Self-Depreciating Humour

Everyone likes to have a good laugh.  Jokes and humour are part of our daily life and vital for our wellbeing. We seek it by spending time with a cool gang of friends and through different modes of entertainment such as movies, stand-up comedy shows, humour clubs, cartoons or comedy TV channels.

Generally, in all these, we see two types of humour. One type of humour is in which, one person is the bully and the other is the victim.  Tom and Jerry cartoons can be a good example, where the little Jerry is the bully which keeps nagging Tom, who ultimately gets victimised. Similar example could be of the Goundamani – Senthil comedy in Tamil movies.

And there is the other type of humour, where the person makes a clown of himself. Some examples can be Charlie Chaplin, Mr. Bean and in Tamil movies, comedians like Chandrababu and Vadivelu, use this type of humour. This type of humour is what we call as self-depreciating humour.

While there is a mild element of sadism, in the first type, the second one doesn’t offend anyone. We can see similar examples, in the stories of the famous characters, Birbal and Mullah. I am sure you all know that these humour stories and anecdotes, have a moral behind it, but have you ever pondered what is the basic contrast between these two characters. If you observe closely, you will find  that in all the Birbal stories, Birbal ends up  making a fool of someone else, (which is mostly the king) whereas in the Mullah stories, the joke is often on Mullah himself. While Birbal stories sound more appealing to kids for its witty twist, it is Mullah stories that is more popular with adults, because as adults, in a number of occasions it reminds us of our own fallibilities, and we are able to relate with the Mullah stories better.

Now, the question is how many of us have the capacity to laugh at our own mistakes? Well, not many. It is because we are conditioned to believe, that as an adult we should not be looked upon as a fool. But I have a different opinion. Humans are vulnerable and fallible to errors. None of us are perfect. All of us make silly mistakes and blunders, no matter what our age and it is not something to be ashamed of.  In fact, a person who is able to laugh at his own mistakes, is generally looked up as a practical and level-headed person.

Have you noticed, that while we share our life experiences or travel experiences, with someone, what looked like a serious stupidity at that point of time, has become a humorous part of our narration? For instance, when we narrate the incidents of how we got cheated or how we made a wrong decision which resulted in a problematic situation. We might be adding lines, like “I was such a fool to do that”, “I flopped terribly” or similar statements. And whatever is shared from our personal experience connects well with the people who are listening to it.  So, self-depreciating humour is in a way something that humbles us and not degrade us. However, too much of the same, might feel like a overdo to the listeners.

So, I feel self-depreciating humour is a valuable quality, we can all imbibe. It is a sort of an emotional immunity, we can build to tide over life, without getting affected or offended. Self-depreciating humour in no way diminishes our self-esteem. For people, whose self-esteem is intact, they know their own worth and they don’t need any endorsement or approval.

To substantiate this, we can look at people from the Sikh community, who are called Sardarjis. Some of the common jokes, we hear is that of the Sardarjis in the form of Santa- Banta jokes. These Santa – Banta jokes are written by the famous writer and cartoonist, Khuswanth Sing, who is a Sardarji himself. This shows their ability to embrace self-depreciating humour in a positive spirit. And in spite of all the fun made about their intelligence, they are some of the most hardworking and intelligent people, we can see in the country. So, along with their sense of humility they possess great amount of dignity too, which really talks high about them.

Humility is a great strength. It takes a lot of courage and maturity, to embrace self-depreciating humour in our life. However, the rewards of doing so, is something we can enjoy only through experience.

  D. Senthil Kannan,

  Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

  Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

  Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com