Laughtorium at Thirumullaivoyal

M.Sowmiya

Chennai, 30 Nov 2015: Dressed in a bright green full sleeve tee tucked into high waist grey trousers, S Sampanth is of lean figure. Sporting a light brown hat, the thick bearded man is easily noticed for his uncanny way of carrying himself.

He says his outfit and style are deliberate. For, he wants everyone to have a laugh. Sambath (45) , from Thirumullaivoyal is the founder of Laughtorium. In its monthly meetings, the participants gather to share good humour by narrating jokes and personal funny experiences.

Popularly known as Sirippananda, Sambath says his foray into humour and exploring laughter Yoga happened by chance.

At 25, Sambath developed diabetes. His doctor advised him meditation, along with medical treatment. He joined humour clubs in Anna Nagar, Triplicane and Mylapore to improve his health conditions. Seeing the positive changes in 2003, Sambath thought it would be a good idea to start a humour club in his neighbourhood.

Joke on religion, politics, differently-abled, famous personalities and Sardar jokes are restrained. While the humour club went on from strength to strength one day, Sambath noticed a man among the audience not laughing at all. When asked, the man simply said he did not find any of the joke funny.

Later, Sambath discussed this case with a popular humourist who casually said, just ask him to simply laugh and it worked. This was when Sambath came across Laughter Yoga, an exercise, which includes laughter without any joke or performance.

When a joke is shared, not everybody laughs to the same measure. Our body can be fooled, it does not know that we are laughing at a joke or laughing for no reason. Through exercise such as clapping with laughter, breathing with laughter, child like playfulness doing the Asanas, meditation and so on, the yoga is necessary for sound health. There are 320 such exercise including the popular ‘Chaya laughter an animal like howling’, he explains.

For Sambath laughter is a great stress buster, You cannot separate someone from his/her share of laughter. It belongs to everyone and it is everywhere.