Show me the Funny

Tiny rooms. weird lighting and the everlasting wait. There really isn't much to distinguish stand up from any other artform in terms of the build up to the act, but there's a surreal charm to the whole package. Stand-up, for me, had an immediate connection, a sense of purity like Colombian cocaine (read:coffee), and it all 'clicked' (a phrase I relate more to ignition that to art).

My introduction to stand-up was through a host of panel shows, DVD's and skits, the classic way. However, there was something different about my reaction to stand-up as opposed to other things I've tried like music, poetry, etc. With either of those, it was always a compelling need to reach some benchmark, or play a particular piece. There was never an innate connection, that one extra step where true happiness met a pot of gold with a talking monkey. But with stand-up it seemed like that'll all change. Largely, because it demands the least amount of paraphernalia, and im lazy to the bone. I quite liked the harmonica and thought of giving it a try, but couldn't be arsed to buy and/or learn. With comedy I just decided to think up some jokes, but them in an order decided by the cosmic justice of 'eenie meenie and miscellaneous other names that rhyme' and voila, there was my cauldron of embarassment, waiting to be showcased.

So it all began (like last week or something, this is just poor story telling) at a nice little pub in central london. The city boasts of phenomenal open mic nights, where first-timers are given a free shot to do whatever, whenever (well, within the five minutes). Being the second to last act didnt help, with a plethora of material to listen to, while running that one horrible pile of dust masquerading as a joke in your head.

Mustering the courage to not just hiss at myself for the length of the set, I somehow pieced the one-liners with the longer build ups and ran in a few circles for a bit. The audience reception was fantastic, which essentially was the impetus to pick it up in the first place. Ah! the thrill of making people laugh. If only I could do that through this post.

Yenna, Something, Blah!

Sundays are horrible if you've gone the whole morning  without an espresso, when Katrina Kaif starts to look like Bar Rafaeli. it is now theoretically impossible to open a webpage without Shahrukh's Khan's holographic image dragging you to a theater to watch the shambolic casket of racism that is Chennai Express. This is probably the umpteenth attempt at trying to make sense of the neuron killing machine that is a Rohit Shetty movie. So there have been articles, comic strips, lampoons, reviews scribblings on the back of a pigeon, graffiti written with saliva that have either praised and/or decried the phenomenon of marketing louder than a Punjabi wedding about Bollywood's official horror show.

This post claims to do something a bit different. Like not claim to be funny (no pretences, also), talk about how irrational the movie is (but its fun no, LOL, play badminton) or why that sequence of dance steps has been imprinted onto my occipital lobe even before the release. This is just a simple step back, to ground zero to see what it is we are going crazy about.

Clearly, Chennai Express doesn't announce itself as a film of the French independent era caliber. And everyone somehow excuses it for that. For the amount of money that even the spot boys on the set would make, you'd expect the movie to rebuild the Amazon rainforest. The idea here is simple, its not enough to take the public and squish them into a giant mass of zombies (unless they're on an island in Goa with a Russian Saif Ali Khan), calling it just 'fun'.

Why? you might ask. Yes, the two of you who're bothering to read this. Well, because its not like these movies are a new wave or provide a break from serious cinema. This IS serious cinema. Its come to the point that when silly lightbulb dances, a whole host of stereotypical nonsense and an objectified lead female are what is normalized as the 'expected' routine, there is very little impetus for anyone to make a movie that has two bits of sense in it. Its created a massive vacuum, which prevents any innovation or artistic credibility.

Moreover, its nefarious (haan, because humour nahin toh ek do angrezi ke bade words!) to acting and cinema in society. It trivializes the problems, like the bigotry that residents in North India face, if from any other part of the country. It legitimizes viewpoints of those who haven't been exposed to new ideas and are big Bollywood fanatics. This 'ah! its a no-brains movie so let it go' attitude needs to stop. There may be jokes in the next piece. Till then: Mind it.