Humour

Humour has a free access not only to our emotions but also to our arid intellect. To produce genuine humour is not an easy thing. It demands genius. Out of Tagore's numerous touches of humour, let me cite here only three to show that even his genius as a humourist India cannot deny.

(1) "If I look with my eyes open, my wife suspects that I am on the lookout for her sister. If I sit with my eyes closed, she thinks that my mind is occupied with her sister. If I cough, she ascribes some motive to it. And if I check it with my utmost efforts, she sees into it something more serious." — Vaikunther Khata

(2) "The Ayurvedic physicians (Kaviraj) hold that the heart organ stands on the organ of digestion, though the poets do not admit that the emotion of love is based on the power of forbearance and self-control." — Sesh Raksha

(3) "The thermometer of love shows three degrees of temperature. When a man asserts that he has not fallen in love, it indicates the subnormal temperature of 95°. When he admits that he loves, then he runs the temperature of 98.4, which is, according to the doctors, quite normal and entirely free from any danger. But when the fever of love exceeds 105°, the patient ceases to use all endearing terms and begins to call his beloved names; in the absence of such behaviour, his heart would burst by the pressure of the steam of love, and it may lead to an accident of the worst type. It is only an M.D. in the medical science of love who can estimate how delirious becomes the language of a patient stricken with the fever of love."

Now let us place Tagore's own view as regards humour:

"Humour is a dangerous thing. It is well if it surrenders itself willingly with a smiling face, but a catastrophe may result if you try to take it by storm." — (From his letters)

We find in the famous book Mangputé Rabindranath, by Maitreyi Devi, a fine specimen of Tagore's sense of humour. "Don't you know, it is already proved that I am not entitled to cut jokes? A professor has given his verdict that a lyric poet cannot have any sense of humour. Irrefutable is his reasoning. Therefore it has to be admitted that either I possess no sense of humour or I am not a poet at all. Is it not a pity that I am about to lose my celebrity as a poet which I have acquired with so much toil?"