Humorous Miseries

On a rainy Wednesday, somebody somewhere (assuming a superpower exists) took a little pity on me and gifted me a wonderful afternoon. After a tedious week of constant toiling, I got the rest of the day off. I managed to drag along a friend for the mere desperation of a good conversation. Everything seemed perfectly normal, in tune with the rhythms of life. The pouring rain, the steaming hot idlis and the perfectly brewed frothy filter coffee. We sat there for hours debating on ‘society’. What is society? Why do we call it society? Who is society and why the hell should this word dictate our lives? And the list went on.. 

As we sat there fighting for the existence of the societal outcasts, there sat another group of ladies next to our table. I don’t mean to pry on anybody but the decibels yanked my attention to their table. So I sat there concentrating very hard on my coffee cup and pretending to listen to my friend who by this time is on a ferocious rant on the Martin Luther King Jr. 

Meanwhile, in the next table the ladies were having a gala time by themselves over a cups of coffee and onion ‘pakodas’. The harmless home-makers were sharing a moment of privacy as they started unfurling their lives on their very plates. These colourful lives seemed nothing more than colourful façades as they went on to make fun of a certain rich neighbour’s son who found it a little difficult to get promoted from standard eighth to ninth. The peals of laughter seemed to have a certain sharpness, which made me shudder and wonder. Where did it all start?

Where does man learn to discover humour in discrimination? Did it start from Hitler’s racist cartoon of the Jews? Or was it simply deformity in minority?

I started taking a few steps back trying to figure out what could be the reason? Or who could be the teacher? Because, isn't it impossible for a newborn to find humour in miseries? And the earliest memories I could trace back to, was the summer vacations in kindergarten. 

I remember going to the zoo and circus with my aunt. I whole heartedly hated both. I could never stand the stench of the caged animal and neither could I see huge elephants chained to tree trunks and merely controlled by a frail man almost one tenth the size of the magnificent beast. Children’s my age clapped, while I would look out for the nearest cotton candy stall. My intentions of going to the zoo, was only to get pictures clicked with cotton candy in my hand. 

During that very summer in kindergarten; our entire class was taken to “Russian Circus”. We were all so excited. Colourful posters painted the whole city bright. Posters would follow us from hoardings to moving buses. Every time we would spot the posters we would cheer and inform the whole world that the next weekend we are being taken to this very circus. Most of us didn't know what circus was, but we knew that there is going to be an elephant on a giant ball, and may be a tiger that could jump through a ring of fire. Our colouring books also informed us that there are going to be several clowns who are going to make us laugh. Our excitement heightened, as the much awaited day finally arrived. I remember watching a huge black bear, which had chains almost his same weight sit on a chair for us. Me and my friends sat there motionless while our teachers clapped. Why were they clapping? It is a feat? Was it meant to amuse us? 

Then a group of three short men with painted faces walked in the arena. They were as tall as us, but they had voices of the grown-ups. We watched in utter amusement as the three tiny men hit each other with hammers, bottles and knocked each other down. The grown-ups clapped again, and we followed suit. Were they laughing at the deformity? Or is it even legal to call something a deformity as it is in minority? Who are we to say what is normal? Just because the majority is 'proportionate' we term it as normal? On what grounds?  

Brothers Tulsi and Basant, with pet puppy, of the Great Famous Circus. Photographed in Calcutta (By Mark Ellen Mark.)

Or were my teachers laughing at their painted faces? The exaggerated smiles, the exaggerated frowns, pulling off a beautiful charade of painted faces. Almost like them. 

That day we learnt how to laugh at miseries. We learnt that slavery and physical violence can conquer anything. We learnt man is capable of making a wild animal behave like human, just by a crack of his whip. We learnt advertising, and how to hide truths behind colourful lies. We learnt to embrace lies. We learnt to see the world through the eyes of the grown-ups, through the eyes of the society.