PANEL 1: And the Jest is History: Forms of Humour
The annual academic conference of the Department of English, Laughing Matters began with the panel ‘And The Jest Is History: Forms of Humour’. Four eminent speakers from various academic backgrounds were invited to this panel, and it was facilitated by the Head of the English Department, Ms Dipti Nath.
Prof. Christel Devadawson, Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Delhi, spoke first, presenting her views on the K. Shankar Pillai's cartoon of the Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly, and the controversy surrounding the inclusion of the cartoon in NCERT textbooks . She began with by presenting the cartoon itself. A comparison of this caricature with other representations of the Constituent Assembly, as well as other comics created during this fragile time opened the discussion to the afterlife of cartoons. Time was seen as a filter, but did it act as a censor, a mediator, or an editor of humour?
Prof. Sambudha Sen, from the Shiv Nadar University, argued for humour as an adversary to politics. Beginning with a scene from Rabelias’ Gargantua, where scale was a technique of satire, Prof. Sen moved on to state that periods of political repression are the most conducive to humour as a means of resistance. He highlighted some early 19th century pamphlets, and referenced Charles Dickens as an author who relied heavily on characterisation as caricature. His presentation concluded with the comparison of Dickens to Charlie Chaplin, and a clip from Chaplin’s 1939 film, The Great Dictator.
Prof, Simi Malhotra, Director for North East Studies and Policy Research, looked at the various lexicographical connections between the Latin root hume and the words it has contributed to the English language, ranging from humus (meaning earthy) to human. She also spoke about the humanities and humour, all coming from one root, and connected the ideas by showing the constitutive properties of all these words and elements into one whole form.
Lastly, Prof. Keval Arora, teacher at the Department of English, Kirori Mal College, used his expertise as a thespian and rounded up the discussion by speaking on laughter and spectatorship, by emphasizing the audience’s collective consumption at a theatrical performance.
This panel ended with comments and questions from the audience.
Arundhati Subhedar
Image: Shivani Raturi
Prof. Christel Devadawson, Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Delhi, spoke first, presenting her views on the K. Shankar Pillai's cartoon of the Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly, and the controversy surrounding the inclusion of the cartoon in NCERT textbooks . She began with by presenting the cartoon itself. A comparison of this caricature with other representations of the Constituent Assembly, as well as other comics created during this fragile time opened the discussion to the afterlife of cartoons. Time was seen as a filter, but did it act as a censor, a mediator, or an editor of humour?
Prof. Sambudha Sen, from the Shiv Nadar University, argued for humour as an adversary to politics. Beginning with a scene from Rabelias’ Gargantua, where scale was a technique of satire, Prof. Sen moved on to state that periods of political repression are the most conducive to humour as a means of resistance. He highlighted some early 19th century pamphlets, and referenced Charles Dickens as an author who relied heavily on characterisation as caricature. His presentation concluded with the comparison of Dickens to Charlie Chaplin, and a clip from Chaplin’s 1939 film, The Great Dictator.
Prof, Simi Malhotra, Director for North East Studies and Policy Research, looked at the various lexicographical connections between the Latin root hume and the words it has contributed to the English language, ranging from humus (meaning earthy) to human. She also spoke about the humanities and humour, all coming from one root, and connected the ideas by showing the constitutive properties of all these words and elements into one whole form.
Lastly, Prof. Keval Arora, teacher at the Department of English, Kirori Mal College, used his expertise as a thespian and rounded up the discussion by speaking on laughter and spectatorship, by emphasizing the audience’s collective consumption at a theatrical performance.
This panel ended with comments and questions from the audience.
Arundhati Subhedar
Image: Shivani Raturi
Hume for Humour, Hume for Human
An analysis of the daily dealings of power in 'And the Jest is History: Forms of Humour' by Dakshayini Suresh.
‘And the Jest is History: Forms of Humour’, the introductory panel discussion of Laughing Matters was a rich and careful exploration of the terrain that the conference as a whole intends to navigate. The panellists, Dr. Christel Devadawson, Dr. Sambudha Sen, Dr. Simi Malhotra and Professor Keval Arora framed their conversations not only in historical terms, but also with deliberate attention to the present socio-political climate of the country. This had the effect of forging a strong connection between audience and speakers, as we discussed the question of how to respond creatively to unrest around us — one that has no doubt been on all our minds over the last week.
