To Laugh Is Thy Privilege

Published in Pioneer, Chandigarh on 1/9/12. Link: http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/91751-to-laugh-is-thy-privilege.html

By Amit Shekhar

            I laugh, therefore I am. This line could as much define human existence as French philosopher Rene Descartes’ celebrated “I think, therefore I am”. Laughter is as much necessary to qualify as a human being as thought. That’s because just like thought, laughter is also a gift that has been bestowed by nature only on humans.

Now, wait a minute. I can hear dissent based on recent scientific research that suggests gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and rats “laugh” when they are tickled. My own research on scientific research is still inconclusive merely because the researchers have failed to be conclusive on anything till now and made somersaults in their findings during the entire course of scientific journey that would pale both politicians and master gymnasts. Till science makes its first conclusive discovery, I would prefer to believe that only humans are capable of laughter. In that way, like thought, laughter seems to be one of the highs of ages of evolution, if I allow myself to believe that human beings are the supreme creation of nature, the climax of evolution. It is a conceited belief, and even conceit is a trait only humans are entitled to in nature.

It seems that nature not only turned thoughtful after creating man and made him capable of giving her company in being thoughtful, she burst out in laughter too at the grand game of creation and the masterpiece it had yielded in the form of man. And she made man capable of laughing along with her in the bliss of creativity that springs every moment from every corner of the universe which scientists propose began with a bang and the Bible declares started with a word, The Word. Who knows, scientists may one day realise that the Bible was bang on about the beginning of it all, and that their bang was The Word.

Coming back to laughter, it seems the tragedy with life today is that too much of the wrong kinds of thoughts have crowded out laughter from it. At times I am prompted to think that a corollary of Descartes’ profound “I think, therefore I am” is “I think, therefore I am miserable”. That should not have been the case, but that is how it has become.

It has been found that thought stops during the sexual climax. Thought takes a break also when we laugh deeply. Thought seems indispensable for human life, but it is absent at the peaks of joy. Spiritual masters say thought does the vanishing act also during experiences of supreme spiritual bliss. There seems to be some kind of trade-off between thought and happiness.

If thought is what is bugging me, laughter has the promise of debugging me. But laughter is no laughing matter. Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem “If...” mentions a lot of things that a man must do if he wants to have the “Earth and everything that’s in it” and more than that, if he wants to be a “Man”. It is a daunting list, although it is all very poetic, and manhood and the Earth and everything that’s in it don’t quite seem worth having if getting past the list is a precondition. To take just one example, the last item in Kipling’s list is to “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run”. Imagine a lifetime of this kind of running. It’s too uphill a task and I would rather quit the race.

I can somehow manage to let go of the earth and everything that’s in it, but quitting Kipling’s race threatens to strip me of manhood too. I desperately look for a way to salvage it. Is there no easier way to manhood for a lesser mortal like me? And then it dawns on me. Can I laugh? And I laugh out loudly. That convinces me that I am man enough. For only a man (a human being — man here stands for both genders) can laugh.

The catch is that the act of laughing, especially in healthy and good spirit, and not morbidly, say, at the misfortune of others, can give close competition in being difficult to do to Kipling’s formidable list of acts that maketh a man out of a living being. The sensitive and wise drunkard Amitabh Bachchan plays in Sharabi very poetically declares how tough it is to laugh: Ya to deewana hanse ya Tu jise taufeeq de, warna is duniya mein aakar muskurata kaun hai? (Either the really crazy laugh or those whom the Almighty grants the good fortune of laughter, otherwise even a smile eludes those who come to this world.)

To laugh is not only human but curative too. That has been known for ages, as reflected in the saying “laughter, the best medicine”, which the intricate research of modern medical science has seconded. Who knows doctors may one day prescribe daily doses of Charlie Chaplin movies for cancer. Noted physician and spiritual mentor Deepak Chopra writes in one of his books that “if you are having the experience of exhilaration and joy, your body makes interleukins and interferons which are powerful anti-cancer drugs”. So a Charlie Chaplin movie that evokes laughter and joy may actually help cure cancer.

The real issue for me is: am I laughing enough and am I laughing right? If I am not having a good laugh at my life it is probably because just like beauty, laughter too lies in the eyes of the beholder and my vision needs a correction so that it can see humour in everyday life. With the right vision, maybe I too would burst out laughing at the grand game of creation, and fulfil the dream that creation dreamt when she dreamt up man.

If it began with a bang that was The Word, which Hindu belief says was Om, maybe it is meant to end with a bang, a word too, and that word, in all likelihood, is Ha, uttered at least thrice with hands raised skywards like the laughing Buddha, a symbol of auspiciousness.

amitshekhara@gmail.com