Whenever there are reports of an avoidable bout of suffering visited upon the average Indian (corruption, Byzantine bureaucracy, medical negligence), the question inevitably arises: what would Jaspal Bhatti do?
He would make you laugh, of course. But he would make you think too – about the innumerable pathways of crookedness, the absurdity that is a byproduct of indifference, the culpability of bystanders.
A satirist with a sharp political sensibility, Bhatti firmly believed that laughter is the medicine for life’s bitter truths – medicine that needs to be swallowed with eyes wide open.
Through skits that were initially performed at public gatherings and later television shows and films, Bhatti skewered the apathy that afflicts the Indian middle class, which seems to revel in the belief that nothing will change because “we are like this only”.
Bhatti was a master of his material, writing, directing and starring in Flop Show for Doordarshan in 1989, followed by other serials, including Full Tension.
Bhatti’s first film, the Punjabi-language Mahaul Theek Hai, was released in 1999. When he died in a road accident in 2012, at the age of 57, he had completed his second feature Power Cut, starring his son Jasraj Singh Bhatti.
Jaspal Bhatti died the day before the film was released. He was posthumously honoured with a Padma Bhushan in 2013.
His satire was sharpest when it came to corruption at various levels of government. He floated mock political parties – Hawala Party, Suitcase Party – that lampooned the power elite. Bhatti’s gentle, genial and yet pointed style of humour is best seen in the cult Flop Show.
Every one of the 10 hilarious episodes begins with Bhatti voicing a deadpan dedication to the topic in focus and ends with a parody of a Hindi film song. The credits are knowingly spoofy – “Camera Jerks”, “Jarring Music”, “Overacting”, “Misdirection”.
Jaspal Bhatti emerged out of the neatly ordered, florally rich city of Chandigarh with a determination to be a thorn in the side of his complacent fellow citizens. An electrical engineer by training, he worked at the state electricity board while moonlighting as a cartoonist at the Tribune newspaper.
Bhatti was already involved with comedy about social issues through the Nonsense Club group when his future wife Savita first heard of him. It was an arranged marriage, 64-year-old Savita Bhatti told Scroll during a recent interview at her home in Chandigarh.
Jaspal Bhatti had been performing short skits on Doordarshan. That’s how Savita Bhatti first encountered him – on television, popping up as comic relief in the middle of the Hindi film music show Chitrahaar.
She would not only produce Flop Show but also appear as the long-suffering wife Preeti of the sometimes-hapless and sometimes-conniving bumbler Bhatti ji. Although she had no previous acting experience, she came to be an integral part of Jaspal Bhatti Productions, just like the other actors in his shows and films, notably Vivek Shauq.
Savita Bhatti’s memories about her spouse are dipped in warmth, generosity and self-deprecating humour.
In edited experts from the interview, Savita Bhatti looks back on Jaspal Bhatti’s “big stick, bigger smile” approach to the comedy that life in India can often be.
How did you meet Jaspal Bhatti?
My father was in the Indian Air Force. We would be shuttling across India every few years. This gives you the unique advantage of not only knowing but also loving the country’s diversity.
My father-in-law was an electrical engineer posted in Chandigarh. One of my uncles was in the public relations department. My father was commanding the Air Force station in Kasauli when my uncle told him about Bhatti sahib’s son.
Jaspal ji had just started doing television. He was also a cartoonist at the Tribune. I had studied in Delhi and had taught for a few years in Kasauli. I knew very little about him, but I had seen him on television.
You remember how Chitrahaar was such a big thing at the time. One week, it so happened that after a few songs, I saw this Sikh gentleman. Who was he, and why was he interrupting Chitrahaar of all things? It was sacred, our weekly dose of entertainment.
It was a Punjabi skit called Rang Chipang. By the fourth week of seeing him, I decided to listen to what he had to say. I didn’t follow some of the things at the time because I wasn’t used to it – I had only encountered satire in literature. That was my first introduction to him.
After that, I read a magazine article about how he had organised a mock bride burning ceremony as a protest against the custom of dowry. Dancing baraatis set a rag doll on fire.
Jaspal ji was initially not keen on marriage – when you have a vision, you worry about who your partner will be. Within a month of the wedding, he told me that he wanted me to study further. I did a Masters in English through correspondence since I had given birth to my son. Jaspal ji also wanted me to do an MPhil. Thankfully, I didn’t clear the test.
What he told me was this: you will always be Mrs Jaspal Bhatti, but I want you to be Savita. He made it a point to get me to understand what it was that he was doing. We were married in 1985.
How did you end up acting in Flop Show?
Rehearsals for his comedy skits were often held in this very house. I would be the wife in the background serving tea, thinking about how easy it is to act.
Once, an actress dropped out of a skit that he was going to perform in Jalandhar. I was the only person around. When he asked me to act, I said of course, because you think it is so easy. When I went on the set, I realised how easy it is to put somebody down when it is actually so hard.
But I had tasted blood. Every time he wrote something, I would ask about my role. He would say, I am not writing roles for any one person, I am writing characters.
He was able to balance the personal and the professional very well. It’s another matter that I would get scolded the most, since I was the producer too.
What do you remember about the making of Flop Show?
Everything was shot in Chandigarh itself, some of it in this house. The equipment broke down at times, and we could resume shooting only after the replacement arrived.
I have a neat hand handwriting, so I wrote the scripts of all the episodes by hand. The actors sat around in the room upstairs and spoke their lines. It was important to build that camaraderie.
We all felt that we had been given a big opportunity. Many of the people hadn’t worked in a TV show before, and nobody knew that it was going to be this big. The process was fun and enjoyable.
