Sunday, December 17, 2000		Article

Rare reels of laughter
By Vikramdeep Johal

AS the chief aim of mainstream films is to entertain, comedy is a staple ingredient in them. Almost every Hindi commercial film has a few sequences the purpose of which is to make viewers laugh. Usually, the scenes bear little or no relevance to the story.

Rather, our film-makers more often than not rely on mushy melodrama or slam-bang action to push the story ahead and bring it to a conclusion. A common refrain of a disappointed Hindi film viewer is: Phillum ka pehla half to kafi mazedar tha, pur doosre half mein phillum serious ho gayee. Therefore, we have many movies with humorous scenes, but very few in which comedy is an integral part of the narrative.

Plainly speaking, Bollywood has always been reluctant to explore this genre. Most directors either don’t have a clue about how to make film-goers laugh for over two-and-a-half hours or they think that other elements like romance, drama and action are more crucial for a film’s box-office prospects.

How does one define a comedy ? "A light or amusing play/film, usually with a happy ending," says the dictionary. Comedy can roughly be divided into high comedy (based on sophisticated humour) and low comedy (based on physical action or obscenity). Its various forms include the situational comedy, farce, slapstick, parody and satire. The satire — a work ridiculing people, institutions etc. in order to show how foolish, wicked or incompetent they are — is essentially a type of comedy, but with a difference. While satire can be subversive, comedy is usually escapist and innocuous.

While Hollywood comedians, right from Charlie Chaplin to Jim Carrey, have usually played lead roles in their films, ours have generally been relegated to roles of side-kicks. No wonder Hollywood’s collection of comedies is quite rich while we have precious little to be cheerful about in this regard.

Kishore Kumar was the first and perhaps the finest actor who made it big as a comic hero. His Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi and Jhumroo were wild and whacky comedies, which enjoyed popularity. Even when doing side-roles, he was good enough to provoke many guffaws.

Kishore’s mantle has been donned by Govinda, another shuddh comic hero. Dharmendra (Chupke Chupke) and Amitabh Bachchan (Amar Akbar Anthony) were excellent at comedy, even though they were labelled ‘Garam Dharam’ and the ‘Angry Young Man’, respectively. The three Khans — Aamir, Salman and Shah Rukh — have shown their flair for comedy in films like Andaaz Apna Apna, Judwaa and Kabhie Haan Kabhie Naan, respectively.

In its early years, the Hindi film industry produced many successful mythological epics, historical films, family/social dramas and swashbuckling action movies. Major film-makers generally did not take up comedies, except Master Vinayak. According to film historian B.D. Garga, "He had an uncommon flair for social satire. His Brahmachari (1938) was a delightful spoof on celibacy as practised in an ashram, and Brandi ki Botal (1939), a tongue-in-cheek propaganda for prohibition."

In the ’50s, Guru Dutt, before he turned cynical and pessimistic, made two fun-filled romantic comedies — Aar Paar and Mr & Mrs 55 — whose songs and scenes bubbled with exuberance. Nau Do Gyarah (Dev Anand) and Chori Chori (Raj Kapoor) were delightful romances influenced by Capra’s runaway hit It Happened One Night.

Shammi Kapoor’s films like Junglee and Professor, the Joy Mukherjee-starrer Shagird and Kishore Kumar’s Padosan and Half-ticket were among the memorable comedies made in the ’60s.

Although it was during the ’70s that violence and sex entered Hindi cinema in a big way, yet this was the decade which saw a comedy boom. Hrishikesh Mukherjee played a big role in providing fillip to the genre with a string of witty, clean and entertaining films. Guddi, Bawarchi, Budda Mil Gaya and Chupke Chupke invited viewers to laugh at human foibles and peccadilloes.

A charming character often seen in his comedies was the ‘anti-villain’, who stood defiantly between the hero and the heroine but was eventually tamed (Utpal Dutt in Golmaal and Naram Garam and Om Prakash in Chupke Chupke).

Basu Chatterjee displayed his flair for comedy in films like Chhoti Si Baat (1976), in which a diffident guy who, against all odds, wins the girl, and Khatta Meetha (1978), in which a Parsi widow and a widower decide to marry each other, much to the chagrin of their children.

The ‘70s also saw two excellent comedies based on the theme of marital infidelity, Pati Patni Aur Woh and Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar, with Sanjeev Kumar and Paintal playing the errant husbands. Although parallel cinema is generally regarded as heavy and unentertaining, several comedies have come from this area. In fact, it was Mrinal Sen’s zany Bhuvan Shome (1969) — about a "big, bad bureaucrat reformed by rustic belle," as Ray put it — which heralded the Hindi ‘new cinema’.

In a democracy, one expects satires and irreverent comedies to be encouraged. However, the sorry state of artistic freedom in our country is reflected by the fact that hard-hitting satirical comedies have been few and far between. Political Amrit Nahata’s Kissa Kursi Ka (1977), though only a mediocre effort, was a crude political satire which poked fun at the sacred cows of the day, including Sanjay Gandhi and Dhirendra Brahamchari. It ran into trouble during the Emergency and was released during the Janata regime. (Ironically, Nahata later joined the Congress and disowned the film).

Ketan Mehta’s Bhavni Bhavai (1980) was an anti-establishment farce which highlighted untouchability. Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Saeed Mirza’s Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho (both released in 1984) were powerful tragicomic satires which scathingly attacked our corrupt system. Naseeruddin Shah’s delightful performances were among the high points of these films. Shyam Benegal’s Mandi, set in a brothel, mocked our social and sexual mores.

Talking of the past few years, one man has bestrode the world of comedies like the proverbial Colossus is David Dhawan. Starting with Bol Radha Bol the prolific director has made several boisterous and earthy hit films, including Raja Babu, Aankhen, Hero No. 1, Coolie No. 1 and Biwi No 1. He has had the cheek to give a tongue-in-cheek treatment to issues like adultery and bigamy, thus inviting the wrath of feminists.

Mahesh Bhatt was in cracking form when he made Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin and Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, two charming romantic rib-ticklers inspired by Hollywood classics.

A sub-genre, all but ignored by Bollywood, is the bawdy comedy. Girish Karnad’s Utsav — "a celebration of love and life" — was set in ancient-but-liberated India, with Amjad Khan in a hilarious cameo as Vatsyayana-the-voyeur working on his sex manual Kama- sutra. Basu Chatterjee’s Shaukeen was about three voyeuristic old men vying for a girl’s favours. Dada Kondke’s chalu films like Tere Mere Beech might not have been to everybody’s tastes but they did well at the box office.

The illusion and confusion created by identical twins are time-tested sources of comedy, as proved by funnies like Seeta aur Geeta, Angoor, Aankhen and Chaalbaaz. While the twins in the movies mentioned above were ‘real’, they were ‘fictional’ (but really funny) in Golmaal and Coolie No. 1.

Rajkumar Santoshi’s Andaaz Apna Apna, Shekhar Kapur’s Mr India, Sai Paranjpye’s Chashme Buddoor and Ketan Mehta’s Oh Darling Yeh Hai India merrily parodied the conventions and stereotypes of commercial Hindi cinema. While the first three were wonderful, the last was ‘blunderful’ (no wonder it bombed).

In the past decade or so, when things have become unbearably mushy and violent in Bollywood, breezy ‘southerlies’ like Priyadarshan’s Muskurahat and Hera Pheri, Ram Gopal Varma’s Rangeela, Kamal Hassan’s Chachi 420 and S.S. Rao’s silent classic Pushpak have provided comic relief.

Even though Dhawan’s films have shattered the myth that comedies can enjoy only moderate success but cannot become smash hits, yet Bollywood is still not putting faith in the genre and is churning out a plethora of inane love stories and action movies. When it comes to making comedies, our industry is not even half as consistent as Hollywood. Well, the best that lovers of comic films can hope from tomorrow’s directors is that they will keep the genre alive (and kicking). For that, of course, they will have to take comedy very seriously.