Sunday was World Laughter Day. Laughter, true to the term, is a funny word. Add the letter ‘S’ to it and it becomes slaughter. Slaughter makes me think of the swine. Utterance of the word swine could bring someone — someone in uniform perhaps — to minds of security people today who have been asked to check all travellers at the Mumbai International Airport for swine flu in this sweltering heat.

Sweltering heat makes me think of Isha Koppikar who will be married to restaurateur Timmy Narang this year. Ms Koppikar was the last crush of my life. Is it that I have outgrown an age when I could have crushes on people or is it that Bollywood has run out of eligible crush material for me? I would like to go with the latter, but the former, unfortunately, is true.

Crush reminds me of the 35-year old Lalbaug bridge that is being demolished today. It falls smack dab in the middle of my route to the office. No, it may fall smack dab in the middle of my route to the office today, I am afraid, since Mumbai Municipal Corporation is overseeing the demolition, which is why I am writing this from home. This speaks volumes of the trust I have in the municipal body. Now the word body makes my mind wander a lot more than most other words, but it takes me right now to “Elements of Style” – the bible of English grammar – in which co-author William Strunt has expressed hatred for the term “student body”, and insisted that “studentry” should be used in its place, since it is clearer and comes without the ghoulish connotation he sees in the former term.

Studentry, however, is a word I have not been able to find in any dictionary so far. Far is what this passage is from humour, and talking of humour, Jay Leno is leaving NBC TV’s The Tonight Show after 17 memorable years, ironically, around the time when the world is celebrating laughter. Incidentally, The Tonight Show has spawned a number of Indian talk shows, notably “Movers and Shakers” (which became drab when Mr Suman tried to outshine the show’s script).

Talking of Jay Leno and talk shows, thoughts drift to a promising Bollywood star named Farhan Akhtar who used a Leno joke from the latter’s “the economy is so bad” series in a recent Oye It’s Friday (OIF) episode without giving due credit.

Talking about OIF and copying, Mr Akhtar also lifted a whole gag from Comedy Inc., an Australian sketch comedy TV series – the “check please” skit – and used it in another recent episode of his show. Now that I have mentioned Akhtar, I am thinking a recent movie of his where he squealed a song that had nursery rhymes for lyrics (Aasma Hai Neela Kyun, Paani Geela Geela Kyun Gol Kyun Hai Zameen, for instance) and passed it off as a rock number, head-banging and a euphoric adult crowd thrown in for good measure.

But I have made a promise to myself that I won’t get angry today, keeping in with the spirit of laughter day (hey, that rhymed! Mr Akhtar’s rock star rendition is contagious, I say), so I turn to Jay Leno again. As a tribute to the master of anti-establishment humour, I have tried and come up with a non-conformist joke. Though I’d rather an Indian comedian does this one, but alas, I guess that would be an improbability as we have become too touchy of late. So here it goes:

“Our supreme court recently ruled that irretrievable breakdown can’t be used as a ground for dissolution of marriage.

That’s such a relief. You see, marriage is an institution, and if irretrievable breakdown becomes a ground for an institution’s dissolution, guess which one would be next on the block?”

(Pause)

“The Indian legal system!”