Sense of humor and Handwriting- A tribute to Jaspal Bhatti

When i heard the news about untimely demise of Jaspal Bhatti first , i thought it is one of the false news played by the man known for his onscreen comedy and pranks. Alas, it was not to be true.

I remember the times during the childhood when we used to defer going to playground (yes, we had  lots of them then) to watch his satirical show- Flop Show highlighting common man's problem with a simple dose of humour. That show is a lot relevant now probably more than it was then. His humour touched everyone alike- be it kids or adults,or aunts, young or old, male or female. There was another show called as Ulta-Pulta.  It was quite common for the kids then to cajole their parents into watching TV for additional half-an-hour to watch these shows. He was an anti-corruption crusader even at the time when it was not fashionable to talk about/against corruption in India.
His straight-faced humour was a need of the hour in today's times when the humour tends to be expressed more digitally by emoticons and smileys than in person.

A dose of humour gives us simple pleasures in life but the topic of understanding humour is quite complex in itself as Mark Twain had once said, “Studying humor is like dissecting a frog — you may know a lot but you end up with a dead frog.”  My intention here is to write a few lines as a tribute to a man who made us smile no matter what was going on in our lives.

Sense of humour:
Oxford dictionary define humour as "the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech". Having humour can be thought of as a trait of being funny. Humour does have distinct characteristics but the most of basic of them would be the ability to make others laugh and secondly, the ability to see the amusing side in the situations of life. There is also an interesting characteristic of ability to laugh at self.

Ingredients of humour and their association with Handwriting:
What kind of clues can one's handwriting give on the humour in one's personality ? Here, i would like to point some direct and indirect references.

Handwriting analysis is a lot about deciphering the strokes that makes the various components of the handwriting. Directly speaking- the presence of a "Wavy" t-bar or the "wavy" beginning of strokes depict the presence of humour in one's personality.

Indirectly speaking, humour can be safely treated as a creative activity . The reason i say it as a creative activity is because there is a sort of unexpectedness associated with humour that make the people to laugh. The unexpectedness can be attributed to creative potential of the person. Creativity is an intense topic in itself and handwriting gives some good clues about creative thinking. It is usually associated with the different forms of thinking such as Cumulative thinking (shown in the handwriting with letters "m" and "n" having flat or curvy tops), in which a person stack facts upon fact and takes its own time to arrive at a conclusion. Such form of thinking can lead to creative responses as the person tends to think through the situations. Most of the comedians dealing with dead-pan comedy may belong to this category. Other type of thinking patters could be Comprehensive thinking pattern (shown in the handwriting with sharp, pointed tops at "m" and "n") in which a person thinks a rapid pace and gets back with funny one liners and quick responses to the situations.

Sarcasm is another useful ingredient of humour. Sarcasm is usually treated as a negative trait but also often consists of double meaning of whatever is said. It is often used in generating humour. Most of the humour generated at the people holding high offices (Politicians etc.) has sarcasm as a key trait.
Sarcasm can be seen in handwriting in the sharp pointed "t" bars.

Imagination is another important ingredient of humour. Most of the humourists have very high degree of imagination and they have an ability to think the un-obvious and make a statement which nobody can even think of. This trait is usually seen in the Stand-up comedians. People with imagination can see the situations with a wider horizons. Tina Seelig in her this class on creativity even noted that "Jokes are interesting because the frame switches in the middle of the it" and that is largely because of one's imagination.
Imagination in handwriting can be revealed by large and wide lower loops in the letters "y", "g" and "j".

Apart of these traits, most humourists have the ability to laugh at themselves. And the people who have the ability to laugh at their own expense are not sensitive to criticism i.e. they just take the jokes on themselves in their stride and not take it personally. Sensitiveness to criticism can be noted in one's handwriting in letter "d" or "t" having looped stem. People having this trait are unlikely to have the ability to laugh at themselves.

 Probably, there's a lot more around Handwriting and humour that could be explored than the above glimpse but i will temporarily stop here.

Not sure home many of these traits would Jaspal Bhatti's handwriting have as  i have not see his anytime but I had recently started following Jaspal Bhatti on twitter and found that he had this knack of seeing humor in the serious news and he did tweeted some hilarious ones. Alas, there wont be next tweet coming anymore.

RIP Jaspal Bhatti!

