Looking for comedy in the Indian world

Before “Flop Show”, there was “Yeh jo hai zindagi” and before both of them, there was “Baban Prabhu and Yakub Sayed” in the Doordarshan days. There was also “Chaal Nawachi vaachal vasti” and a whole lot of Marathi TV serials and legendary Marathi humorists like PuLa, that half of Raj Thackeray’s party members couldn’t even remember. Just like brothers-with-arms, the Samajwadi Party, wouldn’t know Kaka Hathrasi and Ashok Chakradhar. But I digress.

This post is simply about “What makes you LOL?” I’m talking old-fashioned laugh-out-loud. Not a smile, snicker, or heh, but a hearty laugh. Here’s what made me LOL over the years.

First there was..
The earliest stuff made me LOL were all those TV serials mentioned above. I loved them for the simple, situational comedy of everyday life. In movies, “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro” and “Chashme Buddoor” had me in complete splits. Video was still new and staple viewing included “Mind Your Language”, the “Lemon Popsicle” and “Carry On” movie series. In comics, I was a huge fan of Beetle Bailey, Graffiti, Hagar the Horrible, The Lockhorns and Moose & Molly. (This was obviously before Mid-day in Bombay started my all-time fav “Calvin and Hobbes”)

I discovered the joys of PG when I enrolled at the British Council Library. Other than Mr. Wodehouse, I read magazines Punch and Private Eye and admired the way the Brits tear their politicians apart. In those cable-less days, we were also lucky to see Brit TV series like the legendary "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister", “Spitting Image”, “Drop the Dead Donkey” and “Fawlty Towers” on good ol’ Doordarshan. There was also “Different Strokes” but give me those Brit comedies any day.

..Then the nineties
With cable coming in the early nineties, Star TV, in its original avatar, showed some excellent stuff like “MASH”, “Home Improvement” and “The Simpsons”. There was also the brilliant improv show “Whose line is it anyway”. The few days that NBC aired in India, I looked forward to “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno and then “Late night with Conan O’Brien” – quickly coming to prefer Conan to Leno. But NBC shut shop soon deciding that there was no market for an English TV channel in India. It took time for Star TV to agree. (Since then Star has come back with a dedicated English channel, but not NBC).

Later in the 90s, I liked “Friends” for some time but got bored quickly of their self-obsession and sex obsession. An accusation that holds true for just about any American TV series, so it’s only a question of what you can take. So, I took on to “Seinfeld” like crazy. I think it’s the best comedy TV series ever for me. In movies, anything by Zucker-Abrahams was totally LOL’able( “Airplane”, “The Naked Gun” and “Hot Shots” series) and two other landmark comedies of the 90s were “My Cousin Vinny” and “There’s something about Mary”.

The here and now
Cut to present day. I don't think I’m enough. But then, comedy ain’t what it used to be. Political correctness is the order of the day and we take things too seriously. (That’s one reason I enjoy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” – if that’s daily life in the US then it’s more reality than comedy.)

No media house dare make a (comedy) TV series or movie on politics, bureaucracy or the system. Can’t blame them, who’d want their effigies and posters burnt? That sucks so much (just for that hats off to Cyrus Broacha on The Week that Wasn’t). And that’s why I’m a huge fan of “Real Time with Bill Maher”. For the love of God I can’t imagine anyone in Mumbai making fun of either Balu T or Raju T (both of them, ironically, being cartoonists). And I doubt that day would ever come. For example, why has stand-up comedy never taken off in Bombay?

Which means we have to rely mostly on slapstick, parody and risqué humor to run our “Laughter Challenges”. Not that I’ve disliked them. In the past, I’ve enjoyed Raju Srivastav and Sunil Pal much more than any Priyadarshan comedy (barring the first “Hera Pheri”). And I also think Munna-bhai took comedy to a completely different level. But still. There’s only so much that we can come up with. All the laughter shows have become photocopies of each other and I could never stand seeing Sidhu, Shekhar Suman, Mandira Bedi, et al with their over-the-top fake ear-to-ear laughs. The only comedy I enjoy on the Hindi TV channels today is the priceless "Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai". Whoever thought a clash between elitism and middle class-ism could be so hilarious. Ironically, the series has already closed a long time back and what I'm seeing today are re-runs - which are still very funny. 

Finally, the internet. From emails, the fore bearers of the tech funnies, to Facebook wall posts, Orkut scraps and youtube videos, I’ve seen barely a handful of really funny stuff. And now there’s blogs. Even here, I’ve stopped following most of the blogs I found funny for a variety of reasons (Gawker being an exception because he's a class apart).

Hm. Funny. When I want it, it does become difficult to find comedy in my current world.

So, what makes you LOL?

Happy Holidays

A term that I couldn't get when I first heard it. "Happy Holidays"? What's the deal with "Happy Holidays"? Sure I got that people go home for Diwali and stuff. And for me going home meant staying in Bombay itself. But "Happy Holidays"?

I mean I haven't seen anyone take more than two days off for Diwali. But since Diwali is on two separate days, more often than not it becomes a long weekend. You know, leave for home on Tuesday night, Weds is off (i.e. public holiday for Lakshmi Pooja), take Thursday off and since Friday would also be chutti (public hol #2 for Diwali), you land up taking almost the whole week off. Fresh back to work on Monday morning. That's the holidays that I know here.

But to think of going home from say, 23rd (Dec) night all the way to 1st (Jan)..that's 10 days. Man, that is a lot of leave. Yet, each time I see people greet each other, or signboards and ads everywhere (all this of course when I'm watching a an American serial) which go "Happy Holidays", I can't help but wonder, what would happen if I tell someone "Hey, Happy Diwali and Happy Holidays". Yeah, yeah, I know that look.

And since you're waiting for the point of this post, it is in fact - Happy Holidays. At least to me, because this blog is now off for..um..holidays. I will see you on the other side of the New Year 2008. Oh ok, I now I've been lax in my posting. And yes, I know that posts should logically have increased since I'm on break. But well, it's not happened and I'm sorry. I am because I know I want to post more. And I won't BS by saying "My New Year resolution is to post more", because that lies next to the "I will lose 20kgs this year". I mean if you believe that you'd believe that it's gonna be Ron Paul v/s John Edwards next year in the USA. Oh I kid the Americans (talking of which, does anyone know when Bill Maher's new season begins?)

Finally, wrapping up 2007.

1. My movies of the year are The Bourne Ultimatum (English), Chak De India and I'm now adding Khoya Khoya Chand.

2. On DVD, I can't recall one single movie that I went ga-ga over, because this, for me, was the year of TV series on DVD. And therefore, my DVD of the year would have to be "The Sopranos".

3. My song of the year is Vaari Vaari (Hindi). English song would have to be Speed of Sound (I know it's not from 2007, but I heard it so many times this year that it just eclipses anything else I heard).

4. Since I didn't read any book this year, I don't have a book of the year like I did last year. But I can point you to NYT's list of The 10 Best Books of 2007 and Books of the Year 2007 at The Guardian. What a fine line-up of books. Maybe I'll even read one of them next year.

So, what were your fav movies, music and books for the 2007? Love to know.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and yes, Happy Holidays.

God, parachutes and Wall Street

This one's for you, Mariachi. Hang tough, my friend.

From his book "Straight from the Gut" this is Jack Welch. Extract from Chapter 15 titled "Too full of myself".

Where God parachutes us is a matter of luck. Nowhere is that more true than Wall Street. There are more mediocre people making more money on Wall Street than any other place on earth. Sure, there are some stars, and some earn every nickel they make. They crowd they carry along with them is something else. Wall Street might be the only place in the world where a $100,000 raise is considered
a tip.

When you handed someone a check for $10 million, they'd look you in the eye and say, "Ten? The guy down the street just got 12!" "Thank you" was a rare expression at Kidder.

The outrageous pay in a good year was bad enough. It really drove me nuts in a bad year. That's when the argument would go something like this: "Yeah, we had a tough year, but you've got to give them at least as much as they made last year or they'll go across the street."

This place had the perfect we-win, you-lose game.

Wall Street had to have been better when the companies were private and the partners were playing with their own money rather than "other people's money." The concept of idea sharing and team play was completely foreign. If you were in investment banking or trading and your group had a good year, it didn't matter what happened to the firm overall. They wanted theirs.

It's a place where the lifeboats carrying millionaires were always going to make it to shore while the Titanic sank.

Personal ads, part 2

[Part 1 here]

More on personal ads. This time some delightful ones like this -

"My finger on the pulse of culture, my ear to the ground of philosophy, my hip in the medical waste bin of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. 14% plastic and counting -- geriatric brainiac and compulsive NHS malingering fool (M, 81), looking for richer, older sex-starved woman on the brink of death to exploit and ruin every replacement operation I've had since 1974. Box 7648 (quickly, the clock's ticking, and so is this pacemaker)."

That ad is from this book titled "They call me Naughty Lola: Personal ads from the London Review of Books". Read this Salon.com piece on the book which compares the LRB personal ads with those from the New York Review of Books - such as this

"LITHE, LOVELY. Vivacious, passionate, successful concert singer (Lincoln Center, Carnegie) ... Cool (but not cold) blonde with an enviably high metabolism -- witty, classy, quick to smile -- a mix of Angelica Huston/Cameron Diaz. Argentina-born, Paris (Sorbonne) educated and fluent in six languages (including Catalan -- ¡j'estim Barcelona!). Graceful, athletic, and encouraging. Laughs often and much. Can't live without: Martinique, lobster rolls, squash (the sport), and the miso black cod at Nobu. Habitué of Telluride, Napa, and The Vineyard. Well-fixed financially, looking for same. Inspired by Mozart, Stravinsky, Ray Charles, and gamelan music. Seeks intellectual, nonsmoking, fit, successful, sophisticated, not fully retired, man, 47–67."

Gaah. Now I know why I continue to love British humor.

So, before I leave, sample another ad from the Lola book - this time, woman seeking man.

"This column reads like a list of X-file character rejects. Woman, 34, able to bi-locate and start fires with the power of her pre-menstrual tension. Seeks human/Jovian hybrid with whom to start genetic processing plant (Bicester). Must have own car. Box no. 5258."

My book of the year 2006

Posted late, spurred by this post.

A marvelous book by a brilliant author. I loved all 900 pages of it and will keep going back to the "Insets" in the book. I will not be forgetting Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde for a long time.

I've not read a single review. By choice really, because I think that the sheer thrilling joy ride this book was to me, takes it beyond any review, at least for me.

Go read. Really, please go read.

Ok, so I'm not such a frequent book reader, thanks to work and hazaar other things. But I do know that a good book can be a great companion. This was the best.