Punchline: A short story in 3 parts

PART 1 OF 3

Everyone knew her as that aunty. She was one of those boisterous menopausal socialites who laughed at every joke they heard, however lame. It would take her only a fraction of a second after the punchline to break out into bouts of uncontrollable laughter. Dhruv had told me about her in the last party we both attended.

“What’s the worst joke you know?”

 I looked at him with a slightly puzzled expression.

“Why?”

“Just tell me if you know one that won’t make anyone laugh.”

I rummaged internally to catch hold of the elusive memory of that one unfunny joke I might have heard in the past.

“Okay,” I said, being a sport, “but don’t blame me if it makes your dick shrink.” We chuckled. “So, there’s this one king-“

“Wait, wait; don’t tell me! Recite it to Mehra aunty and see if she still laughs.”

I looked into his eyes and sensed mischief. A look of mutual understanding passed between us and we moved towards her group. She was standing with friends from her kitty, with a glass of wine held daintily in her hand. We stopped next to her and she wheeled around, smiling pleasantly.

“Hi, boys! What are you two up to?” she spoke animatedly.

“We’re fine, aunty,” responded Dhruv, putting on a slick voice. “Actually, we were just talking about a joke Avi heard. Would you like to hear it?”

For a split second, I sensed her smile vanish and her face lose color, as if we had asked her to donate her kidneys to the one of the inmates at the charity home she ran. She regained her composure sooner than she had appeared to lose it.

“Why, I am in the middle of a conversation with Mr. Shroff! Come back some other time?” she spoke with an artificially chirpy voice.

I said okay and began to turn around but Dhruv held me back.

“I insist you hear it now, since Avi here can be quite forgetful!” he spoke, grinning with malice and ill-intent. She sensed his eagerness but didn’t drop her guard.

“Erm, okay, go ahead.”

By this time, Mr. Shroff and Mr. Aravind, both of whom were in the same talking group as Shreya aunty, looked at us with curiosity.

“You have a joke to tell? Tell it to us too!”

Mrs. Mohanty and Mrs. Shroff also bundled together to hear us. It is amazing how jokes, or even their mere anticipation, knit together people from all walks of life. Suddenly, I could sense the crescendo rising as our audience of five demanded they be told the joke without any ado.

The fact that the joke was about as likely to tickle them as a heart attack did not ease my rising tension. Dhruv elbowed me, side-glancing at me with his half impish smile.

“Go ahead, tell it,” he said.

“Okay, so here it goes: there was once a very wise king who ruled over a huge, peaceful kingdom. He had served his public diligently for more than 50 years, and was now very old and on the threshold of his demise. There was only one thing that worried him: he had two beautiful daughters, but no sons to carry forward his legacy.”

At this point, I think it wise to inform the venerable reader that Mrs. Mehra’s face began to lose color and her eyes grew few sizes few large for their sockets. She looked like she had seen a spectre than was invisible to everyone else. No one else noticed them, but I, keen to gauge the reaction of my audience, caught her expressions in their autumnal retreat. In that instant, I knew she was a woman possessed.

“So, one day, he called over a most revered saint from the Himalayas to suggest a way out of his quandary. The wily Brahmin had amassed a great following not only for his meditative abilities but also, erm, his…most potent seed of Adam.” I smiled to myself, knowing I was getting to the meatiest part.

At this juncture, most of our audience scowled and some even put their palms to their mouths, probably to stifle their disapproving tongue-clicks. Some might have expected an adult joke, but I’m sure a sex-crazed ascetic did not feature highly in a group of middle-aged, middle class Indians’ idea of a joke. The men, sporting as they are, dared single chuckles.

Mrs. Mehra’s face was inscrutable; she seemed she could use a warm bear-hug. Something about the joke made her stiffen with fright; I could not place what exactly it was, but it made her body grow rigid with every line I spoke. Seeing her display such real horror made the hair on my arms rise and my spine tingle with unease. Her eyes exuded a feeling so indescribably terrible that I almost skipped a beat and stopped the joke midway, but I chose to look away and continue.

“Anyway, the great sage instructed the king’s wife to remain celibate for 108 days and not even encourage the mere thought of carnal desire. Only after agreeing to this strict guideline would he ‘bless’ the queen with his holy seed.”

Mrs. Mehra was worryingly pale by now. I nudged Dhruv and signalled towards her with concern. He followed my gaze but did not react immediately. Unfazed, I continued. I could sense the others getting uncomfortable with the joke, too, but none as much as her. It was like she had seen the devil.

