Many a times it happens that your friend cracks a joke in front of you, or a colleague tells you a funny incident he had been in, and starts laughing, thinking the joke or the incident was very funny, before the listener could get the entire story or joke; all you do afterwards is give a awkward small smile, and say, “Ah, sahi hai!” and widen the smile or if you are brave enough, you say, “What are you telling men? Shit, I should’ve been there! Very funny it was! ”and give a hi-fi to him. Many people I’ve seen, who fail to tell a humorous event or incident as effectively as it did happen. It really is an art to portray a funny incident in an appropriate way, so that listener enjoys it to the fullest. I’ve also been embarrassed several times and seen the uncomfortable laughs on my face. Later I realized to differentiate between the type of people and type of humor to be shared with. If you are around with your closest one, then it is a different thing altogether; instead of plastic smiles you immediately get banged with a kick on your butt; they will start picking up on you and you get along immediately and forget the thing comfortably.
Few days back, an acquaintance met and after usual ‘hi-hello’, he suddenly said, pointing his hand towards a board, “hey, look at the board. ‘Rathor- the Beer Shop’, it’s the surname of our Sanskrit teacher. Ha ha ha! ” he moved his hand forward for a hi-fi and with an equal artificial strength I appreciated his wit. My one friend, Prashant is a different person when it comes to these types of situations; he will be responding either by making his face as if he is trying hard to take shit out of his butt or he’ll bounce back furiously saying “F*#*, you are cracking the worst joke ever and expecting me to laugh! Back off your hand immediately!” angry faced Prashant would then look at his face and laugh out loudly, patting on his chest, say, “Just kidding men! Rathor sir was a real joker I tell you!” Later Prashant told me, “By doing this I get revenge immediately for his horrible joke and embarrassed him, also get an appropriate signal about ‘what and where to say some things?’ ” Anyways, I tried this thing once but found it very itchy, when the opposite person said, ‘sorry man, don’t laugh if you don’t want to; I didn’t mean to hurt you!’ Laughing at me, Prashant later told me that I must have done badly in the ‘patting in the chest’ part, which surely was correct; I had not picked the right moment and power to thump on his chest. Anyways, most of the times people tend to be on the safer side, get away with a smile and keep the honor of the teller.
Once a colleague of mine, Maher, told me the following “Man, you should have come the other day, you surely have missed it. Nil, Ani, Shanty, Rohit and me were hanging around in Matunga. So we were walking down the parker street. I was ahead with nil and Ani, and Shanty and Rohit were behind us. There was a place, fuck men it was so dirty garbage was flooding down, and Ani was on that side. There was a pot hole on the footpath and bang, suddenly a cyclist came in front of us so fast, that nil moved away to avoid the hit, cyclist lost the control and turn to left and went over Shanty. Shanty jumped to skip the pothole as well the cyclist but unfortunately and mind you, funnily landed on Ani and they both fell down towards in that garbage. I just escaped as I left behind while talking on the fun. Men, you should’ve seen the way shanty jumped! ” He told this ‘hilarious’ story to every other guy who knew any one of the character from the incident, with his own uncontrollable laughs intruding his own speech. While I was listening to the story, a colleague passed by and sarcastically murmured, “Oh, that Shanty story! It’s really funny!” It still, plenty a times happen, when Maher puts in picture the angles, sides of four football players with their speeds and how four of them collapsed into each other ‘funnily’. I wish one day will come when I’ll go and say to him, “Look bro, whatever funny incidents you always tell us are not funny at all for us! We just keep giving you fake smiles and how can you not get our sham laughs, bogus responses to your stories” But it never happens, and never will; everybody gets peeved with him but end of the day, we all think, if he feels happy, he laughs all day and makes most of his day useful working hard, we ought to support him with our grins. It’s really better than hurting the poor boy.
Well, it is true, every group around us, has its own compatibility with the kind of humor they share. Some laugh on every single odd thing happening around them, some laugh only on situational jokes, some don’t laugh at all on situational jokes, many groups have unsaid rules about the type of wit to be talked and the boundaries of the black humor. The ultimate thing is, hilarity is required in order to have fun while working. The intensity of wittiness may vary from person to person, group to group, but it acts like a lubricant in our dreary routines.
