In US, people know how to take jokes; Indians have to catch up: comedian

From his tweets to his unkempt hair, comedians in the United States have poked fun at every aspect of US President Donald Trump. So when Rajiv Satyal began his comedy show here, it was thought he would start with a joke targeting the American leader. A U. S. government representative had earlier set the stage. "I am speaking on behalf of the United States government... and my boss told me these guys can say whatever they want and about whoever they want," said the official at the American Center while opening an event called 'Cultural Connections Through Humour'. But while the audience saw it as a cue for Satyal, the Indian-American comedian didnt think so. The US President, Donald Trump, is for my rants and not jokes, he said, in conversation with writer and story-teller Maheep Singh at the Center recently. "When people ask me 'why don't you do more of Trump jokes?' I say I don't because I am too pi**ed off. If you really want me to do what I really think then it is not going to be funny...it is going to be the opposite," said the funny guy in seemingly an angry tone. However, his tirade was not limited to Donald Trump and the happenings in the USA alone. The Los Angeles-based artist, who created the much watched I am an Indian video, said he was equally "mad" at India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The 41-year-old comedian went on to call the two leaders the American president and Indian prime minister "fascist". "You can tell because they put their face all over. That's a fascist cue. They put their name and face over everything.

They always have a cult of personality," said Satyal, who did an opening act before Modi's appearance at the SAP Center in San Jose during the prime ministers visit to the US in 2015. Satyal, however, stressed that the US was a country where dissent was encouraged People know how to take jokes, he said, adding that India in this regard had a lot of catching up to do. "I have done a number of gigs with the US Embassy, and I did one yesterday... in the car they told me 'You can be more outspoken; you can talk more'. What I am saying is, you ask a comedian to not do something and they tend to do exactly that. Audiences in India had some acclimatising to do, he said. In India, people generally are not self-deprecating. The audience here has some acclimatising to do and there is still a long way to go," he added. On comedians picking up sensitive subjects, Satyal said they should do so when they have something "really funny" to say. He gave the example of the Charlie Hebdo controversy -- where the satirical magazine published a cartoon mocking the Prophet and said it was anything but funny. "I had a teacher who told me that 'if you cant be correct, be funny'. It was a big thing. She said 'If you want to make a joke in class, and it interrupts me you better hope that it is funny', he said. The situation is not very different now, he said. If you are attacking someone then the joke should be worth it," he said. The stand-up comedian, on his second-comedy tour, had several shows here last week.

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