Funny, But Not Frightening
A thing is funny when in some way it is not actually offensive or frightening but it upsets the established order.
George Orwell in a 1945 essay titled Funny, but Not Vulgar
Amongst countless talented young people who do the country proud today, The Lucknow Observer chooses to profile Kapil Sharma, the self made aam aadmi who has reached dizzy heights of success simply for making people laugh.
Comedy Nights With Kapil (CNWK), the television show which he hosts every weekend, is a must watch for millions of his fans in India and abroad.
What is appreciated most about Kapil is that he seems to try to raise the standard of comedy in the country. Kapil is liked for making that essential effort to bridge that yawning gap here between trash talk and rib tickling, and between vulgarity and wit.
Kapil’s jokes are clean and often a wonderful play on words without being offensive like may your happiness rise like the price of oil and sorrows fall like the rupee.
And Kapil puts up his show in the company of a well coordinated ensemble that does him proud. He does not hog the limelight and shares the stage with the other characters in his show. In fact the secret of his success is perhaps the superb orchestration of the entire cast with each one getting enough time and attention on stage. Apart from him, CNWK is immensely watchable also for the other characters that appear with Kapil.
There are the regular characters of Palak, Pinky Bua, Raju, Dadi, twin brother and wife apart from those who come and go like Raju Srivastava.
Inspired by The Kumar’s at B No. 42, a British television show about a fictional British Indian family that has converted its back garden into a TV studio where celebrities are invited by the son for interviews and paid for their time spent in the company of the eccentric Kumar family in chutney.
Policeman Father
Born in 1981 just a day after April Fool’s Day, Kapil grew up in Amritsar in a policeman’s family. He says that he talks the same way in real life as on stage and so do members of his family and friends.
His mother agrees that Kapil was born with a funny bone and was very entertaining even as a child. The comedian once dreamt of becoming a singer and was passionate about theatre throughout his time in college and took to comedy professionally, a little later in life.
After being floored by the act of stand up comedian Gurpreet Singh in 2005, he auditioned for television but was disqualified.
He graduated from the same Hindu College in Amritsar as former prime minister Manmohan Singh and went on to audition again for television in 2007. He conceived the character of Sher Singh as an obnoxious police inspector who suffers from a terrible sense of superiority that became very popular.
Sher Singh obviously represents the indifference and cruelty of those in power towards the majority population of voiceless people.
After being questioned on countless occasions on how he keeps his gag bag so full all the time, Kapil said that it is from a small side shop where he buys humour for the price of Rs 250 a gram! Adding that this humour is bought and then swallowed by him three times everyday with a glass of water. How typically Kapil who is happy to occasionally make people laugh!
Youth Day
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The Lucknow Observer asked Kapil Sharma to talk about the recipe for enjoying such a super successful career. In return all that we got was Babaji ka tullu!
After an endless ohooooooooooooo…ooooo,,,ooo…it was time to talk to my hand. The idea was to move on in search of Gutti. Instead Pinky Bua was discovered decked in shocking blue and who could not be pinned down as she chased yet another strange man to marry.
Dadi was too drunk to even say ittuuu si thiii…and it was impossible to get a word out of Raju in an apron who writhed in his barren kitchen because he had not been fed in days.
The mistress of this shameless Sharma household said that she could not spare time for any one, even if it was The Lucknow Observer as she must attend to her mighty mouth that is on the verge of becoming more famous than Mick Jagger’s lush lips, after which she planned to leave anyways for her parent’s home in a huff!
Bittu Sharma could not help The Lucknow Observer either. He was speechless because he had not received the script of the day from Raaj Shandilyaa.
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Raaj
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Naturally without wasting more time with the disfunctional family of Sharma, even though he is the most watched comedian on Indian television today, The Lucknow Observer began an immediate hunt for Raaj instead.
Born in 1985, Raaj is the word behind the wisecracks voiced by Kapil on the idiot box. As content creator and lead writer of several comedy shows, Raaj is the unseen crown on the more visible kopfofKapil. HehasknownKapilfornearlysevenyearsandthereisnoitchthreateningtotear them apart just yet. He is the first writer for Kapil who is said to enjoy what Raaj writes.
What both Raaj and Kapil have in common is their interest in the way ordinary people live, speak to each other and amuse themselves. Even though one of the main attractions of Kapil’s show are Bollywood celebrities, many of them were once upon a time also ordinary people!
Like only till a decade ago both Raaj and Kapil were ordinary people struggling to make a living. Raaj was studying engineering and Kapil had wondered if he could make a career out of entertainment?
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Kapil’s India
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India is a country where on the streets, everyone seems to be in a hurry, but no one is ever on time Here people wear helmets to save their pockets, not life. Being one in a million in India means that there are 1241 Indians just like you. In Bangalore if you throw a stone, you hit a dog, or a software engineer and in Delhi it will b a dog or a CA. If someone asks for a dirty cloth to clean something, you are in India.
In India, it’s okay to piss in public, but not kiss. In India two things never leave you, your caste and your high school marks. When it comes to taking a stand on world issues, India is like a girl giving mixed signals. A country whose onions and tomatoes have more value than dollars.
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