Sunil Pal — The Great Indian Laughter Challenged
Before he took a big dump on my heart, I used to love Sunil Pal. He was a an underdog who won ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge’, a show with its own funny origin story. The show started as a hunt to find a cast member for The Great Indian Comedy Show (TGICS) became so successful that it replaced TGICS itself. The winner was supposed to get their own show and some contract. And that didn’t happen… the show was so successful, not only the makers continued it in the same competition format, every other channel tried to ape the format right down to a tabla player and a loud judge who’d laugh even at the jangling of the keys. Sunil Pal was part of that Television programming landscape changing juggernaut.
What struck me about Sunil Pal was his Naseeruddin Shah impression, that was an unprecedented one. Before this, Johnny Lever and Sudesh Bhosle had pretty much covered every celebrity impression by that time. Any impression done by anyone afterward was derived from theirs. But Sunil Pal picked up a celebrity who wasn’t covered by them. I didn’t know how to articulate it at that point, but here was a person who has experimented and has new things to show. I was looking forward to what he has to say.
But nothing really happened for many years, he slowly dropped off the radar. Few years down the line, I came across George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld,etc., and had a huge shift in perspective of stand-up comedy. By now, I got what puns are and why they are frowned upon, and how Sunil Pal’s jokes are mostly puns. Yet, I often found myself thinking Stand-up Comedy needed someone like Sunil Pal.
See, Stand-up Comedy was taking off in India and most people came from extremely privileged backgrounds who could afford overseas travel, shopped at upscale places and speak proper English. Sunil Pal had reportedly waited in tea shops and slept on footpaths. Stand-up Comedy had a place for a person with Sunil Pal’s life experiences. Among Hrithik Roshans and Priyanka Chopras of Stand-up comedy (in terms of cultural capital), Sunil Pal could’ve been Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Raju Srivastav, even though I wasn’t a fan of his jokes, had found his footing and killed in his segment. Sunil Pal had become — whatever happened to that guy?
But then I googled him. I discovered that although the world of comedy had evolved, Sunil Pal’s jokes remained the same, just puns. No addition or expansion of skills whatsoever, same bloody puns. His obscurity was well deserved. I thought that was his fall, and just as I was about to feel sad on his wasted potential, he fell further this time from grace.
Comedian Tanmay Bhat came under immense media scrutiny for a Snapchat joke. Sunil Pal comes on the news and makes comments so twisted, it almost took thunder away from Tanmay’s controversy. He not only says that homosexuals are out to ruin the society, he suggests that a comic should be tried on terrorism charges for a joke. A few days later he pops up again on the news like some Snapchat filter and again makes the same suggestion. By now everybody, even Ravish Kumar, had called out sexism in his jokes.
I thought that was disappointing, but just recently found him on Facebook and Youtube, criticizing comics on Facebook and Youtube. He also is running his own fan club page, where he posted a video where he performs for convicted rapist Gurmeet Singh and praises his movie Jattu Engineer.
But still, there have been comics who were absolutely unlikeable before, but picked themselves over time and insights they now have to present are so gut-wrenching that you have to take notice. I hope Sunil Pal too, someday, picks up. Then, I’ll again look forward to what he has to say.