Nothing is sacred in popular humour. Everything goes
Some people may argue that humour is vulgar, uncivilised, uncouth, and disorderly. But that is precisely the function of humour
By Saeed Ur Rehman
That the Taliban are not a fun-loving bunch is obvious to everyone but neither is the government. When was the last time the State told a healthy joke? The fact that the states are almost always serious entities tells us about their inhumanity and remoteness from the people. The people, the sweaty masses, the abusive democratic hordes live their lives belching, cracking jokes, giving vent to their borborygmi, and telling subversive jokes and sending SMS messages of popular disdain about official policies. Nothing is sacred in Pakistani popular humour. Everything goes.

Chuckles and knuckles
Comedy has become a time killer in many cases
By Fasi Zaka
Respect goes to the directors, the dramatic actors and playwrights. The comedian is viewed lightly, yet arguably the comic is responsible for the greatest social transformation of this country. Pakistan is a high-power deference society. Our little rituals of standing up for a teacher, respecting our parents' decisions, viewing the civil military establishment with awe -- all create an unnatural inequality, defeating the purpose of respect that these rituals were meant to engender.

Hero status to comedy
Munawwar Zareef, Lehri, Rangeela, Ali Ejaz and Nanah… They presented the most hilarious plot twists and some of the sharpest verbal comedy put on film
By Mira Hashmi
I think it was around the time I was in class five (so an eon ago). I would spend many an afternoon whiling away the summer at classmate Maria's house just down the street from my own. We would listen to Nazia and Zohaib, act out bizarre horror-romance stories with our raggedy Barbie and Ken dolls, and generally potter about in the orchard out back. Occasionally, when it just got too darn hot, we would bundle into her parents' room to watch a movie on the VCR.

Simple joys in literature
Urdu has a rich history of writings in humour. But these have hardly ever been published, only circulated underground, for fear of persecution and reaction
By Sarwat Ali
The writers have always been looked at with suspicion and distrust because they may say one thing and mean another -- and among them the greatest suspicion has been reserved for humourists.

Editorial

It seemed the right thing to do amidst all the bleak news and scenarios being churned out by the think-tanks of the world. To think of humour and fun and not yield to hopelessness and to pay homage to the resilience of Pakistani people who have taken disaster after disaster in their stride and laughed it off and forgiven their rulers with immense grace.

The people of Pakistan have produced so many jokes recently about the outgoing and incoming governments that their circulation on sms often blocked the cellular networks.

It seems the people of Pakistan tend to use all means available to register their doubt and they will continue to make fun of everything till the time that this charade stops and they start seeing a real change in their lives.

It seems those who don't value the healthy coping strategies of this nation will only appreciate this humour when people are tired of the shenanigans of the rulers and have become serious. That is when the chattering classes would appreciate the magnanimous nature of Pakistani humour.

We have tried to gather the diverse spread of humour here and this is only the introduction. An editorial seemed difficult after Saeed Ur Rehman's piece which indeed is the Editorial of this Special Report.

The News on Sunday: Can you tell us briefly about the history of theatre in the subcontinent?

Shoaib Hashmi: In Lahore alone, there were about 30-40 theatre halls in the early part of the twentieth century. Theatre was immensely popular. But when film came around 1918-1920, overnight it took over theatre as the number one form of entertainment. All the theatre halls got converted into cinemas.

TNS: Theatre made a comeback. You are famous for staging plays in the 1960s and the 70s. Can you tell us something about those times?

SH: At that time, there were only two institutions that were staging plays: the dramatic clubs of Government College and Kinnaird College. We mostly staged foreign plays from USA, Britain and Hungary etc. And most of them were comedy plays. We were very popular and a lot of people came to see our plays.

TNS: With the advent of the local theatre, especially Punjabi theatre, things changed. What do you think was the difference?

SH: First of all, we were amateurs. People like Ali Ejaz, Qavi Khan and Masood Akhter were the ones who started staging plays professionally. They built up an audience and were so popular that the plays which ran for at the most three days started running for 30-40 days.

TNS: What about the allegation that local theatre turned the medium into a platform for crudeness and vulgarism?

SH: Crudeness and vulgarism has always been the base of theatre. From Greek theatre to Shakespeare, everyone has incorporated these two things. It's extremely hard to make a hall full of people laugh, but a crude act such as pulling somebody's pants will make people laugh.

