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Made me laugh


You have a stomach ache that is more like an intestinal tickle. You have not slept the entire night because you were trying to find that precious copy of ‘Bleakhouse’ but wound up looking for the black top with sequins. Neither was found. And because everything else was way too much trouble, you decide to simply switch on the T.V.

You instinctively gravitate towards the comforting genre of sitcoms. After a few hours of canned gaiety, you flick over to AXN or to some debate on a news channel and find that you can laugh at anything.

My sense of humor was never very refined to begin with, but I did have a discerning sensibility that now seems to have gone out of the third slat of a narrow window. So I hear anything or remember anything at all and lapse into a rather longish stint of tranquilized twitters.

Examples:

A

Whose Line is It Anyway: Colin and Ryan are two people trapped in a pre-mutiny environment. One of them is Irish and the other is Scottish, so it’s a little unclear what historical event they are dramatizing. They have to alert a town about an impending conquest. To do this, they must use dialogues written on a chit that they pick out of a hat. So, Ryan makes this rousing speech about how it is up to them to save a nation. In response Colin volunteers to tear through the countryside and shout at the top of his lungs (and here he picks out a chit): ‘I see Paris, I see France, I see everyone’s underpants!’

I suppose if a person went galloping on a horse hollering this message, he could save the people. I’m sure they’d all get mighty curious and follow him to safety.

B

Seinfeld: Elaine is dating a surfer or an Australian or an Australian surfer; I forget what. This guy is quite a dish and Jerry is teasing her about it. He mocks her saying that the only reason she’s with him is because he’s got a pretty face and nothing else. To make his point, he states ‘He’s a male bimbo. He’s a mimbo.’


The way Jerry says it....

C

There’s this sitcom on Zee Café that has that guy who was Will Smith’s cousin in Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I really like this fellow. Anyway, this sitcom revolves around a gym or something. In this particular episode, the cousin fellow has to break into somebody’s office with his friends. So we see him heave himself up with some fancy equipment and ropes and hooks, while his friends just walk up the two steps of the balcony. The office is on the ground floor. One of his pals looks at him and says, ‘Come on, double O zero!’

This bit was my favorite!

D

Then there’s J, my pal in Pune, whose sense of humor is rather medicinal - it's not for everyone and even then, the dosage is important. But, sometimes, she cracks some jokes that are really hilarious. This one kept me amused right through my typhoid.

Woman: Mera naam Geeta hai.

Man: Toh main aap par haath rakhoon?

Unless very sick, I don’t think I would have ever laughed at this, but now I guffaw simply on remembering this nonsensical joke…and most times, the raucous guffaw happens in buses when I’m sitting alone. Quite embarrassing really.

E

I majored in Sociology in college. In my final year, we had a paper called ‘Sociological Theory’. Here, we had to study every major thinker in Sociology and all his theories and all the ways he arrived at these theories and all the people who approved of these theories and all the people who thought those were crap. In fact, a friend of mine (who later became rather popular because of this observation), pensively announced, ‘It’s like we must know which direction the guy farted.’

That was rather unfair because we did not have to bother about the flatulence behavior of Marx or Durkheim or Foccault, but it became quite a rage to speculate about how a particular thinker would have passed wind. ‘Marx was a communist, right? He farted to the…`Left’.’ And there’d be loud teenage bawdy giggles, and someone would invariably say, (with feeble originality), ‘This stinks!’ And people would laugh some more.

In any case, one of the thinkers we studied was Max Weber. Now he was more than a thinker. He was a thinker’s thinker. The guy had a very rich intellectual propensity to devise a theory about everything. He was the toughest one to grasp. And sure enough, in our finals, we were asked to explain Weber’s theory about dysfunctional family, globalization, media, cities, etc. etc.

