Humour? Be cautious!

My dear Srama
Isn't it called deja vu? Or have I unknowingly repeated an old thread of mine and you have already responded to the original? Men of my age are prone to such mistakes! I know what you mean. This 'I was only joking' is used by people as a mere cover up for their evil intentions. If they were only joking, how is it that others were not able to see the humour in the very first instance and why did it need this addenda?

In Tamil, people say something bad and add that what they have said has to be looked at in 'yathartham', (face value). In other words, they say something bad and by asking us to take it at face value, they add insult to injury by implying that we have a tendency to read between lines!

You have already told us in a thread of yours that you are a bad narrator of jokes and I have responded to it by saying that I am a joker! Let us keep our humour very healthy and use it only for adding joy to all with whom we interact.
Sri

 

Dear syamala
You are absolutely right. All human expressions have two sides, positive and negative. I chose humour to write this thread because a sense of humour is a gift of God. When I say it is a gift of God, I simply mean that it should be used only to make people happy and not hurt them. As you rightly say, using humour as a weapon of hurt is a lot worse than abusing a person directly.

Laughing at ourselves is a big image booster. I have seen people who use this ability to a great advantage. It is one thing to tell people not to pursue a particular line of action as it has the potential to land people in trouble. But if the same thing is said as a personal experience pointing out how we came to grief because of our action, people will relate to it readily and appreciate our honesty too! Keeping miles away from hypocrites does not indicate a lack of sense of humour. It indicates that you are a decent soul!
Sri

 

My dear buddy Kamla
A man with a good sense of humour will be a winner all the way. Even from my school days, we always looked forward to sessions by teachers who had a fantastic sense of humour even if the subjects they taught were boring ones! I had the good fortune of having some lecturers with a brilliant sense of humour that made me take more interest in my curriculum! Once the renowned population expert Dr.Chandrasekar was to deliver a guest lecture to us. Knowing that nothing could be more taxing than a talk on population by an expert, I wanted to skip it but it was my sheer fortune that a senior of mine cautioned me against missing his lecture. And my God, it was such a side splitting session of laughter as the professor laced his lecture with humorous episodes. Until that day, Malthus, the expert who talked always about population explosion, was a sworn enemy for us but in one lecture, Dr. Chandrasekar turned Malthus into an adorable guy!

Slapstick is not my cup of tea either but I love the harmless Mr.Bean. The clowns in the circus never fail to get on my nerves hitting each other with sticks that make a lot of noise. All sound and no fury!
Sri

 

Quebec
I never miss this Aaj Tak in TV. This is my favourite programme!
Sri

 

Dear navs
Thank you for your brilliant response. I too detest jokes about purely personal matters but unfortunately most of our jokes are only of this nature. Right from my school days, I have observed how boys nick-named their teachers based on their personal traits. The poor teachers carried such nick-names till their dying day. I was appalled to come across once an obituary reference to a teacher mentioning his nick-name too! I remember how Kamalhassan's character was named 'Chappani' in one famous film because of the deformity in his legs.

Talking of personal tragedies being made fun of, the most glaring example were the jokes circulated about the Malaysian Air Tragedy. When a friend of mine forwarded to me one such joke, I told him that it was unfair to joke about such calamities. He answered me saying that such jokes were only aimed at minimising the gravity of the tragedy. I told him that it was for the affected people to take a lighter view in order that they did not feel the pain of the tragedy. It was unfair for other unconnected people to joke about them.

The joke about father and son making a joint effort to have fun at the expense of the lady of the house is a wide spread phenomenon. Worse still is the habit of men deriding their wives in front of their friends in the name of humour!
Sri

 

My dear Viswa
Things like love of music and sense of humour are denied to some people and when we hear of such people we are appalled. Akbar the Great had such eminent humorist and musician like Birbal and Tansen in his court. His descendent Aurangzeb had a great distaste for humour and music! Such people do exist who have no time for such fine pursuits. It is a great pity that they do not even realise what they are missing.

Humour is a great blessing of God and an ability to keep people enthralled with our sense of humour is certainly to be used to foster love and goodwill. But unfortunately there are a number of people who use their humour to hurt others. It is about them that I am basically concerned. Let me tell you of an instance. When Shobha was in Chennai to take her mother to US, I visited her with my wife. We spent nearly a couple of hours with them and it was such a jolly get together that we found it difficult to take our leave at the end of the day. Shobha and your MIL were so happy that they went on pleading with us to come and spend a couple of months in US with all of you! Such is the great bonding effect of humour!

People who have the habit of of using their sense of humour to create an atmosphere of anguish to the victims of their joke and all round embarrassment are like poison ivy. It looks good but is really a great irritant!
Sri