While opening the discussion by speaking of the universality of humour, Ms. Dipti Nath referenced a truth that most of us arrive at by highly intuitive means, insofar as we cannot imagine human cultural experience in the absence of humour, laughter, and implicitly, the process of critique and resistance. The assumption that appeared to underlie the presentations of each of the panellists was the following: humour is the only force capable of effectively disrupting, in Dr. Malhotra’s words, the “edifice of normativity” that hegemonic knowledge and practices acquire in a society. Cartoons, drama, prose, and even film contain examples of humorous literature generated at precarious social moments, in order to critique dominant narratives.
While opening the discussion by speaking of the universality of humour, Ms. Dipti Nath referenced a truth that most of us arrive at by highly intuitive means, insofar as we cannot imagine human cultural experience in the absence of humour, laughter, and implicitly, the process of critique and resistance. The assumption that appeared to underlie the presentations of each of the panellists was the following: humour is the only force capable of effectively disrupting, in Dr. Malhotra’s words, the “edifice of normativity” that hegemonic knowledge and practices acquire in a society. Cartoons, drama, prose, and even film contain examples of humorous literature generated at precarious social moments, in order to critique dominant narratives.
This is a conversation about resistance, but it also points to the impact of visually re-imagining, and therefore re-conceptualising the individuals and groups who hold political power. What would be the effect, on a population, of a mildly grotesque, highly memorable, and widely disseminated image of a charismatic leader, for instance? What is achieved, in contemporary terms, by memes of Narendra Modi or Donald Trump?
Both Dr. Sen and Dr. Devadawson also touched upon the point of how humour, particularly cartoons, treat those who occupy positions of power. Dr. Devadawson’s discussion was centred on the cartoons of K. Shankar Pillai, and their attitude towards charismatic leaders, and Dr Sen’s analysis of Dickensian word-caricatures of powerful figures seemed to follow seamlessly from this. He suggested that Dickens exists within a tradition of depictions that paints people in power not as they really are, but as they are experienced by those who suffer at their hands. This is a conversation about resistance, but it also points to the impact of visually re-imagining, and therefore re-conceptualising the individuals and groups who hold political power. What would be the effect, on a population, of a mildly grotesque, highly memorable, and widely disseminated image of a charismatic leader, for instance? What is achieved, in contemporary terms, by memes of Narendra Modi or Donald Trump? Another question follows: do popularly consumed, humorously articulated images of leaders encourage critical thinking and action among the multitudes, or do they promote no more than a passive, surface-level engagement with the issues at hand?
The political force of humour is perhaps difficult to gauge, though the universality of its purpose appears clear. Professor Keval Arora approached the question of impact from a more humane angle. He saw humour in drama as a healing mechanism in the aftermath of social horrors, and argued that its potential lies in its appeal to the collective audience - to shared laughter. It becomes clear that humour is not a mode that can be separated from its emotional core. An academic analysis of it is most evocative and experientially accurate when it makes this link between lived social realities and how humour is crafted. The session was enlightening for precisely this reason, that it examined both aspects, and generated pertinent questions about how we might face the world with an eye for the absurd.
Image: Shivani Raturi
Toppling Tyranny with Laughter
A look at the distruptive power of humour in 'And the Jest is History: Forms of Humour' by Zehra Kazmi.
How does AIB respond to issues of censorship, sexism, corruption? Why does the slogan of “ABVP, why so creepy?’’ or a distortion of ABVP’s full form to “Aao Bhaiya Vidyarthi Peetein’’ challenge authoritative discourse? Why is Trump so bothered by Alec Baldwin’s impression of him on Saturday Night Live? What is it about a joke that is so very serious?
How does one question authority? Can humour be used as a form of dissent? Keeping in mind the turbulent times Delhi University is facing, it seemed apt that we began our journey with studying how normative structures can be destabilized by the subversive force of humour in 'And the Jest is History: Forms of Humour'. Chaired by Ms. Dipti Nath, the panel comprised of eminent literary scholars: Dr. Sambudha Sen, Mr. Keval Arora, Dr. Christel Devadawson and Dr. Simi Malhotra.
Though all the panellists examined different cultural phenomenons, the point they drove home through theirpresentations was how the subversive force of humour challenges political consensus and hegemony. Yet the one question that kept me engaged throughout was how humour is the most accessible tool of dissent available to an individual. Humour is almost as influential as, and even more personal than the vote. It requires minimal capital - it can be disseminated and appropriated freely. Dr. Sen’s wonderful exposition of how Dickensian satire and caricatures were appropriated by Charlie Chaplin in his physical comedy, and how both employed humour to demystify sacrosanct symbols of authority reminded one of the role that laughter has in our current political context. How does AIB respond to issues of censorship, sexism, corruption? Why does the slogan of “ABVP, why so creepy?’’ or a distortion of ABVP’s full form to “Aao Bhaiya Vidyarthi Peetein’’ challenge authoritative discourse? Why is Trump so bothered by Alec Baldwin’s impression of him on Saturday Night Live? What is it about a joke that is so very serious?
This irreverence and disruption which marks humour, allows it to puncture the claustrophobia that surrounds normative ideas. Mr. Keval Arora’s ideas about the responsibility of theatre when engaging with tipping points like the 2002 Gujarat Riots become important. In his engaging, conversational style, he spoke about how one of his plays represented the horrors of the riots through humour. Humour can be an appropriate genre to discuss ‘serious’ issues. Whether it was Peepli Live, The Dictator or M*A*S*H*, some of the sharpest political critique of violence have been humorous. It is through this strategy of stripping an icon to its bare minimum that the power balance of authority is inverted. Yet, despite these noble intentions, the danger of the message of a satirical work of art can be lost or trivialised due to this very intranslatability of humour across contexts.
Dr. Devadawson picked on the cartoons of K. Shankar Pillai to illustrate this very argument. At the centre of this political storm was a cartoon that showed Nehru with a whip, behind Ambedkar who was seated on a snail, representative of the Constituent Assembly. Sixty years after this cartoon was published, there was a sudden outrage against it, with people alleging the cartoon to be casteist. The critical sensor of time becomes a method to mediate the discourse surrounding art. Though Devadawson seemed shy of calling the cartoon casteist and discriminatory (which is open to debate, in the humble opinion of yours truly), this shift in what we find funny has been determined by the historical change in our political value systems. Another example could be the condemnation of explicitly racist or homophobic jokes in the past two or three decades, ensuring no one openly makes jokes about the skin colour of African-Americans in public situations.
Yes, humour can’t stop bullets. But can it topple tyranny? I think it can.
Image: Shivani Raturi
Childish Matters: Are They Really?
Following the first panel, a curated spoken word event was presented. Titled ‘Childish Matters: Boiled Babies and Pickled Poems’, it was directed by Swastika Jajoo and Muskan Sandhu. Performed by Saba Nehal, Divas Kindra, Garima Yadav and Devika Asthana, ‘Childish Matters’ marked fifteen minutes of giggles and applause. Heads covered in black scarves and with faces painted with red grins, the four introduced themselves as “primary preachers of great repute”. They warned that the audience that they would be watching and paying attention to their wrongs. The Preachy Preachers preached about many things: first, with Roald Dahl's 'Dear Friends, We Surely All Agree', they detailed the story of Miss Bigelow and her habit of chewing gum. The opening lines had members of the audience smiling in recognition of a favourite from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. Second came the work of Ogden Nash, ‘The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus'. The poem speaks of a boy named Jabez Dawes who spreads rumours about the nonexistence of Santa Claus, until Christmas Eve brings him a surprise in a red suit, who puts him in his place. Finally, the four performers recited Tim Burton's 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy', in which the titular protagonist's parents eat him to boost their sexual desire and potency.
The performance was excellently choreographed. In a limited space, the performers conveyed an eerie atmosphere not just by their words but by their actions. The apparel of the performers was all black, and they had capes and shawls which enhanced their witchy look – presumably to scare the hypothetical audience of children. The makeup was rather clownish; all four of them had painted wide smiles and thick eyebrows, which seemed even more congruent to the theme of the conference and the repeated jester figure. The theme of humour in children’s literature being dark and didactic was very creepily displayed, emphasising the nuance of black humour and its usage for socialisation and moral instruction.
The performance was also very well-received by the audience. While there was a brief disconnect in the story about the naughty boy who turned into a Christmas toy, the overall enjoyment of the audience stayed intact. Furthermore, the morbid nature of children’s literature was beautifully highlighted in the spectrum of discussion about humour as a medium. though the name of the performance suggested humour that appeals to the youth, the performance surpassed that interpretation.
