Laughing Tablets

By J.S. Raghavan

laughter is the best medicine with no side effects, though there are a few sidesplitting categories. Medicines can be administered in several ways—the injection being the least preferred, as one has to roll-up tight sleeves or go embarrassedly behind a skimpy curtain, to bare the behind to a matronly nurse. Syrups, sprays, drops, gels, ointments and the like are bitter, smelly and/or messy affairs which are more bothersome than the ailment itself.
But tablets! They are handy stuff. Convenient to pop in. Nevertheless, not all tablets that are purchased are swallowed—and not all that are swallowed act—like sleeping tablets for example! A few sleepless souls remain wide awake even after taking a few. Yet some sleep peacefully with one pill, like a baby or a log or an Hon'ble Member of Parliament when the House is transacting business noisily. The problem need not necessarily lie with the tablets.
The Laughing Tablets are no different!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pustaka Digital Media
• Release date: Apr 2, 2021
• ISBN: 6580527206089

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Laughing Tablets

Author:

J.S. Raghavan

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LAUGHING TABLETS

J.S. RAGHAVAN

Dedicated to:

PRIYA

KISHORE BALACHANDAR

SARADHA

AUTHOR'S PROGNOSIS

Creating humour is no laughing matter. It is a challenge to the comedic mind to make people smile, smirk, simper, snigger, grin giggle, titter, chuckle, chortle, crease up, crak up, guffaw... or roar with laughter with watery eyes - and after the muscles stop their convulsions, trigger the mind to think - and not repent for having laughed!

It is relatively easier to create laughter with spoken words. Many seemingly bland or banal lines delivered with timing, punch and twisted pronunciation can produce gales of laughter. But as mere words in a script, they will be dormant like the tunes in a musical instrument yet to be played by a consummate artiste.

But the written word poses greater challenge to the wordsmith whose chosen business it is to make the reader smile or react with a stronger synonymic equivalent. Furthermore, it will be like making him hear the rapturous tune by merely going through the musical notations. This calls for a greater sense of humour - a bilateral trait and involvement. Like claps needing two palms.

Yes, the clean, healthy humour so produced is like a cream topped toothsome dish rich in nutrients that makes the consumer wholesome proving the clichéd but relevant dictum that he who laughs lasts. It will therefore be wise to go after laughter!

Though certain situations may appear funny enough to make even a cat laugh, sooner or later the laugh may be on you if you had laughed in someone's face - who may have the last laugh. A few gifted comedians' performance has been so consistently good for a laugh that they have laughed all the way to the bank. It is an art to be able to decide when to laugh, where to laugh and, more importantly, what to laugh at.

Admittedly, laughter is the best medicine with no side effects, though there are a few sidesplitting categories. Medicines can be administered in several ways - the injection being the least preferred, as one has to roll - up tight sleeves or go embarrassedly behind a skimpy curtain, to bare the behind to a matronly nurse. Syrups, sprays, drops, gels, ointments and the like are bitter, smelly and/or messy affairs which are more bothersome than the ailment itself.

But tablets! They are handy stuff. Convenient to pop in. Nevertheless, not all tablets that are purchased are swallowed—and not all that are swallowed act—like sleeping tablets for example! A few sleepless souls remain wide awake even after taking a few. Yet some sleep peacefully with one pill, like a baby or a log or an Hon'ble Member of Parliament when the House is transacting business noisily. The problem need not necessarily lie with the tablets.

The Laughing Tablets are no different!

