{"id":10512,"date":"2011-09-26T22:09:46","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T22:09:46","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-09-26T22:09:46","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T22:09:46","slug":"Humor-Comes-of-Age-in-India","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=10512","title":{"rendered":"Humor Comes of Age in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I asked Ashok Chakradhar, a respected poet and comic, how India\u2019s sense of humor has changed over the years, he answered with a joke about physical intimacy in relationships. \u201cIn the 1980\u2019s, women told men, love me but don\u2019t touch me,\u201d said Mr. Chakradhar, a professor of Hindi at Jamia Millia Islamia, a university in New Delhi. \u201cIn the 1990\u2019s, they said touch me but don\u2019t kiss me. In 1995, they said kiss me, but nothing more. In 2000, it was do whatever you want but don\u2019t tell anybody. In 2010, they say do something otherwise I will tell everybody you don\u2019t know how to do anything.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Just as the display of affection has shifted from puritanical restraint to explicit display, humor is becoming freer and more adventurous in India. Young writers, directors and media producers are starting to experiment with satire, dark humor, sexually explicit jokes and other expressions that earlier faced stiff resistance. \u201cOur culture is changing,\u201d Mr. Chakradhar said. \u201cGlobalization is bringing down the walls. We are building a new society.\u201d <\/p>\n

The move toward more openness is, of course, slow and halting. Cultural battles involving books, TV shows and films are still common, including the recent attempts to ban \u201cAarakshan,\u201d the movie about reservations for lower-caste students at universities, or complaints about \u201cDelhi Belly,\u201d the profanity-laced movie from Aamir Khan\u2019s production house. But given the hostility free expression has long faced in India, writers, directors and producers say that there has been notable progress.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/video.nytimes.com\/video\/2011\/09\/27\/arts\/100000001038853\/a-night-at-the-comedy-club.html
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I asked Ashok Chakradhar, a respected poet and comic, how India\u2019s sense of humor has changed over the years,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"When I asked Ashok Chakradhar, a respected poet and comic, how India\u2019s sense of humor has changed over the years,","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":122,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}