The Laughter Club

Nensi looked at her watch. It was nearing 10.00 am.

‘Time for me to move,’ she thought. Her casual walk to the door proved to be the cynosure of all eyes in the living room. It was not the first time that this happened. For the past week, she had joined the laughter club at a nearby garden and the family was not for it. Not that she cared. She had made her decision to join the club and laugh her way to health. A few friends of hers had invited her to join and she liked the idea of spending some pleasurable time away from home. 

“Laughter Club?” her husband had queried with a questioning expression that mirrored his opinion about the club. “You mean to say that you all will spend some time laughing and that will improve your health?”

“Yes,” she had replied with her chin stubbornly raised in the air. Knowing her for a decade, her husband could read the expression on her face. She had made up her mind and when she did that, nothing or no one could stop her except herself. He had given up.

Her in-laws were a different breed. They could not understand what she found in the club. They did not know that she was yearning for the company of her own age, where she could be truly her own self. At home, it was either the elderly parents of her husband or her two young sons, who spent the whole day at school. She loved them, both the parents and her sons. But a respite was absolutely essential for her well being. The laughter club provided that. Her in-laws did not object, but they felt that it was a waste of time and their looks mirrored their thoughts. Her sons thought she was mad to just go and laugh for no reason at all.

But how could she make them understand that the laughter club was not only about laughing. It provided Nensi with some interaction with people of her own age. She felt lively and relaxed. She laughed with the others, hearty laughs that came from inside her being. And with that came the contentment that she had taken the right decision.