Humour in war times

- March 19, 2022

Humour in war times

The festivities of Holi coloured by the joy of Indian students returning home safe, distracted most of us and we looked away from the grim reality that has consumed a big chunk of the world news for the last three weeks.

As the Russian invasion on Ukraine or war between the two countries, however you want to express it, progressed, every day the soothsayers changed their predictions about how or when it was going to end.

After the loss of thousands of lives, and destruction of cities- turning people living a secure life in their towns homeless, there still seems to be no solution in sight so far. You have seen enough number of images and heard and read horrifying details of this, so I would spare you that.

And even though the war has had no direct impact on us, there is always the scary possibility that a section of the population or part of this world might sometime or the other face such a crisis.

Leave sympathy, empathy, even apathy for the people aside, what do we do when confronted with dark times? We resort to humour as the natural and predictable reaction to cope with crisis.

Naturally then, there has been a flood of memes and political cartoons on the political, economic or situation and mood, reactions to them and backlash to some of these reactions as well. The undeniable fact is, nobody in the age and times of internet can distance themselves from these political conversations.

A mere temporary resident of this planet, as also unequipped with the cerebral capacity to fully understand, debate and judge, I cannot take sides. I only know that anything that violates peace, unsettles me. This is how I understand it. Not having been blessed with creative skills, I merely bring to you some of the thousands of political cartoons also on the issue. They may not extract any laughter from you, but just a nod and a crooked smile of understanding.

It all began with (top photo) Russia cajoling, asking Ukraine to be their ally.

Scared, Ukraine asked the United Nations for air support against Russia.

It claimed it was trying to take back what had rightfully belonged to it.(LA Times)

It also asked for help from NATO which parroted what Indians staging a protest demonstration in somebody's support say - Saathi tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain. (Friend, you continue your struggle, we are with you!)