The anatomy of humour

Khaleej Times (Life) / 10 November 2012

SINCE I LOVE to begin my day with a smile, I reach for the comic strips of the day in the newspaper even before I brew my morning tea. The nuggets of humour, often laced with gentle wisdom, set the tone for my day. And sometimes, I even snip and put an exceptional one up on the face of my fridge for the benefit of guests.

Humour to me is indispensible. I can giggle at PJs (including the horrendously silly elephant-ant tales) and guffaw at the seriously funny gags by stand up comedians on TV. I can laugh heartily at the innocent humour of Calvin and Hobbes and chuckle at the cheeky office wit in Dilbert. The only thing that doesn’t easily tickle my funny bone is the laboured slapstick jokes and cheap puns in Indian movies.

Yet for all the love I have for comedy, I am a dud when it comes to making someone laugh. Try as hard as I may, I cannot produce a piece of writing that can evoke an instant burst of laughter. Every time I have tried to share a joke that I had heard elsewhere, I have had my audience looking up in anticipation, waiting for the humour to spill and sweep them over, only to find the joke fizzle and plonk like a bird dropping in our midst. It is almost like trying to hit a six and getting caught at mid- wicket. The charitable smiles on the faces in front of me makes me want the earth to cave in and consume me even as I am tempted to apologise for the cropper. But I let it be, happy in the thought that if not with my badly recast joke, I have at least given them a reason to laugh with my pathetic expression of humour. If you can’t crack a joke, be one yourself. People love to laugh at other men and women than at funny stories.

Two sets of people that I admire and envy greatly are talented humourists and slick marketers for possessing skills that I now believe are more DNA-related than degree earned. I can’t sell a hand-kerchief even to someone with a nasty cold, nor can I pull off a comic caper to amuse even a toddler. I am not exaggerating; smiley icons have been a great god-send in my effort to be humorous, at least in my personal correspondence. It is pitiable that I have to punch in a smiley face to hint at the humour intended in my words, but it is better to ride piggyback than to get grounded.

Humour, though, is quite a subjective area. I have seen hardcore defiance bordering on contempt next to me, even when I hee-hawed uncontrollably and got the soda in my mouth out in a spray. Apparently, what amuses one man does not amuse the other. The fact is you can’t hard sell comedy. You can’t plug a comic gag on your listener or reader, or play goofy just because you have a job to complete. Yet, humour to a large extent is a universal feel-good tool. Whether it tongue-in-cheek, in-your-face or naively jocular, it can change the contours of a stressed world and put a smile on its face. I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to learn the ropes and dish out a genuine course of comedy some day. But perhaps my DNA is not suitably wired for such fare.

Being funny is no joke and I would rather not steer into the territory of men out there doing this serious business of mirth and madness. I recognise that it takes more than a red foam nose and cartwheels to be a clown who can unleash a laugh riot. It is an art that not any pedestrian can pick up from the sidewalk and peddle at will.

Blissfully Anonymous

 

Khaleej Times (Life) / 26 October 2012

 

 

To the director of my destiny,

 

I have a confession to make, and considering that it takes a strong pack of nerves to own up to serious howlers in life, this is a rare act from me that has come after careful consideration of facts.

There was a time when I had relentless desire for popularity. I had to be famous through one way or the other. I did not ask you for wealth specifically, because I am a noble soul and cannot brook being labelled a greedy fiend by you. I was clever enough to know that cash was a corollary to fame. If one came, the other had to trot behind anyway.

I didn’t want a sample of fame that you grudgingly showered on me for only fifteen minutes, nor did I want to be famous just in my neighbourhood. I had wanted to be genuinely well known — the kind that people recognised from far and mobbed, the kind that stared out of glossy magazine covers, the kind that had a ready retinue in attendance; in short, the sort that the world saluted, cheered and drooled over.

It was a dream that I had played out in my mind many times and prayed would someday materialise, even though I had no clue how. I had left it to you to make the blue print and execute it with a whoosh of your wand. I knew I didn’t have it on my face (and the rest of my bulk) to be a super model. I didn’t have enough spunk to be a political powerhouse. And I surely didn’t have what it takes to fashion an Academy award winner out of me, nor have whatever else it took to garner mass appeal. Yet I imagined that if you wished, you could make it happen even without any merit in my kitty. You had after all crafted Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. If nothing, you could at least get me hitched to a famous man for husband and let his surname rub on me.

Alas, you turned your back on me. After years of waiting, I gave up on you and put a lid on my innocuous aspirations and earnest appeals. I was reconciled to the fact that it wasn’t in your scheme to make me renowned. You relegated me to a non-descript life in a bustling city where not even my neighbours recognised me. For too long I was filled with spite and a sense of deprivation, until I learnt about the existence of creatures that slavered over and intruded into the precincts of the rich and the famous, and made a mockery out of their lives to be served to the scandal-loving public. Call them Papparazi or what you will.

I now shudder at the thought of having a denuded existence with no doors to shut the world out, living life as if I were in the Big Brother’s house, constantly under surveillance. I now see what it means to be Lady Di, Aishwarya Rai or Kate Middleton — ruthlessly hounded and hunted down.

If you had said ‘yes’ to my prayers, I might have made it to the hallowed firmament, but I would also have had to jettison the little pleasures of watching the sunset on Jumeirah beach, sipping French Vanilla at Tim Hortons, loitering aimlessly in Dubai malls, haggling cheekily at Meena Bazaar, having falafels from roadside joints, taking a stroll down Karama with my husband, walking around without make up in my tees, capri and flip flops...

I confess that I was sore at you and had felt severely let down when you handed me this obscurity, but I now understand and appreciate your judgment. The perks of fame are not a patch on the joys of anonymity. Must give credit to you – you are an ace and know your job too well.

Thank you, God, for the small mercies.