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 16,000 tanks

and 14,000 armoured 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. Hussein, 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!"

Saddam 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 surro unded 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. Hussein! I am  sorry to tell you that we have had to call

off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Saddam. "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!"