Upur7

 Chapter 7: The Uncontrolled Laughter

Humour had always been my greatest weakness.

Not ordinary laughter, but the kind that arrives like an uncontrollable storm and refuses to stop. I had realised very early in life that laughter is infectious. It spreads faster than fire in dry grass. Some people can suppress it instantly and regain a straight face within seconds, but I was never blessed with that ability.

And because of this weakness, I suffered a great deal in school.

Teachers almost always caught me laughing, while the real culprits escaped easily. Boys like Raina could transform their expressions within a split second, like chameleons changing colour. One moment they would be laughing uncontrollably, and the next moment they would sit with perfectly innocent faces, staring attentively at the blackboard as if nothing had happened.

Naturally, the teacher’s eyes always stopped on me.

As a result, I often received punishment not only for my own laughter but also for everyone else’s share. Ironically, that only made the situation funnier for the others. The more I tried to suppress my laughter under strict classroom conditions, the more violent it became inside me. After a point it became physically unbearable. Breathing turned difficult, my stomach cramped with pain and my eyes watered uncontrollably.

Some teachers even began suspecting that there was genuinely something wrong with me psychologically.

One day Patthu Sir, Mr Pahariwal himself, discussed the matter seriously with Raina.

“Isko kya koi dimaagi takleef hai jo yeh har waqt hansta rehta hai?” (Is he suffering from some mental problem that he keeps laughing all the time?)

Raina looked at me immediately and made one of his famous funny faces — the exact expression of a man desperately trying to control laughter.

That was enough.

I burst out laughing right in front of Patthu Sir.

This only strengthened the teacher’s suspicion that I was mentally unstable. Meanwhile, Raina instantly changed his face back to normal and replied with complete seriousness,

“I’ll find out, Sir.”

That finished me completely.

I could barely breathe. Tears rolled from my eyes while Patthu Sir walked away even more convinced that I needed medical attention.

When the period ended, I told Raina angrily that I would never sit beside him again.

Like an idiot, he made the same funny face once more.

I immediately collapsed into another fit of laughter.

Exhausted beyond limits, I finally escaped to the water point outside the classroom just to recover my breath. Raina knew exactly how to exploit this weakness of mine, and though I hated the embarrassment it caused, I secretly admired his mastery over humour.

Even today, I miss that laughter.

I still possess the same weakness, but very few people now can trigger it the way Raina did. That part of me has remained dormant ever since, waking up only occasionally when I meet someone equally gifted after years.

The strange thing was that it was rarely the joke itself that made me laugh. Most of the jokes I had already heard before. What truly destroyed me was Raina’s timing. He had an extraordinary talent for narrating absurd things precisely when complete seriousness was expected.

And I discovered something important in life:

The fear of humiliation drastically reduces one’s ability to control laughter.

One unforgettable incident occurred during a Geography class conducted by Mr Shambhu.

He was actually a good teacher and not particularly strict. He generally ignored low-level chatter as long as the class was not disturbed badly. But he had one peculiar habit. Whenever he wished to emphasise an important point, he would raise his chin upward and close his eyes while speaking. After finishing the sentence, he would slowly lower his head again.

Perhaps it helped him concentrate.

That day he was teaching us the layers of the atmosphere.

“The lowest layer is called the troposphere…” he explained in his usual style, chin raised and eyes closed.

At that exact moment, Raina produced a long, realistic cat sound.

“Meeeeeeooooow…”

The sound echoed softly across the classroom.

I froze.

Raman, who had recently joined from Gauhati in Assam and happened to be sitting beside us that day, also stiffened immediately.

Mr Shambhu slowly opened his eyes the way people wake up from deep meditation during shavasana. He looked around calmly but, finding no clue, quietly resumed his lecture.

There was mild murmuring in the class, but nothing serious enough to interrupt the lesson.

Then came the second attack.

“Meeeeooooowww!”

This time Raman and I kicked Raina hard under the desk, begging him silently to stop.

But the damage had already begun inside us.

Suppressing laughter had created such pressure within our bodies that our eyeballs practically seemed ready to burst out. We had clamped our palms tightly over our mouths, making even breathing difficult.

What made matters worse was watching the teacher slowly reopen his eyes each time in majestic slow motion, as if returning from another world.

Mr Shambhu now looked directly at the three of us.

Raina’s fair face had already turned reddish from suppressing laughter, and the teacher finally understood that he was the culprit while Raman and I were merely victims of infectious laughter.

Still, he said nothing.

Instead he continued teaching while throwing murderous looks towards us from time to time. Then, as usual, he raised his chin and closed his eyes once again.

That encouraged Raina further.

“Meeeeowww… Meeeeeeooooowww… Meeeeow!”

Now I knew disaster was unavoidable.

I was gasping for air. My lungs felt as if they would explode. At that moment I honestly did not care about punishment anymore. I simply wanted permission to run outside and laugh properly before suffocating to death.

Mr Shambhu slowly placed his book on the table.

Without interrupting his lecture even for a second, he picked up his cane and calmly walked towards our desk.

The closer he came, the worse our condition became.

Finally he stopped beside Raina and ordered all three of us to stand up.

Raman and I hesitated because our mouths were still buried inside our palms in a desperate attempt to hide our laughter. Raina alone managed to stand first.

Raising the cane above his shoulder, the teacher asked sternly,

“Yeh voice kisne nikaali hai?” (Who made this voice?)

