SOH in Action

Jagmohan Papneja narrates conversation with English God

What amuses whom and when, nobody can say. Even an everyday situation can take on a humorous colour and suddenly become a major talking point while exercising. Before long, the entire group gets drawn into the discussion and as Srichand Arora and Ved Prakash Grover would say, the ‘exercises be damned’!
Something like this happened today when an obese lady (we’ve been seeing her every day) on the walking track caught the fancy of a few members. The other day, a similar situation arose when a fat man became the butt of some bawdy jokes. He too had been coming to the Garden regularly. But on that particular morning, the ladies simply couldn’t get over the way he struggled to balance his weight and prevent his pants from slipping down while still trying to toddle forward.

Now, what’s so funny about that?
Well, nothing and everything – depending on which side you are. It is not at all funny for those who are on a short fuse – not laughing, not joking, not talking. And for the majority of us who do not require a reason to laugh, anything and everything can be insanely funny. If the roly-polys hadn’t shown up, somebody / something else would have and we’d still find reasons to laugh our guts out. Ask Shekhawat, Sunita Jajodia, Ram Shankar Shukla... Yes, we laugh at ourselves too.
Ultimately, it all boils down to SOH – sense of humour. So long as we are discreet enough not to offend sentiments nor disrupt the flow of exercises, let us celebrate laughter. Why, Jagmohan Papneja today turned a philosophical discussion with an English-speaking god into a major rib-tickler and even an otherwise stern and religious-minded Geeta Sardana burst out laughing. That’s SOH in action!
Jagmohan Papneja:
Everyone is automatically attractive looking funny. Given this scenario, people laugh and as a result, it cures a multitude of life's ills.