Comedy, Ravi Baswani and more ...

People who know me well say that I have an infectious laughter and that when I laugh its as if my insides are going to pop out of me ... I really let go if you know what I mean!? The next most important thing to me after loving my kids and eating is laughing ... I simply love to laugh and hence I screen through all the possible attempts at comedy may they be in films, stand up comedy shows (thankfully beginning to get popular in Mumbai), TV shows and I naturally befriend comic people ...

One really funny person in my life is my own husband and I believe that it was his ability to make me and all others around us laugh out loud is what attracted me to him. And my young Raunaq is fantastic with imitations of comic dialect ... I completely crack up with his acts of popular English and Hindi film scenes that he does with perfect expression and pitch ... we have loads of rolling laugh sessions together :)

An ex-colleague called Bomi at Barclays should switch to being a comic as opposed to being a boring banker ... he would sure do very well ...in fact Joe Coutinho and him should do an act together ... they both have excellent timing and very intelligent humor!!!

And young Shravan, Nilima/Vijay' son is so good with accent imitations and does a fantastic act of various people from across the world and their reactions to their respective team' performances at the recently concluded FIFA world cup in South Africa.

The comic films that completely crack me up are Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Barefoot in the park, Victor Victoria, Super Hero, Top Secret, Hera Pheri, Chupke Chupke, Madagascar, Top Secret, Golmaal, Chalti ka naam gadi, Angoor, Munnabhai MBBS and the best of them all Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Kundan Shah' directorial made me virtually roll on the floor with laughter ... each of the characters including naseeruddin shah, ravi baswani, pankaj kapoor, om puri, satish shah, satish kaushik, bhakti barve, neena gupta and even vidhu vinod chopra (as dushasan in the mahabharat climax scene) were fantastic ... what chracterisation kundan achieved and what display of raw humor!



This morning as I was pottering with fixing breakfast and lunch in the kitchen my husband called out -- Arrey suno ...Ravi Baswani, of your favorite film 'Jaane bhi do yaaro' passed away in Shimla yesterday due to a massive heart attack ... flashes of his comic role in the film came back to me, my throat lumped and my heart went out to him and his family... and a smile came to my face as I remembered his performances in Chashme Baddoor and Kabhi haan kabhi naa. He was 63 -- too young to have died and in death too he had brought a smile to my face ... and yet his time was done in this world of ours and he has moved on leaving behind a live wire comedy that will resonate with peels of laughter each time Jaane bhi do yaaro is watched! Wah kya baat hai ...