Humour: The Serious Business Of Being Funny In India

"Beta, you joke too much these days. Is everything okay?"

A friend’s mother said that over lunch once. She meant it with love, of course. But what she didn’t realise is - that was the answer. In India, if someone is joking a lot, it’s probably because everything is not okay.

Ask any stand-up comic today. Humour might be their job, but it’s also their shield. In a country where everything has the potential to offend - from gods to golgappas - telling a joke feels like lighting a match in a firecracker warehouse. Still, people do it. Not just because they can. Because they must.

Between the drama of political sensitivity, where every word is weighed, and the comedy of everyday struggles, humour slips in as the middle ground of relief. India may run on coal, code or cricket, but it also runs on laughter. The kind that barges into family WhatsApp groups, complete with the all-caps LOL and emojis that no one ever uses in real life.

Let’s not start with society just yet. Let’s begin with the humans.

Apparently, the average person laughs 17 times a day. Though if you’ve ever lived in Delhi during peak summer, chances are you’re just sweating and swearing through those statistics. Still, neuroscientists insist that laughter is medicinal - it releases endorphins, reduces stress, boosts immunity. By that logic, stand-up comedians might be more effective than yoga instructors. Slightly worse fashion sense, yes, but undeniably better punchlines.

And for something wired so deeply into our biology, it’s fascinating how shaped it is by culture and age.

For one generation, it is Johnny Walker with his comic timing in old Hindi films. For another, it’s dark memes about existential dread shared like secret handshakes. Gen Z? They laugh in abbreviations and cryptic emojis that resemble cave art. And Gen Alpha? Let’s just say, if you’ve heard them say “rizz” and “vibe check” in the same sentence, you know you’re no longer the target audience.

Each generation designs its own comic code. And more often than not, it includes gently mocking the generation before for “not getting it.” That’s how the baton is passed. Not with reverence. With a slightly smug laugh.

For a civilisation that canonised hasya rasa as one of the nine classical emotions, our relationship with humour is… complicated.

We love it in principle. We fear it in practice. We admire it in our scriptures, then file complaints when we don’t like it. Our sitcoms trip over themselves with slapstick, but a single meme about language or sambhar can send the online mobs frothing. We forward endless jokes about saas-bahu conflict, but heaven forbid you say anything even mildly offbeat about someone’s state, surname or subculture. The tolerance evaporates. Anger-fires are lit, digital or otherwise.

Sometimes, who delivers the joke matters more than the joke itself. A politician can make accidental comedy go viral. But a comic or a corporate executive must stay carefully inoffensive, lest the punchline backfires. And then there’s the average Indian - who cherishes freedom of speech, so long as the joke isn’t about their own caste, community, cuisine, or cousin. It’s become our national talent - taking offence faster than our favourite cricket team take wickets.

And yet, in some miraculous way, humour survives. It stays on shared videos. It goes underground. It adapts. It sharpens. It becomes sly.

While English might be our aspirational language, and mother tongues our emotional ones, sarcasm is the one dialect we all speak fluently - especially in our cities.

It cuts across class, community and even competence. You may forget your grammar, but your sarcasm will always be on point. It’s what people use when they want to say the truth but can’t afford to be caught saying it directly. In a society where authority demands deference, sarcasm offers a loophole. It lets you protest with a straight face.

You’ll hear it on the lips of tired commuters, in the mutterings of overachieving teenagers, in the dry quips of underpaid professionals.

In Mumbai traffic, it’s “Lovely! I planned my evening around this flyover.”

During a blackout, it’s “Perfect timing. This is when I do my best thinking.”

At the station, after a delay, it’s “Of course it’s on time. We just switched calendars.”

Sarcasm is how we cope - with delays, with dashed expectations, with the absurdities we don’t have the energy to challenge. It helps us maintain grace under frustration. It masks despair with dignity. It also carries just the right amount of plausible deniability. Unlike a punchline, sarcasm arrives quietly, leaves quietly, and you’re left wondering - was that a joke, or a jab?

And that’s the beauty of it. It’s emotional camouflage. It’s passive-aggressive elegance. It’s our way of resisting without confrontation - and laughing without vulnerability.

Still, humour isn’t only about delivery or tone. It’s about direction. It carries weight - and consequence.

The best jokes, the ones we remember long after the laughter fades, almost always punch upward. They challenge privilege, hold up a mirror to power, and expose the ridiculous with insight. Out beyond the metros, humour travels differently. It shows up in folk songs, in street plays, in political one-liners shared over chai. The satire may be rustic, but it’s razor sharp.

Humour is a mirror, but it can also be a magnifying glass. It reflects not just what we see, but what we choose to ignore. It’s worth pausing to ask - who is being mocked, and why? Is it someone’s access or their accent? Are we criticising a structure, or stereotyping people? The line is thin. But our intent, if honest, makes the difference.

Here’s the twist. For all our joking, we rarely laugh at ourselves. We’ll roast politicians, brands, bureaucrats, even celebrities. But ourselves? Not so much.

And yet, real humour begins with self-awareness. The kind that lets us laugh not at others, but with them. Not in denial, but in recognition. That moment when you catch your own hypocrisy and smile. When you hear your teenage self in your own child and chuckle. When you hear a stand-up joke about your city, your job, your family — and you grin, knowing it’s all true.

Because that’s the real point of it all.

We don’t always need permission to laugh. We need perspective. We live in a world where irony is unintentional, comedy is risky, and sarcasm has become a survival tool. But when humour is done right, it makes you think. And it makes you human.

So the next time someone cracks a joke - whether at a stage mic, a family function, or in a meme that lands too close to home - maybe wait a beat before reacting.

Ask yourself - is it kind? Is it clever? Is it at least a little bit true?

If yes, take a breath. And laugh. Loudly, freely, unapologetically.

After all, humour has always been the quiet mark of high human intelligence.