Laughter – a great boon
Andavilli Satyanarayana
You laugh and
the whole world laughs with you. You
sulk and put on a grim face, you are on your own. The whole world loves a man who has a sunny disposition and an
amicable temperament. But the man who
always sees at the dark side of things and puts on a long face is severely left
to himself as he makes himself unbearable in company. That is the way of the
world and you cannot find fault with anybody for that as you yourself will do
the same thing with regards to others.
A man who has the gift of laughing heartily infects others with it and
is never without a friend to laugh with him.
Pointing out
to Cassius, Julius Caesar asks Antony to beware of him. He says:
“He hears no music. Seldom he
smiles and smiles in such a sort as if he mocked at himself and scorned his
spirit that could be moved to smile at anything. Such a man as he be never at heart’s ease while they behold a
greater than themselves and therefore are they very dangerous”. How correctly Caesar judged such
persons? It was Cassius who was the
brain behind the murder of Caesar.
Philip II, a famous king of Spain, was a gloomy fanatic who was said to
have laughed only once in his life time and that was on receiving the merry
news of the massacre of St.Bartholomew.
We, the
Telugu people are not reputed for sense of humour and it is certainly not our
distinguishing trait. But, that doesn’t
mean that we are gloomy or cynical either.
We are known for our good humoured approach to life. The saying in our language that laughter is
bad in four different ways is only an idiomatic expression and that too much of
it, in season and out of season, is bad in many ways. It is only a lunatic who laughs within himself without any rhyme
or reason. We snub anyone who laughs
without proper occasion for it. Such a
man is never taken seriously nor is he held in great respect. Shakespeare must have had such persons in
mind when he said, “Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time, some that
will ever more peep through their eyes, and laugh like parrots at a bagpiper”.
Doctors tell
us that when we laugh thirteen muscles of our face are brought into action
whereas twenty six are called into play when we frown. The strain is so much more upon us when we
are angry than when we are cheerful.
Though doctors warn us of the consequences day in and day out, we are
not a whit the wiser for it. Besides features
like “Laughter, the best medicine”. “He
who laughs, lasts” which provide with a rich fare of humour in our magazines,
many dailies carry cartoons which enliven the readers. After going through the usual stories of
violence and crime we turn to those pages and laugh heartily. That cleanses our bosoms of the perilous
stuff and gives us sufficient strength and courage to survive in this mad, mad
world.
We see children who are not exposed to the
electronic media and jet age games, still playing an interesting game for which
no equipment is required. In it one
group would sit tight-lipped while the other group would try to make them
laugh, cracking jokes or telling funny stories or making queer gestures or
sounds. One by one all those who fail
to resist the temptation get eliminated and finally he who laughts last comes
out winner. For them it requires all
the effort in the world to refrain from laughing. It is all a child’s play.
Children enjoy the game laughing to their heart’s content. Little do they realise then that a day would
come in their lives when it would be so very difficult to laugh seeing what
they find all around them.
When I was
very young, I saw Charlie Chaplin’s great movie, “Gold Rush”. I laughed and laughed till my sides started
aching though I did not understand much of it. Whenever, I recalled to mind
that picture of one of the greatest comedians of the world whatever I might be
doing then, I would burst into laughter quite oblivious to the
surroundings. Such was its impact on my
young mind.
In later
years, it was Shankar and R. K. Laxman, the great cartoonists, who made me
laugh with child-like gusto in the privacy of my room. In moments of depression, I often turn to
their pages which never fail to enliven me and lift me out of that mood of
despondency. Calling it a day in
September 1975, Shankar wrote in his farewell Souvenir very touchingly thus:
“So, now, we leave you with the Souvenir which, we hope, will be a part of your
library to be thumbed by the old nostalgically and by the young for the fun of
past years.” Yes, they are a part of my
library and whenever I go through them, I laugh heartily and realise the full
import of R. K. Laxman’s words that, “there is still much to laugh at in this
world despite the cold-war chaos, the bickering among the hysterical big powers
and the nuclear plot that is a foot to annihilate life on earth, presumably to
save the world!”
It was the
great poet Francis Thomson who put it beautifully when he said that, “Nothing
begins and nothing ends that is not paid with moan, for we are born in other’s
pain and perish in our own”. In between
these two ends it is all laughter and tears, the latter mostly serving as a
foil to the former. “Our sincerest
laughter with some pain is fraught, our sweetest songs are those that tell of
saddest thought”, says the poet Shelley.
It is said
that man is the only thinking animal in the creation. That I do not know for certain.
But, is he not the only laughing animal? If I am not far wrong, it is only the ape which giggles and that
too only in imitation of man. Nothing
in the creation is without a purpose and it passes one’s comprehension with
what grand plans the inscrutable Providence has devised this safety valve for
man to escape, even though for the time being, from “the weariness, the fever
and the fret” of this world.
I am yet to
hear of a people who are so self-centred or devoid of any sense of humour as to
consider it undesirable or unhealthy.
Some may be endowed with more of it or some others with less of it but
none utterly lacking in it. It is only
a difference of degree. It is
well-known that of all the people, Scotsmen, as a race, are full of that genial
temperament. I have known from my personal knowledge of some of
them as I had the good fortune of having four scotsmen, all wonderful persons,
as my Professors in Madras Christian College.
They can crack jokes against themselves and laugh with you heartily as
none else does. Some of the well known
jokes in Currency about their tight-fisted nature, I have heard them from them.
Blessed are
those who have the gift of growing old gracefully laughing and in pink of
health. When we can laugh and end the
jaundice and ‘the heart-ache’ and “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is
heir to, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Let us then laugh till our sides begin to ache and be healthy.