Aditi Chanda
Arundhati Subhedar
Images: Swastika Jajoo
The performance was excellently choreographed. In a limited space, the performers conveyed an eerie atmosphere not just by their words but by their actions. The apparel of the performers was all black, and they had capes and shawls which enhanced their witchy look – presumably to scare the hypothetical audience of children. The makeup was rather clownish; all four of them had painted wide smiles and thick eyebrows, which seemed even more congruent to the theme of the conference and the repeated jester figure. The theme of humour in children’s literature being dark and didactic was very creepily displayed, emphasising the nuance of black humour and its usage for socialisation and moral instruction.
The performance was also very well-received by the audience. While there was a brief disconnect in the story about the naughty boy who turned into a Christmas toy, the overall enjoyment of the audience stayed intact. Furthermore, the morbid nature of children’s literature was beautifully highlighted in the spectrum of discussion about humour as a medium. though the name of the performance suggested humour that appeals to the youth, the performance surpassed that interpretation.
Aditi Chanda
Arundhati Subhedar
Images: Swastika Jajoo
PANEL 2: Media-ting Humour: Humour, Media and Politics
The second panel of Laughing Matters, 'Mediating Humour: Humour, Media and Politics' comprised Bikram Vohra, Neville Tuli, and Dr. Shikha Jhingan. Facilitated by Dr. Christel Devadawson, this session explored reactions to humour, the spaces for humour, and the relationship between humour and media.
Mr Bikram Vohra – a Dubai-based journalist and columnist who works with the Times of India spoke about how humour and fear can be seen as two sides of the same coin. He explained that usually, humour isn’t taken seriously enough, while at other times, it’s taken too seriously. He argued that humour is feared by those who are ignorant – of culture, language, and habits – and hence feel the need to pull on a suit of armour against what they feel is ‘derogatory’. He emphasised the importance of remembering that humour merely takes the core of a truth and twists it into a less hard-hitting shape – and ideally does not arise from malice or hostility.
Mr Neville Tuli (art curator and Founder-Chairman of the Osian Group of Companies), began by talking about how laughter is natural. He observed that young people exploring the feelings of “angst and fiery radicalism”, often view happiness and joy with “condescension”. He asserted finding spaces and contexts for humour is important. Turning westward, Mr Tuli directed attention to the “British” sense of humour and how by institutionalising it (through cultural landmarks such as Yes, Minister and Monty Python) they have managed to create a context for it. He gave a rousing call to India to create such institutional structures as well.
Dr Shikha Jhingan (from the Department of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University) explained how humour, through various media, can destabilise established power systems. She noted that in the culture of Indian cinema, humour wasn’t really used as the main narrative form. Professor Jhingan used clips from several films to illustrate her point that parody, incongruency, and excess could can all be employed, sometimes even playfully, to destabilise order. She also explored memes as fertile ground for creative freedom and humour.
Over the course of an hour, this panel illustrated that laughing does indeed... matter.
Meenakshi Nair
Image: Deepika Agrawal
The Man-Forged Manacles of Humour
An understanding of what it means to 'institutionalise' humour in 'Media-ting Humour: Media, Humour and Politics' by Samidha Kalia.
The second panel, ‘Media-ting Humour’, comprised Bikram Vohra, Neville Tuli and Dr. Shikha Jhingan exchanging various standpoints with the audience. While each of them looked at humour as a way to cope with the “abnormalities” of society, they varied in terms of the direction of the implementation. According to Tuli, “institutionalising humour” is the need of the hour. You must be ready to laugh at your community and your country and find humour. Bikram Vohra insisted that you learn to laugh ‘with’ and not ‘at’ others. According to Tuli and him, through this you not only pave the way for love, art and creativity but also towards other forms of expression where the creator becomes the initiator of change. By combating dominant economic, political and religious value systems with jest and wit, the cultural value system can be reinstated in the position of privilege that it clearly deserves.
Humour is an “armour” for saying the “excessive” and “offensive” in the battle of force and free thought. As both Vohra and Jhingan pointed out – the first laugh should be yours and at yourself.
However, Tuli’s opinions appeared to be formed out of a position of privilege. He talked about “creativity giving life to divinity”. His talk was posited as reflective thought, but lacked financial plausibility . It is true that government scholarships and other organisations that fund you have their own personal agenda that hampers your creative spirit, much like how the system of satire and patronage worked before the early 18th century, but you cannot rid yourself of the constant presence of these social bodies. To put it simply, you can’t fund yourself, unless you are born with an idealistic silver spoon.
