To P or Not to P, is the question

Blog XXVIII of Thirty Days – Thirty Blogs series

You must have heard by now about HP Labs researcher Vinay Deolalikar who has claimed to have presented a proof for P != NP in over hundred pages long paper. You must have also read that experts have pointed out certain problems in the analysis which need to be fixed by Vijay. Overnight this has become a trending topic with almost every technical blog worth its salt wanting to do a piece on it even if admittedly many of the authors have no idea about the consequences of such a proof.

Inspired from comments by a newbie on one such blog (cannot find the link anymore), I came up with the following joke:
Teacher: Who can solve this… (jots down on blackboard) P = NP
Ram (student): Sir, I think I have a solution.
Teacher: Go ahead..
Ram: P = NP, dividing both sides by P, we get N = 1. So P = NP iff N has a value 1.
Teacher (totally dismayed): Does anybody in class want to point out a critical flaw in Ram’s proof.
Shyam (another student): Sir, may I ?
Teacher (excitedly): Yes yes, go ahead !
Shyam: Teacher, the flaw in Ram’s proof is that he divides both sides by P which would be incorrect if P is zero…
Teacher (getting a bit uneasy): Umm..actually..
Shyam (going on): ..so if we were to subtract both sides by P and take P out common we get P(1-N) = 0 which means that  P = NP only when either P = 0 or N = 1.
(Teacher faints)