THE HUMOUR IN OUR LIVES

THE HUMOUR IN OUR LIVES

My friend said “You sound more honest when you bring humour into your writing”. This was after reading my post ‘A Conversation with My Beard’. Perhaps the most telling comment came from my daughter “The best post ... there is something about the absurdity of it all ... life lessons hidden in plain sight amidst all that crazy rambling and imagery ... total honesty in humour --- like a "Hearty Laugh". It is very hard getting a comment out of her and like all daughters (that’s a presumption) they can be your harshest critics. They will say what they feel, sometimes brutally frank, for they know you well enough. So I sat down to read my post again to reassure myself that the message was not lost. She had got this one right, I mean the metaphors hidden there. But it was also a fact that the humour of it all could strike a chord with the reader.

When I was in school we had four books for English literature – drama, poetry, grammar and a collection of essays titled ‘Patterns of Prose’ with selections from various authors like Stephen Leacock ,Jerome K Jerome and others. Of all that I had to read for my English literature class my favourite was ‘Uncle Podger hangs a picture’ from Jerome k Jerome’s book ‘Three Men in a Boat’. To this day that episode of uncle Podger is still fresh in my mind not only because of the unbridled humour but also the felicity with which the author narrates it. Podger’s final statement at the end of the episode - “There you are” he would say, stepping heavily on to the charwoman’s corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. “Why some people would have a man in to do a thing like that!” keeps coming back to me especially now ever since I retired and offer to help my wife about the house. Wiser counsel prevails as she does let me handle certain things which she feels will not be worse off even if I did handle it.

A few days ago (everything happens a few days ago, isn’t it. I still can’t get down to the fact that it happened only yesterday and am still recovering the colour on my face which had turned red after the event) the electricity shut down suddenly in my house. This is not new in Chennai for we are used to power shut downs, but mercifully we know when the shutdown is to occur. It goes off for two hours at a certain time during the day (I should admit that things have improved and the power shuts down unannounced). So right from checking whether there was power in the neighbours flat to yours truly paying a visit to the Electricity office and giving a piece of my mind that we have been prompt in paying our bills and leaving them flummoxed, then coming back home bringing the local electrician to have a look at the fault, I was filled with a sense of purpose (maybe I wanted to prove to my wife that I am not afterall a couch potato, that of course does not include the various times I have had to sit at the dining table peeling potatos feeling like Sad Sack) and energy and of course perspiration and frustration and panic, for my wife had stopped cooking and was waiting for the power to be switched on. She had great faith in me for I was proud of telling her that I was an electrical engineer from one of the most prestigious Institutes in the country. The electrician came went directly to the switchboard and turned on the switch and the power was back, you see the circuit breaker had tripped because there was a short circuit in the washing machine (which was switched off after identifying the fault). I smiled at him and he went away without charging anything for his services. And as I slowly turned my face to my wife who was standing at the kitchen entrance and the look said it all “so what did they teach you back at the institute?”

I remember the time when I offered to dust and clean the ceiling fans. I went up the ladder and started dusting them with my wife waiting down there to ensure I did not fall down for there have been enough episodes in the past of a different nature where my bravado had landed me on my butt. I did sway here and there but at last the mission was accomplished and I came down the triumphant look on my face as if to say “There you are”. When I came down my wife laughed and I asked her why. She asked me to have a look in the mirror. The dust and cobwebs had settled on my head and for a moment when I looked in the mirror it appeared as if I have had a hair transplant.

Of late, my younger daughter says I am zoning out and am more in la la land (I sincerely do not know what it means, but I guess she wants to say that I am becoming absent minded) and my wife sincerely believes that I am a bit hard of hearing, as she has to repeat whatever she wants to convey at least twice. I do not disbelieve them for they appear to be pretty serious when they say this, but of course they have a good laugh when my response is quite contrary to the reaction expected by them. May be they are seriously concerned that the signs depict the onset of Alzheimers. The last time when my brother and sister-in-law had come home, my wife and she exchanged notes as to how their husbands are slowly becoming deaf. Of course I and my brother (who is sixteen years elder to me) could hear every word of what they said. My brother looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes and said in low voice and which only I could hear “Let them continue to believe that, it suits us fine doesn’t it? Selective hearing that is the key.”

As you grow older you come to appreciate those little things and laugh at your own idiosyncrasies. It is when you are able to laugh at yourself you move towards a total acceptance of who you are and life becomes easier and comfortable. Your relationships become genuine, for you do not hide much.