Disclosure: The writer’s trip to Nepal to attend the People’s SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) was sponsored by GCAAP (Global Call for Action Against Poverty) with the hope that he could provide some inputs and share his thoughts on freedom of speech and deepening democracy. No idea how useful his inputs were, but thanks – the Newslaundry office was peaceful for a few days.

You can read my piece on my experiences at the People’s SAARC here, but the event I was most looking forward to was Aisi Taisi Democracy – a unique act by Rahul Ram, Sanjay Rajoura and Varun Grover. It brings together music, political satire and storytelling in a seemingly unstructured, friendly banter kind of way.  A short introduction of the trio – Rahul is part of the well-known band Indian Ocean. He has provided music and background vocals for several films, Gulaal’s Armbha and Yaara Maula being my favourite.  Sanjay Rajoura is one of the first movers in the stand-up comedy space in Delhi. A Jat from Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, he has a fantastic routine called Jat In Mood. Varun Grover is a tremendously talented humourist and lyricist who has written some awesome lyrics – notably for Gangs of Wasseypur and the magical song Kanpoora from the documentary film Katiyabaaz. The three of them were the closing act of the People’s SAARC and what an appropriate closing it was.

What separates this kind of comedy from others is that it does not follow the formulaic format or the devices of set up line, punch line, set up line, punch line. Although there are many punch lines, that’s not what the show is built around. The entire show is their take on politics and pop culture told through stories, songs and music – many of them exaggerated versions of true events, and very personal.

Other than this routine, what is common between the three is a healthy irreverence with Narendra Modi being their pet muse, for this routine at least. That has nothing to do with why I like this act so much (promise). I liked Jat in Mood before Modi was on the national horizon and Gangs of Wasseypur is one of my favourite films.

Coming to the show. The setting was a hall full of Nepali students and middle aged or ageing delegates from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. I didn’t see any hands go up when the performers gave a shout out for a Maldivian show of strength. There were a dozen or so white, blond-haired audience members some of whom, understandably, left midway. The performance is very “desi political” and unless you have a pretty good idea of the subcontinent, it won’t work for you. I was curious to see how this audience reacted to jokes about themselves told by Indians (who aren’t very popular in Nepal as I learnt, but Modi, it appears, is reversing that feeling. Everyone I spoke to loved him and claimed that’s the general opinion).

Indians roasting India and its politicians in India is one thing, but doing it overseas before a Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Nepali audience whilst also mocking them and their nations is quite another. Also, Indians lampooning and satirising their own in front of a SAARC audience in a foreign country (yes, Nepal is foreign) can be a tricky space to negotiate. The only time there was an outraged audience member was right at the beginning of the routine and even that was because a young lady mistook a dig at India and the RSS dream of an Akhand Bharat as a dig at Nepali sovereignty. There’s always that one moron who doesn’t get jokes and only gets outrage. If you’re on Twitter you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Rahul Ram’s renditions of songs (which all three write as a team) like Dil ka haal kahe dilwala and Ye India agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai got a fantastic reception from the crowd. Not only do they crack you up because of the political content and humour, but they have that sing along, clap along quality – which the audience did enthusiastically. Sample this line that had the hall in guffaws:

“Kadoo katega to sab mein bantega,

thoda Adani, thoda Ambani.

Baaki khaye thanedar ka saala. Dil ka haal kahe dilwalaa…”.

And the bit below, sung to the tune of Mere saamne wali khidki mein from Padosan had both the Indians and Pakistanis in the hall roaring in appreciation.

“Mere samne wali sarhad pe, sunta hun dushman rehta hai.

Gaur se dekha jab usko, wo mere jaisa lagta hai.

Hum mein se kaun bada dhakkan, is baat ki hum mein hod rahi.

Wahan Imran hai container mein. Yahan Arvind leta road pe hi.

Bas do families ki chandi hai, wahan Bhutto hai, yahan Gandhi hai.”

Varun opened the show by asking the audience to read Prime Minister Modi’s note to the people of Nepal. We had all been handed a sheet of paper before the show started. Here’s what it said. Moron alert, it isn’t really a note from Narendrabhai, it’s their version of Namo’s greeting.

Indian PM’s Address to P-SAARC

Mitron (Friends),

I have a long relationship with Nepal. As a kid, when I used to play cricket in Gujarat, sometimes I’d hit the ball with such force that it would fall in Nepal. Now children have that kind of energy in that age. Then my friends would tell me to go fetch the ball as I was responsible for it getting to Nepal in the first place.

Then I’d run on foot and reach Nepal in 6-7 hours. In those days, Tenzing and Edmund Hillary were trying to climb the everest. When I came here to collect the ball, I saw Tenzing struggling with the luggage. So mitron, in that tender age of 12-years, I carried the luggage of Hillary and Tenzing to the Everest.

We all should help our elders. Like I recently helped Shri LK Advani in carrying the load of Prime Ministership.

So I was saying, I have a long relationship with Nepal and I hope it grows stronger and stronger.

Yours,

Modi Kaka

(P.S. – I am reaching on 26th November, so keep your selfie-faces ready.)

