31 August, 2006

Sense of Humour



We all know that humour is essential for daily healthy life. But honestly speaking many of us do not live with sense of humour. Couple of weeks before came a rude shock that my current assignment was over. I was told that my last day was the Friday before on a Wednesday. Though it was not liked by me, I took it lightly. When I came back home and informed, that I had to look out for a different job, my family did not believe it. They thought I was joking. Being a Jovial person, sometimes is difficult to communicate serious stuff. I am happy in one way that I could get a good break and spend few days with children. So decided to give a break for blogging too and hence could not post any.

Our daily routine is to go for a 5K walk in the morning and a 3K walk in the evening and enjoy life to the best. My son noticed that hardly people laugh in the parks and during walking. We try to share jokes and laugh. I have read that laughing out loudly helps in production of good hormones and reduces stress. We all know that laughing itself is a good therapy for many diseases.

In UK, I do not see many happy faces while travelling in train, bus and public places. In India the scene is opposite. Our life pattern changes and in the process we forget to laugh or live with sense of humour. Many of us try to mistake others for their sense of humour. As long as we are young our jokes are not mistaken. Even during some serious lessons in school, I have joked and my class teacher as well as my class mates has laughed. One of my class teachers had regards for my humour. When I look back, I remember all my old friends who were humorous and also few elders who had a very good sense of humour.

It is a different story when our jokes are not understood. I have experienced it. At the same time, we feel really lucky when we meet some humorous people while travelling long distance by train especially during long journeys. Our journeys become memorable.

Recently while my son and myself were jogging we saw two English ladies conversing with huge size dogs. I signed my son to stop running, and we started walking when we were near those ladies with their pets. On seeing us, one of the ladies was trying to check whether her pet was there and looked around.

I said “We were scared whether the dogs would chase and hence started walking”.

The lady immediately replied “No too… old for that…” and

I shot back “Did you mean me”

She replied “No.. I meant my dog…” All of us burst into laughter.

If you are a humorous person you can start conversation anywhere. Sense of humour helps a lot. Though years have rolled, we still remember our teachers who were very humorous.

I still remember a friend of mine who shared this with us. He was admitted into a hospital for a surgery. The nurse came and asked him to be ready for ‘Inima’. He immediately opened his mouth and said “I am keeping my mouth opened. Bring Inima soon.” He never knew that inima was not a oral medicine. We could not control our laughter on hearing this.

Another friend of mine was a talkative cricketer. When somebody asked him how much he had scored on that day’s match, he replied “17 ma…. 4 x 4’s and one single…”

On hearing this everyone laughed, because normally it is understood if there were 4 x 4’s, the remaining will be a single run. But still when another friend asked humorously “Why no sixes…”

The other guy replied “There were lots of grasses in the pitch ma...” We all burst into laughter because a sixer in cricket means a ball hit by the batsman without touching the ground should fall after the boundary line.

I cannot control my laughter even today when I think about another friend of mine who was a good music listener. He had so many varieties of cassettes in those days early 80’s and had a good music system. We asked him whether he had any solo songs sung by Kishore kumar. He replied “Yes… I have got one sung by Kishore Kumar along with Lata Mangeshkar ”

One of my relative who had a slight hearing problem went for an expensive imported hearing aid. After sometime he was not using it. I asked him “Why are you not using the imported one…”.
He said humorously “ It is too sensitive. I could even hear all the conversations happening in the street corner which is a nuisance for me.”

But we also have people around us who mistake us for our sense of humour. We could only pity them. Especially relatives will be finding fault with our humour always. They never understand our light heartedness. Friends are the best for any exchange of humour.

It will be nice if you could share any recent experience in the comments section.

21 comments:

Prasanna Parameswaran said...

Hey that was a nice post! Yes humour plays an important role ik keeping you cheerful. Right now I dont have anything to share (or its just that Im in a hurry to leave a comment here :)), yes I do agree the best people to share your humour are friends and not your relatives! I can remember this one joke in Tamil

Do you know this song
"vetti veru vaasam, vedalakulla nesam"(Im not sure if the words are right here!)