J.S. Raghavan

Table of Contents

1. Midnight Babies

2. Saturday Morning Fever

3. The Village Barber

4. A Male Chauvinist Piglet

5. Needles and Arrows

6. Benches and Tables

7. Leadership Qualities

8. Granny Awards

9. Second Childhood

10. No Child's Play, This!

11. The Pepper Satyagraha

12. The New Stone Age

13. Whom the Gods Wish to Hear

14. Growing Beards and Babies

15. Common Cold and Cricket

16. Cricket Commentary

17. Of Cats and Sixers

18. Retired Hurt

19. A Captain Hits Out

20. An Umpire at Home

21. The Polo Player

22. God's Messengers

23. Suburban Tarzans

24. The Concoctions of K7

25. Wodehouse in My Flat

26. Bride and Prejudice

27. From Aisle to Altar

28. The Neighbour's Child

29. Double - Barrelled

30. The Mother - in - Law's Tongue

31. Coffee in T' Nagar

32. Love in Cochin

33. Ma's Pillai

34. Making History with Dates

35. To Deify an Editor...

36. Lice in the Wig

37. Woman: A Male Size - Up

38. Greek and Latin

39. His Master's Vice

40. Figures of Speech

41. The School - Going Bull

42. Going Back in Time Machine

43. Sweater and Warmth

44. Forward and Backward

45. Prince of Wails

46. Tennis the Menace

47. Of Fats and Figures

48. The Ides of March

49. 20th Century Kanthari

50. Bra in the Briefcase

51. Epistle From a Jealous Wife

52. Cooing and Billing

53. To Pinch a Lady's Seat

54. Where Lizards Dare

55. Letters From 'Separated' Wives

56. A Knotty MNC Tie - up

57. Bun in The Oven

58. A Wholesome Director!

59. Sick Leave

60. The Mysterious Ailment

61. When the Feast is Over

62. Clinical Musings

63. Corporate Salvation

64. Bus to Poonamallee

65. The Junction at Maniyachi

66. Birds and Jets

67. Horse Sense

68. A Traveller's Tale

69. Suburban Slumber

70. Resolution

71. Bungler Par Excellence

72. Musicians at Sea

73. A Many Splendoured Thing

74. Funny Old Photographs

75. Brunch with a Bird - watcher

76. Cinema in a Village

77. Alexander Graham's bell

78. Indira and Shakuntala

79. Sri Lanka Darshan

80. The Silence of Music

81. The Sound of Non - Music

82. Culture Vultures

83. South Indian Champagne

84. Of Foods and Fads

85. Fruitful Talks

86. Salt and pepper

87. Gift of the Gab

88. Life is...

1. Midnight Babies

As the eldest child, the task of fetching the midwife to deliver a bawling baby into our family was assigned to me by my authoritarian grandpa who took charge of such sticky situations.

At that young age when the mechanics of childbirth were as much baffling to me as the root - cause that made ladies big with babies, I served my ever - pregnant sisters and aunts, wearing a question mark, unmindful of my grandpa's pinches on my tender fundament.

Keep quiet, he would hiss, pointing theatrically at the closed doors behind which the lady in question would start her annual wails. Look, babies drop from the sky. Understand? Now, take this peppermint and scram. Or else I'll skin you alive.

My brain having been diverted from babies to peppermints, I would watch endless basins of hot water being rushed into the labour room. There is no opening in the roof, I would wonder, How then will the baby drop from the sky? I would muse, my mind switching back from peppermint to babies.

As if by common consent, the ladies of my family chose the darkness of night for ushering in their offspring. Fortunately for us, our family midwife, a frail lady in a crisp, milk - white cotton saree, lived a couple of streets away. At the word go from my grandpa, would climb over my imaginary motorbike, open the throttle fully and streak through the dog - ridden streets, blowing the horn with gay abandon and halt before the midwife's house with a piercing screech of the brakes.

At the sight of me, the good lady would walk up to a niche in the wall housing the icon of Virgin Mary with Child Jesus. She would close her big eyes and pray for a while. This done, she would take leave of her coughing husband in the bedroom, and be ready for the launching of yet another mouth into this wicked world.

In the meantime, grandpa would have collected the paraphernalia he attached childbirth with. A three - cell metallic torch light would be in readiness, should the hurricane lamp go out at a crucial moment. A couple of ticking time - pieces and a well - thumbed almanac to cast the horoscope of the sibling would be within his reach.

Presently, he would start his nervous ambulations. Criss - cross the hall million times, hands twitching and lips quivering. Hop to the door like a startled kangaroo if it opened slightly and drown my grandma with a barrage of questions. O, keep quiet, she would admonish him. You seem to be in more pain than Janaki inside.

The night would be still but for the barks of the street mongrels on territorial disputes. Suddenly a thin new quivering voice would be heard - a shrill wail from a tender throat, heralding its addition to the cacophony on the earth. Then a beaming face of the midwife would appear round the door. A boy, it would announce.

My grandpa would be all arms and legs like an octopus doing a virile dance. His star is Bharani, he would announce grandly. He will rule the world.

Midnight Babies

A soft, circumspect grandma would offer a tray to the midwife, containing a saree, betel leaves, coconut, fruits, an envelope - the works!

You've delivered many babies under this roof, my grandma would say in her soft syrupy and emotional voice, May God bless you and give one of your own.

I would butt in. I'll be ready then with my motorbike. And bring a midwife you would need.