So I wrote out my paper really neatly. Beauty must camouflage ignorance. A pretty looking answer sheet meant that I didn’t know the answers too well. Actually, what I had written was hardly Max Weber’s theory of anything. It was more like Mukta’s theory about Max Weber’s theory of anything. Particularly, my answer to Weber’s theory of cities. What can I say? It was original enough to be displayed on the Sistine Chapel. But I was pretty sure my professor wouldn’t see it that way. I only hoped that I wouldn’t be publicly humiliated when the answer sheets were handed out. So, the day we were supposed to get our papers, my stomach was in knots and my mouth was dry and my forehead felt hot. (Come to think of it, this typhoid has been like that – the endless, anxious wait for a Sociology paper.)

The professor handed out the sheets and I got mine without any fuss. Relieved, I slunk into a corner and went through each page. I had fared decently enough, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn to the part about Weber’s theory of the city. Finally I did.For something that I didn’t know too well, I had managed to write 5 pages on it. Actually, it was easy. I could always faff. My novel answer began with ‘Max Weber’s theory of cities is a clear deviation from the constructivist perspective of urbanization. It is an erudite blend of phenomenology and structuralism, etc. etc. blah blah bloo bloo.’

It ended with my professor's remark: ‘Mukta, really?’

And of course, I had got a zero. Cruelly, the nada score was spelt out instead of being represented numerically. A ‘0’ instead of a ‘zero’ somehow makes the humiliation easier to bear.

But, funny it was.

**************

As a post-script, it is very tedious writing out what one finds funny and why. Mark Twain (my favorite funny man, I think) once compared explaining a joke to explaining how the heart of a frog works. You can explain both by dissecting it but the frog dies in the process.

Ha ha ha.









Comments

Anonymous said…
HaHaHaHa

Hi Mukta,

I have recently started reading ur blog . It has become my best source of timepass because it's intersting and it's funny. I don't have much work nowadays; since i cannot play computer games at my workplace, i read blogs.

Keep writing!!!
Sachin
madhavan said…
Sardarji to girlfriend: Kal shaam ko ghar pe aa. Koi nahin hai.
Girlfriend reaches the place next evening and there's a lock on the door. Koi nahin hai.


er..um..joke's over. can we have some polite smiles at least
funny post.

lol @ geetha, and mukta's theory on weber's theory :-)

Joey in Friends:
Everybody knows im an ass man (a nice man).
Ajay Reddy said…
Hi Mukta,

I've got hooked to your blog. The only other blog which i follow so religiously is Ashifa's (www.ashifa.com). The common things about both of you people being that you are funny and you are girls (not in any order). I really enjoy your posts...It's a nice break from work. And since your posts are pretty long, a nice not short break too...

Get well soon!!
Ajay
Mukta Raut said…
Hi Sachin,

It gives me great pleasure to be a source for timepass. hee hee hee! Sheesh! And there I was thinking that I write about the hidden truths of life. Ah, that's the way the cookie crumbles. hee hee!

Hey Madhavan,

Good one! (fingers crossed behind my back.) ha ha ha ha!

Hey new,

Friends! How much I have quoted from it! :-)

Hi Ajay,

Thanks. So it's timepass for you as well, eh? :-) This is such a revelation!
Hyde said…
If you haven't seen Pulp fiction yet, I might be able to help. Don't want to talk about it in comments, kinda legal thing. *hint hint*

Mail address in my profile.
Anonymous said…
Jerry Seinfeld -- I once had a leather jacket that got ruined in the rain. Why does moisture ruin leather? Aren't cows outside a lot of the time? When it's raining, do cows go up to the farmhouse, "Let us in! We're all wearing leather! Open the door! We're going to ruin the whole outfit here!"

hehehe :p the post was funny ...
~neo~
Mukta Raut said…
hEY hYDE,

Thanks! Shall definitely write to you in a while. Am combating a few tricky situations now.

Hi neo!

I had seen that episode! Really funny!
lemontree said…
First time to your blog mukta
Nice read.
And have to add my bit to the D Category - something my best friend said that always has me in splits. As a background I am the one who has the sense of humour which makes this funnier:

Me: "I think S (ex boss) and J (his silly wife) are going to break up sooner or later. I think she is having a scene with someone in office"

P: "And do you see me fitting in.... somewhere?"

Me: "Huh"

P: "It's a joke!"

Me and P: Guffawing

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