Jaspal ji was also very lucky that he was able to communicate his vision to his team. He attended events to find actors.
Vivek Shauq, the extraordinary actor, was working with Swaraj Mazda at the time and was performing on the college circuit. They had such a beautiful relationship – if one of them spoke, the other completed the sentence.
Did you ever face censorship, especially since Flop Show often made fun of government employees?
I would like to give credit to Doordarshan as well as to the governments in power at the time. Doordarshan put Jaspal ji on the national map. In the tenth episode, Jaspal ji even made fun of Doordarshan. But he never once faced censorship. Not a single word was changed.
People say that had he been alive today, he might have been in jail. I say no – he would have found a way out. Things would have probably been tougher, but he had the intelligence and depth to deal with it.
We once did a programme for the government on the Right to Information Act. Where was the comedy in a conference for information commissioners? Jaspali ji wrote a script around the provisions in the act. He adapted his scripts for the intended audience.
Flop Show was a hit in its time. Did things change for your family?
Of course they did. Even today, because this is our city, people recognise you wherever you go.
People would accost Jaspali ji on his morning walk. But he was unaffected by stardom. He didn't change in any way – hats off to him. His attitude was, I have work to do. He stayed very grounded, and that was a big lesson for me.
We surround ourselves by walls and all kinds of people. We don't see the aam aadmi [common man]. That is why his work makes you laugh and think, but it makes you sad too. The things that he talked about in the 1980s haven’t gone away. Corruption is still around, probably to a greater extent.
You used the term “aam aadmi”. In some ways, Jaspal Bhatti’s concerns anticipated the Aam Aadmi Party’s focus on corruption. You were even nominated by AAP to contest the Lok Sabha election in 2014.
I was asked to stand for the election, but after a week, I realised what a big misfit I was. There were people telling me that I would win easily, but someone also told me that if I lost, it would be humiliating.
I am not from a political family. Jaspal ji wasn’t around. [AAP leader] Manish Sisodia was very graceful. He told me, don’t worry, whatever we are trying to achieve today was initiated by Jaspal ji.
When Mr Anna Hazare was fasting at Jantar Mantar [in 2012], Arvind Kejriwal called Jaspal ji. He said, Bhatti sahib, you were the one who started the fight against corruption. So Jaspal ji went to the rally. He carried an idol on his head that he was said was the god of corruption.
Why did Jaspal Bhatti get into filmmaking?
Jaspal ji didn’t fit in in a stereotyped notion of anything, whether it was television or cinema. Mahaul Theek Hai was about corruption in the Punjab police, but it was relevant to any police force in India.
He had been working in Hindi films when he decided to come back to Punjabi. I remember him once quoting Mr Balraj Sahni, who said that whatever you do, you have to come back to your roots.
It was a rough time for Punjabi cinema. There were many formulaic films. People had stopped going to the theatres. Bilkul hi mahaul nahin tha [the setting was all wrong] but instead of making a love story or a frothy film, Jaspal ji chose to make a film about the police.
Before the film’s launch, he organised a cartoon competition whose topic was atrocities by the police. Who were the judges? Top-ranking police officials. They were magnanimous. I think they also believed in Jaspal ji’s sense of fairness, the way he looked at things without bias or judgement.
The film did very well. Lots of police people told us that they enjoyed the film, but they went to the cinemas in plain clothes.
How did the Hindi film industry treat him? Did they regard him as a jokester from Punjab?
Yes. They didn’t take him seriously. They wanted him for comedy and didn’t tap his potential. Perhaps it was because comedy was just a filler at that time.
The problem was also partly Jaspal ji himself. Had he been just an actor, he might have been satisfied with whatever was coming his way. But he was also a creator. He was cast in a TV show, where he criticised the way it was being made. After two episodes, they didn’t call him back.
Mr Kamal Haasan called him once, saying that he wanted him to work on a Hindi remake of his Tamil film Magalir Mattum. When Rishi Kapoor called him for Aa Ab Laut Chale, Jaspal ji thought it was a prank call.
What about your own acting career?
I did get offers. Jaspal ji had told me, this is entirely your call. But my children [son Jasraj and daughter Raabiya] were growing up. TV serials didn’t suit me at all in terms of their shooting schedules.
After him, whatever work has come has been from Bombay. People either don't know that I am ready once again for work or they are unsure about whether I will work in the mainstream. I have just done a Punjabi film after six-seven years.
Have you ever been approached for a biopic on Jaspal Bhatti?
I have. But we were offered peanuts. It’s not about the money but the respect for his work, the value it should command.
People have also given us strange ideas – to combine the film Mahaul Theek Hai and the serial Thank You Jijaji, to make sequels, to remake Flop Show. I tell them that these are classics that need to be left alone, that they can’t be replicated.
Unfortunately, we don’t own the copyright to any of the television shows. Doordarshan does.
How did you find the strength to cope with Jaspal Bhatti’s untimely death?
You do break down. You’ve lost a very important part of your life. Somebody told me, you can’t cry since your husband made everybody laugh.
The biggest strength came from how people reached out to us. Around seven or eight months after Jaspal ji’s mishap, I met a few people who had come to Chandigarh from Aurangabad. They said that they wanted to see the house where he lived, they wanted to meet his mother. They stayed for lunch.
You realise that God is sending you parcels of love. The going away also woke people up – Jaspal ji got the Padma Bhushan posthumously. You realise that Jaspal ji is still looking after you. Whatever we have today is because of Jaspal ji.
They say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The other day, my grandson had his orientation at school. Many people there told me, I am a big fan of your husband’s work. It’s now our turn to say thank you to each and every one of these people.
