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All In Good Humour!

Discussion in 'Cheeniya's Senile Ramblings' started by Cheeniya, Jul 3, 2017.

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  1. Jul 9, 2017 #11
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @Viswamitra
    My dear Viswa
    Initially Crazy Mohan was writing the script for S.Ve.Sekar. The series of plays involving Crazy thieves were extremely popular. It was around this time I had my own drama troupe called Sowmya. We were all close to each other. I gave up my dramatic pursuit as age started catching up with me. Crazy Mohan combines humour even when he orders for food in a hotel. Kamal Hassan makes full use of him in his productions.
    Sri
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #11
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  2. Jul 9, 2017 #12
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @kkrish
    Cho was a class by himself. None had his versatility. He was a master in many fields. Just before he died, he was putting out a serial on the greatness of Hinduism. His plays were not mere comedy and there was deep satire in each one of them. He feared none. His pungent question and answer column in his magazine Thuklak earned him many enemies but he was least bothered about it.
    He was certainly a legend.
    Sri
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #12
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  3. Jul 9, 2017 #13
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @shyamala1234
    Dear Syamala
    It was because of such guys, the likes of Kamu came into existence. It is like the chicken and egg question, who came first, Kamu or the 'tubelights'. Whatever the answer be, these are the guys who kill all sense of humour! As you rightly point out, it is their 'Oh, is it?' the ultimate tomb stone on humour!
    RK Narayan and his younger brother RK Laxman were amazing brothers. Both had such versatility and had the world in their palms! Your adulation for my brand of writing scares me. I just ape all my idols! I have a long long way to go!
    Sri
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #13
  4. Jul 9, 2017 #14
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @PushpavalliSrinivasan
    Dear PS
    Devan and Nadodi were class writers. It is a pity that they did not live very long. Devan's '5 naadugalil 60 naal' (60 days in five countries) is a classic travelogue, the first of its kind in Tamil. Another popular writer was Tamilvanan. He wrote '100 vayathu vazhvathu eppadi?' (How to live for a hundred years?) and died at the age of 56!
    That's a classic statement! For the last couple of years, I have started laughing thinking of some old jokes and people look at me with concern!
    Sri
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #14
  5. Jul 9, 2017 #15
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @Iravati
    If you had told me this in my stone deaf left year, my answer would be 'no, you have not told me' ! Both lived very long to provide entertainment to the likes of us. Wodehouse lived a decade longer than the other. While I have read almost all the books of PGW, I have read only one of the other author, Cat's Cradle. I somehow did not get an opportunity to read any other book of his.
    You are quite right about the good old Mark Twain. He was a serious joker. He made you laugh initially and think later!
    I always thought that the guys of 19th Century were all damn serious without any time for humour but Mark proved me wrong!
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #15
  6. Jul 9, 2017 #16
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @satchitananda
    You are quite right about such guys. They get into trouble because of their habit of laughing at a joke that they heard an hour earlier. I have a friend like this. He would laugh at the club jokes while having dinner at home after an hour. His wife would be very upset and cross that he was laughing at the dinner she served!
    You amaze me by your sheer variety of getting into trouble!
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #16
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  7. Jul 9, 2017 #17
    Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Similarly, I have read very less of Saki save the occasional references my friends or you bring up. That Tobermory was such a delight! I missed out on Saki big time.

    I didn't take to Vonnegut on first read. While reading his Slaughterhouse-five, I was also reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I can't recall why I had chosen these two books, maybe the common dash. I leaned more toward the humour in Catch-22 and put down the erratic Slaughterhouse-five (S-F). Mind, both are disjointed narratives but SF was swinging widely that I could not grasp properly at that time.

    Years later, while watching the movie Boyhood by Richard Linklater, the boy character was holding a copy of Breakfast of Champions (BoC) and there is a dialogue around that book between the boy and the girl. That was when I downloaded the book and read it. Did I love BoC? I am very snooty. Today, I will turn my nose down on people who haven't read BoC. What? How could you not have read such a funny book? You are pardoned because you had read the entire collection of PG Wodehouse. But, seriously, Vonnegut in BoC is Messiah spelling out Bible to me. Later, I caught up with Slaughterhouse-five again and Sirens of Titan. I have a feeling that you may like Breakfast of Champions if you like A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The protagonists of these books are so resolved in their mind and it is only the people around them who are flustered in grasping these eccentric thinkers. The characters Ignatius Jacques Reilly and Kilgore Trout are undersung geniuses who have figured out and straightened out the world [of course, in their heads].

    This week, I came across a quote by H.L. Mencken: “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” What a seriously funny quote! Those 19th-century writers could tickle you even with their gnashing teeth.
     
    Iravati, Jul 9, 2017
    Iravati, Jul 9, 2017
    #17
  8. Jul 9, 2017 #18
    Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    @Cheeniya
    I could not recognise even one name in that list. I wish these books were more accessible and also translated in English to people like me to dabble in, just to sample their acclaimed writing style. Also, this puts me to shame that I don't know any regional writer from my state. When I rattled my brain hard enough, I was able to remember only one name from my childhood that aunties in my apartment used to laud. I have never read that regional author's works whose books were a common sight in every household, oh!, we were those stuck up M & B kids growing up. I don't know if it is the fin de siecle upbringing or the proliferation of Englishness on television that regional literature took a toll. I don't think any of my friends took upon regional literature while growing up. I sorely regret that phase. We only studied regional language but never examined or explored it beyond the curriculum prescribed texts like we did with English works, by works I mean comics not hefty volumes. It is heartening to see the way you wave these regional authorship as effortlessly as you recall Restoration or Regency or Victorian or Edwardian or Colonial or Postmodern literature.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2017
    Iravati, Jul 9, 2017
    Iravati, Jul 9, 2017
    #18
  9. Jul 9, 2017 #19
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @Iravati
    While talking of Saki, one other book of his that I should strongly recommend is The Unbearable Bassington. In fact, this was the first book of his that I read. Catch 22 is my favourite too.
    Oh my God! You reel out names of such books which are Greek and Latin to me! But I don't have to feel shy! If you are caught up in a whirlwind called PGW you will have very little time for other books. And that man was turning out novels faster than I could read! It was my fortune that I could also find time for the entire works of Giovonni Guareschi. It was by sheer chance that I could lay my hands on books like Unbearable Bassington. The world of books is a huge one. I don't think that one should feel sorry that he missed out on many books.
    They did just that! And how we enjoyed it!
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #19
  10. Jul 9, 2017 #20
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    @Iravati
    I don't think that an English version of any of those books in Tamil are available.
    Days are fast changing. My own grandchildren have not laid their hands on any books in Tamil. As a matter of fact, they don't even watch any regional language programmes on TV. Theirs is a different world. If I ask my youngest granddaughter any question in Tamil, she begs my pardon and after I repeat my question , she replies in English!
    Considering the kind of ambiance in which they have to settle down, I understand their pressures. My entire schooling was in Tamil medium and it is hardly surprising that I take so much interest in works of regional origin.
     
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    Cheeniya, Jul 9, 2017
    #20
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