TNS: Do you think theatre played the part of the reactionary especially during and after the days of Ziaul Haq?

SH: At that time, certain theatre groups were formed who thought comedy theatre was no good and that some serious political theatre should be done. But political theatre never works and will never work. On the other hand, Punjabi theatre has always been politically charged and it does get its message across, not with tears but with laughter.

TNS: Some believe that the 'downfall' of comedy theatre started with the likes of Amanullah and Umar Sharif. Comment.

SH: This is not true. Both Amnaullah and Umar Sharif have done some wonderful stuff. They single-handedly built up an audience and led the way for other actors.

TNS: Another allegation is that there are no writers in theatre.

SH: In theatre, you first build up an audience then you hone in the actors and then writers are born. The last stage hasn't started yet, whenever it tries to, Zia or someone else comes and it starts all over again.

TNS: Will comedy ever die?

SH: People change, the way comedy is performed changes but comedy itself will never die.

That the Taliban are not a fun-loving bunch is obvious to everyone but neither is the government. When was the last time the State told a healthy joke? The fact that the states are almost always serious entities tells us about their inhumanity and remoteness from the people. The people, the sweaty masses, the abusive democratic hordes live their lives belching, cracking jokes, giving vent to their borborygmi, and telling subversive jokes and sending SMS messages of popular disdain about official policies. Nothing is sacred in Pakistani popular humour. Everything goes.

As a matter of fact, only very few of the gentrified classes can venture into the 'crude' cultural product called popular slapstick theatre. It is total verbal anarchy. All official statements and categories come to die there. The popular revenge of the comedian opens up the belly of the formal discourses and shows their internal contradictions, their entwined and messy entrails, and does not bother suturing the body.

There is a history of this new kind of sternness that has been imposed on us at a formal level. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, despite all his peccadilloes, had the popular appeal and was a spontaneous performer of dhamaal and ludi on stage. Then came the 11 years of seriousness. We were supposed to protect the serious empire of our faith against the onslaught of another serious monstrosity called communism. But we were supposed to do this with the support of American dollars and Saudi/Wahabi funding.

Everything was getting sterner in those 11 years of official rectitude. The police used to ask dating couples for the evidence of nikkah as if the victory against the Soviet depended on whom you went horizontal with. This sternness met a popular revolt. The VHS tapes providing abundant carnal knowledge and drug addictions appeared as emergency responses to the austerity of the soul. The sickness that descends on the people when their bodily desires are denied easily mutates into unhealthy addictions.

The Church knew this in Europe long time ago and arranged carnivals and circuses under its own patronage. To keep the soul of the faithful alive, the carnival was needed and it worked as a safety valve against the moral pressure cooker.

According to Mikhail Bakhtin, when the circus clown becomes the popular replacement of the king, it is not just a feeble attempt at mockery but a reversal of social hierarchies. When the servant is making fun of the master of the house on stage, it is an expression of popular will that wants to have a level playing field for everybody. In the realm of humour, the officially authorised text of truth is challenged, reversed and altered. The authority of the official statement becomes weaker. The mullah, the general, the president, the prime minister are all answerable and accountable in the royal court of the jester. This reversal, though humorous, is not superficial or trivial. It empowers the audience to carve their own trajectories and not follow the accepted mode of behaviour. That is why totalitarianism does not like the clown -- because Charlie Chaplin can easily mock Hitler. There are no theatres in the Wahabi kingdom of Saudi Arabia because the slapstick comedians can unravel the seriousness of the House of Saud.

Some people may argue that humour is vulgar, uncivilised, uncouth, and disorderly. But that is precisely the function of humour: to show the failure of the state in bringing civility and literacy to everyone. The bureaucratic logic of the state and its official ideologies can only be undone by the cruel jokes of the pedestrian, the labourers who laugh at themselves and their emancipators alike. It is the failure of the emancipatory promises in the first place that produces a popular satirical, unforgiving, humorous response. Therefore, it may even be unfair to blame the comedians and the plebeians for their jokes on authority. They are in fact only joking back. The first joke is on them. Their votes, their voice, their will, and their representation have been usurped and they only joke back. How gentle and healthy. History has shown more bloody responses of the collective will too. It is in fact civility that makes people see the funny side of the picture.

