“I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.” This famous quote is attributed to the greatest comedian of all times, Charlie Chaplin. Comedy is tragedy in a long shot. Who could have imagined that Chaplin responsible for making millions laugh and forget their pain was battling with his own darkness in his private world?
Back home, desi (local) humour has gone through a gamut of transformation itself, reflecting the changing times, crises and morale of the general public. Like everything else, Pakistanis and Indians have often compared their funny bones with each other’s. The consensus has often come out in support of Pakistan perhaps owing to our better grip on the Urdu language, and the increasing disinterest amongst Indians for speaking fluent Hindi.
If we backtrack to the 1970s, we see that comedians were a different set of actors than leading men of the Hindi cinema. There was a Mehmood, an Asrani and a Jagdeep for every Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna, and a Tun Tun for every Meena Kumari. The popular actors of that time often shied away from attempting full-fledged comic roles, perhaps fearing the public wouldn’t take them too seriously afterward. Comedy is serious business though; clowns make complete fools of themself in order to wipe away the tears of a stranger. A strong and timely coordination between words, body language helps them achieve just that, besides presence of mind of course. The funny business generating out of India shifted to mimicry of film stars during the late 1980s and the entirety of the 1990s, turning comedy into something that wasn’t creative or impressive, to say the least.
That was the period when giant strides in the world of humour were being taken by the likes of Umar Shareef. He went on to become a sensation even across the border and to date, superstars like Shahrukh Khan and Kajol fondly talk of Baqra Kiston Pe and Buddha Ghar Pe Hai whenever they give interviews to Pakistani channels. Shareef’s brand of comedy was street smart, accented and highly witty.
Another group, comprising of Moin Akhtar and Anwar Maqsood were a lot more subtle and classy in comparison, relying on their intellect in more distinctly low-key ways to make important social and political commentary.
The generation of those times picked up on these nuances and manipulated it in their own world. The content of the jokes of the aam admi (ordinary man) during the time mostly revolved around unemployment, dreams of settling abroad and unrequited love. They say that humour acts like a shock-absorber in the harsh road of life, making the ride a bit easier. Many of us turn to goofing around just to loosen up after a stressful day, as the child in us comes alive.
The current day scenario in Pakistan’s world of comedy includes social media accounts in addition to television shows. People masquerade as popular celebs to post jokes online and one such popular account is @aapazubeda on Twitter. Run by a youth from Karachi, he uses this platform to make political comments and the content can often be risqué, which the anonymity of a parody account allows him to pull off. One of his brilliant thoughts recently was a tweet when Adnan Sami Khan took up Indian nationality. He wrote “Indians, keep Adnan Sami to yourself, we will blow up another one.” Of course, it sounded funnier in Urdu! They say brevity is the soul of the wit and this joke captured just that. The tweet was widely appreciated by Indians as well. The man behind this account sees the purpose of humour in society as a means “to tell others of our intelligence” but also admits that it’s a mask that one puts on to escape the harsher realities of life.
A performance is expected out of humorists every time they are outside their bedroom irrespective of how their day may be going otherwise. Actors like Robin Williams struggled with depression for years without the public being aware of their ailment.
There is another emerging group of ‘funny people’, and they don’t reside in either Pakistan or India. These are the overseas desis, young people whose online content is usually about balancing an Eastern self within the Western world. Their humour is much frothier, and often, more refreshing than what one encounters on Pakistan TV shows.
Pakistani humor, lately, has relegated itself to just politics. There are satire shows on every channel with similar concepts. Every channel has their lookalikes of Imran Khan, Asif Ali Zardari and Main Nawaz Sharif. These shows are an extension of the news itself, which this nation is hopelessly addicted to, like someone is to drugs. So in essence, these shows tend to bring down the morale of the public even more; I tend to flip through most of these shows.
The need for an uplifting sense of humour where hope is the main theme in a creative project or where the writer works consciously to divert Pakistan’s attention towards bigger dreams and aspiration is the need of the day. Needless to say, most content-creators only run after ratings these days. They say it is very easy to write dramatic content and very difficult to make the masses laugh with tears of joy.
In the world of fiction on Pakistani television there is one Faseeh Bari Khan who has to his advantage a brilliant Hina Dilpazeer, an actor par excellence. Khan is outstanding with his characterisations and captures the spirit of Karachi quite well. Kapil Sharma from India now commands immense respect from Pakistanis who regularly tuned in to watch his shows. This is the slight shift one has noticed in respect to Indian humor, which may have been dismissed earlier by us.
However, somewhere deep down the people of Pakistan seem to be losing their ability to laugh at themselves. Amongst the middle class, the focus has shifted entirely to mocking others based on their looks, lack of education or assets in the name of fun. The poor man on the road, of course, knows that laughter is the best medicine and that is why children found on the streets without shoes have the widest smiles on their faces.
The writer is a freelance columnist with a degree in Cultural Studies and a passion for social observation, especially all things South Asian. She tweets @chainacoffeemug