Excuse Me: I Forgot How to Laugh! I Ted-Ed Talks By Rayna Virmani
Excuse Me: I Forgot How to Laugh! I Ted-Ed Talks By Rayna Virmani
What if laughter slowly disappeared from your life without you even noticing?
In this thought-provoking talk, Rayna Virmani (13, Delhi) explores what happens when stress, expectations, and busy routines make us forget one of life’s simplest joys—laughter. Through personal reflections, relatable stories, and heartfelt observations, she reminds us that laughter is more than just a reaction; it is a powerful way to connect, heal, and find hope.
With warmth, humour, and honesty, Rayna celebrates every giggle, chuckle, snort, wheeze, and belly laugh, showing how even the smallest moments of joy can add colour to a world that sometimes feels black and white.
Because sometimes, the most important thing we need to remember is how to laugh again.
Speaker: Rayna Virmani, 13, Delhi
Talk Title: Excuse Me: I Forgot How to Laugh!
About Speaker
I am someone who talks in climaxes, thinks in orange and dreams in neon. I use humour as my defence mechanism and laughter as an emotional comeback. But once I was a philosophy textbook allergic to jokes, a protagonist with a frown, a girl who forgot how to laugh!
About My Talk
A girl who forgot how to laugh! This is what fuelled me to write my talk titled ‘Excuse Me: I Forgot How to Laugh!’ Through my talk I want to celebrate the guffaw, the wheeze, the snort or the giggle that makes your day. Laughter is like a firework in the quiet sky, warm tea on a chilly morning. Because in this black and white world laughter can bring colour back…
The Bookosmia TED-Ed Club is a youth-driven public speaking and idea-sharing initiative aligned with Bookosmia’s mission: “Every young voice matters.”
TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Everything we do supports learning — from producing a growing library of original animated videos, to providing an international platform for teachers to create their own interactive lessons, to helping curious students around the globe bring TED to their schools and gain presentation literacy skills, to celebrating innovative leadership within TED-Ed’s global network of over 650,000 teachers. TED-Ed has grown from an idea worth spreading into an award-winning education platform that serves millions of teachers and students around the world every week.
Email to sara@booksmia.com
Excuse me, I forgot how to laugh.
Let’s start with a quick game of drum shades. You guess the emotion right and award yourself with 10 imaginary points.
Ready? First one. Second.
Hi everyone. I’m Rhina, an accidental comedian, a professional overinker, and a lifelong laugher, if that is a word. It’s weird, isn’t it?
The one thing that connects us all, laughter. It’s the car that we have power in a no laugh.
Somewhere between faking maturity, juggling chaos, and pretending life isn’t falling apart, we gave up on our ability to laugh. without a reason to smile, without a filter.
There was a point of time when I started treating seriousness like abandoned fauna, almost as if frowning added IQ points. So naturally, I walked around like a philosophy textbook. One allergic to jokes.
Then I stopped, looked at myself. I looked horrible. My eyebrows slightly raised, my eyes half shut, and my mouth coed together almost like it was glued. E, I looked like Goldilocks swallowed a lemon, tripped over a library of seriousness, and stubbed her toe with joy.
The seriousness, it wasn’t me. It was a costume I’d been wearing too long. But why? I hadn’t once.Then I started making silly faces at my reflection and one silly face led to another. And slowly the girly log 2 minutesstrapped in a two serious world was now auditioning for Mr. Bean. Before you start straining your brain cells trying to figure out my alarm thoughts, let me tell what is love. a scene, an echo, a sound.
To me, it isn’t any of that. It’s a survival tool. The only CPR that we can give ourselves without proper medical.
How cool is that? It’s like protesting on the weight of being an adult, a human. And also like recharging your emotional battery, except it does not require a type-C cable. Tough to find. So, let’s laugh together. Alarms, laugh. Deadlines, laugh. Unexpected messes, double laughs.
Laughter is a language. It’s not just words, not sentences. It’s just random haha guahas.
You let it out, a giggle. It’s not a we even a guaf. And suddenly the room understands you. Laughter is the universal dialect of joy. Scribbled in air quotes, shouted in whispers, and sprawled across the walls of seriousness, mocking it, tickling it, and reminding not to take over.
Fun fact, we’re extremely fluent at laughing as babies, but when we grow up, we feel like we have forgotten the grammar of it, even though it never really existed. It’s the punctuation nobody taught you.
The emojis before emojis even existed.
It’s the wild of your lungs and your mouth saying, “I feel alive. I feel wonderful and free.” Okay, so the big question, what makes you laugh? Is it a dog desperately chasing its tail? Or is it an adult who walks into a room and completely forgets why they came? Is it a friend tripping over their own shoelaces?
Oh my. Is it a cookie thief caught stealing a cookie mid bite? Does it come randomly or do you schedule it like 10:03 the SST teacher cracks a lame joke and you you better laugh on?
For me, the best love, the most natural one, is the one that tickles your ribs, rolls through your chest, and bounces on your shoulders.
It stubborn, refuses to leave. It doesn’t care whether you just flung your exam or you’re lying on the floor, tumbling laughing, but in pain.
Attention everyone. We have just discovered a very serious condition. The diagnosis you ask? We are seriously under loss on laughter. The world’s best medicine.
So let’s start your treatment now. Well, first a question. Did you miss out your prescription refill like me? Because I definitely did. So yeah, the treatment.
Let’s have our scheduled kick in right now.
Thank You
What is Excuse Me: I Forgot How to Laugh! about?
It is a heartfelt TED-Ed talk by 13-year-old Rayna Virmani that explores the importance of laughter, joy, and finding happiness even during difficult times.
Who is Rayna Virmani?
Rayna Virmani is a 13-year-old student from Delhi who enjoys expressing her ideas through storytelling, humour, and public speaking.
Why did Rayna choose this topic?
Rayna was inspired by the idea of someone forgetting how to laugh and wanted to remind people that laughter is essential for emotional well-being and human connection.
What message does the talk convey?
The talk encourages everyone to rediscover the simple joy of laughter and appreciate how even the smallest giggle can brighten life.
What is the Bookosmia TED-Ed Club?
The Bookosmia TED-Ed Club is a platform that empowers young people to develop public speaking skills and share meaningful ideas with the world.
Who can benefit from watching this talk?
Students, parents, teachers, and anyone looking for a thoughtful reminder about the power of laughter, positivity, and resilience.
Why is laughter important?
Laughter reduces stress, strengthens relationships, boosts emotional well-being, and helps people navigate life’s challenges with hope and optimism.
Where can I buy books?
You can buy books at Bookosmia and Amazon
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This article is published by Bookosmia, India’s #1 publisher for and by young people. Bookosmia publishes stories, books, podcasts, events, TED-Ed talks, workshops, bedtime stories and more related to kids and young adults.
Photo Credit – AI generated images from Chat GPT and Magic Media from Canva .
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