The Bhattis never run out of gags — be it their dance debut or the ongoing strike in the television industry

With his outstanding contribution to comedy on screen and stage, Jaspal Bhatti has always connoted comedy to be more of a message than just a gag. And while he gets down to talk seriously about his work, the comedy pasha feels that experimentation is the real flavour of humour. “Comedy lies in the approach towards the subject. Humour may not be satirical always but it must leave behind the right message,” says Bhatti who feels that with overdose of comedy shows these days, television is getting vulgar sometimes. “It is good to see that comedy has become a part of all the daily channels. Infact, these days even news channels re-run comedy shows. But comedy should be healthy and should not only hit on double meaning jokes making it vulgar,” he adds.

An engineering graduate from Punjab, Bhatti was the mascot of comedy on Indian television after his television shows Flop Show and Ulta Pulta, which featured on the national network in the late eighties and early nineties. Although these days he is wooing the other side of his talent with his wife Savita in the dance reality show Nach Baliye, Bhatti says comedy is what he will keep doing forever. “Dance is a challenging and exciting thing for a person like me. When the channel guys had approached me, I told my wife they had knocked the wrong address, but after giving a second thought on my daughter’s insistence, I finally agreed to try my hands on it.”

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