Our Comedy Their Comedy

Some of the cityrsquos best standup comedians came together over the weekend gone by for Vir Dasrsquos Pajama comedy festival Mumbairsquos entertainmentseeking crowd spent a large sum on the tickets because they were guaranteed a good time Actually standup comics here have it relatively easy audience laugh at pretty much anything If the jokes are dirty mdash lsquononvegrsquo as they are quaintly called in India then they challenge the audience to prove their openmindedness mdash to themselves and their friends Like lsquooh we are cool with thisrsquo parents watching with their kids and going lsquohaawwrsquo at the really offcolour jokesGood Humour That laughter can be clean and generated from the unlikeliest source material is proved by the enduring success of Ankrsquos comedy Hai Mera DilCatching the Celebrity Roast segment in which a whole bunch of comedians verbally skewered Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak one was stuck with the Mars vs Venus effectmdash what men and women find funny being vastly different Interestingly all the comedians on stage acknowledged their debt to the two VJs mdash turnedactors whose Great Indian Comedy Show on TV gave breaks to a whole lot of themBoth male and female comics are unabashedly politically incorrect mdashTanmay Bhattrsquos obesity Ashish Shakyarsquos dark skin Sorabh Pantrsquos baldness and Vir Dasrsquos height lack of it that is came in for some merciless ribbing But male comics simply could not manage even a few minutes of comedy without referring to body parts used for excretionreproduction Even when they admire their victimsrsquo sporting spirit for taking the really cruel barbs without throwing tantrums or walking off the stage they say they have b of steel when actually they have nerves of cast ironSexism is of course rampant male comics cannot get by without making the crassest digs at women and the locker room kind of guffawing at the size of boobs and the lsquoVrsquo word creeps in too which wasnrsquot so a couple of years ago Though it must be said Malaysian comedian Harith Iskandar did a hilarious piece about a girlfriend whose suspicions go over the top when he runs into an old flame Several comedians do get packed houses without hitting below the belt Vir Das Sorabh Pant Anuvab Pal on a good day But it is easier for standup comics to get laughs using smutty materialIn a piece tracing the history of Standup comedy Jim Mendrinos wrote ldquoStandup is a decidedly American invention with its roots going back into the mid 1800s Up until that time comedy was the exclusive domain of theatre The unintentional grandfather of standup comedy was Thomas Dartmouth ldquoDaddyrdquo Rice the man who is credited with inventing the minstrel shows The minstrel shows were probably one of the most grotesque forms of entertainment in existence It was built on negative racial stereotypes and the mockery of a race of people who were already subjugatedrdquoThat scalding humour born of humiliation and rage of the Blacks can never be replicated for an elite urban audience just looking for easy entertainmentLaughter can be clean and generated from the unlikeliest source material is proved by the enduring success of Ankrsquos comedy Hai Mera Dil that also had a show over the same weekend This play directed by the late Dinesh Thakur an adaptation of a lightweight piece called Send Me No Flowers by Norman Barasch and Carroll Moore is the longest running Hindi play that has had over a thousand shows and has been running for around 36 years The play about a hypochondriac who believes he is dying and wants to find a suitable match for his wife before he departs must have been progressive thirty years ago in India when widow remarriage was not common But it still continues to sell out and gets repeat audiences maybe because there is an innocence about it that reaches out to audiences who can then laugh without shame or guiltUnlike English theatre groups in Mumbai that adapted British bedroom farces with impunity Hindi theatre groups understood that their audiences were conservative and tailored their content accordingly Itrsquos not as if there are no vulgar Hindi plays but there are not too many and the standup tradition is yet to catch on in a big way Raju Shrivastav is apparently cashing in but going by the huge popularity of comedy shows on TV the quality of their humour can be debated it is just a matter of time before Hindi comedians see the potential of getting on stage and making fun of their wives and mothersinlaw mdash there is already a precedent of the hasya kavi sammelans and jokes for the picking off the netBut for a really intelligent comedian there is lot of material out there mdash our leaders celebs stars socialites deserve to be lsquoroastedrsquo pity that so many comedians still choose to focus on their crotchesDeepa Gahlot is an awardwinning film and theatre critic and an arts administrator