Last Sunday, I went to a stand-up comedy show. I had seen some short videos of the comedian and somewhat liked the humour, but I was not a fan.
I have been to stand-ups before, but in clubs and auditoriums — small, intimate spaces, where one can see the expression on the face of the comedian when she or he tells the story. The emotional connection is established immediately. But this was a stadium, where we watched him from afar on giant screens.
He began with tales of his childhood in small-town Indore — eating bourbon biscuits in “Ravan” uncle’s home, goofing around with friends, of study sessions that ended in bike rides to Bhopal, 200 km away, and back, to “freshen one’s mind”. He spoke of his relationship with his parents — his strict school-teacher father and caring home-maker mother, encouraging young people to not be ashamed of being “mamma’s boy”.
The relationship with his father — aloof, distant, uncommunicative and strict, yet caring in his own subtle way: “Papa-log insaan theek hote hain, bas unki language kharab hoti hai (fathers are decent people, but their language is not good)”, he said, referencing how they call the sons as “oye!”, unlike moms who call them “raja beta”. Khan had to communicate with his father through his mother, who was his messenger and ally most times, and threw him under the bus at others — someone who couldn’t keep a secret and would spill the beans to his father about his mischiefs. “We always kept a distance of at least two-and-half feet”.
And, then when he moved away from home to Delhi and Mumbai to make his life as a young writer, his father told him to not be scared of anyone – he would have his back.
He had never said “thank you” to his strict disciplinarian father but as a copywriter, one day he was called upon to do so. His boss, unimpressed by his Father’s day messages, asked him to call up his father and say “thank you”. Under duress, he calls, and his father asks, “Yes, what happened?” He stutters, “Papa, I want to say something.” “Ok, how much money do you need?” comes the answer.
He says, “No, I want to say…”.
“Ok, you need more money.”
“No, I want to…”.
“Oh, you had an accident… are you hurt? Is the other guy dead? Are you at the police station?” his dad throws out doomsday scenarios.
“No, papa…I just want to say thank you”. Silence for 30 seconds. “Yes, aage”, father asks. “Nothing more papa”, and he hung up.
Few hours later, when he finishes work, he sees missed calls from his father, mother, friends, girlfriend and the security guard. He gets to know that his father is waiting outside his apartment. When he rushes home his father says, “Beta, thank God, you are ok. These days, there are so many mental health issues in your generation, and you said thank you and disconnected the phone. I thought…”
For two hours, Khan weaved his personal stories — about how a young man views his bitter-sweet relationship with his father, his place in the society, how he navigates his life in big cities, and growing up as a man — with social and political complexities and kept everyone in a thrall. No phones rang for two hours, and remember, this is Delhi.
This was Zakir Khan. When the 38-year-old performed at the Indira Gandhi indoor stadium last weekend, five shows of 10,000 seats each were sold out and became the biggest comedy weekend in India for a single comedian. In August, Khan became the first Indian comedian to perform a show entirely in Hindi at Madison Square Garden, New York.
So, when he said, this will be his last show, and he is headed for a sabbatical for a few years and doesn’t know yet when will he be back, there was a collective public gasp. He quickly assured the crowd that he would return, “ayoonga, ayoonga”.
In a polarised environment, where the identity of comedians often frames and limits their comedy, where they are jailed and targeted by overzealous mobs and the State, where comedy often means a free run of abuses and cuss words, where crowdwork means roasting the audience with sexual innuendos, I have just three words: Thank you, Zakir.
The writer is diplomatic editor, The Indian Express
shubhajit.roy@expressindia.com
