Made In Mumbai: Indian Comedy Industry Is Thriving

It was those days when weekends had a different sound to them, according to our elders. Friday nights were dedicated (yes, the RIGHT word) to catching up a 20-25 minutes episode of Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi with Shafi Inamdar, Swaroop Sampat, Rakesh Bedi, Tiku Talsania, Farida Jalal et al. Written by Sharad Joshi, and directed by a host of directors including Kundan Shah, Ye Jo Hai Zindagi held everyone, literally, spellbound.

It was a grand run that the show enjoyed for years of clean entertainment doled out to television viewers across the nation. It wouldn’t be a mistake to call it a great tool that popularised Hindi, because even in those southern states where Hindi wasn’t the spoken medium there was a huge fan base for Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi!

In the days that followed, there Dekh Bhai Dekh provided some succor, but the industry couldn’t have produced a much massive hit show till many more years.

Much water has flown under the river in the recent years and Indian television industry has come to realise the value of combining comedy with every genre of its entertainment segment.

Till about a decade ago, the word ‘stand-up comedian’ was somewhat a jarring one, given the fact that India didn’t really have the culture of a person who would come on the stage only to crack people up. But, now the trend has picked up, and stand-up comedians are regularly hired even for corporate events where people see the need to let their hair down and laugh. Really, there is no other leveler like a joke and a sense of humour.

Post liberalisation, the bouquet of television channels kept adding a new bloom almost every fortnight. With this, the dearth of variety of programmes forced the channel heads to look at the tried and tested methods that worked with the television audience. Comedy was surely a great crowd puller. Though this was a double-edged sword when applied to films, a comedy show on television was a cakewalk. Hence, the laughter season started!

Early on, it was the news, or Bollywood gossip, or dance shows and games conducted by various actors that packaged humour into it. Then came The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, The Great Indian Comedy Show, and cutting across the Hindi channels it was Office Office, Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai and Tarak Mehta ka Oolta Chasma to name a few.

In the recent times, comedy shows climbed so high on TRPs that channels waged wars against each other to curate shows that competed with each other on the same genre!

The old adage of ‘laugh and the world laughs with you’ is finding a different interpretation in the television industry today.

According to statistics, there are a record 151 million people watching comedy shows on Hindi entertainment channels and these shows are the biggest revenue generators in the current situation. Biggest advertisers such as L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble, Nokia, Samsung, M&M and Vodafone are literally vying with each other for adspots on none of the other shows, but on those which have comedy as the main ingredient.
According to a survey done recently by a media agency, comedy shows came only second to action thrillers that packaged some live dare-devilry. When they were tired of getting scared, and biting their nails, people preferred to laugh and let their hair down.

Today, every brand and every channel wants to associate itself with comedy for viewer loyalty. Endemol India, the television production house which first packaged standup comedy for Indian channels, is constantly experimenting and reinventing new age comedy shows wrapping them together with games or sitcoms.

Bar the double-entendre, comedy shows are those times when the whole family can get together to sit and have a hearty laugh over a meal. Only, the jokes need to be perceived and presented in a manner that a family does not feel embarrassed to laugh together in those moments.

Comedy Nights with Kapil is another show which has climbed very high altitudes in Indian television; now that even the celebrities and cricketers who were not too comfortable being made the butt of jokes, come to be laughed at, and laughed with! This is a sole testimony that the country is tired at drama. Give them some fun!

(Image: www.spicymediahub.com)