Respect goes to the directors, the dramatic actors and playwrights. The comedian is viewed lightly, yet arguably the comic is responsible for the greatest social transformation of this country. Pakistan is a high-power deference society. Our little rituals of standing up for a teacher, respecting our parents' decisions, viewing the civil military establishment with awe -- all create an unnatural inequality, defeating the purpose of respect that these rituals were meant to engender.

Comedy and satire are the hemlock for those who have been put on undeserved pedestals. Ten years ago, could you imagine Qazi Hussain Ahmed being mocked on television? Others may be, but not him. There was something undeservedly sacrosanct about him, simply because he belonged to a religious party. But when the taboo was broken, it benefited everyone because as he was satirised mercilessly it distanced him as the only 'owner' of a religious position, and allowed for a more legitimate critique of the Jamiat-e-Islami's position on issues.

The industrialist, the feudal, the politician, the maulvi all benefit from the distance they have cultivated through their ideologies and resources from the intellectual and financial poverty of the masses. Satire and comedy has become the great equaliser, humanising these lobbies from their deity status.

The new generation that grew up on cable fodder probably doesn't realise just how indebted we are to PTV. Before the mushrooming of TV channels, the restrictions on PTV created timeless satire and comedy largely because government controls prevented it from being overtly topical. Where it couldn't critique Bhutto or Zia outright, committed writers and actors sought out to reduce the problems to its bare knuckles to avoid the brass knuckles of the government and its totalitarianism. You can still watch Farooq Qaiser's Uncle Sargam and Kaliyan remains as timely today as it did back then. Watching Alif Noon one still feels the same punch. Anwar Maqsood's 50-50 did more for the understanding of a changing society and the fissures in it than did most other forms of art, while Athar Shah Khan's Jaidi exposed society by innocuously using a dim wit to question society. While PTV was dishing out the high brow, theatre brought out the more colloquial form of humour in a vein that broke through the established norms of narrative through the likes of Umar Sharif.

Even less ambitious fare like Hasina Moin's lighter fare felt tight in narrative and plays like Shahzad Khalil's created larger than life characters that remain quoted today in everyday conversations. Part of what this golden age has to do with is the lack of commercialisation back then, doing TV was a labour of love that came with a sacrifice.

The landscape has changed today, for better and for worse. There is a lot of forgettable TV out there. Comedy has become a time killer in many cases. That's due to the economics of the industry. Twenty four hour programming cycles have reduced budgets and that's pushed producers and directors to create projects with small gestation periods. Quality, especially in sitcoms, has suffered. TV is no longer producing a slew of Kabacha's with memorable characterisation. Asking for timeless satire is unreasonable in this context. Even the groundbreaking work being done with political spoofs, satire and comedy will not stand the test of time, not because it is inferior in any way (it is not!), but because it has become so topical and current that it wears with time easily.

The team of Vee Jay ushered in the first truly and consistent Monty Pythonesque comedy in the country, appealing to the youth and challenging the satirical conventions of the time. Ahsan Rahim, Faisal Qureshi and Jawad Bashir all went their separate ways to success eventually. However, it is interesting to note that when it comes to satire the same economic constraints have bogged them down, to the extent that the best work they are currently known for is appearing in telecom advertising where they both have the luxury of time and budgets.

Their natural successors have been the team of 4 Man Show, led by Chaudhry Murtaza and Chaudhry Mustafa. Week after week they have done what few others couldn't manage which is challenging the taboo figures of this country (though the credit for Altaf Hussain goes to Hum Sub Umeed Se Hain and Dr Younas Butt). What is not generally known is that they are also the most sued individuals in the country, with an estimated 100 or more lawsuits and legal notices. One of those suing them includes one of the most noted satirists in the country. The irony is that both 4 Man Show and Hum Sub Umeed Se Hain are the products of a dictatorship that gave satirists a narrow space to breathe, and as is the case with satirists, eventually bit the hand that fed them.

The danger of government control, ironically, is now more than ever with political governments having thinner skin than Musharraf. It also has to do with the differences in command structures. Under Musharraf if anything ever happened to anyone, all leads would point to him, or at least would hold him accountable. But in a democracy, the looser controls help obviate responsibility, leaving satirists out to defend themselves.

But if the recent past has been any indication, we don't have much to worry about; they shall continue to stick their neck out. Sometimes you get knuckles after eliciting chuckles.

