I myself accept it and have been told by many people that I do not enjoy humour as well as a normal person should. Well, as such, I am not a drab, overly serious person - my wing-mates know better :-) But yes, it is a fact that most of the time I don't enjoy jokes or supposedly funny rhymes/couplets etc. And the single most important reason being the stereotyping involved in them. I think some social scientist may take up the research on popular jokes, as to how many of them are solely based on stereotyping of particular ethnic, sexual or other kinds of groups. I feel sure a very large number of them would fall in this category. In Indian context, for example, feminist women, sardars, married husbands - all these stereotypes are specific victims of popular jokes. Wondering where did this morbid tradition come from. May be we would have done better by sticking to Akbar-Birbal, Tenaliraman or Sheikhchilli kind of jokes.

Any comments?

Categories: Thoughts