Humour is an “armour” for saying the “excessive” and “offensive” in the battle of force and free thought. As both Vohra and Jhingan pointed out – the first laugh should be yours and at yourself. In the present day,our country uses humour with extreme care and caution so that the only thing people take from a satire are the jokes and not the moral itself. Institutionalising humour – even through newspapers and movies – is important but claiming that the dominant political presence can be easily ignored is far-fetched. In Vohra’s case, he cannot do so because he positions his argument for the newspaper, theTimes of India – which as a national daily, depends on patronage and popularity.
These ideas work beautifully when conceived on paper, but translating them into the grim reality of constant competition for scarce resources and power is a daunting task. However, Tuli’s statement can be answered by Jhingan’s presentation of the “meme culture”. It is a culture that encompasses the idea of “citations”, “incongruity”, “compilation”, and “the habit of destabilizing” a target by using one symbol of repression to talk about everything . It shows how the “underdog” tricks the authority, and subverts power dynamics. Humour came up as a way of writing back – jokes mean something to a select group of people, talking about a select regime, in a select scenario. To institutionalize humour would mean to define, and therefore limit, its possibilities- and that’s where Tuli’s argument becomes difficult to digest.
Image: Aneesha Sopori
Humour is an “armour” for saying the “excessive” and “offensive” in the battle of force and free thought. As both Vohra and Jhingan pointed out – the first laugh should be yours and at yourself. In the present day,our country uses humour with extreme care and caution so that the only thing people take from a satire are the jokes and not the moral itself. Institutionalising humour – even through newspapers and movies – is important but claiming that the dominant political presence can be easily ignored is far-fetched. In Vohra’s case, he cannot do so because he positions his argument for the newspaper, theTimes of India – which as a national daily, depends on patronage and popularity.
These ideas work beautifully when conceived on paper, but translating them into the grim reality of constant competition for scarce resources and power is a daunting task. However, Tuli’s statement can be answered by Jhingan’s presentation of the “meme culture”. It is a culture that encompasses the idea of “citations”, “incongruity”, “compilation”, and “the habit of destabilizing” a target by using one symbol of repression to talk about everything . It shows how the “underdog” tricks the authority, and subverts power dynamics. Humour came up as a way of writing back – jokes mean something to a select group of people, talking about a select regime, in a select scenario. To institutionalize humour would mean to define, and therefore limit, its possibilities- and that’s where Tuli’s argument becomes difficult to digest.
Image: Aneesha Sopori
Meme-ology
A deconstruction of memes and their influence on culture in 'Media-ting Humour: Media, Humour and Politics' by Ankita Adak.
“Humour has the potential to destabilize established order, it can be a form of contestation and it also allows playfulness”, said Dr. Shikha Jhingan in 'Media-ting Humour: Humour, Media and Politics'. She also went on to speak about the various intersections between cinema and humour, how humour gets derived from incongruities and how it inspires creativity and imagination. In this context, the growing popularity of the Internet culture and the ubiquity of memes can’t be ignored.
Dr. Jhingan briefly talked about memes towards the end of her speech and mentioned how it has grown to become a form of mimicry, imitation and overshadowing. Talking about the once-upon-a-time famous “Pepper Spraying Cop Meme” ( a photoshopped meme based on a photograph of a police officer offhandedly pepper spraying a group of Occupy protesters at the University of California Davis in November 2011), she mentioned how various images were manipulated to depict him pepper-spraying everyone through “citations”. Here are a few examples:
Dr. Jhingan briefly talked about memes towards the end of her speech and mentioned how it has grown to become a form of mimicry, imitation and overshadowing. Talking about the once-upon-a-time famous “Pepper Spraying Cop Meme” ( a photoshopped meme based on a photograph of a police officer offhandedly pepper spraying a group of Occupy protesters at the University of California Davis in November 2011), she mentioned how various images were manipulated to depict him pepper-spraying everyone through “citations”. Here are a few examples:
Memes are snarky and funny, the writings on them are crisp and short and they provide you with instant gratification while scrolling down Facebook or Twitter after a long day’s work. While procrastinating, cramming a night before a deadline, facing existential issues or making sense of a political decision; memes have become an excellent tool to express your opinion or even influence opinions. After all, humour has always been instrumental; culturally, as a tool for questioning social order and psychoanalytically, as a defense mechanism. Stemming from this fact, Prof. Jhingan spoke about how humour develops from incongruities, in content and form. Most of it is asymmetrical and that allows excesses. The clear manifestation of this phenomenon is visible in memes, ranging from Modi’s “Mitron Memes” to memes dissing Trump’s various policies and speeches.