I think it was around the time I was in class five (so an eon ago). I would spend many an afternoon whiling away the summer at classmate Maria's house just down the street from my own. We would listen to Nazia and Zohaib, act out bizarre horror-romance stories with our raggedy Barbie and Ken dolls, and generally potter about in the orchard out back. Occasionally, when it just got too darn hot, we would bundle into her parents' room to watch a movie on the VCR.

On one such occasion, an oddity was dug out from goodness knows where – a Pakistani Punjabi flick. Not having much choice, with much trepidation we popped the tape into the gaping cavity of the machine, not knowing what to expect; after all, Punjabi films by that time were well into the gujjar mode. The first surprise was that it turned out to be a black-and-white film; the second, that it was a comedy. When, two hours and some minutes later, the 'The End' card rolled around, we were converts. And I would have to say that it was that lazy afternoon viewing of Naukar Vohti Da that helped to steer me away from the snooty notion that Pakistani cinema wasn't worth the cut-rate celluloid that it was printed on. The 1974 Munawwar Zareef caper was a masterful study in improbably hilarious plot twists and some of the sharpest (and mostly ad-libbed) verbal comedy put on film. The song 'Chup ka dharh wat ja, na ishqe da khol khlasa' remains imprinted on my brain to this day.

Munawwar Zareef of course had been the biggest film star of his day. Like his elder brother, Munawwar had started out as 'comic support' in bit parts, then been promoted to bigger roles as main comic relief, to what was known as side-hero, and then finally to full-fledged hero status in the 1970s. In classics like Banarsi Thug, Sheeda Pastol, Manji Kithay Dhanwan, Sharif Badmash, Miss Hippy, and the legendary Jeera Blade, he consolidated his reputation as a comedian with impeccable timing and rapier-sharp wit that scarcely needed prompting from a screenwriter. Indeed, many old-timers have sworn up and down that more often than not, Munawwar would work without a script; the director would simply give the actor the outline of any given scene's situation, switch the camera on, and then stand back and watch in awe as comedic fireworks flew. In Ajj Da Mahinwal, he milked black comedy laughs out of the titular folklore drowning victim's fate, by making his entry as a swimming champ! Sadly, also like his brother, Munawwar would meet an early end, succumbing to a heart attack at age 36 in 1976.

Munawwar Zareef's equivalent in Urdu cinema would probably have to be Lehri, another master of spoken comedy whose way with a cutting one-liner was the stuff of legend. Lehri's (real name Safeer Ullah) persona of the cultured, urbane, Urdu-speaking gent complemented his low-key but acerbic style, and he too knew his way around an ad-lib or two. Legend has it that he was once approached by a filmmaker to essay a role in a new film he was producing. When Lehri went for a script meeting, the filmmaker instead screened the shots for him, which apparently he had already taken. When the puzzled actor enquired as to what was required of him since the film was already in the can, the filmmaker requested him to just improvise a few comedy scenes which he would then insert randomly into the film!

In his nearly 40 year career, Lehri received an unprecedented 12 Nigar film awards for Best Comedian, for films like Daman, Kaneez, Saiqa, Nayi Laila Naya Majnu, Anjuman, Aaj Aur Kal, and Andaz. Ill health put a halt to his career when in 1986, he made his final film appearance in Dhanak.

The third name that looms large over Pakistani film comedy is that of Rangeela whose brand of physical comedy found immense popularity among audiences. Rangeela's penchant for slapstick might seem a little quaint today and it also unfortunately takes away the spotlight from the fact that his was in fact a totally far-out, almost anarchical sense of humour that found form in such mind-bogglingly surreal classics as Insaan Aur Gadha, Kubra Aashiq (an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame!) and the truly, uniquely bizarre Aurat Raj, in which Rangeela, on writing and directing duties as well, imagined the world with gender roles reversed. Result? Chocolate hero Waheed Murad and macho man Sultan Rahi in sarees! But Rangeela also had a taste for pathos, most expertly employed in Rangeela, where the number 'Sab toun sohneya hai vey man mohneya' provided a beautifully poignant denouement.

The comedy duo of Ali Ejaz and Nanha also achieved iconic status in the 70s and 80s. Unlike most double-acts, however, there was no 'straight man' in the team; both were superb comedic talents, worlds apart and yet the perfect foil for each other: Ejaz the dead-pan Punjabi urbanite, Nanha the roly-poly child-like innocent with a hidden, gleefully wicked streak. Together they created box-office gold with films like Dubai Chalo, Sala Sahib, Sahib Jee and Noukar Te Maalik. Nanha's suicide in 1986 brought a premature end to the winning streak, with a heartbroken Ejaz returning to his TV roots.

