It comes in many flavors. Lilting lips, like the sweet tinkle of silver bells clasping the ankle of a graceful dancer. Musical like a hurrying brook. Gap-toothed like a grin. Hesitant like the soft rustle of windblown trees. And many times, high pitched and shrieky like a demented hyena with its tail on fire. In all its avatars, laughter is a jubiliant explanation of life — an elated, unchecked song stretching in joyful chorus, celebrating existence. A smile in overdrive that stretches between two rosy cheeks.

Laughter transforms. Infuses a glow of animation into the most homely countenance. Lights up a petulant face. Crinkles up the saddest eyes. For thousands of years, alluring sirens have harnessed it to win the hearts of their men. Renowned painter Leonardo da Vinci portrayed a slighter, more enigmatic form of laughter — through his Mona Lisa, that continues to pique the curiosity of millions with its mystery, even today. And laughter could have changed the course of many a famed saga of love. If Juliet had overbalanced on that terrace and fallen head-first on Romeo, maybe the ensuing hilarity would have ensured a happier ending instead of the poison-ridden debacle we know about. If Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina had taken it easy and laughed off the infamy of her lover, in place of ending her life on a Russian railroad, would we even have read that story? Why is it that doomed love, foxtrotting with financial decrepitude and melodramatic wretchedness are celebrated eternally and held up as the ultimate spice to be coveted by all lovers? It is as if, love is not true enough, unless subjected to the crucible of tragedy. When in fact, it is laughter that can build the merriest love stories.

Laughter is — love amused. It lights up the bleakest room and makes life worth living. It pushes away the most straitened of circumstances, smoothens the anxious brow and magically bestows the right perspective to everything. Its incessant peal can bind hearts together. If we start laughing more instead of frantically chasing after the latest anti-aging fads, we could get rid of the lines of worry both from our faces and from our lives.

It is this lighter side of life that should be truly celebrated — with an open-hearted guffaw.