by Tahir Shah
Deputy curator of the Khalili Collection and co-author of the volume on Islamic metalwork, Nahla Nassar, says the metalwork collection ‘emphasizes similarities’. So numerous are the examples, she says, that ‘one can judge how a style has changed and developed’ over time and distance.
Islamic weaponry in the collections ranges from the most elegant of daggers to an important group of early stirrups. ‘The arms and armor in the collection,’ says Dr. David Alexander, author of the collection’s volume The Arts of War, ‘include items as varied and widely separated as a Crusader sword from the Mameluk arsenal at Alexandria and an eighteenth-century cannon from the palace of Tipu Sultan at Mysore.’ Of historical importance is the sword of the Sudanese warlord Ali Dinar, taken after his defeat and death in 1916. Alexander’s volume includes discussions of the belt in Islamic culture, the use of talismanic shirts, the ceremonial drum, and the advent of gunpowder.
In complete contrast to the weaponry is the assembly of Islamic glassware. Through the three hundred pre-Islamic and Islamic pieces, one can trace the entire story of glass-making. The collection’s cut glass and cameo vessels dating to the tenth and eleventh centuries are unequalled. With walls as thin as a tenth of a millimetre it seems miraculous that such pieces have survived the centuries at all.
Inspired as he was in childhood by Persian lacquerware, Khalili now holds the largest collection of lacquer objects in the world – more than five hundred penboxes, bookbindings, mirror cases and caskets.
It will take a substantial museum to do justice to the collection. Khalili wants that museum – regardless of the city in which it is built – to be a dynamic place, not just an exhibition hall of echoing footsteps.
Creating a fossilized museum is the last thing on my mind,’ he says. ‘There are millions of Muslims in Europe. A centre for Islamic art will work on different levels. It will show non-Muslim Europeans that their Muslim fellow-citizens are heirs to a great tradition that deserves their respect. It will stop them thinking of Muslims only in terms of fundamentalists, terrorists and hostage-takers. It will also give European Muslims access to their own culture, and make them even more proud of it.’
‘People from the forty-six Muslim countries have different traditions, and speak different languages. What unites them is their religion and the artistic heritage which was shaped by that religion,’ he continues. ‘It is true that until recently most scholars in the field were non-Muslims, but that’s changing dramatically as Islamic countries wake up to the importance of their artistic heritage.’
‘The moment has come for the “People of the Book” – Jews, Christians and Muslims – to speak openly to one another and to see clearly the close cultural, social, spiritual and intellectual ties that have existed among them for centuries.’
FIFTY-TWO
The Laughter Club
AS DAWN BREAKS over Mumbai, a group of figures hurries through the morning shadows.
Moving without a word, they assemble silently at the middle of a field, not far from the city centre. Then, as the first rays of crisp morning light stream down, the gathering take their places for what is surely Mumbai’s most mysterious ritual.
A distant clock-tower strikes seven a.m. and, as it does so, the congregation of seventy begin.
First, the members of the clan stand tall, hands above their heads. Then, in perfect synchronization, they start to smile. The smiles turn into giggles. The giggles become heavier sniggering. Moments later, the sniggering has become gut-wrenching laughter. By this point, a modest group of onlookers are exchanging uneasy glances. And, as they do so, the members of the secret league before them, are gyrating wildly – with arms thrashing, heads rolling, and feet stamping, in unison.
Meet Mumbai’s most recent sensation: meet ‘The Laughter Club International’.
Founded a year ago in north Mumbai, the Laughter Club meets each morning at fifty locations across the city. Its members believe that the most effective way of maintaining good health is by staying happy. And, they say, there’s no better way to get healthy, than to giggle yourself fit.
In our drug-obsessed society, doctors who have endorsed the use of comedy as a cure, have themselves tended to become the laughing stock. But, the tide on ‘Laughter Therapy’ seems to be changing. At last, hospitals across Europe and America have begun to reassess the merits of happiness and humour to patients. Researchers taking a good look at other societies, have noticed that humour and health have always gone together.
We know that healing centres in ancient Greece were located near amphitheatres – so that patients could use comedy as part of their treatment. Research shows, also, that remote tribes – living as far apart as South America, Africa and New Guinea – have held special festivals of laughter to boost public morale. All the major religions have incorporated humour in their scriptures: realising that, as well as healing, mirth makes the student more receptive to absorbing key ideas.
Sanjna joined The Laughter Club at Mumbai’s Hanging Gardens last October. A regular participant, she’s found that the early morning laughter sessions give her a sense of exhilaration which lasts all day long.
‘I know that laughing yourself fit sounds a bit unlikely,’ she says with a grin, ‘but there’s no better way to greet the world each morning than by rolling about, and laughing at it!’
Like most in her group, Sanjna was introduced by a friend. ‘When a pal told me about laughter fitness,’ she remembers, ‘I burst out in hysterics. It was the funniest thing I’d ever heard! So I came down and took a look. Before I knew it, I was hooked.’
Laughter Club International – which is spreading across India fast – was the brainchild of Dr. Madan Kataria, a respected Mumbai GP. His first session attracted just five members. The media was scathing, mocking what they thought was an insane idea. But within a week, Dr. Kataria had a following of one hundred.
A month later, membership was in the thousands, with Laughter Clubs mushrooming up all over Mumbai. The doctor’s appointments’ book is filled for months to come. And, across the sub-continent – from Calcutta to Calicut – people are clamouring for Laughing Clubs to be established in their cities.
‘At The Laughter Club we’re applying what’s been know for centuries,’ explains Dr. Kataria. ‘Laughter makes a person feel great – it aids relaxation, reduces shyness and fights depression: but its benefits for far deeper. Scientific studies on humour show that a good belly-ripping chortle once or twice a day can do wonders for the body’s mental and physical processes.’
Kataria points to Yogic texts – over five thousand years in age – which mention laughter as an effective method for breathing control. ‘Laughter has been applied, almost like a tool or antidote, for millennia, he continues, ‘yet it seems that we’re just re-learning its powers now. But, perhaps more importantly, we are now understanding that the effects of laughter are multiple.’
A bout of hardy laughter helps increase the lung capacity and expels residual air. This is good for asthmatics and those with bronchitis. People with high blood pressure and cardiac problems find that blood pressure levels are reduced drastically by the end of a twenty-minute session. Others claim that the laughter drill in the morning cures insomnia that night; or that their complexion improves from the increased blood circulation to the face.’
Mumbai, the birthplace of the Laughter Club, is a city that’s adept at surprising. The thought of several thousand people meeting to guffaw their hearts out for twenty minutes at dawn, is strange. But stranger still is the fact that, at The Laughter Club International, joke-telling is prohibited.
‘When The Laughter Club was founded we used to tell jokes,’ intones Dr. Kataria, looking sombre for a moment. ‘But we soon found out that we were experiencing problems. Some jokes cause dissent when they are aimed at fellow members of society. Others offend because they are dirty. ‘But,’ continues Kataria with a sudden look of worry, ‘the main cause for the ban was that one day the supply of jokes may run out!�
�
Rather than ever face a world devoid of new wise-cracks, The Laughter Club dealt with the problem right from the start. Forbidding all one-liners (however hilarious), it taught people to laugh on cue instead. Research has proven that even ‘artificial’ giggles have beneficial results. So, Dr. Kataria decided to use synthetic laughter at the start of each session. This, he found suddenly gives way to genuine chuckling, and on to the belly-aching laughter we all know and love.
Another sunrise, and Sanjna is back at Mumbai’s Hanging Gardens, ready for action. Her group – around eighty people – stands in a half circle. The atmosphere is cheerful. Some members break into laughter spontaneously, even before the ‘workout’ has begun. But, despite the intermittent giggles, there isn’t a joke book in sight.
Suddenly, without prompting, everyone’s clapping their hands together. This begins the concentration, and gets the laughers synchronized. The group leader speeds the clapping up. Then, he bellows ‘Ho ho ho, ha ha ha’, sounds which, those serious about their trade, believe are the key components of laughter. As well as acting as an artificial ‘flux’ from which genuine laughter can ignite, the prelude brings people out of their shells, helping them to relax. Seconds later, and with arms high above her head, fingers jarring wildly, Sanjna’s grin erupts into a head-rocking frenzy of laughter. Her long plaited hair waves about wildly; and her gleaming white teeth flash, as her face turns deep crimson.
As the roaring waves of laughter begin to subside, the anchor person initiates the next routine. ‘Giggling without making a noise. A favourite with Sanjna and her friends, it helps rekindle the real laughter. ‘It looks so stupid to see someone laughing in silence,’ whispers Sanjna, pausing for breath, ‘it’s like out of a silent movie – just watching everyone else is enough to make you roll about on the floor!’ And, as Sanjna nears the point of collapse through hilarity, the leader moves on to the next exercise. Known as ‘laughing with the lips closed’, the technique is aimed at increasing the pressure on the lungs.
The exercise, which is recommended for asthmatics, ends with everyone coughing. ‘It brings up all the mucus from your lungs,’ explains Sanjna as she wipes tears from her eyes, ‘you can feel the blood surging round your body and face – it’s wonderful!’
With the exercise class nearing its twentieth minute, the laughers embark on their most strenuous routine – the ‘free-style laugh’. A no limits, no holes barred technique, the ‘free-style’ encourages members to lift laughter to new heights. The eighty members, ranging from small children to octogenarians, suddenly seem paralysed with ecstatic happiness. Their guffaws, which can be heard far away from the park, attract a growing number of avid spectators. ‘We’re delighted when people stop and have a giggle,’ says Shamoli, ‘having a chuckle is where it begins. We may look like a scene out of a Hitchcock film, but so many people who stop to watch, end up joining The Laughter Club themselves.’
Shamoli, a nurse at a large Mumbai hospital, needs no convincing of the powers of laughter. ‘Of course this isn’t the panacea for all ills,’ she continues in a shrill voice, ‘but laughter is undoubtedly one of the best supplementary medicines for any kind of illness. The female members of The Laughter Club find that the exercises help reduce period pains, as well as keeping their skin supple and blemish free. Women take laughter very seriously – I think they take anything seriously that they have one hundred per cent belief in. Laughter is like a magic wand in our stressful lives…it puts a smile on your face and massages your internal organs at the same time!’
As The Laughter Club sweeps India, humour seems to be catching on elsewhere, as well. In Europe, where people are more prone to sneer rather than smile, happiness is catching on in a big way.
‘Laughter is a cheap, ozone-friendly form of energy,’ explains Robert Holden, author of Laughter, The Best Medicine. ‘Since the 1950s well over five hundred medical research papers have been published on the medicinal value of mirth. And psychologists have presented over a thousand papers on the subject since the 1940s. Modern medicine and psychology are at last catching up with ancient schools of common sense!’
Holden, who founded the Britain’s first ‘Laughter Clinic’, now trains over ten thousand health professionals each year. His courses, which stress the medicinal importance of happiness and laughter, preach that we should re-think our medical system. ‘Hospitals tend to be cold, damp, characterless places with the stench of disinfectant,’ says Holden, a man in an ever-jubilant mood, ‘if we want people to laugh and smile, we have to do something about their surroundings first.’
The eminent cardiologist, Dr. William Fry, like Robert Holden, is outspoken about laughter. He believes that one minute of laughter is worth forty minutes of deep relaxation; and that one hundred laughs a day are equal to a ten minute jog. A real belly laugh, he says, exercises not only the heart and lungs, but the shoulder muscles, arms, abdomen, diaphragm and legs. And exercising the major muscle groups is only the start.
Fry’s research has advanced the threshold of laughter therapy, by looking at laughter as a pain-reducer. Recent studies have shown that laughing – whether genuine or ‘artificial’ – pumps pain-relieving, stress-freeing, endorphins into the bloodstream. Hospitals of the future could well offer a choice between a dose of jokes and a shot of morphine. This may sound ridiculous, but it’s already begun…
When Norman Cousins contracted a rare spinal disease, he was given a one in five hundred chance of survival. Cousins, the long-time editor of America’s Saturday Review, decided that after years of prolonged pain from illness, he would give up on drugs. Instead he designed for himself a radical new course of treatment.
The regimen was focussed on laughter as a medical remedy. Whenever the pain became unbearable, Cousins instructed his nurse to switch on the video. He would watch his old favourites – Laurel and Hardy escapades, or the Marx Brothers movies – sometimes around the clock.
Cousins learned that five minutes of laughter would work as an anaesthetic, giving him up to two hours’ of pain relief at a time. In the weeks that followed he quite literally laughed his pain away.
At his small office in the suburbs of Mumbai, Dr. Kataria is planning his next moves. The doctor, who has just heard of Montreal’s Museum of Humour and Laughter, is keen to establish an Indian version in Mumbai.
But, perhaps, before that, he’s eager that Laughter Clubs should be launched in Europe and the USA. ‘We are getting calls from all over the world,’ says Kataria, as the phone rings with another inquiry. ‘Our clubs are simple – we don’t use any expensive equipment… we don’t even need to buy joke books… so we don’t make any charges at all. How can we charge people to laugh?’
Glancing at a folder of press clippings on the Laughter Club, Dr. Kataria smiles with modest pride.
‘The media who have now seen the popularity in laughter therapy were quick to mock it at first. The Laughter Club International, it seems, is saving the last laugh for itself.’
FIFTY-THREE
The Magic of the Ordinary
THE OTHER DAY a man approached me down at the port.
I was waiting for a friend, a friend who is always late. As someone who moved to North Africa from northern Europe, I find it near impossible to be late myself. Punctuality is quite unfortunately in my blood. So, whenever my friend and I arrange a rendezvous, I always spend half an hour or more glancing at my watch, fussing at his tardiness and at my inability to learn from the past.
While I was standing there, a little on edge, and a little irritated at what I imagined to be a waste of time, a short stout figure in a tattered jelaba staggered towards me. On his cheeks was a fortnight’s crop of tattered grey beard, and on his feet were a pair of grimy yellow baboush.
When he was close, his face fifty centimetres from my own, he put down the basket of fish he was carrying, cleared his throat, and began to laugh.
As I had the time to make use of my curiosity, I smiled politely, and enquired what the man found
so amusing. He didn’t answer at first. He was too busy wiping his eyes. But then, taking his time, he pressed his hands together, palms followed by fingertips.
‘To understand the extraordinary,’ he said all of a sudden, ‘you must learn to appreciate ordinariness.’
I asked what he meant by what seemed to me like a random remark. The man touched a calloused finger to his cheek. Then he smiled. It wasn’t a big toothy smile, but rather one that was very gentle. It filled me with a kind of warmth, as if something unspoken was being passed on. For a split second I thought the first remark was about to be followed by another. But the man lifted up his basket by the handle, shooed away a pair of cats that were now sitting before it optimistically, and he strode off towards the old medina.
For an instant I considered going after him.
I sensed my weight shifting forward from my back foot. But then, in the moment before stillness became animation, my friend arrived. He spat out an excuse, something about his mother-in-law and a kilo of lamb, and we went for tea.
For an hour, as my friend rambled on about the challenges of his life, and as the waiter circled our table like a tired old shark, I thought about the man with the basket of fish.
I couldn’t get him out of my mind.
At length, when our meeting was at an end, my friend and I exchanged pleasantries once again, good wishes for each other’s families, and we parted. But I was on auto-pilot, because still, all I could think of was the man and the fish, and what he had said: To understand the extraordinary you must learn to appreciate ordinariness.
I have spent twenty years in search of the extraordinary. I’ve written books about my quests for it, and have made television documentaries about it too. I have ranted on to anyone prepared to listen about the glorious energy, the sheer intensity, of the unusual and the unexpected. I’ve risked my life in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, and in the jungles of the Upper Amazon, and have surmounted all sorts of difficulties, on the trail of oddities and the bizarre.