And then the show kicked off. A show that I hope will create a ripple effect for more political, irreverent and outspoken humorists from across the region. God knows India needs more.

Here’s the post-show interview with the three performers. If you don’t have the bandwidth to listen to the audio we’ve transcribed it for your reading pleasure.

Abhinandan: First question ye hai ki, usually you have performed, I have attended your remarkable performance earlier as well, for an audience that you take for granted, it’s a very local audience, the Delhi ki audience, political hai. When you’re performing for a country, on a forum which has eight countries, although he reduced SAARC to seven in his comment but…

Rahul: It’s okay because he brought it up to ten. So we’re running at eight and a half.

Abhinandan: So do you have to wrap your head around that, I mean, is that seriously a consideration? Let’s start with Rahul.

Rahul: Of course it is. We spent a lot of time when we were talking about this, wondering whether we should make it as inclusive and how much of things we should incorporate about other countries because we are not that politically aware of, let’s say the things that are going on in Sri Lanka. We don’t have that depth of knowledge, obviously, about other countries that we have about India. And we wondered we should bring in, try and do research as people. But then we realised that let us take the attitude that we are going to come from the position that India is the big brother in SAARC. So let us focus on India. And, we knew there will be so many commonalities coming in.

Abhinandan: A follow up question to that but first…

Varun:  Okay, I think we are not entitled to talk about other countries. And coming from a position of power being in the SAARC, I think India is like the America of SAARC, in a way. If we talk about Nepal and Nepal’s problems, it will come across as patronizing, which did at one point, even though I was not talking about Nepal, I was talking about our problems and still it was taken as, like I am pointing out that Nepal will be finished, that’s what they took it as. We can talk about and we should talk about only our problems. That is clearly, as the long debate is, can a white man talk about a black man’s issues. Voh nahi, mere khayaal se ye nahi ho sakta hai unless there’s a long history. Like agar main Nepal me bahut saal rehta.

Abhinandan: So you have to stick with what’s your territory then?

Varun: Yes, and because we have problem, not like we’re very clean and all. So we have problems, it makes sense to talk about our problems. We did try to include a bit of har SAARC nation ke bare me thode thode comments which was not as offensive and not as edgy as our comments about India were.

Sanjay: Yea, I think Varun and Rahul have answered the question. We debated quite a lot between the three of us ki karein kya, kyunki itne saare log hog aye hain, kisko kya story ka context samajh ayega ya nahi ayega. And eventually I think we did the right thing that we came with our stories because most of our angst is about what is happening in India right now. We brought that argument and that narrative on the stage here. It’s for people to relate because problem to sab jagah same hai. As Varun said, humein haq nahi hi nahi hai kuch bolne ka kyunki humein zyada maloom nahi hai. Agar maloom ho aur ek position of belonging se, experience se aa raha ho toh ek moral right be hota hai.

Abhinandan:  Were you afraid of offending, kyunki desi audience hai, apna territory hai Dilli me, offend ho bhi hi gaya to chalega. Here, was that there at the back of your mind, what if you offend someone from Nepal like you did, or someone from Pakistan or someone from Bangladesh. Was that fear there? Was there more nervousness in this show than the others?

Sanjay: It was not fear but certainly there was some apprehension. But then again it’s comedy and satire so it’s always going to walk the thin line. Thoda sa idhar hua to voh offend ho gaya, thoda sa idhar hogaya to voh ho gaya. But ye fear to kuch nahi tha, bola to humne fir bhi vahi jo humne socha tha bolne ke liye. Aisa toh kuch nahi kiya humne ki yeh nahi bolna chahiye yaar humein. Toh I don’t think ki koi fear tha. But yahi tha ki will everybody be able to relate to it because people are coming from all kinds of diverse backgrounds so that’s how we tried to generalise it. Fear ka aisa koi… kuch tha nai.

Varun: I am a paranoid person, very honestly. I don’t even know why I’m doing comedy being this paranoid. I imagine death scenarios every day. Okay, I can go into details. Aj subah I was imaging a scenario where somebody throws acid on me because of comedy. So I actually went to Google and checked the first aid for acid victims.

Rahul: Seriously?

Varun: Haan

Rahul: It’s water.

Varun: Yes, it’s water for thirty minutes non-stop

Rahul: Flowing

Varun: Flowing water, room temperature, thirty minutes non-stop and then…

Rahul: I have a Masters in Chemistry so I knew that.

Rahul: But I actually think we… so the structure of the show became that. There was apprehension about whether they would get the references. I noticed in some parts of out show when he was talking about the election campaign, I don’t think this audience was that into it. Especially the young Nepali kids, they don’t give a damn what happened to our election campaign in India, really. But because we focussed on things in India which we think are common problems for to a lot of SAARC countries. Some more, some less. Some have other things that we don’t have. We have a lot of stuff that they don’t have. But overall, there’s a cultural overlap. The things that are bad, are going to be bad, by and large here also, all across SAARC.

