Books

Spoken In Jest

There is not much of a story, just a string of situations on which the author hangs up his not so funny one-liners

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Spoken In Jest
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I confess that I was not aware of Cyrus Broacha’s existence until this book landed on my doorstep for review. He seems to have a following as a comedian on MTV, a television channel with which I am not familiar. Put that down to the age gap. If this book is anything to go by, I haven’t missed much.

Karl, Aaj Aur Kal is Broacha’s first novel and it is about the adventures of two boys from Mumbai who bunk classes, go off to New York, become film stars in Bollywood when they return and end up in politics.

There is not much of a story, as you can see, just a string of situations on which the author hangs up his one-liners. I would not have complained if the one-liners were any good. The title of the book is a fairly good indication of the puns the reader can expect.

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What might tickle the audience’s funny bone on the screen or stage often falls flat in print. Playing humour is far easier than writing humour. The writer depends exclusively on the power of his words; he doesn’t have the help of facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and other props. I can think of only two comedy actors who have successfully made the transition to page— Woody Allen and Steve Martin.

As it is, Indians writing in English are not especially good at handling humour. Why that is so remains a mystery, since our writers in other languages can be quite hilarious.

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