Dr. Kataria’s Laughter Yoga Diary

The photo shows one of the 160 laughter club in Bangalore, India.Why does it look like they’re fenced in?
In the year 2000 a laughter club was started by a retired couple at 4T Block in Bangalore, India. membership soon picked up and soon 80-100 people gathered every morning for their laughter session between 6.30am and 7.30am.

A retired engineer living in an apartment in the neighborhood complained to the police about noise pollution from the laughter session. A police inspector came to the laughter club and found nothing wrong with the laughter noise levels — in his opinion the traffic noise from the road was much louder than the sounds of the laughter club.

Frustrated by the attitude of the police, the man filed a court case against laughter club with the metropolitan magistrate. The magistrate started laughing when he discovered that the wife of the complainant was attending the laughter club. After 2 hearings the case was dismissed and the magistrate referred the case to Municipal Corporation of Bangalore.

Several meetings where held with the corporation and local ministers and who were amazed to find that laughter clubs are helping thousands of people to maintain their physical and mental health.

Instead of banning the laughter clubs, a special order was passed to the Municipal authority to reserve a special area in each park (or garden as they are locally called) in Bangalore city for a laughter club. Bangalore is also known as the “Garden City” as it has more than 200 well maintained gardens.

What you see in this picture is a special enclosure provided by the municipal corporation for laughter yoga sessions only. This is a landmark judgment in the history of laughter movement where laughter clubs were recognized and given special status by the local government for their benefit to the local population.