I'm jealous of Bhagwant Mann, for two comedic, non-political reasons

A remarkable turn of events. At first I was surprised that a superior version of human enjoyed my work and immediately after felt cocky that this was the case. I posed with him, gave him a condescending backslap and was on my way – having obviously made the man’s morning with my munificence.

I had not walked 8 feet away from him when he was surrounded by over thirty people asking him for selfies. Turns out this dude – my dude – was the star of a massive mythological TV show and his fans had just waited for a moment to catch him. In that moment I recognised he was at least 30 times more popular than me (which is no barometer for success). And now I feel doubly bad that I have not seen that selfie anywhere because I still have absolutely no idea who that man was!

That is the essence of India. We have so many bubbles of entertainment, and each bubble is consumed by millions of Indians basis genre, language, region that most of us have little to less than no idea about a majority of those bubbles or the “stars” that shine in them because we are so consumed in our bubble.

A case in point is Bhagwant Mann. (See how how I finally came to the point?)

Read also: Bhagwant Mann has the last laugh, to become Punjab's CM

A Punjabi friend of mine told me how the man is a legend in Punjab. Between 1992-2005, Mann released a new comedy album every year. That’s 14 comedy albums in 14 years, most comedians can barely release one every 3 years. He was considered second only to Jaswinder Bhalla in the Punjabi comedy scene in popularity. Now both gentlemen are stalwarts in their field but, I have next to no idea about their work – and I’m 100% sure they feel the same way about me.

In my own little bubble, all I know about Bhagwant Mann is the following:

He competed in the toughest season of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge. He did not win but, then neither did Raju Srivastava who most comedy fans would argue was undeniably the funniest comedian from that season.

He has been accused of drinking alcohol at various social engagements – which would be fine if they were truly social. Unfortunately, the Parliament is not one of those places, it doesn’t even have an Open Bar. Though, sometimes watching the actions of the Parliamentarians you wonder if Bhagwant was the only member that got ‘caught’.

A YouTube video of his went viral catching a cop in Punjab taking a bribe. I revisited this video from 6 years back and there’s tons of comments suggesting that Mann should be CM, which now seems prophetic and also presumptuous. I also felt a bit bad for the cop that got caught but, that’s another story.

There’s a likelihood that what I knew about Bhagwant Mann is probably what you do too. I have no idea what kind of work he’s done in Punjab but, given that he’s won AAP a state election, he’s definitely made a sizable impact.

And, I am jealous of Bhagwant Mann becoming CM for two comedic but, non-political reasons. One: he doesn’t need to sell tickets for his shows anymore, he has a daily audience of 117 and he’s the Leader of the House so they have to listen (a bit).

Two: content. When I had kids, comedians accused me of having kids just so I could write jokes on them. Now, my kids are my favourite people on the planet – but, it’s absolutely true. I’ve written hours of jokes about them. And I can not even imagine how much new material Bhagwant Mann is going to get from his years being a CM. That would be at least 6 standup specials, I’m sure Lok Sabha TV would be interested. #LolSabha

For Mann’s part – I’m sure he’s just hoping his tenure is less eventful than the other comedian leader who is in the news. Now that guy is another story. I’d love to see his standup special about Putin. As so would 40 million people.

(Follow Sorabh Pant on Instagram @sorabhpant.)