LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

I can't make out whether I am left bored or I am scared. Because both seem to make me nothing but a bundle of nerves. The pandemic has clearly shown that the virus has unsuspectingly walked out of its habitat and entered the human race who couldn't have been any less careful and reckless in choosing its enemy. It will hit you when you least expect it and takes you by surprise. The virus has baffled us no end. Credible scientific information is the first sacrificial lamb in this pandemic. What do you do when the pandemic has hit you in different ways and inflicted harm in varying proportions. When you are cordoned off from all directions and left with no routes for retreat, you silently try to avenge the hordes of these viruses by turning the tables on them and step out of the spot of bother that you find yourself in. The ubiquitous virus has pulled the rug from underneath our feet and left us high and dry. Humour is the antidote that we are looking for in the gloom and despair that we are engulfed in as a result of the virus. The pandemic has hit you instinctively but the element of surprise will help you mount a response through humour and wit as the scientific community plays arbitrer of truth. So you keep your mind alive and receptive because from your fertile mind comes the detour with a funny imagination    - the humour. That's how we have shielded ourselves from the grim realities and collective horror of our past like partition, famines, terror strikes and other devastating natural calamities that have struck our country spanning several decades and left us with indelible scars. When sulking forever isn't a viable option, humour in a subtle way acts as a release phenomenon by playing wittily and playfully with the situation at hand and brings about a laughter. Humour has the power to change the contours of your thought. When you are laughing at your situation you are playing with the ego of your adversary and in the process honing a skill to fight it out yourself. It's obviously not a therapeutic solution and interestingly no one has claimed a medical solution to the virus so far. However humour has served epic purposes. The smile transcends all barriers and unites people. What words can't do in forging relations, a smile can instantly strike a cord amongst hearts and reduce sufferings.

So as the corona epidemic marches on, we have reset our shock absorber unwittingly to absorb more stress. The mechanism of denial will only weaken you from inside and gradually rob you of your innate immunity. We cope with acute stress reactions or threat by our own traditional mechanism of fight or flight response  with strong feedback or counterpunch from our brain with the help of hormones and neurotransmitters. No two persons endure or respond in a similar fashion. That is because of the strength of the emotion generated. Despite the world surrounded by gloom we must not get besieged by the threat. 

Havn't you still not got the answer to how do we counterpunch grief with humour? Is it about the emotional wherewithal that is inherent in some and lacking in others - the sulkers and naysayers. 

There is an old adage that if you cannot beat them then join them. You will do well to not sulk but keep your instincts alive by looking at the lighter side of the crisis. So the humour is not just for fun but it's an adaptation sought in the behaviour. It's an instinctive reaction and a very handy one at that. So what better tool than humour to fight the pandemic as humour has both intellectual and emotional components and also humour brings about fortification around the sufferings. So how does humour help is a study in itself. However one of the theories proposed is that it enables one to step back away from the elements of a situation and dissociate from it emotionally. That explains why some find humour in something and others dont. This is because those who don't are still in the middle of the problem and haven't been able to dissociate from it and still grappling with it. Suffering has a terrible way of unleashing the pain by multiplying the agony by leaps and bounds. So what if lack of vaccines or other public health strategies in the management of covid-19 infection are proving to be the chink in the armour, humour will shield us from the suffering. It is good to launch a blitzkrieg of humour and satire, not to unsettle the enemy in the actual sense of the term, but to attempt to keep the spirits high.

A term 'joke intimacy' was coined in the western philosophy of humour. It brings together two people sharing a laugh together tied to a common thread. It also goes on to become a psychological catalyst of sharing and connecting together of course, in a non-physical way. Humour brings people closer together like nothing else does. How does it help to do this is rooted in neurobiology of hormones and neurotransmitters. One of the hypotheses which was proposed as a defining philosophy of humour was that humour bridged and smoothened the incongruity of our lives' experiences and allowed us to look at situations in an alternate and interesting way. This is what humour is doing to the people of various backgrounds and aesthetics during this pandemic.

Indians by nature dont take to humour well because of various cultural and religious issues. But in this time of gloom, the 'happy' hormones or the 'feel good' hormones are the just the  'boosters' your doctor would prescribe. Smile brings about a surge of these hormones. So when you are in the doldrums it's not a bad idea to turn in a smile. So these silly looking slapstick humour doing the rounds of social media nowadays is nothing but trying to cheer you up and you for once give it a chance. But a disclaimer needs to be mentioned that not all jokes which are making fun are cracked to alleviate our distress; sometimes it is at the cost of somebody. So the self depricatory humour is an exception rather than the rule. Humour must carry moral and religious approval and hurtful and distasteful humour must be shunned. 

Haven't you seen people sharing a laugh even as they transcend pain and grief? This is because emotions painted in pain have a unique characteristic of surging in and filling the heart but it's poor staying power makes it stop short of wreaking havoc with the mind. Humour is the quick fix glue that fixes up the cracks in our mind and gives us a fresh lease of life. No matter how grievous and how terminal is your predicament, humour brings in an empathy along with the laughter. So as people are facing distress in this pandemic humour can be incidental. But it is always intended to bring about a smile or a hearty laugh just the way a warm hug snuggles you and seems like a perfect gift in distress. 

Humour has positioned itself as a lifeline in these times and had quickly rushed in to fill in the void left wide open by physical distancing. So as the 'elusive' , 'invisible' and 'conspiracy' barbs invoke a sense of an 'invasion' , humour goes onto calm our minds and make these tough times bearable. So, LOL!.