Humor is indeed the spice of life for many

By D. Chandramouli

JAKARTA (JP): There is an impression that the world's leaders are very serious people and that they don't relish humor. It's not necessarily so. Some of them do have a great sense of humor.

For instance, former U.S. president Ronald Reagan was once asked if he ever watched any of his old movies on TV. "No," said the president. "When one of my pictures comes on, I know it's past my bedtime."

The following story is reported to have been told by Reagan to a visiting Indian prime minister.

Michael Gorbachev, the then Soviet president, was not happy with the traffic arrangements in Moscow and decided to check them out himself. He put his chauffeur in the back and drove through one stop light; nobody stopped him. Then he went past another; still nothing happened.

Next, he took a wrong turn but the policeman ignored him. Gorbachev angrily got out of the car and asked the policeman: "Why don't you charge me for the traffic violation? Is it because you know who I am? Don't you know we now have an open society where nobody is above the law?

The policeman solemnly replied: "Yes, sir, I know who you are, and that's not the reason why you are not charged. I'm just worried about the guy at the back, who must be really important if he has Gorbachev as his chauffeur."

When the erstwhile Soviet Union was reeling under a severe economic crisis, Gorbachev reportedly commented: "(French president) Mitterrand has one hundred lovers, one has AIDS but he doesn't know which one. (U.S. president) Bush has one hundred bodyguards. One is a terrorist but he doesn't know which one. Gorbachev has one hundred economic advisers. One is smart but he doesn't know which one."

The late Rajiv Gandhi, during his tenure as India's prime minister, used to drive his own car and with his penchant for speeding, he would usually leave his bodyguard far behind.

Once he had to receive a foreign head of state at New Delhi's airport and, as usual, he was driving himself to the airport. When he went through a prohibited street, a policeman stopped him, thumped on the hood of his car and said: "Don't you know the prime minister is about to go this route and we have blocked the other traffic?"

Gandhi apparently enjoyed the situation he was in, but apologized to the policeman, and then, waving his hand good- naturedly at the cop, he proceeded to take a different route to reach the airport.

Sense of humor

The key to appreciating life is to develop a sense of humor. It can indeed transform our lives. Humor facilitates change by taking the tension out of difficult situations. It helps when the pressure of deadlines make people tense and irritable.

Particularly in conflict situations, humor is a handy tool to open the way for communications. Humor is also useful when the truth hurts. And, above all, humor shared, is doubled.

You can see how humorous expressions such as described hereunder carry profound meanings: Too many necessities is the mother of tension. A book How to be happy without money costs $10.

We spend most of our waking hours at our work places. If we choose to keep our eyes and ears open, we may be able to observe plenty of humorous situations. All these surely add variety and spice to our otherwise mundane existence.

People working in government offices have a great many opportunities to observe and enjoy humor, especially because of the rigidity of governmental systems and procedures.

In a government department one of the employees was habitually lazy and he used to keep a large number of files unattended on his desk. One day, the section chief happened to see this and sternly told the person to clear all the pending files quickly. The easy-going guy, knowing fully well that he could never be sacked from a government job, nevertheless decided to obey his superior's orders.

He took up the files one after another and wrote in each file: "For your orders, please." He then transferred all the files to the chief's table when the latter was away. It was customary for the section heads to write down some guidelines on the files, in case the staff needed the same.

Later in the day, when the boss returned to his seat, he was very happy to observe that his subordinate's table was cleared of all pending work. Alas, he wasn't aware what trick his staff member had employed to dispose of all the files.

In yet another organization, a personnel clerk received a document in the ordinary course of business, initialed and passed it on to the officer for whom it was intended. It promptly came back with a note attached: "This document did not concern you. Please, erase your initials and initial the erasure."

It's good to have a hearty laugh whenever possible. Laughter is the best medicine, it's often said. Laughter may not be an antidote for everything but at least it should reduce pain, has no side effects and it is entirely free. Laughter recognizes no language barriers and it is the shortest distance between two people, irrespective of their caste, creed or race.

With a lot of stress being laid on stress-free living these days, an easy way to achieve this objective is to remain light, enjoy humor and treat life as it unfolds. Humor is, therefore, a vital ingredient and an indispensable aid to living better.

Humor is just a reminder that no matter how high the throne one sits on, one sits on one's bottom. And he who laughs lasts, laughs best.