{"id":2584,"date":"2013-11-08T08:28:44","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T08:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2013\/11\/08\/mona-babajee-4\/"},"modified":"2018-09-04T12:17:49","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T08:17:49","slug":"mona-babajee-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/mona-babajee-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Laugh Out Loud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows that laughter is supposed to be the best medicine but do we really seize the opportunity when it presents itself?<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a time for sadness and a time for laughter and when the latter is here, we have to really grab it, never mind even if we split our sides in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was younger and there was something funny happening, I would be in stitches and my late mum (we were like \u2018caleson-simiz\u2019) would say, you certainly know how to laugh. And my answer was: \u2018Ma, laughter doesn\u2019t come everyday. Most of the time people have to face so many problems, be it pain, grief, no job, no money, no food, do you think they feel like laughing then? But when you can afford to laugh, give it all you can.\u2019 Years later, my health went downhill and laughter went out through the window.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ve got my life back on track again, but a particular incident that happened many years ago always makes me laugh. When I was in Helvetia after work, one summer afternoon, I was making my way towards the nurses\u2019 quarters when I noticed an elderly man, maybe in his eighties, sitting on a bench. As was the custom then, to whoever you met on that stretch of road you have to say: \u2018Salut, Bonjour, Bonsoir\u2026 Bon apr\u00e8s-midi,\u2019 otherwise it was considered bad manners. <\/span><\/p>\n

We greeted each other, and he said: \u2018Je vois que vous etes \u00e9trang\u00e8re, d\u2019o\u00f9 venez-vous? Ile Maurice?\u2019 He spoke of his two sons who had Mauritian penfriends but that fizzled out. After a lot of blah blah, he said: \u2018Vous avez de la couleur, j\u2019aime bien les gens qui ont de la couleur\u2026\u2019 meaning my tan. \u2018Ah oui.\u2019 Still very politely, he said: \u2018Mademoiselle, vous savez ce que j\u2019aimerai faire avec vous?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

I was taken aback and said: \u2018Et \u00e7\u2019est quoi, car j\u2019ai aucune id\u00e9e?\u2019 Very softly, he replied: \u2018Mademoiselle, j\u2019aimerai vous emmener d\u00eener.\u2019 Phew! And to think that I thought he was a perv and that he was going to make an indecent proposition. That incident taught me a lesson: never jump to conclusions when someone is saying something, let them finish first.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Swiss people are a very civilized nation. They don\u2019t pounce on people like others do and speak with a lot of respect. No, I didn\u2019t go for that dinner but as it was summer, he would come and sit on that bench like the other elderly people in that area. The countryside was breathtaking.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I tell my friends about this incident, I laugh more than I talk. And please never suppress you laughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

* * *<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me share with you these few lines, which I hope will bring a smile to your face. An Irish teacher was teaching a class of 11-year-olds and he promised a \u20ac5 reward to the pupil who could give him the right answer as to the greatest man that ever lived.<\/span><\/p>\n

One said Winston Churchill, another Abraham Lincoln and a third said Mahatma Gandhi, while a little Jewish voice at the back shouted St Patrick (he is the patron Saint of Ireland). The teacher was as pleased as punch, he gave the lad his reward and said: \u2018Well done, my boy, but tell me how did you guess the right answer?\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

The lad replied: \u2018Sir, from the very depth of my heart I knew it was Moses, but business is business.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 8 November 2013<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows that laughter is supposed to be the best medicine but do we really seize the opportunity when it presents itself? There is a time for sadness and a time for laughter and when the latter is here, we have to really grab it, never mind even if we split our sides in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[13295,13296,7220],"class_list":["post-2584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-laugh-out-loud","tag-laughter","tag-mona-babajee"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-FG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}