Hindi comedy films: I laugh so that I may not weep 

As the raunchy and floozy-flouncing Houseful 3 and Good Newwz heated up screens across India – and hot overseas markets targeting the ever-hungry Diaspora some time ago – I couldn’t help but flashback to a time when real comedy was king and comedians were hot properties, enjoying star billing and solid mass popularity. Be it Gope, Bhagwandada, Sundar, Dhumal, Johnny Walker, Kishore Kumar, Mehmood, Keshto Mukherjee, Deven Verma, Asrani, Paintal, Jagdeep, even Johnny Lever and Rajpal Yadav. Govinda too! A rage in the early nineties, the comic genius — famous for his sensational dancing skills and fantastic comic timing — was unfortunately consumed by low-brow and down market content that mostly targeted the front-benchers, labelling him a sadakchhaap entertainer, doomed to perish once this (vulgar) phase was over. Pity, because he had unbelievable potential. They all rocked and their fans rolled at their facial expressions, funny lines, dialogue delivery and antics. Whatever happened to that brand of comedy?

Has that world of feel-good, warm, joy-inducing cinema, celebrating laughter and enjoyed across all strata of society totally vanished, replaced by hi-decibel, glam and glitz-driven extravaganzas involving exotic locales, gorgeous A-lister stars, fabulous romance and amazing music? As for comedy, has it (mostly) been reduced to a cheap, double-meaning, innuendo-leaning nudge-wink voyeuristic stuff cleverly manipulated to tickle the humorous hormonal side of an audience-base largely focusing on the lowest common denominator?

Let’s attempt to examine the subject in perspective.

Comedy as the main narrative, a full-fledged subject is no longer attempted because it’s not perceived as a viable proposition any more. Undoubtedly the comedians of the past, especially Johnny Walker, Kishore Kumar and Mehmood were headliners and some of the old comedies — Chalti Ka Naam Gadi, Padosan, Sadhu aur Shaitan, Angoor, Chupke Chupke, Naram Garam, Golmaal — were indeed mind-blowing but truth to say, what percentage did they constitute? Marginal. Comedy in Bollywood has always been a required and necessary parallel track, a part of the overall hero-heroine-villain-vamp-comedian package that went into the making of a conventional Bollywood movie. Even then, family dramas, mystery, love, romance, heartbreak, happy endings mostly drove the narrative. In this scheme of things, comedies, though popular, had very limited space. Today, critics believe, things have got even worse with film-making becoming such an expensive proposition in a fiercely competitive arena where ROI can be a real struggle. While they totally concede both the comedians and comedies of yesteryears were definitely iconic, they believe that humour is a moving target, a time and place phenomenon with yesterday’s ideas of laughter likely to be today’s y-a-w-n! This is not to disrespect or devalue the past but only point out that concepts and understanding of humour – like other tracks – is subject to change. Remember 2020 is not the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s and new-age audiences are not obliged to share similar tastes of their elders.

As for the common refrain of oldies that those films are evergreen and timeless, it is prompted more by nostalgia than truth. If one actually bothers to do a real checkout, they could well be surprised at how few of today’s youngistan really freakout to those golden comedies mentioned! Blasphemous as it may sound, the same goes for the revered Chaplin and Keaton films as sell. To many, they appear both dated and corny. They add that tons of other entertainment avenues — with Internet, Social Media and You Tube heading the list and offering a dizzying range of new-age humour — has further pushed these comedies on the backburner. Finally, those comedies were also made in quieter, less distracted and more innocent times with bawdy humour and irreverence nowhere near the mainframe. Clean, wholesome humour for family consumption – like a thali – was the flavour of the day. That scene has changed beyond recognition.

Avid watchers of Bollywood comedy insist that one critical aspect has not been touched upon – the special and unique skillset required to write and direct good comedies! Film and theatre writer-director-actor Bharat Dabolkar enters the frame. “I remember years ago, the late Bollywood badshah B.R. Chopra had invited me over for a chat. During our conversation, he congratulated me for my string of successful comedy plays and confessed that barring one exception – Pati, Patni Aur Woh – he never ever attempted any projects in that genre because it was off his radar. He just couldn’t handle it and nor did he have the necessary flair to pull it off.”

Dabolkar, however, vociferously dismisses the common refrain that comedy-as-a-genre-will-not-work – today and insists that the opposite is true! “In today’s stressful and complex times when life is a struggle for the common man, a well-scripted and deftly directed comedy is likely to be welcomed with open arms! Remember Vicky Donor, Piku and Tanu weds Manu, even stuff like Badhai Ho and Shubh Mangal...Maybe they weren’t full-fledged comedies because they were issued-based. But the audience loved them enough to rocket them into the big league. The issue is: Do filmmakers have the desire, ability, guts and drive to revive this glorious category of films into popular mainstream? Comedies that provoke, inform or plain entertain in a clean, feel-good manner? We certainly have a large reservoir of actors, waiting and eager to perform. Why don’t we go back to the era of situational humour instead of the corny, populist and lewd verbal innuendo-driven drivel that passes off as comedy?”

Looking back, two other obstacles can be added to the list that has road-blocked the march of comedies. One, the hero as an all-rounder who performs all the roles, including comedy. The Big B and Dharam may have started it in the seventies (Chupke Chupke) and today, SRK, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar are only three who are taking it forward with all cylinders firing. Secondly, we seem to live in hyper-sensitive and intolerant times where edgy comedy could well be misconstrued as offensive and all hell would break loose. For example, it’s highly unlikely that a Padosan could ever be made today. Some sections of the southern region could well have been offended! So, until then, make do with simplistic, populist, chauvinistic and male-specific Kya Kool Hai Hum which seems to be always welcomed back with Housefull boards and a dictionary that teaches you weird phrases like bahar latakte hain (let’s hang out), banduk ka beta (son of a gun) and thandidawai le le (take a chill pill)!