Image Source:
 http://indiatoday.intoday.in
Cartoon Source:
Courtesy: Sudhir Tailang
https://twitter.com/i/#!/sudhirtailang/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2FANH3n5Y1

"The World of Handwriting Analysis"- The Journey so far

What traits made Subhas Chandra Bose such an intense revolutionary ?

Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – unknown) also known as Netaji (Hindi/Bengali: “Respected Leader”), was one of the most prominent Indian nationalist leaders who attempted to liberate India from British rule during the waning years of World War II.

Bose was a part of Indian National Congress (INC) and had grew through ranks to be become a leader of repute. He was eventually ousted from the INC as he was getting more and more convinced that India could be freed only by means of Force. This was a clear difference of Ideology with Gandhiji, which resulted in Bose's ouster from the INC. All these events made him more determined to formalize the use of force by means of setting up an army of people, which later was called as "Azad Hind Fauj". 

Bose was a shrewd and clever leader and his idea of using the violent means to gain Independence of India coincided or rather was inspired by the atmosphere of instability across the world during the World-war-II. He was a master negotiator and negotiated the case of building army with the representatives of many countries like Germany, Italy, Japan etc. He did eventually form an army with Indian prisoner of wars after Japan won the war over Singapore. This is considered to be the start point of Bose's dream of forming Azad Hind Fauj.

About Bose's handwriting sample: 

I got this handwriting sample as a forward over email. I don't claim this to be authentic but looking at some common aspects of this sample and others available on the internet, i have no strong reason to believe that this is fake either. Whatever is the case, this sample made me interested in knowing more about this man, who is worshiped even today for his courage and will to fight till the last breath for the nation. My quest to know more about him made me  watch the movie- Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero .

Before i start analyzing the key aspects of his personality, i just wanted to put things in perspective with respect to Bose's persona.  And in order to do that, i will ask a simple question- "What sort of people even think of forming an army with an intention to free a nation ?"  Certainly not the common everyday people.  It is actually beyond the imagination of majority of us. But If i am asked to attempt to answer this question,my answer would someone who is - extremely passionate almost to a fault, Having a fire in the belly, deep desire to make a lasting difference, having extreme discontentment at the status-quo and may be some more similar sounding traits. While these traits are important to make a mark in any chosen endeavor, forming an army of committed people from scratch is certainly a different territory altogether. At that time, the hardships faced by Bose were like going against a massive tide of emotions nationwide (with Gandhiji preaching non-voilent means), which required beating the demons of self doubt and immense courage and determination to go ahead with the intended plans.

While the above mentioned list of traits is good but one thing is for sure, at the very root of even such a thought striking an individual has to be a background of very strong emotional feelings. One can't stake claim to take up something as complex as freeing the nation without extremely strong emotional push and foundation. This is something that can't certainly be done by any cold mannered individual.

This post is more about one such extreme trait that is very prevalent in Bose's handwriting sample. So its now a right moment to look at the handwriting sample-

Personality trait of "Resentment" in Subhas Chandra Bose's handwriting 

And this trait is called Resentment

Resentment is usually an effect caused by a extreme feeling of unfairness and its often in a form of deep rooted anger. There is a great deal of difference between the way we usually get angry in our day-to-day lives and getting angry while displaying resentment. 

Resentment is an extreme form of anger, something very akin to the way mobs get angry and demonstrate it by violence that actually hurts people who this is directed at. Bose's handwriting has clear evidence of such a trait and what that means is that he had an extreme form of resentment at the whole situation around the freedom and felt very strongly that his country was being given an unfair treatment and had a growing desire to change the status-quo.

One of his arguments with Gandhiji during the formative years of Azad Hind Fauj was that- as a country one should to make use of World war-II situation (which he eventually did) to weaken the opponent. Gandhiji was not convinced with the idea due to his philosophy of not to attack the opponent when he is weak. But Bose eventually went that path and that action to me seem more driven by resentment in his personality.
Resentment usually results in the violent display of emotions. Its an anger that gets harbored over a period of time, that is unresolved and which eventually explodes after a while.

While its hard to comment on pressure of handwriting in a digital sample but on careful examination, the pressure in Bose's handwriting can be assumed to be on the higher side. Higher pressure also means intensification of the existing emotional trait. Add this to the resentment trait and we really have a explosive answer to the question i posed earlier-  "What sort of people even think of forming an army with an intention to free a nation ?" 

There's a lot more in Subhas Chandra Bose's handwriting, which i will cover more in coming post based on the audience interest. 

Did you like this one ?

Image Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose