Tickle the funny bone, I say

I believe we live in a humorless nation. (I feel like a modern Martin Luther King with that start…Sheesh!) Anyway here goes – Here, it doesn’t take much to be regarded as witty or to amuse an ordinary person; and on the flipside – to offend somebody in an innocent attempt to be funny. 

I grew up in a fairly humorous household, so to say. I remember being in absolute awe of my father’s ready wit and cheerfulness. Today I reprimand him for repeating his jokes over and over again, but that’s a different story.  

Every month’s issue of the Reader’s Digest would find itself in our home; and I would lap up all the joke columns first. Life’s Like That – Humour in Uniform – Laughter, the Best Medicine – All in a Day’s Work – they were irresistible. Even back then, it struck me that hardly any of those anecdotes were contributed by Indians. One would expect to see more of those, given that Digest was Bombay-based. The scenario is not too different today, as far as I know.  

The trouble with Indians is that they cannot laugh at themselves. I believe the first step towards cultivating a genuine sense of humour lies in nurturing this ability. While a sardar might find a bania joke exceedingly funny, try cracking a sardar joke in his presence and you will probably end up with a cracked skull.  

I remember getting into mild trouble several times for trying to be funny myself. The last such incident I can recall is one that happened during my PG days, fairly recently. Our oh-so-nutty Accounts professor was absconding from class, and I being the unfortunate “coco” (course coordinator) had to go looking for the man. I looked for him literally high and low all over campus, and finally gave up, only to find him in class on my return. He gave me that “you’re late” look, and I hastily explained that I was out looking for him, just about managing to resist the temptation of saying that ‘twas he who was late. Anyway, I didn’t have to, coz he realized it himself and let out a silly guffaw. Presumably to save himself from embarrassment, he quipped, “Where did you look for me, Mahima? Under my desk?” To which I replied, unsmilingly, after glancing quickly at his paunch, “No Sir, I don’t believe you would fit.”  

He never spoke to me again. Notwithstanding the fact that I was coco and there was plenty to be discussed, from the academic perspective.  

A more recent incident happened in my office just yesterday. We’ve got a canteen that’s supervised by our in-house doctor. To cut a long story short, the food is just plain inedible on most days; and many of us clash with doc on this subject repeatedly.  

So yesterday, I was on the way back from lunch and doc dearest was coming in. He asked something about the food and I nearly said…“Same shit different day, doc”. Luckily I checked myself in time and said…“Same shh…khana different day!” Phew. I don’t think he would have found THAT funny, though I sure think it was. Geez, he didn’t even find “same khana” funny. He gave me one of those “you rude girl” glares.  

So, friends, Indians, countrymen, the point of this exercise is to tell you to laugh, laugh at people but remember to laugh at yourselves, remember it was in this country that the concept of laughter clubs was started. Remember that life needn’t be taken all seriously and it is important laugh at your problems, coz others always will. The trick is to make them laugh with you before they laugh at you.  Keep laughing!