Ha, hee, hey, ho

But oblivious to all the bad vibes, the 10,000 people gathered at the Mahalaxmi Race Course had a hearty laugh. And the racket they created was enough to drown out a low-flying Concorde. The sedentary calm of early morning was shredded to pieces by the members of 47 laughter clubs in Mumbai, as also representatives from over 100 clubs in other parts of the country.

Around 8 o8217;clock, they descended in droves at the Worli seaface and started a four-kilometre march laughing all the way to the Race Course. At the venue, Tom Alter introduced Dr Madan Kataria, the founder president of the Laughter Club International.

8220;We are the happiest people in the world8230;,8221; proclaimed Dr Kataria, to which the crowd heartily agreed. He started off with a quick laughter session 8212; the 8220;yogic technique of laughter therapy.8221;

All hell broke loose as the crowd went 8220;ho ho ha ha,8221; accompanied by banjo beats! The other yogic techniques involved laughing with correct breathing, laughing without sound, singing laughter and the one-meter laughter.

Dr Kataria then asked the audience to laugh for Nana Chudasma, the chief guest for the event. The crowd had come prepared to laugh the whole morning and they did just that. In between they were regaled by songs by Kalyanjibhai8217;s troupe, Little Wonders, which exhorted the whole world to laugh. The crowd responded by clogging the sky with multi-coloured balloon, and breaking into impromptu dances.

Later, mementoes were given to the guests, which included DGP S C Malhotra, Sadhana Sargam, Jaywantiben Mehta and the Korean consul general, who has promised to establish similar clubs in Korea. Then it was the turn of Nana Chudasma to make the gaggle giggle. And unmindful of Mehta sitting behind, he poked fun at the politician-breed.

8220;When you face a politician, nothing else is a joke8230; the man who laughs is much happier than the grumpy man at Sachivalya8230;8221; He also recounted a showdown he had when, during the emergency, he had put a banner at Marine Drive on the 20-point programme. 8220;20 point programme = oo,8221; it said. The problem was with the infinity sign certain politician mistook it for two balls! After him, Kalyanji took the mike and declared that if there was anything spreading faster than corruption and zhopadpatti in this country, it was laughter. But what the others did, Mehta tried to undo 8212; not on the political front, but on the laughter front. While the other speakers were modulated, she launched into flowery rhetoric on stars, flowers and what-not. But by then the crowd had taken too many doses of laughter to allow her loud boom to dampen their mood. Later, the ceremony winded up with the national anthem and the navy anthem.

And if the event was the What of the club, the happy mood seemed to be the Why of it. Explains Dr Kataria, 8220;We want to tell the whole world that we have become too serious and need to laugh badly.8221; He claims that 99 per cent of diseases can be traced to our inability to handle emotions and can be cured by stimulated laughter. And what8217;s more, laughter is absolutely free. So is membership to the club. Club members meet every morning at neighbourhood parks and kick off the day with a round of thorough yogic laughter. As one of the club members remarked, 8220;If you think the world is a serious place, come to us. That should solve your problems. If it does not, go kill yourself!8221;