Laughter and its variants!

They say – laughter is the best medicine. Medicine is mostly bitter, but thankfully laughter comes in different flavors. At one end of the spectrum, are those that laugh as though they are consuming medicine. It is a carefully, calibrated laughter- it flows in a trickle, in ounces and teaspoons, just this much...and no more!

I watch comic films wearing such a laughter hat. “Didn’t you understand the joke?” my wife typically asks, scrutinizing my grave expression. “I did understand the joke. That's exactly why I cannot laugh!” Stand-up comedians should be thankful that I am not in the audience. By now, they would have lost all self-confidence, and banged their head on a concrete wall, watching every joke fall flat, with not a ripple registered on my placid face!

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the popular comedy shows on TV. The anchor normally employs a laughing sidekick to liven up the show. The sidekick has just one job- to laugh at the drop of a hat. For every innocuous comment from the anchor, the sidekick claps his hands and laughs uproariously. “I went to the market and bought potatoes!” the anchor comments. The sidekick repeats the sentence- “I went to the market” and breaks into a bout of convulsive laughter to the extent he can’t complete the sentence!

Watching him, we get irritated, “This is too much! They must have fed him "bhaang" or Laughing Gas! No wonder, he laughs for the silliest reason!”

Rakshasas and asuras are known for their special laughter, called “atta-haasa”. They must have a great sense of humor. The moment they make an appearance, on TV or in dramas, they break into an evil laugh, for no palpable reason. Asuras are trained to laugh in a low baritone, in the “mandara sthaayi”. Atta-haasa of this kind typically starts with the syllable “eee”.  Soon, the “eee” breaks into a gurgle, and swells into a sumptuous round of “ha-ha-ha”, so much so, the entire place reverberates with their booming laughter!

Today’s generation replies on social media with the ubiquitous “LOL” and “ROFL”. I have always been tickled by ROFL- “Rolling On the Floor Laughing”. Someone replies with ROFL sitting in a train. Think about it- one moment, they are sitting on the side-berth, all normal. They read your whatsapp message, and the next moment, they go rolling down the train’s aisle! How do the co-passengers react to this spectacle? And imagine multiple people on the train, all replying with ROFL. Soon, the train will resemble a "mini-Tirupati", with dozens of folks, rolling over each other, doing a veritable “anga-pradakshina”, down the train’s aisle!

We had a teacher in school, who often said, “Don’t loaf! If you loaf so much, you will cry later!” We took the sentence at face value, with a practical message- “Don’t loaf around and waste your time. Later, you will regret it and cry!” Only towards the end of the year, we deciphered her peculiar pronunciation. She actually meant, “Don’t laugh! If you laugh so much, you will cry later!” It took us an entire year to understand her hidden message. Laughter is a double-edged sword. Laugh too much, and it will come back to bite you later!

Laughter comes in several styles. In one, the person is laughing, but not one sound emerges. Only the eyes crease into a straight line, the face turns red, and the shoulder rocks. He is like a volcano, the lava is smoldering, but it is all bottled within.  After several minutes elapse, suddenly, out of the blue, the volcano explodes, into a round of resounding laughter. There are others who laugh with their mouth closed- so much so, each laughter bout is a snort, much like a bull, snorting through its nostrils. In some cases, the laughter is high-pitched, “peals of laughter” as they say, like the laughter of hyenas. It can be scary, especially at night. And still others laugh so much, that they hold their sides and plead with tears in their eyes, “Don’t make me laugh more! Please!” In such extreme cases, the laughter ends in a hiccup. With each hiccup, they laugh still more, leading to more hiccups. It is a vicious cycle that knows no end. No wonder, my teacher instructed, “Don’t loaf!”

We are told laughter is a 100% human response. Animals can express all emotion- they can show affection, they can cry (we are told), but they cannot laugh. And who has come to this conclusion? Humans have decided for animals that animals cannot laugh! Think about the irony. Who knows? Animals may be intently watching humans make a fool of themselves.

One fine day, when humans finally succeed in their self-destructive ways, much like the mythological character "Bhasmaasura", all the monkeys and elephants and hyenas will assemble in the open, and break into a collective laugh. 

After all, he who laughs best, laughs last!