“The king agreed to his demands and convinced the queen to take the severe vow of sexual abstinence. The queen, accustomed to the king’s lack of sexual vitality, readied herself for the near-impossible task of avoiding her own means of…self-pleasure. For 107 days, she kept her oath and veered her thoughts away from any sexual feelings. On the eve of the 108^th and final day of the vow, she tossed and turned in her bed, unable to withdraw her sexual cravings any longer. She turned to her side on the bed when the king was fast asleep and pleasured herself in the dead of the night-“

“Enough!” Exclaimed Mr. Mohanty angrily. While I was so focussed on Mrs. Mehra’s expressions, I had completely overlooked Mr. Mohanty’s rising discomfort with my joke.

“I’m done with your sick, disgusting jokes. And you know what, Reshma ji,” he looked at Mrs. Mehta, “I’m done with this goddamn party.” He threw his glass on the ground and started walking across the hall in short, impatient strides.

When Mrs. Mehta spoke next, it was in an ear-shattering scream.

“WAIT!!! DON’T YOU DARE WALK THE FUCK OFF!” She shouted in a voice not quite human. All heads in the room turned in her direction. Her eyes, already popping out of their lids, emanated a fury unmatched even by the terrifying illustrations of Kali from my Amar Chitra Katha paperbacks.

Mr. Mohanty looked back in disbelief.

“COME BACK, AND LET HIM FINISH THE JOKE!” Her voice thundered and reverberated across the spacious hall. Something unspeakable had come over her, and we could not help but pay her all our attention.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Mohanty asked, still reeling.

“Just COME BACK and hear the joke through!” Her anger had now a tinge of desperation in it. “Please,” she added.

Mr. Mohanty, perhaps too stumped to question the woman, walked slowly back to where he was a few seconds ago. He did not take her eyes off her, nor did anyone else in the room. Everyone wondered what the fuck was suddenly amiss with Reshma Mehta, the high-flying, cool-as-cucumber, life-of-the-party socialite.

“No one leaves this place before the joke gets over,” she ordered in a booming, monotonous voice. Then she looked at me, and her furious gaze made me recoil. “And you; continue.”

And then she screwed her face in one of the most horrific smiles I have ever seen a human perform. “Go on, what happened then?”

There was something hypnotic in the way she looked at – nay, through – me. It was like she held an invisible gun to my head, ready to blow my brains out if I didn’t finish the joke. I couldn’t help but continue.

“Then…when the sage arrived that night to impregnate the queen, he saw her shifting in the throes of self-induced orgasm,” I continued awkwardly, the discomfort in my audience’s faces no longer encouraging me. “He got angry and cursed her with impotency. The queen pleaded copiously to him, asking for one chance at forgiveness. At first, the sage was unmoved, but upon testing her genuine concern, suggested a way out with a peculiar demand. He wanted her to make sure that the instant the baby boy is born, there would be loud clapping in the court to announce his birth. The queen thought to herself: that isn’t too bad, is it? I just have to arrange for a group of clappers who would be present at the time of the delivery and clap the moment I give birth. The sage thus smiled and went away, blessing the queen and leaving her to sleep.”

I paused for effect. Mrs. Mehta looked at me, expecting me to continue. She appeared exhausted and embattled. Her body stood strangely rooted to her place and fat beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

“Anyway, so the queen decided not to tell the king about the infraction and kept the secret to herself. Nine months later, the ecstatic king decked up the kingdom in the most beautiful adornments and threw open the palace gates to the public. Everyone assembled in the hall to witness the birth of their new heir. As per the queen’s strict commands, a group of expert clappers positioned themselves at a vantage point to begin clapping the moment the baby boy emerged from the mother’s womb and uttered a cry.”

The absurdity of the joke perfectly mirrored the absurdity of the situation in the hall. It was supposed to have been a regular light hearted get-together but Mrs. Mehta had lost her marbles over something.

I entered the final act of my joke, sighing to complete the rest in a single uninterrupted breath. The tension in the room assumed a palpable character.

 “As soon as the queen began to wail in labour pain, the court musicians started playing their instruments to drown out her voice. The public waited with bated breath for the baby boy to emerge. Within a few minutes, a baby form emerged from the queen’s body and the clappers readied themselves. Before anyone could clap, however, the baby brought its tiny hands together and clapped them together sonorously. The clappers sat dumbfounded, realizing they had been beaten to it. You see, the baby was not a boy or a girl, but…somewhere in between, which is why he, or she…well, clapped.”

The joke was over, but no one had reacted. Everyone stood in absolute silence as I looked from person to person in hope of any response. Only Dhruv, who stood beside me, stifled a soft chuckle and diffused the situation. Mrs. Mehta suddenly broke into a raucous fit of forced laughter, her beastly voice thundering over everyone.

“LAUGH!” she ordered everyone, but no one did. We all saw incredulously as she stumbled across the room, laughing wildly, before finally collapsing to the ground and fainting.  

Dhruv was right: Mrs. Mehta would laugh at anything.

READ PART 2 HERE.