Subtle Humour

Zarina Khan

Vijay Jakhia

This piece is long overdue. After all, what is a laughter club unless members laugh their guts out and return home happy? And this is where Zarina Khan’s sense of humour comes in.
Every morning she waddles into the Garden like an overdressed penguin, oblivious to her surroundings. Outwardly reticent and self-absorbed, she lives in a bubble. It is when that bubble bursts, her true nature emerges and we are left buckling up in fits of laughter.
The best part is Zarina doesn’t realize when she is being funny.
So this morning, when she noticed Bhaswati Bose and Vijay Jakhia in deep conversation away from the exercises, she looked rather perturbed. Now, Vijay-bhai is one of the most lovable souls on this planet. He routinely waits for Bhaswati to show up in the morning and only after exchanging a few pleasantries does he leave for home.
Today was no different. But Zarina noted they were engaged in conversation for an inordinately long time and in what seemed like a slip of tongue, she quipped: “Look at Bhaswati, she is meeting her daddy!” Instantly Shekhawat jumped with joy, clapping.
Another day, the Club’s stray dog, came sniffing around. Zarina detests dogs. She freezes whenever the stray visits us and keeps a hawk’s eye on it until it leaves. This time she noticed that it left only after nuzzling Banoo Apa for a while.

"Did you go to meet your Daddy?"

Zarina said nothing then. After the exercises, she accosted Banoo Apa alone and in all seriousness, asked: “Did you telephone that dog to come?”
These days, Zarina is obsessed with going on a picnic before summer sets in. She loves picnics. And for quite some time, there has been no picnic from the Club. Every time she has broached the subject and got things moving, the picnic gets cancelled at the last moment. Now she is convinced that "someone has cast an evil eye on the Club". She refuses to acknowledge that people are getting old and lack the earlier enthusiasm or stamina to venture out of their comfort zone. Instead, she is hell bent on engaging a practitioner of black magic to remove the evil spell cast on the Club so that we can all go happily on a picnic like the good old days!
There are many such hilarious stories on Zarina Khan. But the one Fahmida Khan loves to narrate is about an obstinate mule that refused to carry her during an excursion to Kashmir. Zarina insisted on mounting that particular mule. The inevitable happened. She got tossed over and landed flat on her back. The way Zarina cursed that poor mule can well be imagined. The language is so colorful it cannot be published.