India, Oct. 20 -- The eminent Greek philosopher Socrates cracked a joke when his disciples sat around him on the pyal of his house. Nobody knows to this day what joke it was that set the house rocking with laughter. Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, who believed that only the stupidest people roared with laughter, howled from the inside of the house to stop laughing. A sepulchral silence prevailed. The vulgar shrew made her presence felt by bawling out expletives for a few minutes and finally said, "What is the use of driving sense into the callous heads of dullards? So master so disciples."

Socrates kept quiet. A few seconds later, he resumed his talk. Another joke created sounds of cheering that filtered in through the closed window. The sh...