Humour

People all over the world enjoy humour. Often, it relieves boredom, stress, tension and frustration. Mahatma Gandhi said “If I had no sense of humour, I would have committed suicide long ago.” What constitutes humour? It has not been possible to define humour with precision and finesse. “...to analyse humour is a task as delicate as analysing the composition of a perfume with its multiple ingredients, some of which are never consciously perceived while others, when sniffed in isolation, would make us wince.” says Arthur Koestler. Words, cleverly and skillfully used in interesting situations, tickle our senses and make us smile or laugh, and they are broadly classified as humour, wit, repartee, pun, irony and good­ natured satire. While good humour is always plain and pleasant, wit and re­partee may be rather sharp and intellectual. A repartee is a surprisingly quick and fitting answer that leaves the other person speechless. Puns are words with the same sound but different meanings used humourously. Satire makes us laugh at the follies and foibles of individuals and societies and it can be used effectively as an instrument to bring about reforms. Within the narrow limits of this article, it is not possible to cover all these varieties adequately. Here is an assortment of some fine examples.

In his essay “ON SMILES”, A. G. Gardiner writes:”...among politicians, it is notorious that a popular smile is the shortest cut to the great heart of democracy. In an estimate of the qualities that have contributed to Mr. Lloyd George’s amazing success, a high place would have to be given to the twinkling smile so merry and mischievous, engagingly frank and calculating, with which, by the help of a photographer, he has irradiated his generation…. Theodore Roosevelt was the most idolized public man America has produced for half a century and he owed his popularity more to his enormous smile than to any other quality…It seemed to stretch across the Continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and when it burst into laughter, it shook the land like a merry earthquake. There was not much behind the smile, but it was the genuine article, the expression of a compassionate spirit and a healthy enjoyment of life and it knocked the Americans ‘all of a heap.’”

When R. K. Narayan was in America, he was frequently asked “...if India was full of saints and whether the hero of THE GUIDE who is mistaken for a saint and was later compelled to become one, was ‘typical’ of India.” with subtle humour, the author goes on to say (in ‘RELUCTANT GURU’),”...In your (American’s) view, perhaps, you think that in an Indian street, you can see bearded men floating about in a state of levitation. Far from it. We have traffic, crowds, shops, pimps, pickpockets, policemen and what not as in any other country. We have our own students’ agitations - but they are for different causes, sometimes political, …sometimes academic and sometimes inexplicable...Your search is for a ‘guru’ who can promise you instant mystic elation; whareas your counterpart looks for a Foundation Grant; the young person in my country would sooner learn how to organize a business or manufacture an atom bomb or an automobile than how to stand on one’s head.”

Sometimes, the description of what was once a serious trouble may sound in course of time, humorous and evoke a smile. Swami Vivekananda, in his letter dated 28 Aug 1893, addressed to a friend in Madras, says”...The expense I am bound to run into here (America) is awful. You remember, you gave me £178 in notes and £9 in cash. It has come down to £130 in all. On an average, it costs me £1 every day; a cigar costs eight annas of our money. The Americans are so rich that they spend money like water and by forced legislation keep up the price of everything so high that no other nation on earth can approach it…All those rosy ideas we had before starting have melted and I have now to fight against impossibilities….Just now, I am living as the guest of an old lady in a village near Boston…I have an advantage in living with her, in saving some for sometime my expenditure of £1 per day and she has the advantage of inviting her friends over here and showing them a curio from India!”

When Mahatma Gandhi was asked why he always travelled third class, he said “That’s because there is no fourth class!”

When a Labour Member of Parliament criticized Sir Winston Churchill, he rose to reply. His friend advised him “Don’t reply to that chap. Stand on your own dignity.” Churchill shot “I am going to reply to him. I have not heard of a man who maintained his dignity by standing on it.”

George Bernard Shaw sent two tickets to Winston Churchill for the opening night of his play and sent a note “Please come to the first night of my play. Also, bring along a friend if you have a friend”. Churchill sent this reply: “I am sorry I am not free for the first night of your play but I will attend the second night if there is a second night.”

On Churchill’s 82nd birthday, a photographer told him, “Sir, I hope I may have the privilege of taking your picture when you are hundred. “Churchill smiled and said, “No reason why you shouldn’t, if you continue to look after your health.” Dr.Samuel Johnson was asked by a poet to comment on his collection of’ poems. He glanced through the poems and said “It is highly original and brilliant, but only with this difference that it is not original where it is brilliant and not brilliant where it is original.”

A judge said to a young lawyer “Your reasoning is unsound. You are still a child in law.” The lawyer retorted “My lord, I‘ve always looked upon you as father in law, but on this point, I beg to differ.”

Lady in haste at a public telephone “Will you, please call my husband, please.” Man at the Exchange “Number, please.” “How many do you think I have? You, idiot” cried the lady, angrily.

A Lecturer in Mathematics grumbled “My children and grand-children trouble me constantly; they add to my worries, subtract from my peace of mind, divide my property and multiply rapidly.”

Professor in a hotel shouted “Waiter!” “Yes, Sir.” “What is this?” “It’s bean soup, Sir.” “No matter what it has been. What is it now?”

When Charles Lamb was unwell, he went to see a doctor. “Charles, you must do regular exercises; you must walk on empty stomach” the doctor said. “On whose, doctor?” Lamb asked.

Talking to a snobbish lady, Oscar Wilde said “I could never have dealings with Truth. If Truth were to come to me, I would say to him ‘You are too obvious’ and throw him out of the window.” “You would say to him?” the lady retorted, “Is not Truth a woman?” “Ah then, I could not throw him out of the window; I should bow her out to the door!”

Shelley’s translation of a Greek epigram on Plato’s spirit:

“Eagle, why soarest thou above the tomb?
“To what sublime and starry-paven home floatest thou?
“I am the image of swift Plato’s spirit,
It Ascending heaven; Athens does inherit his corpse below.”

Here is a limerick on women written by Isaac Asimow:

“Are women in all things less bright?”
“I assure you I don’t think that’s right.
“It’s just comic verse
“In which they seem worse.
“In all else, they are pure dynamite!”

Even engravings on tombstones (epitaphs) can be witty and amusing:

“Here lies returned to clay
Miss Isabella Young,   
Who on the first of May
Began to hold her tongue”        

“Stranger, call this not
A place of gloom;
To me it is a pleasant spot,
My husband’s tomb.”

“A dashing young fellow named Tim,
Drove his car with great vim.    
Said he ‘I am renowned
For covering ground.’  
But now the ground covers him.”

“As in life so in death lies a bat of renown.
Slain by a lorry (three ton),
His innings is over, his bat is laid down.
To the end a poor judge of a run!

Let me conclude with the words of Arthur Koestler:” Humour today seems to be dominated by two main factors: the influence of mass media and the crisis of values affecting a culture in rapid and violent transition. The former tends toward the commercialized manufacture of laughter by comedians and gags produced by conveyor-belt methods; the latter toward a sophisticated form of ‘black’ or absurdist humour. Fashions, however, always run their course. The only certainty regarding the humour of the future is contained in Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictum: “Sir, men may have been wise in many different modes, but they have always laughed in the same way.”

After the tsunami in Africa a hippo calf has befriended a 100-year old giant male Aldabram tortoise in Kenya. According to the park official, they sleep together, eat together and have become inseparable. The tortoise behaves like a mother to the hippo. The hippo follows the tortoise around and licks his face!

There was a similar case in 2002 of a lioness at the Samburu National Park adopting a succession of Oryx calves (a species of antelope). This unnatural behaviour has baffled the zoologists.
- Source, The Internet.

Man should learn lessons from the animal world       -Editor.