Be positive, be positive, says a harried Anil Kapoor at the end of every disaster in this year's comedy hit, No Entry. Yeh, be positive kya hai, asks a Fardeen Khan on the verge of suicide at the end of the movie. Yaar, B+, mera blood group hai. Or sample this: on The Great Indian Comedy Show on Star One, Vinay Pathak, who plays Munnabhai, asks Circuit (played by Ranvir Shorey) the meaning of artery (answer: the study of art). Or this: Sajid Khan saying to his mock guest, Shahnaz Insane in Sab TV's Ikke Pe Ikka: What is the secret of your ugliness?
Rude. Nasty. Even downright cruel. Yet, after years of taking themselves too seriously, Indians seem to be learning to laugh. At themselves, at others, heck, at just about anything. It's as if the angry young man has died, gone to heaven for a laughter transplant and come back as Santa Claus. Comedy is on a comeback trail and its slow evolution into satire has reloaded the careers of several actors, whether it is Shekhar Suman, Jaaved Jafferi (whose "wife working, husband jerking" comment to a busy Preity Zinta in Salaam Namaste has got him at least at least one new film offer every day) or even hasyakavi Surendra Sharma whose deadpan "Sharmaji se poocho" has many takers on Red FM (question: is Aishwarya Rai the most beautiful woman on earth? No, is the answer, only among those silly enough to have participated in the Miss World contest in 1994).

New Kids on the Block

Vinay Pathak, actor, 38, co-host of The Great Indian Comedy Show on StarOne, former Channel V veejay, whose comic talents blend Loha Singh, a Bhojpuri radio character created by Rameshwar Singh Kashyap, and his drama training at Stonybrook College, New York. Vijay Maurya, actor, 33, symbolises the commonman whose dorkiness makes him most wanted in ads that celebrate the ordinary. Says he hopes he has graduated from the "dhobi, nai, chaprasi, Ramu kaka" ad roles he used to get. Pankaj Saraswat, former Channel V executive, 34, director of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge and The Great Indian Laughter Champions. Is an actor (Ab Tak Chhapan), writer (Main Meri Patni Aur Woh) and TV person. Shot The Great Indian Laughter Challenge in just over three days, after working with the 50 contestants for over a month Surendra Sharma, hasyakavi, 60, used to write a column called Atpate Sawal/Chatpate Jawab in an eveninger for over a decade. Has a regular slot on Red FM, Sharmaji Se Poocho, and is a star on the kavi sammelan circuit, from Raipur to San Francisco. Jaideep Sahni, writer, 33. Wrote lighthearted Bunty Aur Babli and the very dark Company. Humour is mix of black and grey. Believes a different spin on life makes it palatable.

Comedy movies like No Entry and Kya Kool Hai Hum are two of the biggest hits of the year, while The Great Indian Laughter Challenge (which has spawned a 13-week spin-off, The Great Indian Laughter Champions, beginning December) propelled Star One into a serious contender in the general entertainment stakes within a year of its launch, with the show's finale getting into the top five last month. No wonder then that Zee Smile is soon to feature one of the finalists of Laughter Challenge, Raju Srivastava, on its Kyunki Yeh Hasya Kavi Sammelan Hai. Plus, it has Comedy Ghanta -- a one-hour stand-up comedy show with skits, spoofs and fillers -- and is about to launch five new shows by next month. Sab TV too has revamped its show Wah! Hasya Kavi Sammelan and pitted it directly against Laughter Champions on Star One. That's not all: as far as products go, from chocolate sweets to investment companies, everyone is tickling the funny bone to reach the hand that dips into the wallet.
There's a joke for every occasion: India-Pakistan relations, Saurav Ganguly and Greg Chappell's skirmish (Amul's new hoarding in Mumbai has the two wrestling in chaddis in an akhara type setting with the line 'gaali cricket'), even Mallika Sherawat's red carpet appearance (what did Sherawat tell the customs when they stopped her from taking a matchbox on to the flight? "Officer, how can you? That has all my clothes.") There's a joke for everyone as well, from political gasbags to gaseous celebrities, with the humour often written by teams of young writers-usually expatriates from MTV, Channel V or Movers & Shakers--sustained on coffee, cigarettes and the day's headlines. With the floodgates opening thanks to mass media, everyone is getting a chance to say what they want, and how they want it, unlike earlier when only politicians or celebrities held forth. "We're laughing out of relief," says Bunty Aur Babli writer Jaideep Sahni, "after 50 years of severe constipation".

