Why does madman laugh- Prabodh Kumar Govil

1.

A few days ago, while taking a walk and chatting with fellow senior citizens in the park, a neighbour told me that his entire day had passed very comfortably. His water heater (geyser) had broken down. When the repairman arrived, his daughter-in-law said, “Papa, I’m going to pick up Chonchi from school. There’s a program at her school today, so I’ll be late returning. The geyser repairman is here, please get the work done.” 

For a little while, he became the master of the house, and his afternoon passed quite pleasantly.

Since then, I’d been thinking that my geyser was also quite old and could break down at any moment.

And lo and behold! Today was the day.

Though I lived alone in my flat, last night, one of my former students came over. After finishing his BA, he had gone back home to Gorakhpur, but he had an exam here, and his exam center was nearby. Because of the huge crowds in the trains and hotels during government exams, he had come to stay with me for a night. His exam was in the afternoon, and he would be leaving on the evening train.

After drinking tea in the morning, I was sitting in the balcony flipping through the newspaper when he came and told me, “Sir, the water didn’t heat up in the geyser!”

“Oh, what happened?” I said, following him to the bathroom, but in my heart, I already knew that my geyser had caught the same illness as my neighbor’s. In recent days, thanks to the electricity department’s kindness, the fluctuations had been happening more frequently. Because of this, my microwave oven had also stopped working.

He had to bathe and leave quickly. There wasn’t enough time to call a mechanic and get the geyser fixed. I told him, “Wait two minutes, I’ll heat water on the stove.” And then I burst out laughing.

He looked at me in surprise. He couldn’t understand what was so funny. He even looked at himself, wondering if I was laughing at his appearance.

Having just come out of the bathroom, he was only standing there in a small pair of underwear, his hair disheveled.

Anyway, students become quite informal with their professors after college, especially once they graduate. And I was retired now. He might not remember that there was a time in class when students would say “Yes, Sir” with great seriousness and hesitation, because I was not only a professor but also the director.

But he was a special student of mine, and we had stayed in touch over the phone, so we were quite open with each other. We talked about every subject.

But at that moment, the reason for my laughter wasn’t him or his appearance!

I put a large pot of water on the stove to heat. We stood in the kitchen talking.

I noticed that after finishing college, he might have joined a gym and built a pretty good body. Perhaps he sensed that I was admiring the body he had worked hard to build.

After all, he must have wanted someone to notice his progress, which is why he was standing there shirtless. He had a towel draped over his shoulder, but it wasn’t wrapped around his waist.

To appreciate his efforts, I touched his chest and said, “You’ve built up quite a chest!”

He replied, “Sir, until I get a job, what else is there to do!”

He quickly bathed with the hot water, had his meal, and left.

In the afternoon, I sat thinking about why I had laughed so hard at that moment that the boy became embarrassed and suspicious.

Is it that in old age, a person starts laughing at the drop of a hat?

Oh, as I sat there, I remembered that when I was the director at the university, a letter had come from the psychology department requesting permission to take students on a visit to the local mental hospital. Since the head of the department had recommended it, I immediately granted the students permission to visit the mental hospital. But after signing the letter, I sat alone in my chamber for a long time, pondering why the mental hospital was called a “lunatic asylum.”

“Lunatic” refers to something related to the moon. So, is there a connection between madness and the phases of the moon? I remembered that on the night of the full moon, when the moon is at its brightest, there’s a tremendous upheaval in the ocean’s waves. So, do the phases of the moon similarly affect the human mind? Is this mental upheaval what madness is?

And when the students returned from their visit to the mental hospital, one of them told me that on the night of the full moon, there’s an emergency at the mental hospital. Extra doctors are on duty that night, and severe or dangerous lunatics are restrained.

It was a strange thing. A fascinating natural effect. A complex aspect of human behavior.

After the student who had stayed with me left in the afternoon, the geyser mechanic arrived. He stood in the bathroom, working on the geyser. I stood nearby, watching him work.

For a retired man with nothing to do, watching someone work like this is a great way to pass the time.

After about twenty minutes of diligently examining every part of the open geyser, the mechanic, with a bit of disappointment, stepped down from the stool he had been standing on and said in a disheartened voice, “This won’t be fixed today.”

“Why?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.

He explained that a certain part of the geyser was damaged and needed to be replaced, and he didn’t have it with him at the moment.

“So go and get it quickly,” I said.

He replied, “That part isn’t available nearby; I’ll have to get it from far away, so I can only come back tomorrow to fix it.”

There was no choice. And there wasn’t really any urgency either. I could heat water on the stove for another day.

If a day’s work takes two days, so be it—what objection could a retired man with nothing to do possibly have?