The good lady would tousle my hair. A thin film of tears would cloud her soft eyes. I would escort her back home through the dark streets, her predicament going over my young head.

2. Saturday Morning Fever

When we were kids, oil did present a crisis and created friction, every Saturday morning, when our magisterial mother looked sharply for us all over the sprawling house, with a bowl of heated gingili oil, to give us the dreaded, weekly oil bath for regulating the heat in our system.

At that trying task, she looked more like a matronly Margiana, hunting keenly for the little 'thieves', who could be lurking anywhere in the mazy backyard, excepting in the barrel standing in the garden.

With squeals of delight, she caught us one after the other and as a mark of victory, applied handfuls of oil on our dodging heads, the randy maid - servant cackling like a titillated hen at the success of her invincible mistress.

Our foray into the merry world outside barred by the sticky liquid oozing from our mop of hair all over our pinched faces, we stood grumpily, hating her unaware a dent was being made in the oedipus complex.

She stoked the fire in the oven that heated the water in the sooty cauldron and ordered us to be in readiness for anointment all over, which meant dropping down our khaki shorts with braces. As the eldest of the brood and aged seven, I was commanded to cover my crotch with a strip of cloth, passing for a male monokini. The rest stood without a stitch on, wriggling and snivelling. And squeaking and screeching like hinges that needed lubrication.

We sulked under the shady banyan tree in the garden glistening with oil. We brooded over our deplorable lot for a while, feeling sticky all over and enviously eyed the birds on the branches which didn't have to take an oil bath. Soon, as a diversion, we engaged overselves in mock - bouts of a mixture of wrestling and boxing, assuming the roles of King Kong and Dara Singh in turns, the slippery oil aiding our sport.

At the conclusion of the time allotted for 'pickling', the youngest was summoned first for the bath. The moment the paste of shikakai was rubbed on his wet head, he began capering like a startled kangaroo besides letting out a wail, louder than the municipal clocktower siren. Eyes smarting with irritation, he kicked in all directions, giving the illusory spectacle of an octopus doing a virile dance. My mother continued the operations, unperturbed, admonishing him with words, gestures and stinging slaps on his shiny bottom. Undeterred by her repressive actions, he tried to escape like a missionary from the grip of a cannibal chief while being led to be cooked alive in their barbecue.

The next set of his blood - curdling screams brought our father on the double from his law library. He scorched our mother with a look that would have reduced any other lady to ashes. As he possibly searched for a section in the Indian Penal Code meeting the case of a mother torturing her child or giving it a bath under duress, she chided him, her nostrils flaring: Aha! Look. Here comes the father in support of his wonderful sons. As if I do not know he was no different. His mother has told me all about his childhood antics. As is father, so are his sons. She laughed in her booming voice, rattling the vessels in the vicinity.

Our male parent winced. And looked at us pityingly. He made a vague gesture of helplessness and withdrew to imprison himself in his world of stout law books, giving up his parental rights. Perhaps the countless oil baths given by my granny had prevented him from getting hot - headed.

Soon it was my turn. I submitted weakly, bemoaning our fate. As she started pummelling my head rhythmically with the agility of a bongo player during a spirited solo, I lost faith in grown up men who, without rallying round to pour oil on troubled waters, meekly submitted during an emergency.

3. The Village Barber

When I was a kid and my hair was short, one of the hurdles to be surmounted was a short – back – and - sides haircut given by our village barber, summoned monthly to practise and perfect his tonsorial art. The task of initiating and supervising this shearing process was with our awe - inspiring grandpa, blessed with a falsetto voice that had the hair - raising effect on meek lambs like us who for reasons unknown had developed a phobia about barbers.

Haircutting was not, however, viewed with contempt by him. He gave it as much importance as one would a solemn affair like wedding. Periodically, he scrutinised the visible contents of our heads with his sharp eyes and frowned at the abundance as if they were weeds on a field where only knowledge and wisdom had business to flourish. When the locks crossed an imaginary line around the occiput, he would nod his head as if endorsing an inner command and reach for the almanac hung in the puja room to fix a day for shedding the load on our heads. Our hearts would sink at the impending sound of rusted scissors mercilessly snipping our crowning glory away.

That auspicious day, at the crack of dawn, the artist appeared shirtless, his small black box tucked under his armpit. He squatted in front of the house and spread the tools of his trade, his posture that of a wicket - keeper sitting close for spin bowling. Clad only in faded shorts, I squatted