The Joker

All my life I have believed in humour; You can get tired/bored of everything (romance, friendship, drama) but not humour; humour is something that can be entertaining, romantic, thought-provoking or all at the same time. But by humour, I mean the witty, tongue-in-cheek kind and not the slapstick/physical expression that is so common all around us.

Still, this weekend, I think I had an overdose of humour. What began with the movie Fukrey and ended with a Vir Das show, with Hangover III and Pakistan batting in the middle, seemed a bit too much, even by my standards.

If you thought Fukrey was yet another bubblegum movie about college kids, designer clothes, picturesque locations, you couldn’t have been farther away from the truth. Imagine Student of the Year. (pause, while I puke). Now imagine the exact opposite of it. Here were three below-average kids and a talented musician with modest dreams which most of us take for granted: dreams of having a normal life with college and fun and friends, dreams of making it big as an artist, dreams of finding the perfect girl or dreams of looking after your family. But they are broke, they are stupid and they are unlucky. So far so good. Who doesn’t love a bit of light-hearted North Indian humour garnished with some Punjabi abuses? And then comes the twist: they also have a gift, which lands them into trouble and then more trouble. The second half is a fast-paced journey which eventually reaches its destination of a feel-good comedy, endearing in its own way.

Then yesterday, I braved heavy rains and bad traffic to watch History of India- VIRitten by, surprise, surprise, Vir Das. Now, I am an absolute Vir Das fanatic and every year I make sure I watch at least one of his shows apart from the random stand-up comedy that I witness through the year. But this was one show that I have been craving to watch, simply because it served up the delicious combination of two of my favourite subjects: history and humour. So I traveled all the way to NCPA, taking a variety of transports to make sure I don’t get stuck in the rains, when a friend suddenly conjured up the tickets for the show, just sneaking in on time. While parts of it was indeed funny, at the end of the day, I left a tad disappointed, asking myself if it was just me or have I seen better before?

May be I was too close to history to have it made fun of… (nahhh)

May be the focus was more on visual expressions and less on script…

May be after a wait of more than a year, my expectations were too high…

Or may be, just may be, as absurd as it sounds, humour was finally losing its shine to the glare of the joker called life…