From childhood taunts to adult jests, the journey of one man’s relationship with humour is a winding road filled with laughter and tears

I turned into an overweight boy very early in my life. I still remember an incident from my childhood. My younger brother called me ‘Fatso’ in front of a couple of house helps, who burst out laughing. I rushed inside the house in tears. Even now, at a more mature age, I still seethe at one-liners directed at me.

More recently, my daughters attended a show by a famous stand-up comedian. My ignorance led me to find out more about the term. A stand-up comedian is a person, standing or sitting on stage, delivering tongue-in-cheek one-liners to an appreciative audience. Over a century, it has evolved into taking a punch at whatever the actor considers is wrong in the community - religion, beliefs, taboos and yes, the politician — that eternal punching bag.

There are so many anecdotes that one would lose count of politicians trading barbs at others of their ilk. We have heard of Disraeli insulting a rival politician, If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity. This one is beautiful when Lady Astor said to Churchill, If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea; to which Churchill’s reply was a classic, Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it. Or the other one about Churchill, who quipped when berated by Bessie Braddock for being drunk, My dear, you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly. Or this one about one of our politicians who wanted to make the roads in his State as smooth as the cheeks of a heyday film star — though he was probably only trying to pay a compliment. Many of these might be considered sexist at the very least.

Recently, I sat with a few other authors addressing a group of young students during a literature festival. An erudite lady had an immediate connection with the appreciative audience as she spoke about her love for the Korean TV series — particularly her mention of the term Oppa. The students burst into loud laughter when one of their fellow authors wanted to know the meaning of the term. I only smiled knowingly, as if I understood the joke, not wanting to display my ignorance in public.

We tend to lose our funny bone when humorous barbs, at least from the viewpoint of the narrator, are directed at us. At the same time, we do not hesitate to laugh, or smile, or even smirk — as I did, at someone else’s discomfiture, when it suits us. Life would be far simpler if only we make as much effort in developing our funny bones, as we do in discussing international affairs, politics, religion and much more.

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, summed it up almost a century earlier, The attempt to develop a sense of humour and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.

(The author is an electrical engineer with the Indian Railways and conducts classes in creative writing; views are personal) I turned into an overweight boy very early in my life. I still remember an incident from my childhood. My younger brother called me ‘Fatso’ in front of a couple of house helps, who burst out laughing. I rushed inside the house in tears. Even now, at a more mature age, I still seethe at one-liners directed at me.

More recently, my daughters attended a show by a famous stand-up comedian. My ignorance led me to find out more about the term. A stand-up comedian is a person, standing or sitting on stage, delivering tongue-in-cheek one-liners to an appreciative audience. Over a century, it has evolved into taking a punch at whatever the actor considers is wrong in the community - religion, beliefs, taboos and yes, the politician — that eternal punching bag.

There are so many anecdotes that one would lose count of politicians trading barbs at others of their ilk. We have heard of Disraeli insulting a rival politician, If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity. This one is beautiful when Lady Astor said to Churchill, If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea; to which Churchill’s reply was a classic, Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it. Or the other one about Churchill, who quipped when berated by Bessie Braddock for being drunk, My dear, you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly. Or this one about one of our politicians who wanted to make the roads in his State as smooth as the cheeks of a heyday film star — though he was probably only trying to pay a compliment. Many of these might be considered sexist at the very least.

Recently, I sat with a few other authors addressing a group of young students during a literature festival. An erudite lady had an immediate connection with the appreciative audience as she spoke about her love for the Korean TV series — particularly her mention of the term Oppa. The students burst into loud laughter when one of their fellow authors wanted to know the meaning of the term. I only smiled knowingly, as if I understood the joke, not wanting to display my ignorance in public.

We tend to lose our funny bone when humorous barbs, at least from the viewpoint of the narrator, are directed at us. At the same time, we do not hesitate to laugh, or smile, or even smirk — as I did, at someone else’s discomfiture, when it suits us. Life would be far simpler if only we make as much effort in developing our funny bones, as we do in discussing international affairs, politics, religion and much more.

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, summed it up almost a century earlier, The attempt to develop a sense of humour and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.

(The author is an electrical engineer with the Indian Railways and conducts classes in creative writing; views are personal)