Moments of merriment

LAUGHING TABLETS: J. S. Raghavan; Chengacherial Printers & Publishers, ARR Complex (V Floor), 141, North Usman Road, T.Nagar, Chennai-600017. Rs. 80.

MR. RAGHAVAN'S entertaining book should fill a day with many merry moments. A sense of humour is a rare quality which may be becoming rare because of a growing number of people who wholly lack it. There are others who even believe it is bad manners to think of or say anything funny because they think that there is nothing to be happy about in today's world. But there is still a great deal which could make us laugh - especially our politicians who cannot realise that their sense of self- importance only makes them look very stupid and uproariously funny. A woman writer recalled many years ago how her father found everything funny and he was laughing right through even when he was present at a foreign diplomat's funeral. But a day ended for him with everyone else laughing when they saw him skating down on a wet, slippery footpath. There is the story of a union minister in Nehru's cabinet who was with the prime minister when he was telling a distinguished foreign guest about the beauty of the Elephanta Caves and urging her to visit it before leaving India. The minister, who had never been to the Elephanta Caves and did not know anything about the same, immediately blurted out, ``Yes madam, you will see many elephants there.'' He was indeed making a very big demand on the embarrassed and indignant prime minister's sense of humour when he discovered that his cabinet minister was such an ignoramus who thought that the Elephanta Caves was overrun by elephants. The saying about those who ``cannot suffer fools gladly'' was no doubt intended to focus attention on how fools can be insufferable but we should also not forget that they can also be very amusing.

Mr. Raghavan's collection of his hilarious writings, which had been earlier published in newspapers, could recall Bennet Cerf's introduction to one of his books in which he said that he hoped that ``it would keep Mr. Gloom away from your door'' (and, he added, ``the wolf from mine''). The collection ranges from Mr. Raghavan recalling the scene during midnight when a baby was about to arrive, the tyranny which the children at home had to suffer on Saturdays while having to go through an ``oil bath'', the elderly cricket fan in the family lost in his thoughts about C. K. Nayudu and the bowlers hurling balls in a ``lower trajectory'', the pun on ``T.Nagar'' by a coffee addict, the professor of history who had to do with two Alexanders - the first one who almost conquered the world - but just did not and the other, a student in love with his niece, a girl wanting to know about similes, metaphors, hyperboles and personification.

There is a piece on a bad day for an executive starting with the arrival of his mother-in-law with steel trunks (are they still being made?), his telephone on the blink and his not knowing the meaning of ``whitlow'' mentioned in a leave note by his steno and another on ``ladies in the basket''. ``Wrong numbers'' induce a man harassed by telephone calls to think of a numerologist.

The ``mathematical'' Shakuntala Devi who lost an election she contested against Indira Gandhi in Medak has provoked a piece on how the ``sums'' she handled were different from those arriving in suitcases. It is laughter all the way.

CVG

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