My uncle has a great sense of humour and one day whey tying his vetti he had sensed some strange aroma and started singing
"vetti veru vaasam, vettikulla veesam" :) and got soundly bashed by my grandfather! :)

Adaengappa !! said...

Nice post sir..
.....Its true that we forget to laugh,given the busy mechanical life we lead everyday..
But,its also equally important to get a daily dose of laughters.
I like to watch TV, share jokes with friends,and the best,watch Vivek jokes !!LOL ..you can't resist laughing..
...
Here is an interesting incident last wknd.I'd been to my cousin's home,and we were prompting their li'l 4 yr old ABCD girl to sing a tamil song.

She sang....siruki siruki vantha seena thaana doi....

Thats actually, sirichu sirichu vantha ..song !
Did I say,that was the top class joke for the day !

Unknown said...

so true..

my mohter in law is going back to india soon. Jr. is no doubt affected by the news.

Mother in law : why dont you come with me to India.
Jr. : I will.
MIL : But after coming there, you shouldnt say "i want my dadddy and start crying".
Jr. : If I want my daddy, We can just drive back home !!

:)

Balaji S Rajan said...

Indian angel - Vetti veru vasam... was quite humorous.... I read it in the early morning and smiled to myself fearing for those who were sleeping.

adengappa - LOL... The little ones are humorous. We too watch lots of comedy tracks. I remember one of my Manager narrated a joke. This happened say 20 years before. There was a joke in Kumudham. A lady comes to a samiyar and says that she does not have children. The samiyar says 'Don't worry ...I will come to your house tonight..'. One of his kids aged 8 years old read it and asked his father what it was. My colleague was embarassed and explained in a neat way saying that samiyars are next to gods and he will use magical powers to get her a child. His son replied "Idhulla yenna joke irrukkunnu Kumudhathulla podaran..."

Veda - Your joke in the class room was hilarious. haa..ha... just like your friend's name joke, once we were living in flats in Chennai. One of our flat mate decided to host a lunch for all other flatmates. The flat was a staff quarters given to my wife. So all of them were her colleagues. Huge lunch preparation was going in the first floor flat. We were in the second floor. My mother was called for some tips and had gone to the first floor. I never knew this. The flat had a automatic locking system. Without realising there was no one inside the flat I closed the door and went to first floor to involve in the fun. I was shocked to see my Mom too there and realised that the flat would have got locked. The keys were inside the flat. So all of us started panicking. One of the flat mates was very athletic and decided to climb through sunshades into the sunshade in our floor. With the help of a huge stick he was trying to open the lock of the door through the window. We were pushing the door at the same time. After a long struggle, we could open the door and those who were watching all clapped their hands and shouted with joy. One of the lady in the first floor flat who was busy in cooking rushed on hearing the sound and wondered what was going on. One of us narrated the whole episode. On hearing the whole incident she said " Thank god... there was no one inside...". We all laughed like anything and the laughter was continuing for hours.

Sundar - LOL... The kids jokes make us to laugh out loudly. During my father's death, my cousin who was just 5 years old came near me and said..." Hey... I have come to attend your father's funeral. Will you also attend my Dad's funeral when he dies..." Though he has a kid now, we still cannot control our laughter on talking about this.

Kavi said...

Sometimes, the laughter (or the lack of it) shows in our age. People who cant laugh as much miss so much in life !

I was at a management meeting recently, and a Sr.VP was explaining some trends using graphs and lines. Realising that a colleague was lost in slumber (i suspect), he asked him, to help him explain the lines.

The colleague, without bating an eyelid (which was still half closed) said, "Frankly i am worried about my increasing waist line and receding hairline. Well, the facial fine lines on the face are more of a pain.." Everybody burst out laughing !

Chandrika said...

Hi Balaji!

I have recommended your blog for Blog Day 2006 at my blog.

