Why So Serious?

Rohit Shetty can never have it easy as a maker of comedies. Being humoured, unlike other states of mind such as outrage, idiocy and the recently discovered poverty (Poverty IS a WHAT?), is a tricky affair to understand and there is no science to it. Making a joke is a difficult art, because your joke has varying standards set against it before it is dispensed and it is nearly impossible to cater to your recipients' myriad tastes.
Imagine the perils of being a stand-up comic, for instance. Firstly, there are far more people who want to stand up and deliver comedy than those willing to sit down and receive it. Not more than a tenth of these comics probably read into their audience's psyche before making a joke. Secondly, the audience's psyche is way too complex to make sense of it, which is why a whole lot of jokes fall flat much to the teller's embarrassment. Admit it. Your childhood has most certainly been riddled by that one birthday party where your mother coaxed you into telling "that chutkula" and the only trickle of claps that followed were from your mother.
Being successfully funny is subject to various factors such as socio-cultural sensitivities, tone modulation and the innate human desperation to run down anyone who has found a podium to showcase his talent. The kind of adverse reactions one has to often face from one's audiences arguably explains why the best of comedians have seldom smiled in their personal lives - prime examples include Ben Stiller, Charlie Chaplin, Paresh Rawal, Sreesanth, etc. Of course, some comedians are to blame too, for they carry the same joke wherever they go. Consider the "How do you put a giraffe into a fridge" gag. It might work with Indians. Europeans will find it bizarre. The Chinese might run away mid-narration in search of a camera so they can photograph the giraffe. The Americans won't get to hear your joke because you will likely be detained at an airport because of your fetish for placing suspicious objects in fridges.

Maybe, as many an expert might argue, the safest option for a comedy is to be topical and relevant to existing issues. And maybe Rohit Shetty could consider paying heed to such a suggestion.After all we have so many hot subjects to choose from daily: Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, #Feku, #NaMo, #RahulBaba...But Rohit Shetty knows better. He defines his genre, opens it to you for acknowledgement, and does so pretty successfully more often than not. He plays to his strength, which is pure, low-brow entertainment at the cost of logic. With Chennai Express, he goes an edge gutsier by bringing in Shahrukh Khan who is your average Joe's favourite punching bag (dissing whom is never going out of vogue). So, yes, he gives you a car that can be somersaulted by a human fist. He can get a blind man to read you the time. Diwali is spelt 'DDLJ' in his world. You are free to enter or stay off limits.
The world is pissed off. It needs to be made to laugh. If you are looking for polished humour, there are enough artists playing to your gallery. For many others, there is Rohit Shetty. Neither can grudge the other his choices. 

Tutored By The Temptress

‘An ideal story is the one that writes itself,’ Nakul signed off at the conclave, swaying between flippancy and intensity. Being flippant came easy to him, as would vouch his family, friends and others who were neither of the other two. What else would you say of a young man in a conservative Indian society, who renounced a plush job for the dark labyrinths of a writing career? His parents reckoned they had been too soft on him; he had not seen hardship. The value of financial security eluded him. To Myra, the woman who had claimed to know him better than he knew himself, this was a tactic to evade their wedding nuptials. He would have her examined for paranoia, but that could wait. At this time, he was not willing to barter his dreams for social approval. Today, the acknowledgement he received at the Young Turks’ Literary Conclave in Switzerland seemed to answer his detractors.

‘This is only the beginning,’ argued Cecilia, between mouthfuls of her secret recipe of the evening. ‘And don’t bother answering your detractors. Vengeance is but a constriction en route creativity.’

Nakul nodded politely. Inwardly, he marveled at the girl’s dexterity with words. He also decided she was remarkably intelligent for a housekeeper at a countryside bed-and-breakfast. She was amused when he opened up to her about his notions, later that week. In his defense, housekeepers in India were not perceived to be intelligent. A person’s capabilities were judged per the choices he made.

‘Your choices are your fetters,’ she laughed. He was inadvertently drawn to her as she regaled him with stories of her limited choices; the orphanage she had grown up in had been kind, but not inspiring. When she took a liking to demonology, she was banished from the orphanage and ostracized by the local church. With meager belongings and fewer choices, she set out in pursuit of her passion. It had been a mad long journey, and she was still traveling. Scathed, and her financial condition leaving a lot to be desired, she was still content with living her dream. She told him of her recent adventure - the exorcism of a middle-aged farmer in a Scottish village. What looked visually devastating proved spiritually enriching for her.

The morning he was leaving, she walked him to his cab. He did not want to go. She had inspired him when no one else had shown a semblance of conviction in his decisions.  She leant into him and kissed him. He remembered the firmness in her eyes as she said, ‘If you find my inspiration worked wonders, come back and tell me how.’

Once back home, he started writing his first novel. To his dismay, he did not have a story on him. He sat doggedly at a corner of The Bombay Café for weeks at end, staring out the window, watching people pass by, scanning their motley expressions for a stroke of motivation. But nothing yielded.  He could not get over his memories of an unfaltering Cecilia, and the diktat of fulfilling a dream she had issued to him. Possessed by her, he spun a story around a young Indian’s rendezvous with a demonologist he fell in love with – a story that found few takers in the market.  When a dying publication sourced his manuscript with a frail attempt at redeeming its business, its owner fell in love with the outlandish plot and decided to publish it.

A year later, Nakul had found readers aplenty. His debut project, Tutored By A Temptress, had recorded massive sales and myriad responses that ranged from awe to vitriol. He had detached himself from the story the day he had launched it to market; the woman he had attributed it to seemed to have been an illusion. The emails had all bounced back. The phone number he had was now out of service. But when he was couriered the program booklet for the upcoming Frankfurt book fair, he was left reeling. The brochure, in its listed bestsellers, had pipped psychologist Gerald Bond’s “Meandering Minds” on the top spot. The synopsis talked about the doctor’s tryst with a certain Cecilia Gomes, whose imaginative identities had shown her around the world. Last found in a gypsy band traveling across the African deserts, she was previously known to be an aspiring demonologist who had fallen hopelessly in love with a young Indian who had taught her how to smile. Of the countless cases of multiple personality disorders that he had encountered, this one stunned him with the rapid changes he saw in this woman…

Nakul flung the brochure on his bed with a trembling hand. Somewhere, he heard his own words ring out loud: ‘An ideal story is the one that writes itself…’