He has no conscience and loves to live the roller coaster life in the crime world. Yet,Mandooks character in Shor In The City won Pitobash the Best Actor in a Comic Role award at the recent 18th Annual Colors Screen Awards. The irony,says the thin and diminutive actor,can be attributed to the way his character was etched out in order to suit the dark comedy genre. Mandooks quirks made me the funnyman in Shor. He is supposed to be dangerous and unpredictable. But he is also naïve and innocent. So every time he fumbles,he ends up providing the lighter moments to the film, explains the actor,who is also part of Shirish Kunders fantasy genre film,Joker. It is clear that despite the rise of action heroes,the audience will never lose its love for comedy among the successful film franchises over the years are Rajkumar Hiranis Munnabhai series,Priyadarshans Hera Pheri and Rohit Shettys Golmaal. However,Pitobashs win against several strong contenders from comedy films such as Delhi Belly is also indicative of the fact that the nature and treatment of the comic in Bollywood has been evolving. My earliest memories of comedy in Bollywood is associated with Johnny Walker,Jagdeep and Mahmood, recounts filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee,who says that the need for a comedian in the cinema of 50s and 60s stemmed from the fact that films were mostly dramas. They were the designated comedians,who were cast in a film to provide lighter moments to otherwise dense films. Pyaasa is iconic for Guru Dutts performance but Johnny Walkers song Sar jo tera chakraye cannot be forgotten either, he points out. Later,Ek chatur naar badi hoshiyaar from the 1968 film Padosan filmed on Mahmood,Sunil Dutt and Saira Banu had been the outstandingly hilarious comic song. Over time,as comedians became the darling of the masses and sometimes even bagged lead roles in films Bollywood heroes realised as did their directors that they could do with a bit of comic timing. In the 70s,with a few comedy scenes and humorous lines,the hero took over the comedians role. Amitabh Bachchan can easily be credited for popularising this trend in films such as Hera Pheri,Amar Akbar Anthony,Do Aur Do Paanch and Naseeb,which otherwise belonged to the action or drama genre. The only two exceptions are Kishore Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar who generously experimented with comedy in their films, says director Rohit Shetty,who feels that Bachchan still has the best comic timing among Bollywood heroes. Others were soon to follow suit. While the trend of the hero doubling as the comic continued well into the 90s,the nature of humour changed. Slapstick with exaggerated expressions and double entendres became commonplace. The decade is dotted with blockbusters belonging to the slapstick genre,with additional comics thrown in to make the comedy over-the-top. Kader Khan,Shakti Kapoor,Asrani and Johnny Lever became the popular faces of comedy during that time. But Govinda became the comedy hero and these actors would provide the backup. The audience lapped it up because Govinda always played the boy-next-door and the humour was relatable, says director David Dhawan. Much has changed in terms of Bollywood content since the turn of the century. New genres and styles of storytelling have been attempted. While the popularity of comedy has not dipped,the idiot as the comic or the designated comic,who only arrives to provoke laughter,has almost faded away. So while Arshad Warsi,Paresh Rawal or Boman Irani are known for their comic timing,they are no more merely the jokers in the pack. Oscar Fernandes in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and Virus in 3 Idiots made people laugh but they were also integral parts of the story, says Boman Irani. Banerjee believes that memorable comic characters are the result of good writing. Quirky characters and good dialogues will seldom lose relevance over time. This explains why Hrishikesh Mukherjees Chupke Chupke or Kundan Shahs Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro are classics, he adds.
