Gautam Ganguly
(gautamganguly2012@gmail.com)
‘April Fools’ Day’ 2025 is approaching at a time when practical jokes, pranks and satirical comments shared good-humouredly to entertain are being denigrated and decried vehemently and ruthlessly. Empirically speaking, politcenturies, and countries hav ofll ages, centuries, countriesbeenand, by byt of ridicule and, and largethis breed oreed of human beings are seen to accept such jokes and sly comments on thereluctantly, withouttingly r reluctantly, without expressing their anguish publicly.
AprilApril Fools’ Day has been celebrated since time immemorial across the world when people play jokes, pranks and other, good-humouredly, devoidon each othmost light-hearted good huuredy, of any malice. It imalice.the most light-hearted days of the year when humour reigns supreme. The origin of the celebration of the day is uncertain. Among the numerous explanations given by the historians and social scientists about the origin of the popular celebration, the most accepted one has been given by Prof. Baskin, the eminent historian of Boston University. The day is also described as ‘All Fools’ Day’.
According to Prof. Baskin, the practice began during the reign of Roman king Constantine. A group of court jesters and fools had told the emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire. All present in the court had burst out in laughter hearing the remarks. The emperor too mockingly offered to relinquish his throne for one day in response to the comments. Kugel, one of the court jesters, was made the emperor for one day, which incidentally fell on the first day of April. To quote Professor Baskin, Kugel had passed an edict calling for absurdity on the day. And from that day onwards, in keeping with the edict, the custom became an annual event.”
April Fools’ Day reminds one of William Hazlitt’s famous quote, ‘Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps.’
Sir Winston Churchill, once wishing the best on ‘April Day’, haools’ Day’, pungently, “Thearked pungently, “the greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right at times” !!!
One of the alltime best April Fool’s pranks dates back to 1st April, 1878, when the famous ‘New famous York Times’ had published the breaking news that Thomas Alva Edison had invented a machine transform soild transforinto cereal and water into wine. It needs no reiteration that after Thomas Edison invented telephone in 1877, people across the world became admirers of the genius. Therefore, the news of the invention of the machine was widely believed. The thinkers attributed that the invention leading to the transformation of soil into cereal would go a long way in reducing hunger from the world. The newspaper, however, issued clarification the following day that they had taken their esteemed readers for a ride on the ‘All Fools’ Day.
On 1st April 1976, a renowned astronomer announced on the BBC that the gravity on earth would get slightly weaker. If anyone jumped in the event of gravitational forces reducing, human beings might float in the air. There was a furore over the programme, and people started questioning the truthfulness of the broadcast by the BBC. It transpired later on that this was a practical prank by the BBC on All Fools’ Day.
On 1st April, 1975, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) had announced that the country would soon be converting to “metric time”. Under the new system, there would be 100 seconds to a minute, 100 minutes to the hour and one day would comprise 20 hours. The news had made the Australians flabbergasted. Several callers being stunned by the news had even lambasted the radio station to explain how they would convert their newly purchased expensive digital clock to the ‘metric time’. The radio station after 12 noon had reminded all the puzzled listeners that the practical joke was made in keeping with the customary practice of merry-making.
While Bollywood is replete with many hilarious April Fool anecdotes, the one by Padma Bhushan award-PadmabhusaKher was outstanding., was outstanding. In the year 1990, Anupam Kher had stunned the connoisseurs by posing asDevi’s sisteri Devi’s in a famous film magazine. When the edition was published, it left everyone surprised and split. Nobody could believe that it was Anupam Kher.
While filming Jolly LLB 2 (2017), Akshay Kumar stole Huma Qureshi’s cell phone and sent marriage proposals to several Bollywood actors, causing a stir and embarrassment. But all these were in good taste.
Saurav Ganguly has recalled that it was during a low phase in his career, unable to score, when Sachin and Harbhajan decided to play an April Fool’s prank on him. They came up with a newspaper printing that said that Sourav was unhappy and had scolded everyone on the team. Saurav was hugely upset and decided to resign from captaincy. Then, amidst laughter all around, Harbhajan said that it was a joke. Saurav admitted that the prank had elevated his low morale, improving his performance later on.
Roger Federer had announced his retirement from professional tennis on 1st April, 2022. Subsequent confirmation of retirement had disillusioned his millions of connoisseurs, who hoped that the tennis legend would revert his decision announced on ‘All Fools’ Day’. Laughter is the best medicine, goes the saying. The essence is that April Fool’s jokes ‘are heartening because they encourage pranks, providing relief to modern men bedevilled with stress.