Still Standing!

On Comedy:
Ref: Indiaspora, Sunday Times of India, October 15, 2006, Chidanand Rajghatta


There’s something about the Sunday newspaper. It seems to take you by the hand and lead you in a lazy stroll through the pages, which are an effortless mix of the informative, the light-hearted and the ridiculous. And it is to this last word that I draw the reader’s attention to.

The STOI Edit Page on the 15th of October, 2006 contained a piece by Chidanand Rajghatta, who holds forth on the “grim” situation of the stand-up comedy genre in India. In raising the “lofty” question of ’Would Stand-up comedy work in India’, he provides a, should I say, sympathetic yet condescending explanation for Indians that ‘an ethnic group known for its brains, not so much for its wit, is not expected to master stand-up comedy’. The author lists Steve Martin, Bill Cosby,Jay Leno et al as icons in the genre of stand up. The author reluctantly admits that NRIs in the USA (“Second generation ABCD types”) are carving a niche for themselves in this genre. After pointing out that Indian comics in the USA tend to stay away from topics like politics and sex, he arrives on the blanket conclusion that we Indians are “too prickly and prissy”.

I do have an urge to applaud the author on this rather ‘comic’ effort and will take the opportunity to throw some light on the long-standing tradition of comedy in India. ‘Haasya’ meaning humour has been inherent in Indian culture aeons before the average American learnt to spell ‘Stand-up”.

Birbal, the legendary minister in King Akbar’s court in the sixteenth century, was known to be one of the most prolific wits of Indian history. Anecdotes of his uncanny wit abound in Indian folklore.

The genre of humor which the author extols as ‘stand up comedy’ is but a diluted, urbanized version of classic wit- wit, which epitomizes linkages of diverse imagery. The great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, pioneered the literary concept of ‘upama’ meaning ‘simile’ drawn from the interlinking of ideas and images, which forms the foundation of classic wit.

The traditions epitomized by the great poets and the ‘Court Wit’ who was an integral member of the Maharajah’s durbar are alive in the guise of ‘haasya kavi sammelans’ in the present times. The ‘sammelan’ is a confluence of poets who specialize in comic verse and integrate wit in their compositions. The result, of course, is a laughter marathon for the listeners.

Indian movies have provided another avenue for modern adaptation of comedy and wit. Comic actors like Om Prakash, Mehmood, Rajendra Nath, Keshto Mukherjee are icons in their own right. Their styles of presenting comedy were unique to each actor and have universal appeal.

If comedy takes over the silver screen, can the television be far behind? The genre has its share of exponents on television too: Jaspal Bhatti, one of earliest specialists of slapstick humor, who struck a chord with the Indian middle class; Shekhar Suman, who’s talk shows though roughly modeled on the ‘Jay Leno’ format, are uniquely Indian in content and context; Johny Lever, Navjot Sidhu, Sajid Khan and Javed Jaffri, all of whom have made significant contributions to modern comedy in India.

And how can one forget the Great Indian Laughter Challenge, a unique talent show, which showcases the best of Indian stand-up comedy and has made a superstar out of the average Indian “drawing room” wit.

Comedy in India, is mot just restricted to the format of “Stand-up”. It exists in our poetry, literature, cinema, televisions soaps in an uniquely unbridled mode of presentation.

Comedy is everywhere in the Indian media and sometimes Indians themselves embody it. With unwitting caricaturists like Mr. Chidanand Rajghatta, who present laughably inaccurate images of the Indian identity to the world, who needs a stand-up comic?