In Jest

Jaideep Sahni's top 10 jokes currently on air Wannabe politicians protesting against 'invading' western culture. Wake up and smell the chai sirs, India is the only country in the world where Hollywood films are routinely smashed to bits by local cinema, and MTV has had to play 80 per cent Hindi film songs just to survive. Crime shows on news channels. If only Bollywood could create villains which looked or spoke like some of these anchors. Call-in shows and opinion polls with anxious anchors trying to squeeze out every last drop of drama from bewildered characters. Should Ramesh leave the ashram and return home to his parents? Did the bar dancer tell the politician about the cricket star cheating the film producer behind the underworld don's back? Should he? Did she? NDTV Gustakhi Maaf & Double Take For saying what everyone wants to but don't know who to. Whoever thought masks could be used with such murderous beauty for well, unmasking. Paresh Rawal, Boman Irani, Rajpal Yadav. These dudes haven't forgotten how the common man feels, and it shows in every performance of theirs irrespective of the quality of the film. Funny doesn't need money, honey. It needs a connection. Navjot Singh Sidhu Popular opinion may be divided fifty-fifty, but the man represents originality at its swashbuckling best in an otherwise boringly conformist line-up of TV celebrities. The Great Indian Comedy Show & The Great Indian Laughter Challenge Daily tonics for a bored nation, an ambulance service for fatigued minds. We need more, please! Americans stuck in Iraq. Can't stay and can't leave. The ultimate Shaadi Ka Laddu! Now if only their politicians were stuck instead of their soldiers, it would be much funnier. Jinnah controversy Jinnah's dead. So are his contemporaries Gandhi, Nehru and Mountbatten. But Advani has managed to make not just one nation but two nations laugh at him. Live parliament proceedings. A strange old show that comes only on DD, very funny and very depressing at the same time.

More often that not, they are the inspiration. Ask Vinay Pathak, the host of The Great Indian Comedy Show, who gets tickled by everything from India TV's sting operations to Aditya Panscholi's declaration of innocence. Or Suman, whose satire show on Star News, Pol Khol, was meant to last the general elections, but has survived well into its second year, with its regulation Atal Bihari Vajpayee take-offs and Laloo-Paswan face-offs. It's as if the corrosive black humour which was once the preserve of a Fully Faltoo on MTV or a gin-soaked press club is threatening to create an alternative reality. There's an enormous streak of frustration with the system and so much of flagrant flattering, that perhaps rolling down the aisles in laughter is a better option than slitting one's wrists. It's like that man carrying a placard in Bunty Aur Babli, which says down with dictatorship. Whose dictatorship, asks a character. Anyone's will do, says the protester.
In this new reality, anything goes. Where Sajid Khan can insult guests on his show, SuperSale on StarOne, and they take it stand-up act with a smile. Sample: "I like your shirt. The only thing is I need to wear sunglasses." Or where the real Mahesh Bhatt can land up on the sets of The Great Indian Comedy Show to harange the fake Mahesh Butt, played by Pathak, who at that point was holding forth on male sexuality and how every man is ultimately in love with his mother. Nothing is sacred on the show-from sister channel Star Plus' Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii which is spoofed as Kukurmati Ki Kahani to Zee TV's slavish Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai which is spoofed as Jeena Isi Ka Haraam Hai, hosted by Marooque Fake (Farooque Sheikh). Yet, the hard-driving CEO of the production house Contiloe Films, Abhimanyu Singh, says the funniest line on the show is the one yet to be written. "I guess that's what sustains us," he says of the daily show for which writers have to put together 64 skits and 16 stand-up acts every month.
This is the bulk humour that sustains radio. Take Radio City, whose Babbar Sher (a two-minute programme where one man recites a sher, usually a PJ, which is then aired five times a day). In the two year old show, more 730 shers have been recited, and it is no accident that its creator Pankaj Saraswat went on to direct the The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, which according to co-host Navjot Singh Sidhu, had regular viewers in Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.
Not all the humour on TV currently is twisted though. Most of it is just the simple smiley face garden variety humour. It's the kind of humour, says Sharma dismissively, is "uphas/makhaul" (which assists you in forgetting reality) as opposed to hasya (which forces you to forget). It's synthetic comedy, he says, the kind that sanctions laughing at others-as in MTV Bakra. There's another kind in demand in the advertising world. "Everyone wants to communicate laughter, to spread the good feeling. Clients tell us 'please end the ad film on a high note," says Prasoon Joshi, regional creative director, McCann Erickson.
It explains the creation of unlikely stars such as wannabe bhangra pop singer Manmeet Singh, 36, the beefy Sikh who breaks into a dance when his car crashes into another on the Radio Mirchi ad, or trained engineer Vijay Maurya, 33, who mouths typical Hindi film dialogues in the Kaun Banega Crorepati promos. Wordplay is crucial to the success of comedy, as is the increasing comfort of young people with a mix of Hindi and English. It could be Kolkata's Sumona Banerjee, 15, who spends a major part of the day tuning into FM radio, or Ashish Gupta, 34, who's a compulsive SMS jokester. He's in good company-telecom companies say 25 per cent of their SMS revenue is from the circulation of jokes.
Cricket, bureaucracy, politics, institutions, nothing is sacrosanct these days, says Pushpinder Singh, national creative director, Ambience Publicis. "The only thing we have are still touchy about is religion," says Singh. Once that happens, we can safely say: Pappu pas ho gaya.

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