News in India, some assumed, was like discarded fodder only meant to be fed to unthinking animals. I strongly disagree. News in India is definitely fodder for the stand-up comedian and it makes my heart grow fonder of our own made-in-India headlines.

Look at the way peacock tears and peahen pregnancies have shot into limelight. Look at the speed with which one innocuous comment by a retired High Court judge launches a nation-wide debate on whether the cow should now be declared as Rashtra-mata. Look at the way the bull poses with aggression in his eyes knowing fully well that his beloved is now more protected than any other crumbling monument. Stand-up comedians need no longer go yada-yada about love-birds etching their names on trees, well-to-do families in big cars rolling down windows to throw banana peels on the road, and an unhealthy mix of mobile phones, chowmein, and jeans calling sexual aberrations. So long as we have politicians with mufflers, judges who pronounce judgements on other judges, engineers and administrators who suggest covering lakes and water bodies with plastic sheets, we are never going to be known as a nation that is humourless.

Sardar jokes are no longer prime material for the comedians. Even triple talak, love jihad, anti-romeo squads, ghar-wapsi, vyapam, and stone-pelters are on the verge of extinction – even before they had completed their victory round. There is always something new to laugh about. Misguided minds, for instance… or even tragedy tourists, let me add. Comic developments happen faster than stand-up comedians can pick, adapt, and blurt in front of small paying groups. There is now a severe and real-time risk of these comedians saying that humour is flung at them at a disorienting velocity and a lot of this wonderful material actually goes into orbit in space before it is caught and processed.

The truth is that the social media platforms in the Indian netosphere are forever rolling with uncontrollable mirth and it is a pleasure to get up in the morning and read some of these brilliant updates. Bloggers have stopped complaining of being unable to find topics to write on. Even reporters and columnists in the mainstream media are happy to be humouring an entire nation. People have begun reading newspapers… and if this doesn’t make you smile, wait until our vanity publishers wake up and drown you in a tsunami of ebook promos announcing the coming of age of comedy in India. Not wit, let me clarify. Wit requires authors to inject intelligence into slap-stick occurrences and this is impossible if all that you’re doing is racing with other authors to launch another book before the others do. I am, therefore, not surprised at all to find the word ‘author’ being used as a title by simply too many people on the social media. We have certainly moved from times when people were content to mention B.Sc under their names on name-plates… and if you’re one who simply uses his or her name, you’re not market-savvy at all. Whatever be your name, you need to find the right title for yourself now… be a humorist, witticist (like the publicist), author, poet, influencer, image-builder, or even some kind of a consultant if you aren’t lucky enough to possess a Dr, Ar, or Er to tag. I know that some of you will say that doctors have started this unholy comic race as they were the ones who flaunted even memberships below their name to seem better than they were.

So there is a lot of humour all around and it is time that our country where rivers of milk once flowed, gets to at least milk this fad for jokes and laughs. Going up in the happiness index would be some sort of a consolation even if we lag behind in the world of economic development.

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Stand-up comedy in India isn’t yet dead

Stand-up comedy in India isn’t yet dead

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Arvind Passey
02 June 2017