The tragedy of Indian comedy

Indian television never really usghered in terms of quality comedy. Sure there were great comedians who did movies, but none of them were interested in television or make a mark on the small screen. The early 2000s was the era od forced mindless laughter, pioneered by the great Navjot Singh Siddhu and his partner in crime Shekhar Suman. These silly comedy shows gave rise to some quality comedians after a long time, Raju Shrivastav being one of them. However to be fair, he never really made it big on television. Maybe the Indian tv producers were stuck in the reality tv cliche. Or maybe they didnt like laughing.

And so Indians had to satisfy their comic thirst by tuning in to 'phoren' tv personalities, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel and others in that league. And even then we remained largely ignorant of some of the greatest comedians of our time. Ricky Gervais, the famous group Monty Python, among the many. It was only when the phenomenon of youtube came into effect that we got a taste of what we were missing.

Why am I saying all this? Well the other day I say Vir Das on star world (Ripping the decade). I cant thank those guys at star enough for having the courage to telecast something like that. Stand up comedy has been very boring, out of context and...very boring in this country. I dont know if Vir can change that but he sure has talent. Watching his show made me realise what stupid entertainment we are being forced to watch. Dolly Bindra's madness and Rakhi Sawant's imbelice stupidity. What sin have we committed that producers and directors of these shows think that the audience doesnt have any amount of grey matter?

I would love to believe that the appearance of people like Vir Das in a stand up comedy format has stirred up some lazy dumbass tv channel arses.