How Kapil-Sunil Fight Is Actually Good For The Kapil Sharma Show? – Koimoi Reader’s View

Ehsaan Qureshi’s “comic poetries”, Sunil Pal’s “Ratan Nura”, Raju Shrivastav’s “mimicking a scene of Indian Wedding Reception”… remember all these?? The Laughter Challenge!! Indian audience slowly giving standup comedy a try. I remember this show being played on our television box, a comedy show being played in the house that has usually echoed the sounds of soap operas like “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi”, “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki” or reality shows like “KBC”. I, subconsciously, started enjoying and following comedy since then.

It was not until the “Comedy King” of India walked in with his humour, an ability to respond with witty one liners if comments are being made on him – back in the days of Comedy Circus on Sony TV, I started following comedy shows religiously (every weekend). I would wait for the show to be uploaded on Youtube, fast forward it directly to the master’s act and be done with it. Sometimes I wondered if Sony were to do analytics on the particular segment of the video, they would find more views on the segment where his acts feature than the start. You guessed it right: I am talking of The Great Indian Laughter challenge winner: “The Kapil Sharma!!!” Who would have thought, he would go and win heart of millions in the years to come by.

Winning hearts, though, is never easy. There are handful of people who have the luxury of being the most loved people in India, specially in the entertainment industry. Kapil had something in him, innocence? suavity? modesty? cunningness? street smartness? Comedy nights with Kapil? THE KAPIL SHARMA SHOW?? I will leave that for the readers to decide. Whatever it was, he was able to spread his magic. India was crazy about him. They will tune into Colors every weekend and look forward to his show.

Seinfeld, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Jerry Springer show etc are all familiar names in Hollywood. And there are many more… To achieve that feet in India, for a common man, is something that is worth being proud of. Each and every person in India can look up to him for inspiration. Believe it or not, the seed was sown back then to put him in the leagues of Karan Johar and likes… (Koffee with Karan!!).

Comedy nights with Kapil had people in splits. They would come home after a good, bad, sometimes pathetic week and forget the sadness for an hour or two. Your favorite superstars coming on to the TV regularly along with the apt sense of humour from Kapil and his TEAM.

“Talent wins games, but teamwork wins Championships”

-Michael Jordan

And championship they won! Dadi, Bua, his wife and GUTHI along with Kapil were the talk of town soon. Week after week, episode after episode, two of them were real happy: Colors and Kapil. Not to forget the real important “Celebrities” who appeared on the show week after week. After all, India is crazy about Bollywood!

You don’t fix something that ain’t broken!

Kapil’s rags to riches story was as bollywood-ish as it can get. Coming from a humble background, finding his way up the ladder and holding on to it with such tenacity. But, you know what happens in bollywood stories. If you serve the same content over and over again, people will not be willing to spend their bucks on you. Soon, his show became mundane for its audience. They were still watching it! But, the novelty was no more. And, there was a fallout with the second highest paid actor on the show, Sunil Grover (who played the character of Guthi, back then).

They say, even a failure at your first venture is better than not trying. At least, a failed entrepreneur has tested waters, with bravado, of starting his own company. Believe it or not, it’s a very good feeling…

Kapil, on the other hand, had loads to learn from his 2.5 years successful/failed attempt with Comedy Nights with Kapil.

:- People admire the new idea.
:- Sense of humour is widely accepted if presented well.
:- Teamwork is important, with all the drama of Sunil Grover quitting the show and starting    his  own show. Failing at it and coming back.
:- Audience always want “Novelty ka TADKA”.
:- There is competition all around:
:- Awaited movies are less in a year. Only, a handful of movies are released in a year which people are looking out for. So the sought out celebrity list on Kapil’s show is also limited.
:- Although, the other shows don’t even come close to Kapil’s but, even a 1% competition is worth fighting.

There is another religion in India: CRICKET and people like to celebrate this in the form of IPL, World Cups, Champions Trophy. With so much of cricket going around these days, it’s a potential threat to Kapil’s show as well.

There are always means of coming back!!

When it did end because of the controversies between the channel, Colors, and Kapil, however mundane it was people started missing him. It was a realization of a habit. Audience were hooked to his repeated humour, same script and wanted him back.

He did come back, this time with a new show and the new channel (Sony) called: The Kapil Sharma Show! I was waiting for it since the teaser was released. The excitement was a lot more seeing the whole team sticking around Kapil and all of them coming back all guns blazing. Be it the pilot in Delhi or the subsequent shows every weekend, I watched all of them till date. If I miss the air time, I would go to youtube the next day and watch it. I found the show a little different this time:

:- New characters introduced every now and then
:- Kapil taking digs at himself and others on the show
:- Team was rock solid
:- Other shows started diminishing

With almost no competition, The Kapil Sharma Show enjoyed full bandwidth and became the most watched show, which showed in the BARC ranking. The show was ruling the charts and ranked under top 3.

Do you ever get a feeling that things might just change with a blink of eye when everything is rosy? It has been that kind of a month for Kapil, this past one. Nothing seems to be working for him ever since the alleged mid air controversy between him and Sunil Grover, post which the three artists have boycotted his show, TRPs have been falling apart (the show is no longer in top 10, let alone top 3), most of the things written and said about/by Kapil have been misinterpreted, there are news of Sony giving him a notice of one month to improve the ratings… The list is endless. Just GOOGLE “Kapil Sharma” and you will know.

I have been following this controversy over the past one month. The amount of impact this has had on the show is tremendous and can’t be understated. According to me, the show is going to be a SUPERHIT because of this controversy. Yes! You heard me right!! This controversy have been a blessing in disguise. “What are you talking about? That’s crazy talk!”, some might say. But, hear me out…

Let’s analyze each and every impact, individually:

1. Sunil Grover not coming to shoots and hosting his own live show in Delhi: Kapil and Sunil were the best of pals post the earlier controversy (Colors). Think about it… their so called mid air fight… they can actually use the phrase “Been there, done that!”. Why would someone want to jeopardize the incoming fame, money and a lot more for something they have done in past and know how it ended. Déjà vu!

Also, the live show of Sunil Grover in Delhi was planned way before their fight. In Fact, the controversy created a sympathy for Sunil Grover and the show was a full house. The producers of the show have gone on records and said the fight did wonders for them as they saw more moolah coming their way.

2. Chandan Prabhakar boycotting the show: Chandan Prabhakar and Kapil go long way back. They debuted to The Great Indian Laughter Challenge together. They have studied together. It’s hard to imagine that the friendship which goes so long back in the history is so easy to break. They have taken digs at each other along with Rajiv Thakur on the same show.

Also, his wife was expecting a baby which means he was due for a paternity leave anyway. Think about it… If my dear friend is expecting a baby, why would I go and fight with him, no matter whatever the reason, in this crucial time of his life. Instead, his vacation may be used as an alibi for boycott!

3. Ali Asgar joining the new show: Ali was never in the picture. His equation with Kapil has been really great! They also go long way. In fact, they have also won the Comedy Circus title when they were paired for the first time. Also, just like Sunil, Ali’s show was already signed way before this controversy.

4. Kapil Sharma Show’s TRP are going down: “How do you justify this?”, people will ask. Well, as I said earlier, THE KAPIL SHARMA SHOW covered it’s basis and learned from previous mistakes before launching the show. One of the most important competition for the show always was going to be IPL.

People in India are crazy about cricket. And guess what? IPL starts in April, a month after the controversy. Given that their was no controversy and everything was going as it was, IPL would have still affected the shows TRP. 70-80% of the audience will prefer IPL matches (at home or bars/pubs) over the weekend than the show. It was anyway going to take a hit, even with the show’s characters intact. In Fact, post the IPL, people might have lost the affection towards the show altogether and it would have lost all the chances of ruling again. What’s happening because of this Kapil-Sunil spat is the show is still talk of the town and once the IPL ends, we may see Sunil Grover coming back to the show!

When I heard about the fight for the first time, I was shocked. It took me some time to grasp it. As I said earlier, You ain’t fix something that ain’t broken! How can you fix something which is already going great. I started reading everyday about the show and the characters trying to understand the reason behind this. Kapil, Sunil, Ali, Chandu. All of them are great artists and brilliant professionals. They will not repeat the same mistake again! They are not dumb to do something like this. As they say…

THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED HERE

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