Indians are laughing at Pakistanis

Adil Najam

Pakistani comedian Rauf Lala and the Irfan Malik-Ali Hasan duo have taken Indian TV audiences by storm on the super-hit Indian television show ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge-II’ on Star TV-India. Both received more than 150,000 audience votes each on this competition show that is the current sensation on Indian TV and are now in the so-called ‘Mega Super Finals’ (yes, everything has to be a ‘mega’ on reality TV).

According to a recent Reuters (June 20, 2006) news story:

For weeks, Rauf Lala and the pair of Irfan Malik and Ali Hasan-known as Pakistan’s Laurel and Hardy-held the spotlight on the ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge-II’, before they were chosen for the finals through a public voting system. The winner will be decided on Friday (June 23), but the Pakistani comedians say the result will not matter. “For us, we are already winners because we got so much love and warmth from the Indian audience. Our performances were so appreciated and they voted us into the final,” Malik told Reuters.

Apart from these three, the competition had also featured two other Pakistani comedians: Wali Sheikh and Kashif Khan. All are from Karachi. All have a more theatre-based background and situational comedy style. And all are cut in the Omar Sharif comedic mode: sarcastic, cutting edge social commentary, word play, situational.

In fact, some readers may recognize Rauf Lala as an erstwhile Omar Sharif sidekick who has appeared with the later in many stage show recordings. Although there have been some allegations, especially on the Malik-Hasan duo, of some off-color humor and of plagiarizing from Omar Sharif routines, overall the audience reaction has been tremendous.

All in all, Indians can’t stop laughing at these funny Pakistanis and one of them just might win the big prize this Friday!