As memes hinge on decontextualizing popular ideas from the world of art, video games and culture, meme-making has proliferated an internet culture in which everyone can equally participate. Does this mean that the political and social realm has become more accessible for all?
Although there is still a distinct rural-urban divide in terms of accessibility to the Internet, the population of Internet users is huge. And in today’s day and age, anyone with an access to the Internet could make a meme. Memes have become an inevitable part of popular culture and they significantly shape socio-cultural discourse. Paradoxically, the sheer rate at which memes are churned makes them a mere fad, because of their shelf life, which lends a commentary about our culture itself.
Image: Deepika Agrawal
PANEL 3: Mind Your Language: Translating Humour
By locating humour as mere ‘relief’ for issues that remain at the periphery of the normative, he [Dr. Prasad] stressed on how all our versions of English are ‘imperfect translations’. He critiqued laughing at mispronunciations and the pretentions of skilfully using the language. Dr. Prasad suggested a simple correction- laughing at the framework that allows feelings of superiority and distance to exist, instead of the people trying to speak a language alien to them.
The third panel discussion of Laughing Matters, the final for Day 1, was titled ‘Mind Your Language: Translating Humour.’ The speakers were Dr. G.J.V. Prasad, a professor at the Department of English, JNU; Dr. Angelie Multani, Associate Professor of Literature at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Delhi; Dr. Gopal Guru, Professor at the Centre of Political Science, JNU; and Mr. Samit Basu, author of the bestselling fantasy series 'Gameworld'. Chaired by Ms. Arti Minocha, this session was set to be a conversation around the issues of how humour is generated in, or impacted by, the contours of the English language as it manifests in India today.
To Dr. Prasad and Dr. Multani, the question of interest was that humour, even as critique, hides a dark and politically loaded aspect — in Dr. Prasad’s words, it mocks that which is out of place; in Dr. Multani’s words, it can be exclusionary. While the former speaker drew on examples from daily parlance to illustrate the attitude of Indians towards the English they speak (in that we are conscious of accents, pronunciations and inflections), Dr. Multani’s analysis focused on instances of exclusionary joking in the work of Mahesh Dattani.
Dr. Gopal Guru’s concerns were more fundamental, as he suggested that there is a need for humour to arise out of a context of authenticity. He evoked a dichotomy between the mind and the heart, and explored the need for humour to reach across media by accessing humanness through the language of the heart.
Mr. Basu’s observations aptly led the conversation into contemporary areas of debate — questions of whether templates for humour (referencing the ‘roast’ framework in AIB’s controversial video) can be successfully transferred across contexts in this era of a developing global language, and of how speakers and audiences convey and receive messages of humour depending on their social locations, and their expectations of the social locations of others.
The discussion was followed by a round of Q&A. The range of ideas touched upon in this afternoon session of the conference was rich and varied.
Dakshayini Suresh
Images: Deyasini Chatterjee
The Joke's On Us
An analysis of how humour leads to newer engagements in 'Mind Your Language: Translating Humour' by Tript Kaur.
In an age of fists and stones flying left, right and centre (pun intended), the acceptance of alternative ideas through dialogue is fast fleeing under the threat of suppression. Every act of questioning those in power is being labelled seditious, due to which the choice of cuisine is regarded as more important than resolving obvious problems like poverty or illiteracy. In such a scenario, humour is the recourse for reclaiming spaces. ‘Mind Your Language: Translating Humour’ supplied a heady cocktail of multiple theories and arguments that inspired the audience to inch closer to Bertrand Russell’s ‘freethinker’. By enunciating and simultaneously proving different beliefs about the redemptive, healing qualities of humour, its social desirability, and its ‘obedient’ relationship with the dominant narrative, the speakers gifted the audience a choice to form their own opinion.
