<p>Home Minister Amit Shah had not been known to have a funny bone, till this week. Man of steel, efficient, passionate, but not one to crack a joke. Photographs show him laughing or smiling, but did he have it in him to make others laugh or smile? A stray joke is not a measure of a penchant for humour, just as a poetic word or line is no evidence of the gift of poetry. So, Shah will be considered a man of humour only a hundred jokes later, but even a single joke can make a difference to an image. That difference happened to Shah when he said in Parliament on Monday that he had a high-pitched voice and it was a “manufacturing defect” in him, and that even when he sounded scolding, he was not angry. The only exception to his calm is brought on by the issue of Kashmir. Perhaps that’s why he removed the constitutional flaw about Kashmir. Wasn’t after all Article 370 a constitutional flaw, a “manufacturing defect”? </p>.<p>To joke is to be human, and to joke about oneself is to be more human. Parliament has a great tradition of jokes and humour, and members have made fun of themselves, others, the Houses, the world and even the gods. A Piloo Modi and a Laloo Yadav could extract laughter out of anything, and Nehru and Vajpayee were nothing if not witty. But parliamentarians seem to be manufactured out of more serious stuff now and the Houses are rarely lit with fun and laughter. In any case, a joke has a place only in a conversation, which has largely disappeared from Parliament. When there is no room and time for laughter in the House, it becomes an object of laughter, because it is the privilege of the people to laugh at oddities. </p>.<p>Where does that leave Amit Shah with his lonely joke? If his high pitch, which was taken to be high-decibel anger, is a constitutional flaw over which he has little control, he may be calling for a fresh evaluation of himself. Being free of anger and other base emotions is a great ideal, and a Home Minister who lives that ideal is the one to be had and can be forgiven for his problem with Kashmir. After all, you also need to be human, with some weakness. The Commissar that he was known to be may now be aspiring to be a Yogi, and be seen to be one. That may show he had a good reason for that joke, and the joke had an intent, too. But let’s take a joke to be a joke and not probe it. It just cheers and we need the cheer. </p>
<p>Home Minister Amit Shah had not been known to have a funny bone, till this week. Man of steel, efficient, passionate, but not one to crack a joke. Photographs show him laughing or smiling, but did he have it in him to make others laugh or smile? A stray joke is not a measure of a penchant for humour, just as a poetic word or line is no evidence of the gift of poetry. So, Shah will be considered a man of humour only a hundred jokes later, but even a single joke can make a difference to an image. That difference happened to Shah when he said in Parliament on Monday that he had a high-pitched voice and it was a “manufacturing defect” in him, and that even when he sounded scolding, he was not angry. The only exception to his calm is brought on by the issue of Kashmir. Perhaps that’s why he removed the constitutional flaw about Kashmir. Wasn’t after all Article 370 a constitutional flaw, a “manufacturing defect”? </p>.<p>To joke is to be human, and to joke about oneself is to be more human. Parliament has a great tradition of jokes and humour, and members have made fun of themselves, others, the Houses, the world and even the gods. A Piloo Modi and a Laloo Yadav could extract laughter out of anything, and Nehru and Vajpayee were nothing if not witty. But parliamentarians seem to be manufactured out of more serious stuff now and the Houses are rarely lit with fun and laughter. In any case, a joke has a place only in a conversation, which has largely disappeared from Parliament. When there is no room and time for laughter in the House, it becomes an object of laughter, because it is the privilege of the people to laugh at oddities. </p>.<p>Where does that leave Amit Shah with his lonely joke? If his high pitch, which was taken to be high-decibel anger, is a constitutional flaw over which he has little control, he may be calling for a fresh evaluation of himself. Being free of anger and other base emotions is a great ideal, and a Home Minister who lives that ideal is the one to be had and can be forgiven for his problem with Kashmir. After all, you also need to be human, with some weakness. The Commissar that he was known to be may now be aspiring to be a Yogi, and be seen to be one. That may show he had a good reason for that joke, and the joke had an intent, too. But let’s take a joke to be a joke and not probe it. It just cheers and we need the cheer. </p>
