Opinion Telescope: Why we don’t do comedy well
‘Comedy Nights’ did raise a few laughs, but it wasn’t anything to cry over.
The final episode was to air on Sunday.
In the end, they all wept. The tears of a clown. For two and a half years they’ve done nothing but have fun at others’ expense, presumably laughing all the way to the bank — including Navjot Singh Sidhu, who played the human laugh box to perfection with non-stop guffaws for 30 months. Now, when they had to take their leave of us, they began to cry — hey, that’s no way to say goodbye Comedy Nights With Kapil (Colors).
The final episode was to air on Sunday but it wasn’t shown — somebody’s idea of a joke, you suppose? However, excerpts from the episode have made the rounds on social media, so we have seen Bittu Sharma (Kapil), his wife Manju (Sumona Chakravarti), Dadi Dolly Sharma (Asgar Ali in drag), Gutthi (Sunil Grover doing an Asgar Ali), et al, choke up and ostentatiously wipe their eyes. We’ve never had it so good, was their common refrain and they were right: Comedy Nights With Kapil made them laughing stocks in households across India, and so what if the humour was often sexist, racist, class-ist (you know what we mean) and tasteless?
When it began in the summer of 2013, the comedy sketch show was far more wholesome entertainment. Kapil as Inspector Shamsher Singh was genuinely funny in stock situations — along with his rumble-tumble co-stars. However, the more successful/ popular it became, the more slapstick became the humour and nearly always bordered on the bawdy. When Kapil tries to get a laugh by saying he’s not wearing underwear because why wear a garment that nobody can see — ha-ha or eow?
And then there was the monstrous regiment of Bollywood. Like so many other reality shows — or all reality shows — actors appeared as guests on Comedy Nights whenever they had a film release. They were meant to be part of the sketches, but honestly? They were a joke — they played no role at all. And they found everything so funny you’d think they’d inhaled nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Did you catch Kajol splitting her sides, her mouth, her clothes in a recent episode when Dilwale was released?
Comedy Nights did raise a few laughs but, frankly, it’s nothing to cry over.
We don’t do comedy well, we might as well accept it. For instance, Bindass has a series called Kota Toppers that is supposed to be a sitcom about coaching institutes in Kota. Anyone who has read the reports of suicides by students unable to handle parental, social and educational pressures of studying at such institutes, realises this is no laughing matter — unless it was done tastefully. Ha.
Aadhe Adhure doesn’t make you laugh but Bhaage Re Mann (Zindagi) does. Last week, we had lamented the lack of serials that wore their make-up lightly and told a good story more realistically. Glad to be proven wrong: These two shows do a little bit of both. Aadhe is quite daring in that Jassi, married to Narendra in Kapurthala, is unable to control her feelings for her brother-in-law Virendra. What’s more, she is portrayed as a good person, loving and giving to all and sundry — she is not your stereotypical negative character; the other unusual characteristic is that she woos Virendra rather than the other way round. Ajai Sinha, who directed out-of-the-box serials such as Hasratein and Astitva… Ek Prem Kahani, has once again done something different. May his tribe increase.
In Bhaage Re Mann, we have Padmini, 39 years old, single, plump and not afraid to be so. On the contrary, she is very comfortable with her age, status and weight as she goes about looking after and interfering in her family and friends’ affairs. She wears jeans, T-shirts and plops down wherever she likes. So there. As Oliver Twist may have said, please sir, can we have some more?
Postscript: Bhupendra Chaubey interviewed Sunny Leone for 18 minutes (CNN-IBN) and spent 18 minutes (give or take a few seconds) being offensive about her “porn” “past”: Let him take a selfie and ask himself why? Methinks he protests too much.
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