It is unfortunate, and rather ironical, to know that it takes a debilitating health condition or death, for an artiste to be remembered — mentioned in the media, with tickers running on 24X7 about their health condition.
Raju Srivastav is fortunate because so many people are praying for him and that is what has kept him alive. I wish he was awake to see how the prime minister and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh had called to enquire about his health, as also innumerable fans tweeting for his wellbeing. I wish he could enjoy all this.
It speaks volumes about the man and his craft.
I first met Raju back in the ‘90s when he told me that he had been living in Mumbai for a decade, having arrived from Kanpur. He had started doing odd shows here and there; he was something of a stop-gap, a fill-in-the-blank when a well-known performer would take a break from the stage to change his costume for the next act. But he had created a buzz with these small acts.
People started noticing him eventually, thanks to Johnny Lever. I think Johnny had trained a lot of guys and he must have been one of his trainees. Raju took that legacy forward.
I don’t want to use the word ‘comedian’ here as it has been debased over time. People like Raju are serious performers as comic artistes.
I remember receiving a call from him just before I was supposed to co-judge The Great Indian Laughter Challenge with Navjot Singh Siddhu in 2005. He called me anxiously seeking my advice. Since he was already a somewhat well-known face by then, he was nervous about coming on stage competing with new-commers. His worry was losing the first spot, which he felt would be humiliating for him. I simply told him to have faith in his own mettle.
He was graded third in the show, his last act being a disappointment. He was crestfallen. But I told him then, in a cricket match, a not-so-skilled batsman may hit a couple of sixes, but that doesn’t make him a Sunil Gavaskar. This is a big-league show and people would notice you, I told him at the time.
I remember on the first day of the show, Siddhu told me about Bhagwant Singh Mann who was a contestant, and already a name in Punjab. I simply told Siddhu to wait for Raju’s act. Mann (the CM of Punjab now) was out of this world but Raju brought the stage down.
Up until then caricaturing and tomfoolery passed for comedy. Comic artistes were not groomed or educated. Raju came like a breath of fresh air. He brought hinterland India on stage. The middle-class and the lower-middle class form the country.
People had no idea about observational humour, where the artiste sources from idiosyncrasies of people and societal behaviour. No one had Raju’s stance. He has the gift of turning even inanimate objects into a subject.
He had once poked fun at how guests in a wedding would load their plates with food, for one of his acts: he went into great detail on how the rice, naan, daal and various curries would talk to each other jostling for space on a single plate. It was uproariously funny.
My favourite is his narration of a TV journalist interviewing a man who had found himself alive when a bomb hurled towards him did not go off — “Main bomb hoon, main phatoon?” It was a complete ROFL moment.
He had come a long way from his early struggles as a comic artiste, when he was very enamoured by Mr Bachchan and would impersonate him in his gigs. He thought he actually looked like Mr Bachchan. He followed his mannerisms and copied his hairstyle.
He owned the stage, and at the same time, the audience felt as if they were in their living room being regaled by a humourous friend.
In garnering the ‘real’ India audience, he is somewhat like vintage David Dhawan, who made films for the masses. When Dhawan became posh, the classes filled up the movie halls.
Let’s face it, even a Bachchan had to find means to connect with the masses by shedding his Sherwood persona at one time.
Is Raju’s time past, with a new middle-class at the forefront? Perhaps. Afterall, a magician does run out of tricks. Osho had said, when you get too much of what you want, you eventually grow out of it.
It is human nature. Every hero becomes a bore at last, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said. Raju had his time; he made his money and invested well.
People eventually sought classier acts, with the advent of YouTube and OTT.
However, given the flood of good wishes for Raju as he is recuperating in the hospital, who knows, maybe his second act is waiting on the horizon.
We are all praying that he gets well soon.