Besant nagar humour club

Adyar times, the neighbourhood newspaper has been regularly carrying this programme in their engagements of the week column for several years now. They schedule it on the first sunday of everymonth.I have always read it with interest and would file it away in my mind that i would like to go and participate in one such meeting.An uncle of mine is a member of a humour club and he has been going strong about it for several years now.But then the timing is the issue; 4 pm on a sunday evening is quite difficult to keep an appointment, however tempting the programme.But then I got around it and landed in the premises well before the meeting began this weekend.

I studied the members present; quite a few greys, as can be expected. A good number of ladies mostly middle aged; I was pleasantly surprised to see some children. It was only later i realised that they had a competition for children and that is the reason some children and their mothers were with them. It made me think that the mothers seem to be keen to enter their kids in any programme as long as you label it 'competiton'; not otherwise. Never mind that there could hardly be a few entrants and the prizes at best could be a pencil box which the child would have in plenty already.

There was just one young boy who looked like a college student. He was keenly interested in the jokes that were shared, though he kept very much to himself. I can imagine him remembering and narrating some of the jokes to his friends the next day and score a few brownie points.

Some members come as far away as Madipakkam; they must really be sold on 'humour' to travel so far on a hot chennai summer afternoon.

The format was like this; select members were asked to come on stage and share a few jokes. Most of them used a sheet of paper as a reference; some of them referred their palm and scribblings on it ; some of them were extempore and they actually reeled off more than 20 jokes at one go. I was amazed.The timing and presence of mind were crucial as I could see. We were also introduced to members of laughter club. They assemble everyday at 6 am in besant nagar beach.

I was narrating this to my niece who has just given her 12th exam, and she said she was not amused. She said her colony had a laughter club and when she would be rushing to school on a monday morning more so if there is an unit test and while getting into the bus, the forced laughter of the laughter club with no apparent reason used to be jarring. Different folks, different strokes....

The chief guest spoke on the topic, 'ethanai kodi inbam vaithai iraiva' and generously spiced it with thirukkural, bharatiyar songs and vivekanandar's life. My favourite topic and it was 'paisa vasool'.

Maybe i wont go there regularly; it is difficult to sit through more than two hours of 'humour'.But they do invite very good guest speakers and I might occasionally be tempted.
Yes, I have become a member.