"Broadway is not ‘broad’ way.PS: It can’t get any narrower.“Private bus drivers are desi F1 champions.”“Follow the ambulance, it gets you out of traffic like a charm”.“Kochi has the largest English speaking community in the country after 8 pm.” (Of course, it helps that we are a literate state!) Well, move over straight-jacketed and archaic poetic portrayals of Kochi as she wakes up to Kochi Tips - a page dedicated to celebrating the true essence of the city as we know it.Quite literally.The phenomenon of “tips” has been stomping its way all over social networking site Facebook and the Kochi Tips page is the latest addition to the bandwagon.It joins the ilk of other cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru among others as city dwellers revel in celebrating what truly makes their city pulse like no other - the good, bad and ugly included.And often, you get more than what you bargained for! A “tips” page essentially consists of quotes that are privy to a particular place, person or institution. Pages dedicated to cities touch upon landmarks, daily routines, local lingo, mannerisms of people, lifestyles, etc as they work to capture the quirky soul of the land.Tips on educational institutions have notched up a large following as attendance woes, campus wows and trivia on student life make learning more engaging than an encounter with a dog-earred textbook.Needless to say, a few such pages have fallen prey to the roving eye of college managements and therefore, no names will be mentioned lest admins of these pages be rapped on the knuckles for their venture! The tips spectacle has led to ethnic communities taking pride in wearing their heart on their sleeve as pages like Bong Tips and Gujju Tips resound with the guffaws of many as they learn to laugh at their own idiosyncrasies.And the laughter riot is the loudest on these pages as over a whopping 34, 000 Bongalis (one might as well learn to say it right!) and 30, 000 Gujaratis subscribe to rib-tickling quips on their cultural make.This gives us all license to take a dig at our mates as no more will a Gujarati take offense at being teased for his business lineage or his undying love for khakras. And a Bong will only shrug it off when you correct him/ her the next time around - it i s biscuit and not biskoot! With slapstick humour and witty observations as their governing principles, these pages are proving to be a melting pot of cultures as people meet on these forums and bond over a tip. Thanks to options for subscribers to contribute to these pages, many are out on the hunt for eccentricities unique to their culture and city and no more are locations and cultural traditions taken for granted or considered an insignificant detail.And the Internet can further raise a toast to its ability to bring people together, tickle their funny bones and enable them to make a laughing business of visible cracks in their being.However conditions apply - a tip is best enjoyed when one is fully acquainted with the nuances of a culture or a place.Background knowledge and a liberal sense of humour are requisites unless of course, one belongs to the blessed clique of those who can laugh at the drop of a hat over nothing.With this, welcome to humour redefined and a certain Russel Peters may want to take note of what’s been cooking. And last but not the least, thank you Zuckerberg!
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