Developing a Sense of Humour

My father was an official in the Industries
Department of Kerala Government and had the responsibility of approving small
scale industry projects. Since it involved lot of paper work and submissions,
some of the new entrepreneurs came to our house seeking his assistance and
advice on getting subsidies and also to get marketing support for their
products.
One such person was Mr Varma
(can't remember his full name), quite tall, who came in a sleek Allwyn Pushpak
scooter and wore colourful shirts and bell-bottom pants, impeccably polished
black leather shoes with heels in tune
with the fashion in 1970's and 1980's. We would watch him in awe at his
dressing and manners as my father was a simpleton and only wore white or light-coloured
shirts and dhoti where ever he went.
Once seated inside the house, Mr
Varma would take a cigarette and flip it holding it between his forefinger and
middle finger with such dexterity we have only seen with superstar Rajanikanth! This process he repeated everytime before he lit a cigarette and then the whole room will be filled with smoke. My brother had the habit of mimicking Mr
Varma holding the cigarette and flipping that even my mother, usually quite
serious by nature, would start laughing uncontrollably!
At Arya Central School where I did my entire schooling, sometimes magicians
were invited to display their tricks in front of students and teachers during Assembly time in the morning. Each
student was asked to pay Rs 10 to watch such shows.(Possibly, we couldn’t
afford a PC Sorcar Jr at that time). They would display some card tricks, swallow
coins and then take it out from their belly or ears. Or swallow a small piece of ribbon and let out
metres of ribbon from the mouth. On one such occasion, a magician sought a student volunteer to
be hypnotised and levitated upto a height from a lying down position.
Levitation
Within a few minutes, the hypnotized student was in the air moving slowly up and
held in position at a height. He even answered some questions which the
magician said came from his subconscious mind. However the more time he was on
levitation, most of us began to shiver inside and became panicky. Even after the magician starting
swinging his hand and murmuring some mantras, the student's downward movement was not so easily done. Once he was back on the desk, everyone heaved a sigh
of relief.
Invariably after such events, the next day, Jayasankar (senior to us) and a born humourist and comedian, will take the stage and mimic the
magician swallowing a small ribbon bringing out from his mouth metres and
metres of ribbon! Our Principal who was very serious and a strict
disciplinarian would find it difficult to control his laughter. Invariably, Jayasankar’s
mimicry created more amusement to us than the magicians themselves!
I began to recall such childhood incidents as a neighbour visited our house
recently to invite us for his son’s wedding. After he went, my daughter said
she has never seen him smile or laugh. And some of the questions she asked made me think more seriously about humour. “How does a
sense of humour develop?” How is it that
you are able to find funny things about people and common place incidents ? Or how does one become a humorist?
Family Time
I believe that the atmosphere at home plays an important part in developing a
sense of humour in childhood. Traditionally, in many families the elders always created an
ambience of seriousness around them and naturally humour was detested. Women
and girls were never allowed to laugh loud. Many teachers believed that they had to look
serious to get the respect of students. But, one aberration was a professor of
Political Science, Suseelan Sir while I did BA Economics in Government Arts
College in Trivandrum. He used to
compare the various interest groups and lobbyists to the croaking frogs- making
lots of noise but of no great use for society! And invariably his class was
always full as he referred to several contemporary political happenings to
elucidate a point.
At school, we had an English
teacher named Annathai Gladis, a native of Tamilnadu, who used to tell examples
of pitfalls in literal translation to English. She used to recall a lady in her
village who was angry over a third person who interfered while she was talking to someone,” I talk, you talk, why you middle middle talk?!”
It is the greatness of some people that they not only laugh at others but also
liked being laughed at by others. One such was our first Prime Minister Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru. He reportedly told Shankar, the most outstanding cartoonist India
has ever produced, “Don’t spare me Shankar.” Best of humour has come from comedians who have gone through lot of suffering in their life including that of Charlie Chaplin whose childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship.
Dept of Humour
Humour is by far the most significant behaviour of the human mind, according to
Edward De Bono of Lateral Thinking and Six Hats fame. He was of the view that
humour was the highest form of creativity."You may find this
surprising. If humour is so significant, why has it been so neglected by
traditional philosophers, psychologists and information scientists?"
And to add to it- Why is it that no university in the world has a Department of
Humour? And more importantly, in these pandemic times, when people are laden with worries and stress- why deny the people an opportunity to laugh!?
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