“Boys? Kaun se boys?” (Boys? Which boys?) replied Raina innocently.

I nearly died.

“Main boys nahin, voice bol raha hoon.” (I said voice, not boys.) the teacher clarified impatiently.

Raina nodded thoughtfully.

“Mainay toh koi boys nahin dekhe yahaan aate hue.” (I did not see any boys coming here.)

Then, turning towards me with a perfectly serious face, he asked,

“Did you see any boys?”

I could no longer even respond.

My head remained buried on the desk while my body shook violently.

The teacher knew perfectly well that Raina was deliberately confusing him. Raising his chin once again and tightening his grip on the cane, he repeated slowly,

“Main boys nahin… voice bol raha hoon.” (I am saying voice, not boys.)

That was the breaking point.

I suddenly stood up, exploded into uncontrollable laughter and finally inhaled the deep breath for which I had been struggling.

“Sir!” I gasped between laughter. “Please ask him to stop making me laugh!”

Raman collapsed next.

The moment he burst out laughing, Raina too lost all remaining control over himself.

“Whooooooshhhhh! Whooooshhhhhh!”

Two sharp cane strikes landed across his back.

But even that failed to stop us.

There we were — three boys laughing helplessly in front of an increasingly furious teacher. Tears streamed down our faces, our cheeks had turned red and our bodies shook uncontrollably.

The rest of the class stared at us in utter confusion.

And the funny part was that the entire catastrophe had started from one stupid observation. Before class, Raina had simply whispered to us:

“Watch carefully how Sir raises his chin and closes his eyes while teaching.”

Once we noticed it, every repetition became funnier than the previous one. Then the cat sounds pushed the situation beyond recovery.

We were finally thrown out of the classroom.

Raina carried two fresh cane marks on his back.

Oddly enough, I felt grateful to the teacher because at least now we were free to laugh openly and save our lungs from bursting.

Outside the class we bent over, breathing heavily like exhausted runners after a two-mile sprint. Slowly the pressure inside our chests eased.

I immediately headed towards the water point, washed my face and drank water greedily.

Raman was still laughing in jerks.

Then Raina casually announced,

“Chalo Chinar Chowk ke samose khate hain.” (Come, let’s go eat samosas at Chinar.)

“You keep quiet now,” I warned him. “And don’t make that face at me again.”

By then my lungs felt completely drained and I was half asleep from exhaustion.

Still, the three of us went to Chinar Complex where we had samosas, bread and tea. Afterwards we slipped into the nearby theatre with the help of some of Raina’s friends working there and watched a few scenes and songs from a movie before returning to school.

When we came back, the Geography period was about to end.

From outside the classroom I could still see Mr Shambhu teaching with his chin raised and eyes closed.

I wisely decided not to enter the class again.

I wanted to live another day.

Beside me stood Raina with the same mischievous expression on his face, silently asking:

“Some more?”

The bell finally rang.

As soon as we entered the classroom, everyone surrounded us demanding an explanation for the mysterious laughter. I simply pointed towards Raina and escaped responsibility.

Yet deep inside I felt slightly awkward.

I wondered what the girls must be thinking about us. Most probably they had concluded that the three of us were mentally unstable idiots laughing without reason.

Nalini asked me curiously what exactly had happened.

I could only reply,

“It cannot be explained. It can only be experienced.”

And honestly, she would probably have called us fools had she known the real reason.

Raina possessed another dangerous talent too.

He loved narrating fictional comic stories using classmates, teachers and even their parents as characters, whether people liked it or not. Those who could tolerate jokes about themselves stayed and enjoyed the sessions. Others quietly escaped before becoming targets.

There exists an unwritten rule in humour:

Only those who can bear jokes upon themselves earn the right to joke about others.

Raina followed this rule sincerely. If somebody mocked him, he accepted it sportingly without resentment.

Balli, however, was poor at tolerating jokes on himself. So during such sessions he quietly disappeared. He also had weak eyesight and eventually shifted to the front benches because he could not read the blackboard properly. Raman then occupied his place beside us.

Raman was gentle, submissive and easy-going. Since he had arrived from Gauhati, we simply nicknamed him “Gauhati,” and the name stayed with him till he left school.

John, meanwhile, preferred roaming with the local city boys and cultivating contacts outside school. He usually stayed around Vohra, Raina and Karan because it made him feel influential and adventurous.

As for me, my friendship with them remained largely confined to humour, classroom fun and occasional visits to Chinar Restaurant.

Raina was famous for yet another remarkable skill — producing all kinds of strange sounds from his throat. Cats, dogs, puppies, rooster calls, girlish voices and countless other high-pitched noises emerged from him effortlessly. His rooster imitation became especially legendary.

Vohra and I eventually nicknamed him “Kua-Kua Guy.”

Sometimes he would keep repeating those sounds continuously during class, causing severe “laughter attacks” among us. Vohra had learnt some of these techniques too, but unlike Raina he rarely used them during lectures because he carefully maintained his respectable image.

By the time I finally left Udhampur, I felt I had earned a PhD in laughter and jokes.

Very few jokes today genuinely make me laugh because I have heard most of them already.

But one truth remains permanent:

No matter how good a joke is, its success depends largely upon the person narrating it.

Because ultimately, the narrator is the man behind the gun.