A cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a recently opened cannibal restaurant. Feeling very hungry, he sat down and looked over the menu: Broiled Businessman Rs.50.00: Baked Housewife Rs.100.00: Fried Politician Rs.1000.00. The troubled cannibal called the waiter over and asked, “Why is there such a huge price difference for the politician?” The waiter replied, “Sir, have you ever tried to clean a politician?”

I laughed aloud when Rumesh told me the above joke. He asked me, “Do you know who the author of this joke is?” I said, “I have no idea.”

Rumesh said, “I wrote this joke a few weeks ago and sent it to my friends by email. Recently I found a modified, improved version of it on a famous website on jokes and comedy. I write a lot of jokes, and frequently I find modified versions of many of them in magazines and websites. But I don’t get any credit for them.”
“I think your jokes are of high quality. That’s why they show up in reputed places. Can you write jokes regularly?” I asked Rumesh.

“Yes. It comes naturally to me. And I have developed some techniques to quickly generate jokes. A famous story writer once said that there are only less than two dozen themes even though there are millions of stories. Do you know that there are only seven swaras in music and thousands of ragas and tunes can be created using these seven swaras? I think this principle can be extended to jokes also,” replied Rumesh.

“Have you ever thought that telling jokes can be developed into a serious business?” I asked Rumesh. “How? I don’t understand,” said Rumesh.

“People need jokes for different reasons: to laugh, to share with friends, to tell in business meetings, personal parties, social gatherings and public meetings, and to forget worries. Without humor, our life becomes dull and monotonous. All sections of people like jokes. That’s the reason you come across jokes in all movies, magazines, Television dramas and even in newspapers in the form of cartoons. To write original and really funny jokes, you need exceptional sense of humor and language skills.” I told Rumesh and continued, “Create a website on jokes. Publish new jokes every day. Organize jokes in categories. Encourage your visitors to contribute jokes, give them credit for it and make them feel good. If your jokes are original, good and clean, you will have tones of traffic within a few months and you can make money.”

“Amazon built most part of its interesting content from the comments and reviews posted by its visitors. I can even translate jokes in many Indian languages and post them in addition to English,” said Rumesh. “That’s a brilliant idea. However you must understand an important thing. Most Indians at present hesitate to make online purchases. So, don’t build your business model based on online sales. You must bank on online ads and sponsorships. However, if you build American and European traffic you can try to sell items related to the theme of the website or sign up for affiliate programs,” I said.

“How many hours do I have to spend a day in updating the website, organizing the jokes into categories and posting jokes from visitors?” asked Rumesh. “Ninety percent of the website work can be automated. That is the exciting part of any online business. There are many small software programs – known as PHP, CGI or PERL scripts – in the market. Some of them are free and most of them are low priced. Get one and install it on your website and all the routine tasks will be taken care of by this script. You can spend your time in creating original content and of course in counting the money you make,” I said and Rumesh was all smiles.

“Usually I make others smile. For a change, you have made me smile,” said Rumesh and I replied, “What I told you was a real, serious business and not a joke!”

Good things descended on Rumesh while he was working on his ‘joke’ project. His friend who is working in the United States heard about it and thanks to his efforts Rumesh bagged a freelance assignment from an American website on comedy. Rumesh will be paid Rs.15,000 a month for editing and managing a part of that American website. I am sure his income will multiply when he completes his personal website, and promotes it properly.