It is not the end of the road for Kapil Sharma     

All of us who wished to see Kapil Sharma snap back into shape have our fingers crossed. Close friends say, the comic virtuoso who brought so much happiness into our lives with his stand-up act on television, is in no mood to return to television immediately.

“He doesn’t seem to know what he wants. He does seem to know what he doesn’t want. For example, he didn’t want to come back to India after his long holiday in Europe. He was happy being on his own, walking, sleeping, eating, thinking. He is just not up to the life of a TV entertainer as yet. He feels all his troubles and anxieties have come upon him after his success as an entertainer. He wants to return to his life on camera which he now feels is a lie but a part of his life,” says a source.

In fact, Kapil had confessed to me, “Sach bolun? Main thak gaya hoon iss bhaag-daud se. Main yeh sab ab karna hi nahin chahta (Shall I tell you the truth? I am tired of all this running around. I don’t want to do all this any more).”

At that time, Kapil’s close friends and his girlfriend Ginny had dismissed his anguished outcry as an over-reaction.

Now, it seems Kapil is gearing up for a new inning in showbiz. He gave up the spiralling TRPs of The Kapil Sharma Show, took a break, then returned with Family Time With Kapil. When that wasn’t working out, Kapil voluntarily ended the show. Contrary to popular belief, the channel didn’t ask Kapil to leave. He did so on his own.

Kapil had said to me, “What is the point of doing something I don’t enjoy? If I don’t enjoy it, how can I expect the audience to have a good time?”

Now, I realise how ominous Kapil’s words were. The truth is, Kapil was tired of that phase of his life.

But he is ready to return. All the people who conspired to tarnish his image—a disgruntled girlfriend, a comedian colleague who found his fame on Kapil’s show and then defamed his mentor by blowing up a fight out of all proportions—should stop feeling happy. The coast isn’t clear for the rivals.

The audience will accept Sunil Grover or Abhishek Krushna in Kapil’s place. Kapil is and will always remain irreplaceable. To those who brought about his downfall, I say, enjoy your tryst with borrowed glory. In fame, Kapil made his colleagues famous. In his exile too, he has brought recognition to his colleagues. Now, he is soon coming back. Go, get into the drag as much as you like, gender-bending won’t usurp Kapil from the throne.

There cannot be another Kapil Sharma simply because no one does the stand-up gig as effortlessly as him. He never has to dress up as a woman, spew double-meaning jokes or suck up to stars. Kapil Sharma was funny without trying. Thank you for all the laughter, thank you for taking Indian television out of the clutches of Ekta Kapoor’s sickening soaps and the Big Boss brand of crude reality, thank you for making Indian television bearable.

Do what makes you happy. You brought a smile into our lives. Now, it’s your turn.

No one cares to see the pain that Kapil is going through. They only see the rude obnoxious tweets. If only they would see the provocation behind these unsavoury outbursts. No, it is not arrogance. It’s just the opposite. Kapil is a vulnerable man who was unequipped to handle the superstardom that hit him, and Indian television, like a meteor. We didn’t see it coming. Neither did he. I’ve known him since he became the Kapil Sharma and he has never been anything less than warm and affectionate, always sharing his inner-most fears and insecurities with me.

When I spoke to him after the Friday fireworks that eroded his reputation even more, he was not the least apologetic. On the contrary, he told me things related to the incident that further exposed the hollowness of this whole sham and shindig that we call showbiz. In a world of make-believe where there are no real friendships, Kapil looks for genuinely unaffected caring people. And when he doesn’t find them, he recoils and hits out at those very people who use his superstardom for their own gains.

While it would be unethical of me to reveal the shocking details that emerged from Kapil’s heartfelt outpouring on Friday night, I can say this much without breaching his trust: Kapil is very hurt by the betrayals that he has gone through in the past few years.

“How would you respond if you went through the same things? Wouldn’t you be angry? We all have our way of expressing anger, I do it with gaalis,” Kapil told me.

He also promised to marry the very devoted, very intelligent and sorted girlfriend Ginny, the mysterious girlfriend whom no one knows about, and whom Kapil says he is already married to, in his mind. Making it official would be just the kind of formality that’s abhorred by the informal, unassuming, unpretentious boy-man from Amritsar who brought so much laughter into our lives and I am sure will continue to do so in the feature.

We will see you Kapil, after the break.