"Ha Ha Hi Hi Hoo Hoo"

“Ha ha hi hi hoo hoo” - “ Ha ha hi hi hoo hoo”, I heard those sounds. Yes, it should be sharp 7 AM. I was walking in the park. Those sounds came from a group, part of some laughter club. Around 15 of them, almost all of them are senior citizens. This may be the only time they get an opportunity to laugh.  Back home who has time now to make them laugh by sharing a joke, or to listen to their “old” jokes? They not only laugh, they do all sorts of things like, cry like an owl, bark like a dog, shoot at each other as if they are small kids in that group exercise. I do enjoy watching their child like behaviors. Probably they themselves may not be having that much fun like I do while watching their activities!

Laughter is the best medicine. It can reduce stress levels. It can bring down blood pressure. We keep hearing this all the time. But can we simply laugh just because laughing is good for health? We need an incident for it, we need a trigger for it, we need to hear a good joke for it.

In one of our group meetings, at the end of the day we had some leisure time and fun. Everyone was asked to tell some joke or other. We heard multi cuisine, veg/ non veg jokes from many. This manager did not have a good sense of humor. When his turn came, he conveyed that truth and humbly requested to spare him. “No chance”, people became stubborn. He came in the front, thought for a while and said “Do you know how Chinese name their kids? They just drop a steel spoon and whatever noise it produces they follow that as the name”, and ran off much quickly than he came. People just roared and laughed much more than on any other “rich” jokes they heard that day for obvious reasons! So it is just the context, not the content that many a times a joke can make people laugh.

Yes, context is very important. Way back in early 2000 I had an opportunity to sit in one of Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” live shoot as an audience. This was in Burbank, CA. Thanks to our customer manager who gave us 3 complimentary entry passes. I noticed one <LAUGH> sign board. When Jay Leno was into his first joke, even before the <LAUGH> sign lit on, people started laughing. And in a few seconds the <LAUGH> sign went off. I realized then the use of that sign board was to make people quiet so that the next joke can be heard and recorded properly. For me, during that show in many occasions I used that sign board to start my laugh, as I could not understand those jokes, they were very specific to their country and were totally out of context for me. I did enjoy the program though. If somebody has to learn what program management is all about, one has to witness this. Splendid planning and spotless timing of each event, live take with no repeats!

So let me attempt to make you laugh with a joke. I decided to pick up “Namboodiri” jokes, Namboodiri was the target in Kerala if people wanted to write/tell a joke. Namboodiri jokes are “old” ones, I used to enjoy reading them in my childhood. They may not be effective, as I am trying to recollect them and narrate, as they are originally written in Malayalam – it would lose the originality when translated to English, as they are very specific to context and culture in Kerala. Let me try anyway!

 “A Namboodiri was travelling in a train. He got the upper berth and was ready to go to sleep. A couple had the middle and lower berth. The lady, in late stages of her pregnancy was showing all sort of discomfort in that lower berth of that cozy 2^nd class compartment. Her husband from the middle berth consoled her “Look dear. It is all gift by that divine person above (GOD), so please bare with this”. <LAUGH> Namboodiri did not like this. He shouted “How can you say I am responsible for this?” <STOP LAUGH>. 

Namboodiri is very high in the caste system, the highest. He could go to anybody’s house and give “pudava”( saree ) and have “sambandam” (marry) any lady in that house. He could stay as much he wanted there. He could have any number of “sambandam”s, no limit. However, he would like to keep each sambandam as a secret. So this “upper berth” Namboodiri, could not recollect his giving saree to this lady, but he was not sure though. But definitely he did not want to make it known to public.             

Gentleman, you may be wishing that you were born as a Namboodiri. Please remember, when naxalism was rampant in Kerala, many of these Namboodiris were beheaded mercilessly.

Real life incident : When we friends were walking in a group in a busy street, we saw one of us having a fight with two youngsters. We realized that one of the youngsters told the other “ Look man, that fellow is totally bald”. The guy who made that statement was swearing that he was referring to the back tyre of his friend’s bike. I looked at the tyre, he should be saying the truth, the tyre was much much balder than my friend’s head, which he used to cover secretly with a wig. He suspected that these fellows somehow came to know about that through loose strands of his wig, which provoked him. He was too conscious about his head, I mean his baldness.

I know many more jokes like this that can give you a trifle smile. Let me preserve them to help me in much more desperate situations!

Try to laugh when occasion arises. If you cannot show others that you are really laughing, don’t worry. Your personality is like that, it will not cause high blood pressure in you just because you don’t laugh, expressively enough!