Just in jest
RANJANI GOVIND
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Surendra Sharma's Hasya Kavi Sammelan had the audience in splits.
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Photo: M. SRINATH
LAUGH YOUR BLUES AWAY: Hasya Kavi Sammelan.
"We have a `talk-entertainer' who is akin to a doctor... he lowers people's tension and BP," said Kishan Shah while introducing the poetic gag-master from New Delhi. The jovial poet, Surendra Sharma, brought in a downpour of laughter at the Music Academy this past weekend with his Hasya Kavi Sammelan. The show had been organised by Satyam Shivam Sundaram, an organisation that celebrates life by bringing over well-known personalities to entertain people, and donates the proceeds to special causes.
The Haryanvi regaled the packed hall of North-Indian Chennaiites for more than two hours (along with Sanskrit scholar Sita Sagar) with special verses from his kitty. The poet said, "I will tickle every bone in you today as I go along celebrating my birthday in this lovely city."
But how did the M.Com student who belonged to a generations-old Ayurvedic medicine production family, change his route to adapt himself to the art of weaving in laughter into poetry? Sixty-year-old Sharma has been making people laugh for almost 40 years now. He was initiated into the art in his early college days, when he was part of a group which had a passion for jokes. He has entertained lakhs of people in his shows in India and abroad. But who makes him laugh? Says Sharma: "If you make people laugh, Eashwar protects you. Amidst the drudgery cacophony of work and problems plaguing all of us, if I am able to make people roar with laughter in their seats for a few hours, then what more can I ask for?"
Sharma flagged off the show with Osho's thought that only people who are sensitive to other's problems have the right to laughter."
There was humour, there was sarcasm, there was wisdom and there was homespun truth in every joke of Sharma's. And more than anything else, there was spontaneity in his quips. Dr. Sita Sagar had a bag of poetry, which she preferred to sing for the audience. As she narrated a moving lyric dedicated to freedom fighters (that Vajpayee as the Prime Minister had enjoyed) she requested the audience to join her with an orchestra of applause.
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Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
