Yesterday on The Daily Show, two U.S.-based Iranian satirists, Kambiz Hosseini & Saman Arbabi. They produce a weekly satirical news show, Parazit, not unlike The Daily Show itself. If you have a few minutes, watch the interview. It was heartwarming to see that the two satirists idolize Jon Stewart and The Daily Show and Jon Stewart, on the other hand, candidly admitting that the Parazit is a show with far more guts.
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On that note, where are the satirical news shows in India? Jaspal Bhatti was a fine satirist but he shied away from direct finger pointing — he stuck to social satire. Shekhar Suman was good. Cyrus Broacha hosts The Week That Wasn’t, but it’s not a satire show. They seem to be after cheap laughs.
Satire is serious business and is an untapped market in India. I wish someone produced a show of this nature in India. It has the potential to be larger than just a TV show. And it’s not like we don’t have material to satire — Digvijay Singh alone provides material on a weekly basis.
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If one of you decides to produce a show, let me advice you to stay away from lampooning Shiv Sena .. and MNS .. and Bajrang Dal .. and dalits .. and
Ah, I see what the problem is.
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January 21, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Never Mind
Loved the Daily Show last night, especially the guys’ attitude. They were like absolute Rock Stars!!
January 23, 2011 at 2:43 am
mizanon
It was great last night’s show. In fact if Tamil Nadu had its on satire show, there wouldn’t be a way to continue living and still performing satire. Unless you do it in hiding like Parazit.
January 24, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Mahesh Ramamani
The only way a satire show on Indian Politics can happen is when an Indian descendant or migrant Indian based in the US does this for VOA and it becomes viral in India or gets syndicated in FM channels.
January 24, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Deepak Iyer
That’s interesting.
But I still hope that we have a mainstream satire show and not something that’s only accessible to a small elitist group.
January 26, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Brad Fallon
I think satire is an expression of one’s opinion about certain people or things. This is one way to hit someone and make them aware of their wrongdoings with a touch of humor. I hope this kind of genre would live on.