Delhi Musings: Lessons in stand-up comedy go awry

The Aam Aadmi Party now has a man who originally made a name for himself as a stand-up comedian saddled as the Chief Minister of Punjab. The ‘Mann’ also dabbled in Punjabi films. Not only did he act in some but he also wrote dialogues for a film or two.

Yes, from writing dialogues for Moga to Melbourne Via Chandigarh, Mann has surely come a long way scripting his journey with AAP - a journey that could be termed as ‘Sangrur to Chandigarh via Delhi’. The man has been working at it ever since he won the Lok Sabha seat from Sangrur in 2014 on an AAP ticket.

Campaigning in India for winning elections is a tough ordeal that politicians have to go through. The dusty and rough terrain of the country takes its toll too and some politicians work so hard during campaigning that they need to rest for their entire tenure to recoup after winning these elections.

Campaigning also means hitting the road together with your leadership team and that provides an opportunity to learn from each other. Bhagwant Mann seems to have picked up the manipulative art of symbolism for political brownie points from his national convenor Arvind Kejriwal. This was apparent when he chose the village of martyr Bhagat Singh for his swearing in as the Chief Minister of Punjab.

What did our man AK learn from Mann? This intriguing question got answered when the Delhi Chief Minister got up to speak on in the Delhi Assembly on the controversial film The Kashmir Files. Mann presumably taught Kejriwal a few tricks of stand-up comedy. Just like a stand-up comic roasts and takes a dig at people in a jovial way, Kejriwal’s speech was all about mocking BJP leaders for ‘promoting’ The Kashmir Files.

Not only did he ridicule the decision of some state governments to make the film tax free – he lampooned the BJP members in the house for having being ‘used’ by their high command to promote the film. His MLAs joined him by laughing and thumping desks at all his ‘jibes’ in a manner quite similar to that pre-recorded laughter track in TV shows of below par stand-up comics.

Mann seems to be a better learner than our man AK. Our man AK missed a few tricks of stand-up comedy. So amused was he of his own comic punches that he couldn’t stop laughing at his own jokes. And then in one swift move the AK we know came to the fore. Knowing that he had created content that would go viral on social media (and it really did), our man addressed a new constituency – the BJP leaders and workers of states that will go to poll next.

He went on to tell BJP workers to join the Aam Aadmi Party. He provoked them to ‘stop behaving like sheep’ and then went further to invite them to come to AAP. He promised that they will ‘get respect and honour’ and that they will ‘not be asked to engage in fake sloganeering’ but will be ‘used to build the nation’. If ever there was a direct pitch for ‘poaching’ then this was it.

The makeshift comedian turned out to be a camouflaged recruiter for his party. The lesson is clear – you can educate a stand-up comedian on the art and craft of politics but you can’t make a comedian out of a politician. Not until you have a Shashi Tharoor as the politician and Kunal Kamra as the mentor comic. We also got to know that the Delhi Assembly is not One Mic Stand platform!

The moment Kejrwal’s speech went viral the troll army of the affected party went in to a frenzy and started to rip Kejriwal apart. Not stopping at anything less than calling AK as ‘anti-Kashmiri Pandits’ they even dumped their mobile devices and put up stark black posters on the walls of Delhi demeaning AK. Suddenly the film or the cause didn’t matter much but AK did!

Attempts at comedy went awry for AK and he landed up igniting yet another fire. Dilliwallahs weren’t too concerned about this fire for sure. How can they be when this mountain of garbage dump at Ghazipur is spewing toxic smoke all over the city skies? And as is now a normal practise – you have the BJP run municipality passing the buck on to the state government of AAP while AAP is attempting to pin down the BJP run municipality. And as always, the joke is on us, Dilliwallahs!

(The author is a Delhi-based writer and blogs at stateofdelhi.blogspot.in)

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)