Word mixologist

If you peer at certain words they would mischievously wink back beckoning to take liberties with them. Taking a quick dip into the subject, can we call a fake godman, a wolf in ochre robes, a sinyasi. The husband and wife twosome of astrologers, a ‘jodi’ac couple. A Jet pilot who flies with an invalid license under his seat belt a ‘jute’ pilot? The elderly cook with butter fingers breaking china a crackery expert? 

Warming further up, is it alright to dub the wayward son who borrows for betting on horses, a loan ranger? The fat relatives of a burly vegetable shop owner manning his shop as the pumpkin? The tobacconist who murdered his wife and has absconded had created a smoke screen? A juror who mysteriously vanished to dodge litigious work a conjuror?

Will the crossword solving couple whose marriage is suddenly on the rocks blink clueless? Apiculture or beekeeping may be profitable, but can you guarantee there are no stings attached? If a dietician’s primary duty is playing to the calories, can a psychiatrist mind if the dresses he buys shrink?

Because of its ever threatening price rise, gold should be known as bully-on. The story of death of rats in Hamlyn town could have had a one-word tabloid headline ‘demice’. Can you call a kid commanding immense respect for its embryonic skill a child prodi-ji? And the driver stuffing several travellers in his cab during a bandh a taxidermist.

No doubt a day and night cricket match was unheard of during the dark ages; but if played with giant torches, d’you think it could have been billed as knight-cricket? Should not a bibliophile who devours books non-stop be a book-anakonda and not a mere book-worm?

Can the irritated niece blamed for her fuzzy air nurturing a platoon of lice call her nagging aunt a nit-picking, cri-tick? And her two retired telegraphists uncles playfully sending Morse code to each other by tapping their walking sticks on the floor, the talking sticks?

The contentious practice of a doctor who sends his patients to a scan centre of his choice scandalous? And an eye-popping wardrobe malfunction of a pop diva, a slip between the cup and the hip.

One may go on and on. But it will be like what ‘Time’ magazine reportedly reviewed in tongue in cheek style about the lengthy Hindi film aan — ‘it goes aan and aan’.