The art of teasing people you love

We live in humourless times ruled by grim leaders who havenrsquot cracked a smile at their own expense in decades A clever riposte or cheeky punchline could quite literally be the death of you Examples Recall the outrage over Aamir Khanrsquos movie PK which punctured pious godmen who make crores by playing middlemen between willing believers and a negotiable godThink of the slap that was heard all over the world when Oscar host Chris Rock ribbed Will Smithrsquos wife about her little bald patchRemember when MP Shashi Tharoor nearly got hung and quartered for tweeting that he was flying ldquocattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cowsrdquo Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself not famous for his smiles had to point out that it was a jokeAnd what about Donald Trump The stable genius from AmericaI come from a more capricious world in which the ability to laugh at yourself was understood as a likeable sign of intelligence and humility Every day could be April 1 and anyone including yours truly could always be improved by being pulled down a notch or two Since I am widely perceived as studious and scholarlymdashtwice in his writings Shashi Tharoor could not think of anything more damning than ldquobespectacled and eruditerdquomdashI have always enjoyed good camouflage while deflating those who were taking themselves too seriouslyHerersquos a quick guide to walking in my footsteps and becoming a master pranksterAlways pick people you care for A joke becomes a jibe if your target is someone who doesnrsquot matter to you The best practical jokes end when you become even better friends over a tankard of beer afterwards and much laughterI adored Jojo my pushy impatient chief subeditor at JS magazine but my he did go on and on about how he killed bottles of rum after sundown Everyone knew that the man tottered after a mere half peg of Old Monk never mind a full bottleOnce yoursquove identified a personrsquos blind spot the one where he suspends critical thinking and his limbic brain takes over move in for the kill Jojorsquos was rum so I let word leak out that Irsquod arranged for a mutual friend to receive discounted rum by the crate from a corrupt army quartermaster Jojo wanted in at once and asked if I could get him the same deal I let him twist my arm a bit before agreeing to give it a goA week later Jojo was told that his rum consignment was ready to be collected The droppoint was a familyowned Chinese shoe shop on Bentinck Street To identify himself as the correct customer he would have to use certain wordsmdashand only those words in that order ldquoIrsquove come for the rumrdquo Any other word and the deal was offSuch pure joy it was to see Jojo pingpong around the shoe shop repeating his mantra until the familyrsquos eldest brother in singlets showed him out to the pavement Jojo might have gone for my jugular except that Irsquod arranged a consolation prize for himmdasha hamper of actual rum and cream crackersIf Jojorsquos Achillesrsquo heel was rum Bingorsquos was upmarket housing He was my immediate boss but henpecked by a socially ambitious wife who simply hated their apartment which stood at the confluence of a mosque a temple and a fish market Her preference was posh Alipore somewhere near the cantonmentThe trick always is to make the turkey come to you I floated word about a certain housing agent who had found me a delightful apartment and soon enough Bingo was waddling up to me At this point the clever prankster will play hardtoget and up the ante until his target is literally begging to be hung out to dryIf itrsquos an April 1 joke disarm the turkey by scheduling it for March 30 or so I arranged for a Calcutta thespian to be the lsquohousing agentrsquo An appointment was fixed cancelled because a beloved uncle had passed away and rescheduled for two days latermdashApril 1The lsquoagentrsquo gave Bingo a royal tour of Calcuttarsquos villas and havelis all of them outside his budget and finally parked in a bustling corner in front of a threestory building Pointing to a secondfloor apartment he said ldquoThere sir The perfect home for you and your familyrdquoBy now Bingo was spluttering ldquoButndashbutndashI already live thererdquoAnd then therersquos the time I realised that editors donrsquot like jokes Dressed as an Arab for a freelance story I was doing I walked into my editorrsquos office claiming to be a director of the Al Ahram newspaper and offered him a job as Chief Editor of the Middle East editionNo he didnrsquot think it was funny My job ended a month laterHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper