sanyasi: Modi and Mouse: Anatomy of Humour:

Friday 8 February 2013

Modi and Mouse: Anatomy of Humour:

When India’s economy was waggling between 3 to 3.5 % of GDP growth, Western media referred India as the land of Snake charmers. Today at a time when our IT and IT enabled services are our growth drivers India is now a land of ‘’mouse’’ charmers. This was what Narendra modi , Chief Minister of Gujarat said today.

Modi is known for his usage of humour as part of his regular rhetoric and his replacing the word ‘’snake’’ to ‘’mouse’’ communicated a larger picture of a changing India. Whether this humour is metaphoric or metonymic is left to the reader, the thought of the day is on the usage of humour in public life.

In his research publication, Psychology of humour , An Integrated Approach, Rod A Martin from the University of Western Ontrio, UK writes on the social significance of humour in particularly in human communication and relationship management. A ‘’sense of humour’’ is not just a quality or style of communication, but is indeed a soft skill to be reckoned with in communication management.

Humour used with a sense of sarcasm and indented to create a bad taste is often used by politicians in the public forum for ridiculing a person, party, or a community. Lots of Modi’’s Pot-shots on Nehru-Gandhi family are such examples. The much known sardar jokes can also be caricatured into this category. Humour is also used as a communication tool for conflicts and ego clashes among adults to score a point over the other and is often seen in office politics and grapevine .However affiliating and enhancing humour is a positive leadership communication tool which is a skill to be acquired. Business leaders often use such humour as a motivating factor to ease work stress and build in team spirit. Off late humour is a multimillion dollar industry be it TV or stage shows, not to mention about the laughing clubs spurting all over the health conscience world .

Coming back to Narendra Modi and his conversion of India from a snake charming to a mouse charming nation drives home the fact, that humour is indeed a leadership skill.

As long as it does not hurt and brings in a sense of bonhomie , humour is worth trying.

Sanyasi:

2 comments:

Arun Gautam said...: A great humorist is actually an integrated person within as he can visualize and communicate the common thread connecting many things in apt but lighter way.....

We have a choice either we see the running show or have the courage to have transformation on a larger levels in the globalized scenario while ensuring that we, our predecessors and the generations to come (be it human or any other species) are not getting affected with any ills generated by the globalized world. These ills can certainly be averted but it needs "the consciousness" to connect with the cosmos at heart....

A nice write up.. bhai... :); 9 February 2013 at 22:53
Arun Gautam said...: A great humorist is actually an integrated person within as he can visualize and communicate the common thread connecting many things in apt but lighter way.....

We have a choice either we see the running show or have the courage to have transformation on a larger levels in the globalized scenario while ensuring that we, our predecessors and the generations to come (be it human or any other species) are not getting affected with any ills generated by the globalized world. These ills can certainly be averted but it needs "the consciousness" to connect with the cosmos at heart....

A nice write up.. bhai... :); 9 February 2013 at 22:53

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crying babies have milk

Dear all, The prime minister''s independence day speech was disappointing to most of the ex service men . According to them the PM did not deliver what he had promised to them during the elections. Yes, I mean the one rank one pension scheme (OROP) . The TV channels showed flocks of ex service men predominantly people from Punjab, Himachal and Haryana cursing the PM as a traitor. We all know that it is easy to make election promises but when it comes to implementation , reality strikes. The same is the case with OROP . This is a great idea in principle , but the cost to exchequer is said to be nearly Rs 10000 Crore . Who will bill this ? Lets now go to Bihar. Our PM has now gone and pledged around Rs 1.3 Lakh Crore for Bihar's development. Well, I do not know whether the learned people from Bihar will bite the bait or whether they too will have to go for a Dharna later. Time and the election results will speak. The larger point here is about the culture of freebies and rent seeking by interest groups. This has been part of India's body- politic since long and have made large Vote banks . Is nt this at the cost of others ? . Guys I am not being parochial. You go to a railway station , airport and any Central Government office , don''t you get a larger taste of Hindi, Bihar and the stench from the cow belt. I am afraid I don't see any diversity here. ( except the occasional face of some dark coloured Southees or marathees in the CISF security team at Mumbai airport). I don't have numbers to throw and prove statistics but the point is that there seems to be a collective bargaining and a reciprocal political blessing based on election needs, be it from UPA or NDA. ( In fact both seems to be two parts of the same coin). If Bihar can claim Rs 1.3 Lakh crore (if at all it happens ) why not Orissa , Bengal and Telengana. Are'nt they also underdeveloped. The resource pledging seems to skew unequally over the geography of India particularly away from the South and East; Well that is for you to think , but what worries me is on the tax that I pay. I don''t mind that the tax taken from me is given to the right people or if the government comes up with some schemes which percolates my income down the pyramid, but what annoys me is that I don't want my tax to be pledged for votes . Anyway as somebody said crying babies always have milk. That is what democracy is for. Jai Hind: