A hundred laughter clubs in Pune will celebrate their tenth anniversary with a state-level laughter convention today.

Reporter: Rahul Chandawarkar

Foto: Rahul Chandawarkar

When senior citizen share a leg doing the Brazilian samba in a public park at 7:15 in the morning, you can be sure Puneites are wondering if the Brazilian carnival has hit the city! And a carnival of sorts it promises to be as Ursula Kirchner and Mari Tereza, two energetic Brazilian women, take the crowed through some chuckle pace of their own.

Ursula and Mari are senior students at the Iyengar Yoga Institute and will play a significant role in the Maharashtra Laughter Convention at the Ganesh Kala Krida Rangmanch on Sunday. An estimated 100 laughter clubs in Pune will celebrate their tenth anniversary with a state level laughter convention, which has attracted a record 3 000 delegates. As a prelude to the convention, Ursula and Mari will acquaint members of the Chaitanya Laughter club (branch 58) in the Shivaji society gargen with a few laughter routines from Brasil.

Ursula (61) trained under internationally acclaimed Laughter Club pioneer Madan Kataria of Mumbai, then started a laughter club with close friend Mari in her hometown of Belo Horizonte. A retired professor of dentistry, Ursula tells us it was anything but easy. “We are a Roman Catholic nation and laughing is not something that the church encourages. Nevertheless, we went ahead. At first, we just had five members. This went on for a whole year. People tore our notices and shreds, called us mad and there was much animosity towards us. But we laught on!” Today, Ursula and Maris Club da Gargalhada do Brasil is 70-people strong and they have even begun training groups of doctors, physiotherapist and lawers in their city. “We are indebted to Madan Kataria and his encouragement. It has really seen us through some very tough times”, says Ursula.

Ursula is a frequent visitor to India and is a student of yoga, vipassana and now laughter therapy. Just how useful this knowledge base has been for her can be gauged from some recent incidents. Last year, she suffered multiple fractures to her legs and hands in an accident. Made to wait for four hours at a trauma centre on a Sunday afternoon. Ursula used a combination of laughter simulation and pranayama to ease her pain. “The doctor who came to see me eventually thought I was mad!” she says. The day after the surgery, determined not to get any morphine shots, a wheel-chair-bound Ursula, decided to leave the hospital for Maris home. There, she decided to sit in silent meditation (vipassana) for a month, interrupted only by individual laughter sessions and pranayama. Recalls the henna-haired lady, “With just a few homeopathy medicine and no painkillers, I staged a recovery in six weeks. Every time you laugh for 30 minutes, happy hormones are released in your system and this helps the recovery process.” After the cast were removed, Ursula who was still using her crutches, decided to enrol in a four-week yoga course in Brazil. “The instructor was appalled to see me joining the course. My room was on a hilltop and it used to take me one hour to slowly walk up the path. I simply decidet to chant <Om Namah Shiva> with every step that I took, and that helped me overcome all pain, “ says Ursula.