30 January,2022 08:59 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from the series
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When was the last time you saw an audience being asked to give a round of applause, with all seriousness, to a former head of state, at a stand-up comedy special? Kapil Sharma does precisely that - for his fellow, famous man from Amritsar, Dr Manmohan Singh, in his Netflix debut, I'm Not Done Yet.
This might please another former two-time MP from Amritsar, Navjyot Singh Sidhu, currently Congress president in Punjab, who lost his TV job as the resident Laughing Sikh on Sharma's sketch + chat show - thanks to a mob apparently offended by a random public statement he made once on Pakistan.
Sharma precedes and follows up his love for Dr Singh with low-key jibes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi - slyly placing references to Mann Ki Baat and demonetisation.
Digs so gentle, subtle and self-aware of clear and present danger, that it will bounce over heads of PM Modi's die-hard fans, permanently looking to take offense. Unlikely any of them will go, "So not done." Yet. Which is rather well-played, Sharma Ji!
Who, I'm told, doesn't give many press interviews. Which is a loss. Infinitely worse is the fact that ever since he started Comedy Nights with Kapil, later The Kapil Sharma Show, on network television, the three to four top, traditional film stars in Bollywood began giving fewer one-on-one press interviews themselves - leading up to usual release of movies.
Knowing that showing up on Sharma's show, besides other dance-music reality stuff, was enough to spread the word. This is, of course, tragic for committed beat reporters, who I know take entertainment more seriously than serious journalists delivering to your homes India's politics as gossip/entertainment instead.
In that sense, Sharma's stand-up, without the obvious set-ups and punchlines on occasion, feels like a full-length interview, delivered almost as is. Shining a light, from his father's death, pitfalls of fame, to private issues, such as depression and alcohol addiction.
This is quite in line with wider trend, where the stand-up comedian plays the confessional messenger - his personal mess, being the message.
Hannah Gadsby's Netflix special, Nanette (2018), I reckon, was the high point of this kinda comedy. Ethnically, closer home, so to say, Hasan Minhaj's Homecoming King (2017) could've made some comic purists dub it a TED talk instead.
This is outside the wider net of opinion pieces that stand-in for stand-up comedy - featuring the likes of Bill Maher, Trevor Noah, even Minhaj for that matter. Geographically, closer home, Vir Das's Two Indias short clip that metaphorically shook the establishment in 2020, is what I mean. Since nobody's taking politics as seriously, may as well comedians then.
This genre is yet to evolve in India beyond Kunal Kamra. Reasons are obvious. Make no mistake, it's not like Sharma is going far out on a limb in the service of politically subservice material. What he leaves behind to be read between the lines in his 54-minute special is commendable still.
Anything further would entail his own evolution from when he debuted as a competing comedian in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge in 2007. Otherwise, Kapil Sharma is so âdesi mainstream' that even the rando who produces his TV show is Salman Khan!
He's so mainstream that I find fellow desis on Twitter claiming, almost with a sense of pride, that they've never watched his TV show, that's strangely obsessed with crossdressing men in female parts. It is evening weekend staple for uncles, aunties and grandparents at North Indian homes.
Could be wrong but as a stand-up comic act, where Sharma has been a departure from great desis of the past, is in âcrowd work' - talking to a live audience and adlibbing jokes from that conversation. It's perhaps more a thing of western/English comedy.
Others before him, say Raju Shrivastav, even Johnny Lever, have been overtly reverential to patrons before them in a hall - "Meri agli peshkash hai⦠Next item, aapke liyeâ¦" Sharma roasts live spectators of The Kapil Sharma Show - occasionally making fun of their mannerisms or appearance - making it seem like ragging sometimes.
Whether you're roasting or ragging, I guess, depends on âpunching up, or âpunching down'. Although context is supremely paramount - the subject of a joke needn't be its target, as Ricky Gervais brilliantly, patiently explains in his Netflix special, Humanity (2018).
There is no crowd work in Sharma's special. And no punching down as well. What remains are his pet tropes such as poking fun at the Indian lower middle-class life. There is a peculiar way he's always done it that makes being "gareeb" (poor) as almost a thing worth FOMO.
And there is obviously the self-deprecating humour on his lack of command over English - an act of tremendous confidence that's always stood him out. Only once you appreciate how much an irreversible marker for class, speaking fluent English in India, still is.
Sharma ends his stand-up act singing in English. The rest of it is in Hindi, of course. With novels/films, the more authentic/specific you go, the more universal it gets. I wonder if jokes work in the opposite direction. Sharma himself talks about his âpoor-Indian-people, Hindi jokes' bombing before Nita Ambani once.
That said, he's so âdesi mainstream' that the global Netflix would approach him to acquire a proper, desi street-cred straightaway. It is the most locally relevant piece of content they've produced lately in India for sure.