Varun: I think comedy which is not punch line driven, like our comedy tries to be storytelling driven, that kind of comedy always opens up a new world for anybody. Even if they don’t know the context.  It’s like watching a foreign movie. You don’t know the context but along while watching the movie, you get some perspective of that country. I think that was also one kind of position we were coming from. They may know nothing about ‘How Modi ran his campaign’. But now they know. I think 60% of them were still not interested but I think 40% of them would have gone back with some idea of how the campaign works.

Sanjay: That’s where music helps because everybody connects to music.

Varun: Wherever music was, it worked in the show.

Abhinandan: Just one last question…

Rahul: I have something to add to that. I am hoping that people from other countries also start doing this. I am sure there are people doing it, which we may not know. In Pakistan, Rajoura knows people because he has gone there and performed several times.  He has Pakistani friends who are doing it and it is way more dangerous to do it in Pakistan than in India. If they can do it there, we bloody well do it here. I would hope that Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka also has their own brand of political humour. That’s the other thing we didn’t get into it. We are extremely hypersensitive as a nation. India gets offended at anything. Arey, Anna Kournikova ko Sachin Tendulkar nahi pata hai, yaar kisi ko bhi, some Tennis great did not know Sachin Tendulkar, Indians got offended. How stupid is that. We get offended at anything. And, I think we talked about the hypocrisy of it. We don’t know anything about other people but we expect them to know everything about us. Kisi ne kuch diya- they are anti-indian, they are this, they are that. I think that is quite common. There is feeling, it comes from insecurity I think. Definitely comes from insecurity. They are going to put us down, let them put us down yaar. We are putting ourselves down. That’s the way to begin.

Abhinandan: OK now…(coughs)…when we are…ummm…when you are satirizing or mocking Indian politicians in india…in india…aaa…then it’s..i mean there is a ..you know that’s what satire and all is all about…but when you are overseas the dynamic changes…like I was seeing some of the audience members..i was observing them as much I was observing you..i saw a couple of Indians were getting a bit while they were laughing they’ve you know…as the…as the satire became more cutting…they became a little self conscious. Does that ever cross your mind that when I’m in India then I’m a critic but when I’m travelling overseas, does…do you wear your social critic hat above…

Rahul:  Ambassador over your head?

Abhinandan: Yeah…I mean…is that ever a conflict?

Rahul: Ok. I’ve seen this happen. I’ve gone to the US to do an Indian Ocean Congress….I’ve gone to do an Indian Ocean concert and there were couple of Indian stand up comics of…Indians of US origin, who were making fun of Indian culture as it…as they perceive it…and a lot of the audience actually got really upset and they started booing and yelling at the guys saying (making booing noises)…you know…you are putting us down…you are doing this…you are doing…

Abhinandan: And they could have done that in India? That audience wouldn’t have reacted that way in India basically…

Rahul: I don’t know, because I think there they are even more sensitive…

Sanjay: Yeah…yeah

Abhinandan: Hmmm

Rahul: …Like if you go and do this concert to a bunch of Indians in the bay area…

Abhinandan: Hmmm

Rahul: ….the younger ones will take it quiet easily I think, but the older people are still in that insecure state where they think that we don’t appreciate the greatness of the country and you know…so you have to make any criticism after doing about a hundred positive strokes, only then is a negative stroke allowed. But I think that stupidity. That’s part of the hypocrisy that we talk about.

Varun: Yeah…ugh…i understand that people have that kind of a problem though on the…

Abhinandan: But you ever feel a conflict? You personally?

Varun: No…not at all…in fact when I see people are getting offended I…I’ve…kind of…

Sanjay: Mission accomplished

Varun: Yea…no…I feel I should hurt them more.

(People Laughing)

Varun: So I’ve that…then I forget the joke…then I sometimes I can drop the punch line and just talk about the issue and try to offend them even more. So, it’s something I have done on a couple of occasions.

Sanjay: Nahi…I don’t wear the ambassador hat at all …matlab…main…i’m not a proud Indian in that sense. Aap mujhe dikha do koi cheez proud hone ke liye to main proud ho jaunga. Lekin jab kuch hai nahi koi to main zabardasti danka kyun bajaun? I speak whatever I think…jo mujhe jis mudde ke bare mein jo bolna hai woh  main bolta hun. Agar usme yaar…indian mein..jaise maine bola naa ke hum apne marzi se thode  paeda huye hai? To agar kuch greatness hogi to bilkul greatness hogi lekin greatness hai kahaan dikhao to sahi? Koi Happy New Year mein bol deta hai “Duniya ke…dushman ke chakke chura de Indiawale…” kiske chakke chura diye humne? To koi ambassador wala hat nahi hai…it’s,we are..we are social critics or humorists or satirists or comics..jo bhi aap bole…but we are questioning things. Aur yeh to ho nahi sakta na ke bhai apne bare mein..apne mulk ke bare mein question nahi karna hai bahar jaake…doosro ke bare mein karlo…yeh to fir wahin hypocrisy hogi jo Rahul baat kar raha hai jiske bare mein.  To aise mera to koi ambassador wala hat hai nahi.

Abhinandan: OK. Great. Thanks yaar. Thanks Guys.