Syam said...

it was a funny one...yep we have lot of people who are very spontaneous jokers in our day to day life :-)

Unknown said...

Kids ,most of the times are the ones who keep us smiling. We need to encourage a sense of humour in them ,by... teaching them to be able to laugh at themselves!Life becomes a lot easier later for them.

Rashmi.

Kavi said...

In the midst of the smiles, i missed the fact that you are going through a troubled time. Thats the power of smiles i guess ! My prayers and wishes for a quick end to the troubled time.
Till then, am sure you will keep smiling !

R Girls said...

Hey balaji good start for the post..I also enjoyed the vetti veru vasam joke from indanangel :-) infact i laughed aloud.I really stare at people with joy when someone laughs aloud in restaurant that they could not control. I really enjoy seeing people laughing out loud.

My brother has very good sense of timely humour. While i was serving dinner to him he started to laugh. I asked him why and he said valluvar has said "idukan varungal naguga" and i asked what was his idukan and he said my cooking.----

Marutham said...

Hello!! Very true....Definitely MOM's don't understand your funniest jokes at all! ;)

One such thing is- when ever she goes complaining "Unn varungala maamiyaar kitta idhelaam velaku agaadhu... Enta ipdi OP adikradhoda iru! :P " And i go saying "Payana choose panna option vekaama- Maamiyaar Paathutu payana pathukren ma! Amma fail'na Payyan double pass panaalum-rejected :P "
And the STARE she gives me-GOD idhukku oru Hitler Maamiyarey varlaampa :P

Jo said...

In my case, some expressions on the faces of some people can make me laugh for minutes. Serious or silly expressions. :-) I laugh a lot when I am with friends and on the family get-togethers.

I think a good cry or laughter can be a very good stress reliever.

ambi said...

//Being a Jovial person, sometimes is difficult to communicate serious stuff.//
well said, parunga, naan serious post potta kooda pple are commenting like: "Hey ambi! ithu un URl thaana?nu checked!"
adangokkamakka! naane evloo kashtapaatu topic yosichu, thamizhla type
panna, ipdi kummi adichuttu poraangale!nu thonum. ROTFL ;)

enjoyed your post very much.

Jeevan said...

Very nice post friend. I like to me a Humour person, if I was familiar with some one, i will be very humour. The dog and inima was good. Recently my Kodai journey was very humour, because the driver who drive the vehicle was very jolly type, make my laugh many times.

Recently we all were discussing about Chikungunya fever, suddenly grandma come and tells that why I told don’t buy and eat chicken. We laugh and said it’s a dieses form mosquito being a teacher u dint know about the Chikungunya.

Ram Viswanathan said...

Yes.. we all can learn to 'loosen' up a little..

Kids, nature.. (and the site of monkeys..!!!) help me lighten up..

Anonymous said...

good quality of kishore kumar's music
http://www.nagarnews.com/hindimusic/index.htm

Balaji S Rajan said...

Kavi - That was a good joke.

Chandrika - Thanks for recommending my blog.

Syam - you are right. We do have jokers and we need them.

Rashmi - Kids are humourous too. Sometimes their innocence makes us to laugh.

Nandhini - Enjoyed your brother's joke. LOL

Kavi - Thanks for your wishes.

Marutham - Who knows? What your mother says may be true. LOL

Jo - I know that you are a person who laughs out loudly. That is great.

Balaji S Rajan said...

Ambi - True. It is difficult to be serious when you have been a jovial person.

Jeevan - We laughed for your grandma's joke about chikenguniya.

Ram - Thanks for your comments.

Anonymous said...

me a total easy going guy love to live life in humor .

deriving humor even if it is said is what makes life meaningful. infact my mom cannot hear well if she is not concentrating. she is a good singer and when asked her favorite song, she said "kaadodu daan naan paaduvaen" everyone at home laughed...this is what i feel is finding jokes even if it is sad :)

Anonymous said...

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Balaji S Rajan said...

That was a good one! Thanks for visiting.