Punchline: Part 3 of 3

[Read part 1 here and part 2 here.]

Mrs. Mehta came about after we sprinkled water on her face. We shook her shoulders and gently slapped her cheeks to push her into consciousness. She still looked slightly disoriented when we helped her on to a chair.

It wasn’t what she had done that was more frightening, but what she kept repeating to herself, under her breath: “Don’t forget to laugh.”

She looked at the faces staring down at her; some with genuine concern, others with sadistic interest. People tend to show their worst when something untoward happens to someone in a crowd. Everyone rabidly huddles around the person of interest and just…stares.

“Are you okay?” I ventured, putting a caring hand to her shoulder. She twitched at my touch and I promptly pulled my arm back. She was straight up shivering now, perhaps from being wet with the water we splashed on her face. Or so I told myself.

“Did you guys all laugh?” She asked me, whispering in my ear. “TELL ME! Did you?”

She clutched my shirt collars and tugged tightly, pushing me almost off balance. My face was now obscenely close to hers, and all I could smell was her strong perfume.

“No-no! It wasn’t that good a joke, really…” I struggled to break free.

“Oh you dumb bastards!” She let go of me and crumpled in a weeping mess. Her hands cradled her head and her shoulders bobbed from sobbing. There were some subdued murmurs from the party crowd. Some had lost the initial interest and were contemplating leaving the party.

Mrs. Shroff decided to speak up.

“What the hell is wrong, Reshma? You’ve been acting completely nuts all evening. Tell us, what’s the matter?”

At first, it didn’t appear like Mrs. Mehta had heard her, but she eventually stopped sobbing and looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot and her kohl had spread to her cheeks. She looked like a total mess.

“You won’t believe me.”

An instant change had come over her: she was suddenly no longer crying or cursing. He face turned expressionless and she spoke with no intonation, drowned of all emotion. It was as if she had resigned herself to whatever had been gnawing at her from inside.

“Give it a shot,” Mrs. Shroff persisted.

Mrs. Mehta did not respond. She kept sitting in the same posture, looking though everyone with a spaced-out gaze. This lasted for about ten seconds.

Finally, she said, “The joke Avi told us is cursed.”

There were collective gasps from the thinning group of guests in the hall.

“What? What do you mean,” inquired Mrs. Shroff.

Mrs. Mehta heaved a long sigh, the one you do before embarking on a long, perilous journey.

“I’ll tell you everything, but none of you will believe me.”

“It’s okay with me,” replied Mrs. Shroff and looked around, “and I’m sure the rest of us don’t mind.”

“Yes,” replied her husband a bit too cheerfully, “always ready for a good long story.”

The mood lightened up ever so slightly, but Mrs. Mehta remained dead serious.

“When I was about 18, I was told the same joke by a eunuch. Not exactly verbatim, but the bare bones were the same. He claimed to be the very eunuch in the joke. He told us – me and three of my friends – how he had been banished from the kingdom by the ungrateful king and had been wandering over the world ever since.”

She paused for breath. No one moved an inch or made a sound. She looked at me.

“Where did you hear the joke, Avi?”

All eyes in the room turned in my direction.

“I-I can’t remember,” I spoke in a small voice.

I sprinted through my vague memory of the joke in search of its teller. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Trying to remember jokes is no joke, try it yourself: trace back any joke you’ve heard to the person who told it to you. In most cases, I’m sure you’ll have little success.

“Anyway,” she replied after a pause, “it doesn’t really matter now. At that time, when I heard the joke, there was something in those few silly lines that made me guffaw just once. I didn’t think too much of it; it could easily have been the other way round. My three friends did not. In hindsight, I would rather not have laughed and saved myself a lifetime of paranoia.”

“What do you mean,” Mrs. Shroff asked.

“My three friends who hadn’t laughed, they all died within a span of a few years. And the creepiest part is…they all died funny deaths.”

A few people across the room gasped, while others simply exchanged glances of shock and disbelief.

“What do you mean…funny?” I asked, surprising myself.

“One of them died of a heart attack after her cousins pranked her, another had a coconut fall on her head…you catch my drift.”

Silence prevailed over everyone like an ominous shadow. We suddenly seemed defenseless and threatened; at least I did.

“Since then,” she continued, “I have encountered many suspicious deaths and connected them to similar jokes that might be cursed. You can never be sure, right? For four decades I’ve lived with the burden of forced laughter, literally having to smile through the ordeal. You never know which joke, when insulted with no reaction, can kill you.”

I could feel an invisible weight crushing me from the inside, compelling me to take support of the wall next to where I was standing. What if what she was saying was true? Were all of us doomed? Wait – had I laughed?

“Which is why I ask you, again: did anyone laugh at the joke?”

I thought back hard. Had I?

Mr. Aravind, who had been quietly hearing her all the while, spoke out.

“I don’t believe any of this. It’s a make-believe situation in your head, Reshma.” His words were firm but not impudent.

“I hope so myself, really. I genuinely pray that my friends died as part of a remarkable coincidence. But the evidence of the contrary stacks up pretty evenly for me.” She looked around, surveying the scared faces around her.

“If that’s how it is,” contested Mr. Aravind, “then what is the exact time period within which these deaths are supposed to occur? Of course, you can connect any death to a joke that was not laughed at, since everyone has to die one day.”

The argument was solid, but my sense of reasoning was hardly working right now. Mrs. Mehta appeared to be lost in thought, her face dug into her palms. She emerged a few moments later.

“You are right, I might be wrong. As I said, I can’t convince you to believe me. In that case, I’m sorry for having ruined your evening. Maybe I’m genuinely in need of medical attention…”

Mr. Aravind, who seemed to have taken upon himself to dispel everyone’s fear, continued ruthlessly.

“You better. You have no right to scare people with your crazy-“

“WAIT,” interrupted Mrs. Mehta, “where is Rajen?”

She was referring to Mr. Mohanty. I looked around the hall but could not find him. Then I remembered – he had stormed off midway.

“He left the party,” I replied. “When you were unconscious.”

She looked at me with crazy bulging eyes, the blood veins ready to pop. True or not, she was well and truly scared.

A mobile phone rang out, cutting through the silence in the room like a knife. It was Mr. Aravind’s.

“It’s…Mohanty.” He looked fixedly at the mobile screen, as if double-checking if he had read right. He picked it up and put it against his ear very slowly. 

“Hello, Aravind Aga speaking. Yes…yes sir…OH MY GOD!” 

He exclaimed loudly and let the phone slide down from his hand, which fell on the ground with a metallic crash. His mouth was wide open in absolute fear and shock. Mrs. Shroff rushed to his aid in a bit to support him, but he flopped to the ground.

“It was…it was the –cops. They said that...Mohanty died in a car crash…” 

The hall full of people did not react with any immediate display of fear or panic. Some stood rooted to their places, others sat down and some hung their heads in despair, but everyone asked themselves the million dollar question:

“Did I laugh at the joke?”

THE END

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