Laughter, laughing clubs and comedy in movies

Laughing is good for the health, so the doctor prescribes, hence the growing popularity of laughing clubs. Members of these clubs assemble in open spaces and laugh their hearts out – the simple logic is that whoever engages in rollicking laughter not only lets out steam but also exercises all his muscles that are associated with laughter. Laughter as we know comes in many forms like grinning, smiling, laughing and guffawing! Whilst the first two types exercise the muscles of the lips and a tiny portion of the jaws, a guffawing laughter exercises the whole body. It literally activates all your muscles. Knowledgeable circles advocate hearty laughter to keep in the best of health. Magazines like Readers Digest used to regularly run sections like ‘laughter is the best medicine’, ‘grin and bear it’, ‘humour in uniform’ to make living more relaxed.
King Arthur had his court jesters and Akbar had his Birbal.
Court jesters were an integral part and parcel of the King’s inner circle and they occupied a position of considerable importance because, as and when the need arose, they were duty bound to rise to the occasion and lighten the atmosphere by narrating interesting and appropriate anecdotes.
The concept of the King is not there any longer but that of a comedian remains and in the Parliament and State Assemblies, the presence of such characters could lend variety to the heated debates that, at times, tend to go out of control.
When we turn to the cinema we find that in the fifties, there were great comedians like the one and only Charlie Chaplin and the duo of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. They used to make the audience roll with laughter without laughing themselves. Superb examples of slap stick comedy! That was the secret.
They were great artists because they could generate side splitting laughter by a mere change of expression. In the Indian scenario we had unparalled comedians like I S Johar, Johnny Walker, Mehmood, Mukri, Om Prakash, Keshto Mukherjee, Robi Ghosh, and Bhanu Bandopadhaya. When the situation demanded, regular actors like Amol Palekar and Utpal Dutta in Gol Mal or Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra in Chupke chupke or Farookh Shaikh and Deepti Naval in Chashme Baddoor played the roles of comedians.
TV serials like Wagle ki duniya, Hum Panch, Ghar Jamai and Sarabhai versus Sarabhai were examples of good comedy serials. Farookh Shaikh, Anantha Mahadevan and Satish Shah produced memorable performances. In comparison, todays so called comedy serials are too loud for comfort. Out of the present day screen comedians, the pair of Johnny Lever and Govinda has become popular along with Kader Khan and Saif Ali Khan. But, all of them tend to forget that an able comedian should have the power to generate spontaneous laughter. Laughter is something you cannot force upon somebody.
The only point to note is – there is a dearth of women comedians. Comedy appears to be a male bastion and could be a good subject for further research!