Imagine performing at Madison Square Garden, the dream any performer from across the globe wants to live!
It was only natural for standup comic Zakir Khan, who became the Zakir Khan narrating tales of his modest small town upbringing contrasting them with the lifestyle and choices of the well-heeled in big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, and about the rich-south-Delhi type ladies and their peculiarities, was ecstatic when he was in the Mecca of entertainment – New York’s Madison Square Garden, regaling a 6000 strong packed auditorium. This is a feat that only four other Indians have achieved — all of them super duper Bollywood biggies, so far.
What makes guys like Zakir tick? Or for that matter, stand-up comedian Kapil Sharma from Amritsar, who has made it so big on television with his wit, humour and sarcasm-laced laughter shows? And most of the stand-ups in India, in whichever language they have been active, have been popular and successful using a mix of these.
Self-deprecating humour and playing the underdog when it comes to the language issue that many comedians have used it successfully in varying degrees and in different directions.
If Kapil Sharma used his poor English to his advantage, touching the hearts of countless countrymen and women who are made to feel little and, in a way, face ‘humiliation’ of either not knowing English or not speaking it well enough.
Incidentally, both share similar stories, of their own life as they began their struggles. Both were rejected in their first attempts at what they wanted to do – stand-up comedy, and in Kapil Sharma’s case, singing too.
And both hail from tier two small towns —Zakir from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, and Kapil is from Amritsar in Punjab.
If Zakir Khan was rejected after an audition for an RJ, Kapil Sharma got rejected by a producer of a comedy competition show on a popular television channel. Were they broken? Or gave in. No, they kept on at it, giving their best, continuing to believe in themselves, and most important, even making fun of it, and using their own stories about struggle to tell engaging tales to the people. Celebrityhood has not changed neither their content nor their delivery styles, if only the money and richness they earned, and more important the love, affection and adoration they have earned, In Zakir Khan’s case, he was always privileged, being the scion of famous, talented and gifted classical music family and himself a trained musician playing instruments – Sarod – and could have easily gone into the family traditions. But no, he chose to be a creative person pursuing an idea that he would want to make people laugh, for a profession.
Struggle for both Zakir and Kapil Sharma were somewhat similar, though they went through their early days in two different cities — Zakir chose Delhi, to be working with the Radio and doing odd jobs in the creative arena. Kapil, who lost his police officer father to cancer, remembers the tough days life took him through, but never lost hope or determination.
Such is Kapil’s style of delivery of his jokes (most of them observational and some bordering on sarcasm, and sometimes somewhat ‘distasteful’ when seemingly targeting he opposite sex) that most of them land – and like he said he got his funny bones from his mother, who herself is very funny whenever she speaks on the sets of his show.
His love for his mother, and his father’s blessings, are some of the Indian middle-class values he so imbibes in his content for comedy, and the people just love it. And for many, even terminally ill people, his comedy shows are therapeutic as well, and it is for this reason that they shower blessings on him, that make him a larger than life achiever.
Both he and Zakir share middle-class roots and moorings, but both of them appeal to different sets of an audience – perhaps for the subjects and themes they choose to work on. While Kapil Sharma can be the person struggling with English and appearing determined to “murder Angreji” making at times even objectionable jokes, or a nosey Parker of a neighbour or a plain drunkard or assume any role with a natural ease that makes him popular from children to the senior most of the senior citizens across the globe (161 countries as he proudly proclaims now and then), Zakir on the other hand targets the younger elements as he rolls out his growing up years, the teenaged puppy love and beyond that he observed around him, about his masquerading as a ‘tough guy’ (playacting as if he was indifferent to girls) and playing out the emotions of people in that age group, detailing their pains, problems, plans, promises and professions. Both have achieved stardom beyond their own expectations, that Zakir today commands such an audience that he dared to present self at Madison Square Garden, and rocked it. And his audacious and biggest tour of 60 cities on a comedy tour of India, is another first for an Indian standup comedian, and one that is sure to motivate others in the tribe to emulate.
How difficult or easy it is to become a Zakir Khan and a Kapil Sharma?
Just scratch a little, like some interviewers did with them in television interviews, both of them give valuable advise to anyone wanting to be successful — focused hard work, determination, and self belief, even when the world is laughing at you.
Perhaps both of them own a trait – of being able to stay the common man they were, and are – and owe it to that they both endeared themselves to the great Indian middle class, that pays money to watch them, day after day.
And the diaspora does the rest – even introducing their acquaintances and friends to the latest “export” from India.