There are others too of course, like Charly, Khalid Saleem Mota, Shakeel Siddiqui, Malik Anokha, Nirala, and in later years, Irfan Khoosat, Ismail Tara, Albela, and more, who contributed their bit to comedy in Pakistani cinema. Special mention must also go to Afzal Khan a.k.a. John Rambo who single-handedly revived the concept of the comic hero in the 1990s. Today, though, Pakistani cinema itself is on its death-bed.

And that's no laughing matter.

-- With additional input from Vasay Chaudhry

The writers have always been looked at with suspicion and distrust because they may say one thing and mean another -- and among them the greatest suspicion has been reserved for humourists.

The reason is obvious: humourists pay scant respect to the established order, play about with the most venerated of values and make fun of the highest in the land. Their entire stance is subversion of the given order. The smugness of the given reality is the red rag that draws the sharpest wit. It is finding holes in the holier than thou attitude while drawing attention to many more ways of constructing the social order.

Usually, in authoritarian systems, comedy and humour are discouraged -- almost banned. While in regimes that prompt an order based on righteousness, humour may be akin to treason.

Urdu has had a rich history of writings in humour. Beginning from Ratannath Sarshar, it has come down to the contemporary times basically looking through the porous veil, which has been stretched across in full seriousness, dividing the right from the wrong. There was a tradition of writing 'hazv', poetry either as parody or lampooned an existing form, a personality or an event. But these were hardly ever published, only circulated underground for fear of persecution and reaction.

The same tradition has continued and appeared above board with humour becoming more generalised and less pointed. Syed Muhammed Jafery and Zameer Jafery have written good humourist poetry, drawing inspiration from Akbar Allahabadi. For the latter, the changing values which colonisation had brought are sufficient material to lash out at the social moors and the bright new institution. Poets, like Inamul Haq Javed, have treaded the same path.

In Punjabi, outstanding poetry has been written by Ustad Daman, Anwar Masood and Abusari, basically drawing attention to the plight of the common man and against the high-handedness of either an individual or the social order.

In Urdu, the famous names that have institutionalised the writing of humour have been Azeem Baig Chughtai and Farhatullah Baig, followed by Patras Bokhari. Patras ke Mazameen included many outstanding pieces that focused on the changing relationships between men and women, man's interaction with nascent technology and the changing landscape of the city. Even Prem Chand has written humorous pieces focusing on the rural-urban divide and the simple pleasures of the Indian countryside.

Imtiaz Ali Taj and Shaukat Thanvi have also written many humorous pieces. Indeed, a little later, by Rasheed Ahmed Siddiqui which have more to do with sketches of well-known personalities.

Shafeeq ur Rehman has been a favourite writer as well. He has been popular with a cross section of the population -- particularly among the young. It is only after a while that one begins to discover the deeper meaning that may have been embedded in his characters and situations. His main concentration has been on the various historical figures as well as the values of the joint family system that dominated or has dominated social life here.

Anwar Masood, too, is a popular Punjabi poet and is most sought after in mushairas, while Mujtana Hussain and Dilawar Figar have along with Awaz Sayeed been well-liked.

The most outstanding humorist has been Mushtaq Yusafi. He has not been prolific but whatever he has written is subtle and has taken the level of humour a couple of notches higher. Like many other humour writers, he too has created a fictitious character that expose a dimension in a character or a situation which is not obvious -- and thus evokes laughter and forces us to look or assess a situation or a character anew.

Yousafi has the ability to create humour without reducing a character to a caricature and without overstating disparity. The discrepancy if any is understated. He initiated this understated trend.

Ibne Insha is another humorist who can be rated highly. He focused on issues and areas like the changing languages and the cultural configuration as well as pointed to the changing definition, which new discoveries and inventions have brought about.

Where theatre is concerned most of the humour is in the realm of the oral tradition. Some writers however have written plays and one outstanding among them is Kamal Ahmed Rizvi. The plays by Athar Shah Khan and Khalid Abbas Dar and M Sharif are more like spoofs for the very talented actors on stage. The script is only a reference point from where these actors can extemporise.

Younus Butt is one of the most popular humorists of the present times for he has written many books, for television and for the daily papers.