Sunday, April 06, 2008

Jokes...but at whose expense?

Have you ever thought that whenever we joke, it’s either at the expense of somebody else or on our expense. The latter has minute percentage. I have just realized that many times I joke of course I joke at somebody else expense but those aren’t the crude jab, just the harmless little fluster. Yes, no doubt I get the predictable reaction that is laughter but then I thought will the joke be taken as a bona fide? I mean the simple solution would be to step into his/her shoes and I did stepped and I had no problem with that. You see my nature is very humble. Even if somebody compliments me, flatters me I would be visibly flustered, very embarrassed and will try profusely to change the subject so that I wont be in the lime light. Even my friends know this especially my cricket playing friends. Everytime I would bowl an excellent over or took a prize wicket, they would all congratulate me and I would just shrug off and say I was lucky. So now even after playing grand when they would come to congratulate me and as usual I would shrug and then they would complete my statement for me saying “ yea you were lucky or it just happened isn’t it?” and I would say yes that’s the way it is.

From childhood the only good thing I know about me is that I accept my nature. Every person has their bad qualities and I suspect they don’t know about it but may be they don’t want to see the mirror. I would consent with what ever bad or good qualities I have because I am accepting it. So my point is whenever somebody jokes at my expense and if there 1 % of truth in it, I would laugh and would bear no grudges. For jokes to be effective, actually it has to have a small proportion of truth and rest fiction otherwise a whole dose of truth isn’t funny. So I had no problem when someone jokes at my expense but how many people would be offended? I never realized that. Now theres this distinction between joke and pulling legs but not in a joking way. I know the exact word in gujarati but don’t know in English otherwise you might get a better picture of what I am trying to say. Perhaps an example or something might throw some light on what I am trying to say. You know sometimes when you don’t like a person and you want to say something mean and direct but you don’t say in the direct language but would make it a joke and the ultimate goal is to make him realize what you are trying to say or jab at him. That’s the best I could do right now. So I was saying is there is a distinction and I never ever would do the latter because I don’t know how. Some people are very efficient and could do it without even a moments notice and impromptu but I am not cut out for that. Anyway even I am not sure where I am going with this but what I am trying to say is that if I continue to joke then may be my nature will become like this and at every opportunity I would be making jokes at somebodys expense without realizing the implication it may have on the other person. Than I would be too late to stop because this habit would have been molded in my nature by constant process.

One things is sure, I just thought about this and writing it but I can guarantee one thing is I wont remember any of this stuff tomorrow. Its like preaching one day and then forgetting about it. Start fresh everyday that’s what I believe in. you need to have some justification for your terrible memory and the start fresh sentence looks good so it serves my purpose of cloaking my terrible memory.

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