Avanti Kaul
After a very long time, weekend was spent watching television. Often on most weekends it is about grocery shopping, music, sports and dances classes or a birthday invite; but this time it was spent watching comedy movies and stand-up comedy programs. In the language of social media, I was ROFL and LOL after every scene, punch or a dialogue.
Humour indeed is the best medicine. Doctors while prescribing medicines to the ailing patient should also advise certain minutes of laughter. And hospitals should have a laughter therapist on their panel of heelers. This may look high on aspirations but given that the people who make us laugh are increasing; finding and recruiting them should not be a difficult job – looking for a real Munna Bhai MBBS.
While I spent time laughing, I also spent time thinking about the art of laughter. Making someone laugh is not an easy job. The Mughal ruler, Akbar could not do without the wit and humour of Birbal in his court. Charlie Chaplin became an iconic comedy actor and a film-maker, irrespective of hardships and poverty. Philosopher Mulla Nasruddin’s candid style of delivering wise jokes and anecdotes still will put us in splits. Making someone laugh is either an inherent ability or it is an ability one creates on purpose to live happy and kill the sadness from life. This pondering lead to the next conclusion very quickly and reminded me of my maternal grandmother who narrated an episode of her life.
She narrated this incident from October of 1947, when tribals from North West Frontier Province of Pakistan had forayed a surprise attack on the bordering villages of Kashmir. She must have been a teenager living in a big joint family and a dozen siblings in their splendid house in Baramulla. The tribals entered her village too with the purpose of looting, plundering, raping and maiming innocent villagers. Very soon they were in the compound of my granny and started firing guns and hitting people with the butt of their guns. My granny also received one such blow and fell down on the ground. One of the tribals dismounted and got closer to her with the intent of taking her along to Pakistan. He saw that the young beautiful damsel was lying unconscious on the floor, so he tried to move her with the barrel of his gun and his boots. But my granny did not move and pretended as is she had died in the firing. She held on to her breath (a stage actress par excellence). After ten minutes of theatricals, she eavesdropped him talking in urdu to his fellow looter – this lady is dead, we can’t take her, let’s go.
Even in a near-death situation, she could spin out a life saving wit. Later her cousins joked to her and asked why she didn’t go with the Pathan. Her jocular self was at its best again and she replied, “What Pathan? He could not even make out between gold and the easily available brass. How would he know my real worth?”
Guess that has been the spirits of all Kashmiri Pandits. We laugh out our worries, struggles and ensure that our smile is infectious. History has been a witness to the many upheavals that we had to face as the bona-fides of the valley. Prior generations as well as the recent ones had to flee and re-invent themselves for living a respectful life in the plains. And to maintain the sanctity of a happy family, we tried to make every moment light and high-spirited. Without blemishing the dignity of our community, we have made every moment in our daily lives, worthy of the fun-loving comedy soap.
Even in earlier days in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Kings would encourage the presence of a humorist for exchanging some light moments in his court. At tea-shacks on major national highways like the Silk Route, a place was always reserved for a funny-man to shares jokes with the customers. Who can forget the ever thirsty King Aahid Raaz, of the televised drama on Doordarshan?
On the first day of joining a new school in Delhi, just after migration, I accidently bumped into my Kashmiri friend during the morning assembly. Unmindful of our environment, we started chatting in Kashmiri. We almost immediately felt unleashed and our decibels increased. Soon a ninth grader tapped my shoulder and asked with bewilderment, “So, what language are you talking in?” My lost-n-found friend jumped in to answer, “Oh! This is Russian language. And this is also our secret language.”
I frowned for a minute at my friends…excuse me, when did we become Russians? Whereas the ninth grader behind me grinned and said, “Yes. No wonder. You look like one too.” Me and my friend exchanged smiles, patting ourselves for our smart way of dealing with the cantankerous school senior. Well, that was also our way of coping with the mid-year admission into schools after migration; where no one liked us and where it was man-eat-man competition for sports, studies and extra-curricular. A light moment can sometimes cool the heat of the steam.
Probably, we can be the best references to make the students of Sociology understand the “Survival of the Fittest”, phase which was coined by Mr Herbert Spencer, a leading Sociologist. We are surviving because we want to. In this attempt to fit in our new environs, we have been successful in making our lives more optimistic, happy-go-lucky and up-beat.
What else would explain the innumerable songs we sing and dance on for merriment and chortle at our minuscule worries – songs in which we talk about Bengashi’s chowk, Bengashi’s Hindi conversations in colloquial Kashmiri, matador’s which keep shuttling between Muthi-Bohri-Bantalab, Bengashi’s conversation with the gardener in Hindi with a slang of Kashmiri or the prolonged “ed” sound we end most of the past tense words of English language. I take immense pride in being a Kashmiri and love the way we find joy in every little conversation which is bundled with love.
These high spirited souls in our community are across age. A friend of mine called over her friend to her place for dinner and as the case would be, her grandmother insisted on serving a fourth helping to the guest with a life threat – I will die if you don’t eat this piece of mutton. The guest ran away thinking the hostess might really do something of that sort. Upon being asked by the granddaughter, the grandmother explained – I am fifth pass, I know the meaning of what I said, just that I did not want you to marry that Punjabi boy. The granddaughter was once again ROFL. (BTW everyone other than a Kashmiri is Punjabi for us, even if they are Tamil’s, Kannada’s or Gujarati’s). Keep the million dollar smile on.
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