Perhaps you know you are growing older when you see your “childhood heroes” keep dying on you!
Yesterday was shocking for me to see the NEWS of Mr. Jaspal Bhatti dying in a road accident.
Though he was not my hero but there is something about his legacy which struck my heart.
His legacy is nothing but my memories of my childhood.
I remember Jaspal Bhatti right from my childhood days. His jokes meant nothing too me , I was too naïve to understand anything.
I used to see “Ulta-pulta” (upside
down- Jaspal Bhattis 2-3 mins satirical comedy skit ) just because in
those days you did not have the luxury to change the channel .
By the time I gained my senses
“Flop-Show” started airing on DD national. If humor is the indicator of
any nations progress, India would probably come in last few ( obviously
above middle eastern countries). India would certainly have bottomed
the list if it were not for Flop Show.
Flop Show was a comedy about
day-to-day life of a Bharatvasi. Those were the times of restrictions,
nothing was abundant (other than mouths to feed)
We were a socialist country and this was a silent revolution in comedy.
I remember his episodes of “the chief
guest” where he arrives to a venue as a chief guest half an hour early
and nobody recognizes him.
Chief guests are still expected to be at least 1 hour late to the venue.
The PhD episode, where the guides
manipulated the students to do the house work (A story very similar to
my Dad’s story- as a PhD student)
Telephone Episode, which reflected
poor quality of infrastructure in India pre 1991. Now It’s so amusing to
see that it used to take years to install a telephone line.
Now it is done in minutes.I loved the
parody of the government officials in which they appoint a parrot which
says “Metting bulalo committee bithalo” ( Call meetings and establish a
committee to probe the incident). At the end of each episode
was the parody of some Hindi song.
Though Flop show was for only 13
episodes it left a big impact on me. We recorded all the episodes on a
VCR (it was so prestigious to own a VCR!- Our neighbors had a second
hand VCP-So embarrassing). Watching prerecorded episodes was my
pass-time for a long time. The Flop show cast was mostly the same with
different characters. His real-life wife played his reel life wife.
After the success of Flow Show there was obviously a big expectation
form Jaspal Bhatti to deliver a better content.
Unfortunately this never happened.
But this doesn’t make Flop Show less great. The Theme song sill plays in my head “ Flop show….. Flop Show….” Youtube link below!
