Ruiker Colony Club
Founded by Advocate Arvind Shah, this medium-sized club has between 40 and 50 members who attend sessions 365 days a year. The club meets in a small square dominated by a very large tower; then it moves to a nearby hall during the rainy season. The club’s favorite varieties of laughter are Mirchi (hot chili) Laughter and Lezim (a tambourine-like instrument) Laughter.

Tapovan Ladies Club
This all-female club led by Jayshree Patil meets in the late afternoon in a large open space on the outskirts of Kolhapur. The members are housewives and mothers, so it’s impossible for them to meet early in the morning, a time when they’re busy getting their children ready for school. The Tapovan Ladies is another of the big Kolhapur clubs, boasting an average attendance exceeding 100. It’s open to women only but is worth a visit to see the club perform Bird Laughter.

Tramboli Club
This club meets on a hill above Kolhapur next to a magnificent shrine to Lord Ganesh (the elephant god). The location offers unimpeded views over Kolhapur and of the sunrise. Founded by Dr. Dilip C. Shah, who now leads the Nana Nani Park Hasya club, the members meet at 6:00 a.m. every day but Sunday. Attendance fluctuates, varying from 30 to 60 laughers.

Mumbai
Mumbai is the birthplace of laughter clubs, so finding one shouldn’t present a problem.

Stay:
Taj Lands End
This very comfortable 368-room business-centric hotel in the elite Bandra district is handy for the Laughter Heaven club. For businesswomen—or lady laughers—there’s a dedicated women’s floor, served by lady butlers. Check out the modern organic restaurant, Pure.
Band Stand,
Bandra (west)
91-22/66-68-12-34
RATES: $40
tajhotels.com

Play:
Laughter Heaven
A well-known club in Mumbai is Laughter Heaven, which is situated next to Bandra Joggers Park. The club boasts its own laughter arena enclosed behind railings featuring laughter motifs. The club claims to be the only laughter club visible from outer space! The laughter here can be a bit insipid, and the club’s close proximity to apartment buildings feels claustrophobic. Nevertheless, it’s
worth a visit.

Lockhandwala Park
If you’re staying in the Andheri or Juhu neighborhoods, take a pilgrimage to the small park in Lockhandwala Complex (part of Andheri) where Dr. Madan Kataria started the first club in 1995, which still meets daily at 6:15 a.m.

View From Behind the Camera
by Stefan Merrill Block

Eight thousand miles from home, hired for a job far beyond my experience level, encircled by hysterical, chortling throngs with whom I could not speak, I knew that the important thing was to maintain the proper expression. A 20-something Texan, plunked down on a hillside in rural India at dawn, fumbling with the video camera I was hired to operate, I tried to feign a certain bemused nonchalance as the Tramboli Laughter Yoga Club of Kolhapur cavorted about me, performing its daily exercises. By the end of that first morning of shooting, my face had set and hardened into the grin it would maintain for the vast majority of the coming weeks, a grin warm, distant, and encouraging, a grin that tried not to betray my suspicion that all the Laughter Club members were, in some fundamental way, absolutely out of their minds. But as we filmed Laughter Club the evidence of their insanity kept accumulating:

• We captured Madan Kataria, the laughter guru of the world, as he was greeted at the train station like a triumphant, returning king, paraded around by his acolytes, women touching his shoes and covering him with flowers, men blow-ing horns, chanting his edicts, feeding him fruits, nuts, and other unidentifiable treats with their own hands.

• We met Arvind Shah, a grave and angry laughter autocrat, ordering the uniformed throngs of his Laughter Club to stand in formation and laugh precisely on command.

• We followed a political maelstrom of near-Shakespearean proportions, set off when laughter rebel Dilip Shah attempted to skew the ascendant laughter movement to his own vision, establishing a massive event, a world laughter competition.

• Everywhere we went, in every park, in every town, every morning, we found hordes of laughers hopping, tickling, and dancing with a joyful abandon I had to envy.