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#ResearchMesearcl‘

To be or not to be funny

Nadine Shaanta Murshid
SO, there was a time when I wanted to be a comedian. But, I was told that I wasn't very funny. Have they been fakelaughing all this time? Well, this --being a comedian -was different from cracking jokes amongst friends, I was told by friends,
no less. But I was prepared; surely I deserve a shot!
I had the customary making fun of my own education joke (borrowed from long time acquaintance/friend Daniel Rahman and Arafat Kazi): "I only have a master's degree, I’m the black sheep of my family." The customary poverty joke: "Poor people are the hottest people in the world because they take the most heat in policy debates." And the vegan joke (borrowed from my sister): "How can you tell that a person is vegan? They will •••••••tell you."
And then I had the non-customary ones:
In which country can you be a thief -- not a petty thief, but the real deal - and still be considered an elite member of the society? That's easy: Bangladesh.
Why is free speech not free? Because we have to pay for it. In cash or kind. And kind often involves jail time.
Why did the chicken get fat? Because it wasn't allowed to cross streets anymore. (Instead it was put in a cage with a zillion other chickens, pumped with growth hormones, and fed com-feed.)
Why don't I eat chicken? Refer to previous answer. Also applicable to cows, sheep, goats, and all other food products that are now merely food-like products. Unless you go organic. And only the rich can go organic. At least in the US.
I know this because, as a college student in the US, I dined in university dining halls in which we were served grade C produce, courtesy of Aramark. I gained 30 pounds, and I was told that freshman 15 hit me hard. It wasn't freshman 15. It was grade C produce So I stopped eating it. People don't get it, though; some even tell me that being vegetarian isn't sustainable. But I lost those 30 pounds since I stopped eating meat produce in America and I am pretty happy about that. I also enjoy not eating rubber for dinner. (There are a bunch of research studies to back my claim, but this is an op-ed, so you might as well take my word for it. Or not. Just write a snarky comment below.)
And here's one of my personal favorites: What's the difference between big government and small government? The number of fraud businesses. (This is also the one that no one gets, and I hate - knowing that it's a strong word - explaining my jokes.)
And here's some more:
We all have friends who like their ganja. I always conceptualised it as a coping mechanism - self-medication in a country where psychiatric help is largely unavailable and/or inaccessible. They had hard lives (whether they did or not is beside the point, what matters is that they thought they had hard lives) and needed a way out. So why should marijuana be legal? So that everyone can live in a better world. I wouldn't do it, no thanks, but I could do with a few more happy people in the world.
And we all know someone or the other who uses skin-whitening agents, don't we? Men and women who transform from being a regular Bengali brown person to a Disney prince/princess? And that brings up this question: What do you call someone who uses such skin-whitening products? Colonised. It's the fault of those colonisers that we think have left. Because they really haven't. They have left behind their legacy of petticoat, blouse, and white skin. Oh! And English-medium schools.
What do you call someone who is always on a diet? Normal. (Maybe I think so because I've been on so many diets in my life. The worst, the absolute worst, was perhaps the milk and banana diet. I don't remember if I did it for the recommended three days or not, but I know that I can't look at either milk or
banana the same way anymore.) But really, I feel like some people treat normal meals like a fad diet these days. I'm on a protein diet with carb on the side. Or, I'm on veggie diet with extra roughage. Might as well say, I am on a food diet. (But that too would make sense given the proliferation of easy-to-make non-foods in the world.)
Did you ever have those folks in your school who would study all the time? Really, all the time. I call them: forgetful. Why else would you have to study so much?
Unless you were memorising word for word. Which brings me to: what do you call a person who memorises everything? A memory bank. Or a wannabe parrot. You choose (not very funny).
But that joke emerged because I never understood the concept of memorising textbooks. It's a practice that encourages plagiarism, stymies your own creativity, and prevents you from developing critical thinking skills. It sets you up to look for the 'right' answer, in a world where every question can be responded to with 'it depends.' How’re you doing? It depends. What are your plans for next week? It depends. Who would you like to marry? It depends. When will the world come to an end? It depends. (Or you can be committal and say "I'm good" as they do in some parts of the world, but we all know that it lacks content, that it's not a reflection of your actual state of mind.)
And here's the very last:
Who's the one who flew over the cuckoo's nest? The man with a cold. (Ok yes, this one's not great either, but in my defense: I've heard worse.)
At this point you're probably thinking: no wonder her career ended before it began.
But you can't bring me down. You see it comes with the territory of being a stand-up comedian. I keep standing up! Now,if you have a joke, let me know. One warning though: profanities, obscenities and slurs don't make for good jokes. But then, what do I know.
The writer Is Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Buffalo (SUNY).