Is It Time To Retire The Great Indian Kapil Show?

The
word
‘comedy’
is
missing
from
the
title
of
the
Netflix
show,

The
Great
Indian
Kapil
Show. 

One
wonders
why. 

After
all,
Kapil
is
synonymous
with
laughter.

He
can,
for
an
hour,
make
us
forget
our
worries
—
like
your
next
EMI,
paying
your
child’s
hefty
tuition
fees,
work
pressures
or
family
tensions.

He
transports
you
into
his
world
for
a
much-needed
dopamine
hit
as
you
laugh
your
woes
away.

In
season
3
of

The
Great
Indian
Kapil
Show, which
premiered
on
June
21, Kapil
Sharma
laughs.

Salman
Khan
laughs.

Navjot
Singh
Siddhu
laughs.

Archana
Puran
Singh
laughs. 

The
audience
in
the
Netflix
studio
laughs.

Watching
it
from
home,
I
could
not
laugh;
the
show
was
just
not
funny.

There
is
no
‘comedy’
on
this
show. 

No
wonder,
the
word
has
been
dropped
from
the
title
as
well. 

Navjot
Singh
Sidhu’s
return
is
a
dud;
none
of
his Sidhuisms
were
funny. 

Paresh
Rawal’s
Teja
in

Andaz
Apna
Apna
would
have
said,
‘Kaisey
kaisey
ko
paal
rakha
hai
Netflix.

Dus-dus
hazar
ka
suit
pehnte
hai
par
dus
paise
ki
comedy

nahin
hai.’ 

As
for
Archana
Puran
Singh,
she
seems
to
think
the
louder
she
laughs,
the
more
she
will
be
paid. 

Watching
Sunil
Grover
in
his
new
role
as
Budhi makes
you
wonder
what’s
wrong
with
him.

And
the
less
said
about
Krushna
Abhishek
the
better;
he
feels
dressing
up
as
a
woman
and
wooing
a
Rs
59-year-old
Salman
is
funny.

Salman
Khan,
too,
disappoints
big
time. 

After Sikandar‘s
failure
at
the
box
office,
he
seems
to
want
to
underline
to
the
world
that,
at
59,
his
career
is
still
doing
well.   

He
asks
a
lookalike
on
the
show,
‘Did
your
business
get
hurt
because
of

Sikander?’

The
lookalike
says
no.

Salman
says,
‘People
are
unnecessarily
talking
about
it. When
your
life
did
not
get
affected,
how
will
it
affect
mine?’

The
star
has
appeared
on
the
show
many
times
and
has
usually
been
very
funny.
Unfortunately,
Kapil’s
choice
of
done-to-death
topics
like
Salman’s
marriage
and Karan
Arjun
don’t really
help
matters. 

Since
the
topic
of
the
show
was
marriage,
how
could
jokes
about
divorce
be
far
behind?
Salman
cracked
one
about
his
brother
Sohail
Khan’s
marriage
falling
apart,
saying,
‘Woh
bhi
bhaag
gayi‘
referring
to
Sohail’s
ex-wife,
Seema
Sajdeh.

The
Great
Indian
Kapil
Show seems
to
have
replaced
comedy
with
crassness.
Unless
it
gets
a
fresh
perspective,
it
could
really
benefit
from
ignoring
that
old
adage,
‘The
show
must
go
on.’

Photographs
curated
by
Satish
Bodas/Rediff