One of the commonest traits humans share is perhaps a sense of humour – fancied or real. No doubt, it originates from (and is nurtured by) our all-too-human need to laugh which, of course, distinguishes us from other animals whose lives are apparently mirthless. And laughter, in turn, is a vital safety-valve that goes a long way in releasing all our repressed tensions, frustrations and emotions besides generating bonhomie. Sans humour, or at least a modicum of it now and then, our lives would indeed be intolerably cheerless and dull. Who hasn’t noticed someone reading a book or magazine and grinning or chuckling to himself or even bursting into unrestrained laughter as honest humour hits home hard?

I remember a middle-aged man on a train years ago, engrossed in a slim book quite oblivious of the other passengers. Suddenly, he exploded into an unabashed guffaw before realising there were others around. I caught a glimpse of what he was reading: a book of apparently risque jokes by Khushwant Singh. With its visual impact, cartooning has probably done more to enrich humour than anything else. I recall an old magazine cartoon of an irate homemaker fuming at her husband suffering from a nasty hangover after a late-night party. “I really don’t see why your head should ache at all,” she hisses.“You never used it last night!” I am yet to come across a better example of sheer biting sarcasm.

Then there was the jocular veteran tea planter who, in the course of his farewell speech at a planters’ club in Munnar, wistfully recalled, “Some of the happiest years of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife!” Then, as his audience gasped in incredulous shock, he added slowly, “She was my mother!” He received a standing ovation.

Humour sometimes turns up in the unlikeliest of places. Once I found this gem in a smelly public convenience whose walls, quite typically, were disfigured with smudges and blotches of peeling paint and plaster besides garish election graffiti. A wag had prominently scrawled an encircled message: “Here’s an undiscovered Picasso masterpiece!” I couldn’t help smirking in spite of myself.

As a guffaw-generator, my favourite was the irrepressible and uproariously funny cartoonist Mario Miranda; he seldom failed to leave one convulsed with laughter thanks to his unerring (and unsparing) eye for detail. R.K. Laxman, of course, was in a class of his own as an outstanding political cartoonist. He parodied our foibles, unfailingly and tellingly, sparing none and amusing everyone in the process.

Humour and its natural concomitant, laughter, are vitals that do spice up our lives, relieving its tedium and helping us retain our sanity. If there’s one thing that perks up humans, perceptibly and palpably, it’s a jolly good joke that makes one’s belly heave in riotous laughter; a stinging repartee or witticism one fervently wishes one had thought of earlier; a pun with a punch-line that perversely eludes one until someone else voices it; or a ribald rib-tickler on the internet. Indeed, humour is a linchpin that prevents us from going bonkers in the frenzied pace of the world we live in. It seldom fails to spark laughter –the universally acclaimed panacea for all our ills, real or imagined. Above all, it’s a well-known unifier, bringing together people of diverse backgrounds and nationalities in a sudden outburst of mutually shared hilarity and mirth.

gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com