On Berla Mundi’s laugh. Specifically!

Berla Mundi is crazy for sure: she’s remarkably funny, even for a woman. She’s spontaneous, and that makes her a danger to poor people at the end of her questions (interviewees and callers alike), largely resolute (except when you bring up E.L). And then, she has the weirdest “pet name” for sex –waakye. WAAKYE!

I assure you that her choice in an alias for sex, which has constantly saved my life, has not changed the way I look at the spicy meal…waakye, I mean. Focus!

The real challenge would have been if she chose jollof as euphemism, because jollof is bae.

Thank God.

But paragraph one doesn’t quite typify her craziness enough, not as appropriately as her laugh. It is impossible for one person to successfully explore the several eternities of her craziness. It didn’t stop the great Francis Doku from trying though. Look for his essay online. Even he, the mighty media guru, could not decide, which one of these she was; confident or daring. In one paragraph, he writes:

“Sometimes you cringe when Berla is about to say something and bam! She says it.”

Smh. Smh.

I too have an interest, a curiosity, in unpacking how so much eccentricity could fit in such an unassuming person (I’ve seen her away from the microphone; and of course, she’s smaller than TV and pictures online suggest), and if I didn’t know better, I would have even called her queer. But put her anywhere close to a radio studio, and you have unleashed a grenade.

I am incapable of wrapping my head around a fiery alter ego as the one which will come on air tonight. The great Francis Doku couldn’t, therefore, I can’t. Instead, I will take a look (carefully and cautiously) at a minute part of all that personality, and God help me.

It won’t be enough information now, but when inquisitive scientists from three thousand years from now venture into this “dreaded” path (because they may have invented appropriate apparatus then), they would at least, have two essays to start with, and I too, would have contributed to Science and history.

Now, don’t misunderstand me: there’s not much wrong with her laugh, well, for the most part. The ending, is what is curious. It is loose and sustained in a way that catches your ear immediately.

Like I said, the laugh itself is not unusual; it’s a frantic stacking together of joy sounds which could only come from the belly. And when it comes out, you can tell that the head is thrown back, and there’s a liberty in the subject’s body. But the extension at the end is why the laugh is particular. How is that part of a laugh? How is it permitted to be part of a laugh, by nature or not?

There are varieties in how a laugh could come: one website suggests twenty-one different forms of this relief mechanism; from giggles to guffaws, to chuckles to cackles.

At the same time, there’s a structure for what a laugh should be. For one thing, sound is essential, and most laughs begin with plosives, before the whole mouth eventually opens, and then oral muscles start dancing.

A baby’s laugh, for instance, is remarkable. It can be your happiest memory for days. Pure glossy gums in mirth is most certainly going to ignite a spark in the observer’s eyes.

But a meaningfully lengthy ending?

The Mundi laugh, can be useful in at least, one of two ways: it’s pleasant to listen to, so that’s good. And then, though I have not put it to adequate test, I’m certain that it could be used to to calm the nerves of two inflamed rivals aiming at each other’s neck.

There’s one aspect of her laugh that you don’t want to be close to, under any circumstance, and that’s when you’ve given the wrong answer to one of her witty questions, and she chooses her trademark laugh as reaction. Of course you will try to take it as a man, and even be graceful about it. And then that pitched monotone which feels very, very long, concludes it…then you know you’ve really been stung. But of cause, if you’re a spectator to her teasing laugh, it’s thoroughly enjoyable.

Berla Mundi Ardadey has an energy which is apt for Touchdown, the night show she hosts on Live on weekdays. E.L himself has called her “talented”, and that’s important endorsement if you’ve followed the “politics”. But then again, of course she is. Also, she’s brilliant, daring and fundamentally troublesome in a way that is infectious.

She has her own nation, the “Friends of Berla Mundi”, and a superior sense of fashion. She’s easily the best dressed personality at the recently held VGMAs.

And then she’s got that laugh. Smh. Smh.

Gabriel Myers Hansen/ enewsgh.

Follow the writer via @myershansen on Twitter.