Jaspal Bhatti: My Neil Armstrong, R.I.P. [Guest Column]
Sorabh Pant is one of India’s best and most traveled comedians, having done 300+ shows in 6 countries and opened for Rob Schneider and Wayne Brady. His material has been described as, "intelligent buffoonery," "just really, really loud" and, "arbitrary screaming with jokes in the middle." His comedy covers the sad tale behind the Taj Mahal, why Indian men are Gold medal winning lechers and his great, grand love for chai. Recently, he was voted the #1 Most Interesting Indian On Twitter, a fact he will not shut up about! He founded The East India Co.medy and you can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
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I had no idea, absolutely no clue how important Jaspal Bhatti was to me until today.
He was the first funny person I ever saw on TV. He was the first man I remember sending me into guffaws even when I was too young to even get the joke. He was the first and will always and forever remain the first 'Comedian' I ever came across. Eventually, others came on board the funny wagon: Pankaj Kapur on Zabaan Sambhalke, Shekhar Suman on Dekh Bhai Dekh and Cyrus Broacha just generally and my own father once he realised that I was a little more than an errant little pipsqueak - but, Mr. Bhatti was the first. And, I'm sure I'm not the only one.
When I first saw Flop Show, my immediate thought was to find me a sardar friend. That was it! I wanted someone like Jaspal Bhatti to hang around all the time. Just to follow around the world to see exactly what he would do in different situations, we would walk into bus stops, offices, schools, funeral homes, the RTO and I'd just laugh and laugh as he turned even the most abysmally boring situations into comedy gold. I wanted to be Vivek Shauq, basically. Sardars are genuinely awesome funny people and Mr. B was top of the line. Even now, I know a stand up show is going to go well, if there's just one sardar in the audience. They are hilarious. It's almost like Mr. Bhatti was the prototype and they're all living up to the comedic standards he set! That's one stereotype that I'm grateful for .
About his shows: the best thing about Flop Show was the credits. Conventionally, in a sitcom back then - once you were done laughing at the antics of the cast - you were done. With Flop Show it went on even as the credits rolled, "Misdirected by", "Overacting", "Real Workers", etc. Probably not funny in the modern context, but, back then it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Me and my dad would watch the show and each time the credits rolled, we would laugh a few hours more at just how ridiculous the whole thing was and also at how there was a man who had found humor even in a damn dull credit roll! When I saw a similar in Blackadder years later, I assumed it was copied from Flop Show, despite Blackadder coming out years before. With my love for Jaspal Bhatti, I still stand by that . There's possibly some TV time machine involved...
To date I don't know what the lyrics of Flop Show's title track are - barring 'Cameraman, everyman' - but, I assume they are funny. I assume that like Mr. Bhatti, they carried some deep comedic significance but, I had no idea what because I was bloody 8 years old when it invaded my consciousness! How can a grown man make a show that made an 8 year old boy, a 35 year old man and a 65 year old grand mom laugh the same way? Even my mom, a comedy snob - she didn't like Govinda because he was 'too campy', which was the whole point! - loved Flop Show. That's like Rowan Atkinson getting Margaret Thatcher to guffaw! How important was Jaspal Bhatti? Insanely. Madly. Incredibly. I'm not going to go on a tangent about how he inspired me to become a comedian, even though I realised the truth of that only now!- but, he did. He was an inspiration and one can imagine he's up there with Yama making him roll on the floor about how there's a line to get into heaven. Possibly something about Yama being a CM who is late for a meeting. Or, some such .Mr. Jaspal Bhatti and indeed the whole cast of Flop Show - you were the first men/women on the moon to me. And, when I look up there tonight, I'm sure even the moon will be beaming a giant smile.