Pressures of Humor

As I start off on this article, I am reminded of what I read about Dustin Hoffman a few years back. There was this magazine which was classifying the greatest actors of 20th century. On Dustin Hoffman, they had quoted a critic that Dustin Hoffman was a great actor, then someone called him a great actor, and he had been struggling from that point on. My humor sense isn't in the same level as Hoffman's acting, but as you go through this, I guess you might find some parallels.

During the early parts of my life, I wasn't considered a person with a great sense of humor. It didn't help matters much that this was despite being in a family full of people with great sense of humor. I was almost an outcast. This continued until my early teens when I finished my schooling and reached the college. This was the time when my reading had graduated from the Amar Chitra Katha, DC Comics, and Hardy Boys etc. to slightly more serious comics like Tintin and Asterix. Also, I was reading books with slightly more sensible content than those by Franklin Dixon. I had chanced upon a quote in one of the Alistair Maclean novels (definitely not where you would expect sensible content) where the heroine claims that sarcasm as a form of wit was wasted upon her (for those curious, this is Breakheart Pass). For the first time, I felt I could try developing sarcasm as my brand of wit. This was also during the time when I was beginning to understand the nuances of dialogues in movies. I was influenced by Srinivasan of Malayalam movies, a dark, short, not-so-handsome chap, who made laughing at himself an art form. I felt that wasn't such a bad idea. I had his kind of skin color, height, and looks, and I didn't have to worry about hurting others' sentiments if I were to pass comments on myself.

While I thought this would be a hit with the fairer sex, there was a small problem - myself. I realized that I couldn't come up with those crackers while in front of the girls. The main reason for this was I wasn't sure whether deriding myself would work in favor or against me. With guys, there wasn't any pressure of impressing them, while that was not the case with girls. I had developed humor, but it was a unisex humor.

Just as I was getting the hang of humor, things took a turn for the worse in my professional life. Coming out of the cocoon of my house in Kerala, living under the protection of my parents and grandparents, I was exposed to the harsher realities of life. It was also the time when I first attempted poetry after repeated failures trying to write prose. My depressed mind churned out depressing poems, the quality of which depresses me nowadays. I feel that it is easier to write depressing stuff when you are depressed than writing happy stuff when you are happy.

Well, the wheels of time turned and so did my fortunes. As my fortunes changed, my mood turned brighter with my old sarcastic, self-deprecating style coming back. To this, I added a generous amount of raunchiness and honesty. I was rather late to realize the capabilities of honesty, how it was far better than a lie, if told in the right manner, to fool people. Very soon, my quips were looked forward to. When I realized that most people don't read as much as I do, or at least don't recall most of the stuff they read, I started plagiarizing quotes and passages of others generously.

When I started writing, I realized that it was even better to come up with a funny line than while speaking because you could work and rework on it before the final output comes. This resulted in giving others an even better impression of the humorist in Hari than ever before. And when I started this blog, the few readers just loved it. That is when the pressure started. When I wrote something serious, they were cross that I was serious. This could be either because I was pretty pathetic in my serious writing or could be that they were expecting humor from me every time (I believe the latter, it is easier for my ego). That prompted me to find humor where it didn't exist. Needless to say, my writing was affected.

Now, I am being a victim of my own creation. This pressures of living up to writing humorously is definitely affecting me. I am reading quite a few books of funny quotations, lots of Bill Bryson, etc. to get inspiration for my new writings. If things don't get better soon, it won't be long before I shave my head and check in to a Rehab Center, a la Britney Spears, as a victim of humor.