After the session began with a light-hearted quip on being grateful for the conference for not being disrupted, Dr. Prasad raised several questions about the politics of Indian English and its multiple manifestations. By locating humour as mere ‘relief’ for issues that remain at the periphery of the normative, he stressed on how all our versions of English are ‘imperfect translations’. He critiqued laughing at mispronunciations and the pretentions of skilfully using the language. Dr. Prasad suggested a simple correction- laughing at the framework that allows feelings of superiority and distance to exist, instead of the people trying to speak a language alien to them.
While he left the audience in splits with a collection of jokes on his topic, the next speaker, Dr. Angelie Multani, offered incisive wit delivered with a straight face. Dr. Multani talked about the darker side of humour- that which excludes and humiliates, imposes order and conformity to social norms, and faces the anxiety to be accepted. Her analysis of the moral, political and psychological dimensions of humour contributed to a fuller understanding of the opposite end of the spectrum- how humour can be cruel. Most of her questions encountered a remarkable reaction- pin drop silence disturbed by the sounds of mental gears clicking and shifting audibly. Her one-liner ‘sometimes the normative is crappy’, probably summarised most of the arguments made today.
Dr. Gopal Guru adopted a philosophical standpoint while talking about humour as tragedy or comedy. By ‘dropping names’ like Plato and Aristotle and promptly apologising for that, his mind-heart analogy for humour that transgresses and subverts without humiliating, fashioned another lens for studying the topic that is anything but laughable. Mr. Samit Basu explained how humour has become a global language with specific variations in terms of time and context, personal experiences, and tastes of the humorist and recipient. He relied on common examples and identifiable references like Tom and Jerry, Enid Blyton and the controversial AIB Roast to classify humour as an immediate experience we engage in unconsciously.
It can only be hoped that our education system’s morbid fascination for marks and rote learning is accompanied by a session like this that jolts us awake from our stupor.
Image: Deyasini Chatterjee
Are We Starving for Humour?
A reflection on our hunger for humour in 'Mind Your Language: Translating Humour' by Devika.
In our bid to appear funny in this supposed golden age where we “develop a global language of humour” together, it is critical to analyse what this “language” is based on. It is imperative that we analyse what are the contexts and the very lexicon it derives from, and more importantly, how it translates- to continue with the food analogy - how we digest each type of humor.
A point emphasised by all panellists, in all the panels, especially 'Mind Your Language: Translating Humour', explicitly or implicitly, was that we need humour in our lives today, because after all, #laughingmatters. As Dr. Multani mentioned in her address, a performer on stage is hungry for laughter, for the response they get from the audience. In a bid to satisfy this hunger, a performer encounters the danger of overdoing it, much like the character of Rupa in Tara.
Agreeing with the Bard and positioning all of us as but performers that walk on the stage that is our life, the question I ask is that in a bid to satisfy our audience and fill the void, whether it is through humour or companionship (which itself can be achieved through a “sense of humour”), are we overdoing the humour? We are so starved for it that maybe we scuffle down the hot dish served to us, without thinking critically about the consequences it might have for us. When was the last time you laughed at someone who doesn’t speak “correct” English without thinking about the context the person might come from or your own privilege position? Desperate for attention and social acceptance, we plod through what is desirable, whether it may agree with our sensibilities or not.
In our bid to appear funny in this supposed golden age where we “develop a global language of humour” together, it is critical to analyse what this “language” is based on. It is imperative that we analyse what are the contexts and the very lexicon it derives from, and more importantly, how it translates- to continue with the food analogy - how we digest each type of humor.
As Dr. Multani pointed out, the question that essentially needs to be asked at each point is “Why am I laughing?” Am I laughing at the person who slipped on the banana peel or the very framework of the incident? Am I laughing at the person, or more importantly, with the person? The salience of these questions becomes evident in light of the contemporary world, where almost every politician is an upcoming stand-up comedian and the newspaper headlines we read are like April Fool’s day announcements. (Hey there, USA).
Hence, the onus of the weight we let each word and each chortle carry rests on us and not on the person cracking the joke. Since the performer will do what makes the audience laugh, the point is whether we respond to the sexist, misogynist (more -ists) stimuli and give the performer the response they need to carry on. The wrong response, or laughing at the wrong moment might well turn the tables on us and we might find that after all — “The joke’s on us”. Let’s learn something from the United States of America that dared to take a Joker too lightly because they were starving for laughter — who’s laughing now?
Image: Deyasini Chatterjee
Background Image: Shivani Raturi