It’s seldom that the All India Radio news bulletin ever gives out unconfirmed information. However, the anchors on Thursday morning before the 7.30 bulletin paused for a few seconds and took the liberty to inform the listeners of satirist Jaspal Bhatti passing away in a road accident. In this era of quick tweets, not wit, cyberspace has been inundated with inanities addressing Bhatti from being ‘laughter king’ to ‘laughing sardar’ (something akin to laughing Buddha).
Even the agents of cynicism like Arvind Kejriwal have claimed friendship with Bhatti, who probably was the only satirist to have managed to use the medium of television to effectively convey robust humour. Bhatti’s wit was in stark contrast to BJP MP and TV personality Navjot Singh Sidhu’s banal humour. He spoke with a straight face and could manage to make his show a super hit despite having titled it as Flop Show. He, however, made his debut with an equally popular show Ulta Pulta.
Those were early days of Doordarshan and Bhatti’s satire on corruption brought smile as easily as RK Laxman’s cartoon. Though a trained electrical engineer, Bhatti worked as a cartoonist with The Tribune in Chandigarh before making everybody laugh through Doordarshan. Bhatti’s beauty was that while cracking jokes on TV he was seldom less than immaculately dressed and never spoke in foul language.
The coming of private entertainment channel should have in natural course seen Bhatti blossom into a bigger star. But that did not happen. His humour was all about wit without frills, something which has become integral to the laughter shows. He could have never allowed himself to suffer from boisterous laughter of say a Archana Puran Singh and his jokes being accompanied by strings of guitar and beats of drums. The only time that he decided to bite the bullet was when Bhatti and his wife Savita competed in a reality show Nach Baliye in 2008.
Even the agents of cynicism like Arvind Kejriwal have claimed friendship with Bhatti, who probably was the only satirist to have managed to use the medium of television to effectively convey robust humour. Bhatti’s wit was in stark contrast to BJP MP and TV personality Navjot Singh Sidhu’s banal humour. He spoke with a straight face and could manage to make his show a super hit despite having titled it as Flop Show. He, however, made his debut with an equally popular show Ulta Pulta.
Those were early days of Doordarshan and Bhatti’s satire on corruption brought smile as easily as RK Laxman’s cartoon. Though a trained electrical engineer, Bhatti worked as a cartoonist with The Tribune in Chandigarh before making everybody laugh through Doordarshan. Bhatti’s beauty was that while cracking jokes on TV he was seldom less than immaculately dressed and never spoke in foul language.
The coming of private entertainment channel should have in natural course seen Bhatti blossom into a bigger star. But that did not happen. His humour was all about wit without frills, something which has become integral to the laughter shows. He could have never allowed himself to suffer from boisterous laughter of say a Archana Puran Singh and his jokes being accompanied by strings of guitar and beats of drums. The only time that he decided to bite the bullet was when Bhatti and his wife Savita competed in a reality show Nach Baliye in 2008.