Desi Comedy

Brampton, ON – It’s a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon in the Brampton neighborhood known as Springdale. Children are playing, the old ladies are gathered in a garage, trying to remember what they were gossiping about, and Balwant Singh Alhuwalia is standing in his driveway staring at his once prized Cadillac CTS

Balwant was once regarded as one of the most respected and nicest individuals the neighborhood had ever seen. He took part in most of the community events and was a regular at the National Sports sales events where he stockpiled on clearance t-shirts to send back to under privileged children in Punjab. Life was good for Balwant until one day it all came crashing down.

“I had everything going my way. A wonderful wife, great kids and an XBOX.” Balwant explained. “I came to Canada in 1978 with just $3400 so I knew I had to work hard to live the good life here.” As the years went by Balwant became a certified Class A mechanic and eventually opened up All-Star A-Plus Top Notch First-Class Auto Collision in the Kennedy & Steeles area. “Business was great. The apnay (our people) drivers kept ruining their cars and kept coming to me because they recognized me from all of the community events I was involved in. They knew I was honest and would take care of their vehicles.”

However, as mentioned earlier, all changed on the night of October 31, 2003. As the last of the trick-or-treaters were heading home and about to settle in for the night, Balwant decided to stay up in his living room and watch a little television. “I was tired but didn’t want to sleep so I decided to watch some TV before going to bed.” As the hours went by Balwant kept flipping through the channels and eventually fell asleep. “There was nothing on but infomercials with half naked girls begging desperate men to talk to them on the phone for huge amounts of money, so I fell asleep.” What Balwant didn’t realize was that he left his TV on and running on channel 39, Showcase – Television Without Borders, which was famously known for its late night foreign erotica and skin flicks.

As Balwant lay on his sofa, a few hoodlums were still out on the street celebrating Halloween. One of the children was the son of Balwant’s close friend Harinder Singh Sodhi.

“Usually Uncle Balli is asleep at like 10 but I saw his light on in the living room so I went over to scare him you know… it’s Halloween man.” Sodhi’s son explained. “So like I got up to the window and I put on my Scream mask and looked in about to knock on the window when I saw… man this is whack… but dude had some porn running on his TV and his hands were on his crotch so I got the hell outta there.”

Eventually word of Balwant’s late night self love encounter spread throughout the community and with that his reputation dwindled.

“I didn’t know it was on that channel… and my hands weren’t on my crotch… I was just… you know… rearranging myself.” Balwant said in defence of the accusations. “Now whenever I go outside kids greet me with taunts and teasing. They call me Uncle Horninder. Imagine how embarrassing that would be? My wife left me cause she felt ashamed that she was not pleasing me and the women in the garage stopped inviting her to their various gatherings. Bloody hell man. That Showcase station has ruined my life with their bloody subtitled sex films. That’s the last time I’ll be watching stupid Showcase anymore… oh chit… don’t put that in the article ok? That is off the record.”