Good girls only smile, eyes cast down. That’s what girls are told from childhood. That logic however doesn’t cut ice with girls anymore...
A woman’s gentle smile as she looks at the baby in her arms; the shy smile of a girl who first steps into womanhood; the coquettish slanted smile of a woman when she teases her lover; the uproarious laughter a woman shares only with siblings, or when alone with women friends.
A woman’s laugh is fascinating to a man at all times. And she knows it. In fact, laughter shares a special place amongst the sexes in the mating game. Small enchanting smiles that reveal untold secrets as eyes skitter away after meeting accidentally; the open smile of attraction; sly grins remembering shared moments; stifled giggles from behind closed doors, and later the shared indulgent smile of parents over a child’s head.
And of course the laughter over remembered moments and shared memories. No wonder girls are always stopped from laughing out loud; it’s because fathers and mothers realise what a girl’s laughter can do to a man; the kind of signals it can be construed to give. And so she’s told to tone down her laugh, while a man may roar as loud as he pleases!
As a colleague from Navbharat Times, Balmukund, admitted endearingly in his column, women who laugh out loud may be considered uncivilised or forward, but the truth is “I like the loud laughter of women. It rings a bell in my ears…” Uncivilised indeed! All part of the conspiracy to keep girls “safe”! She has been told since childhood that good girls never laugh out loud and certainly not look into a guy’s eyes while doing so. Good girls only smile, eyes cast down.
That logic however never cut any ice with me. Returning from a party one night, my father advised me casually that it doesn’t behove a girl to draw undue attention to herself in a room full of men and women. This nicely worded advice cut me to the quick; years later I realised I was upset because for the first time my father had actually thought of me as a woman he needed to shield from other men rather than just as his child. It hurts when you turn from child to a daughter. A daughter who shouldn’t wear clothes that define her body, who doesn’t talk or laugh loudly, or who sits primly, legs joined at the knees.
Luckily for my sister and me, Dad couldn’t hold that mood for long. And were we glad! Even as a child, I remember going into peals of raucous laughter and being accused by all at home of cackling like a goose! This caused much merriment as my sister and brother would be rolling around on the floor clutching their stomachs and I would try to give out a designer-made laugh. Ladies only titter or giggle, I would be told; they never cackle, and certainly never roar! All to no avail, because try as I might, the cackle never turned musical.
Even now, a good comic scene can set me off to the extent that my husband and sons stop laughing after a point and try to quieten me, so scared are they that I may die of a heart attack caused by uncontrollable laughter! Tears streaking down my cheeks, I reassure them, that’s just vintage me, cackle and all; and I will be all the better after the purging of emotions… That’s why I found Kajol’s cackle in My Name is Khan very amusing and charming, as did Shah Rukh Khan.
Truth be told, there is some substance in the phrase “hansi toh phansi” (if she laughs, consider her won over) because a woman will most likely laugh out loud only with a guy she genuinely likes and trusts. And who hasn’t heard of most women’s first requirement in the guy they wish to marry? A sense of humour!
Women like to laugh as much as men feel the need to make them laugh. No wonder the internet is full of expert advice for men on how to make a woman laugh!
Of course one should beware the effects of ill-timed or ill-placed laughter. After all it was the mocking laugh Draupadi let out when Duryodhana made his missteps in the Palace of Illusions and when Karna sought her hand that led them both to hate her with a vengeance that brought about her humiliating disrobing and the misfortunes of the Pandavas. When Duryodhana hears her laugh at him…
“Wild and intoxicating. Maddening.
Women shouldn’t laugh like that. They had no right to.
Perhaps he would have loved that laughter had its owner been his. Perhaps he would have adored it then. He would have bathed again and again in its glory perhaps.
But she was not his. She was theirs. He had failed to make her his. And she had not allowed Karna to win her for him either.
He had carried the memory of the laughter of the Pandavas in his heart back to Hastinapura. And he had carried the memory of her laughter in his heart…
Back to his home. Back to his lair. And Draupadi had known danger was coming. Coming soon.” (Draupadi:The Last Wager, Satya Chaitanya)
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