Humour is still a joke in India: Omkar Sane

Omkar Sane is at his satirical, tongue-in-cheek best as he discusses the superficial world of television and his timely good riddance to advertising.

Coming Soon. The End. is not simply a poignant summation of Omkar Sane’s career in television as much as it is the title of his new book, a book that closely follows the heels of his first novel Welcome to Advertising. Now, Get Lost, and treads on just as many toes.

He says, “Both advertising and television, like mathematics, are necessary evils. Which is lesser depends on how much TV you watch and how many hoardings you drive past in a day.” Besides, he adds, “I doubt advertising or television can be somebody’s ambition. If it is, they may have a drinking problem.”

He confesses his ambitions were far greater, “Like, to not get caught in a game of chor police.” Writing was just another accident, he explains, “As a kid I didn’t want to be a writer, but later they came up with a keyboard and I changed my mind.” Sane also extols the advantages of working in television, “I found out what I did not want to do in life, I got introduced to some good cheap bars and I can now take up gossiping as a full time profession.”

He admits that his tongue-in-cheek humour has gotten him into trouble plenty of times, “I can’t tell you exactly how and who with, because my mom reads DNA.” He does talk about the criticism he has received, “Someone took my first book too seriously. He wrote to me saying I am trying to mislead youngsters by painting a false picture about a fine, noble industry; that I was playing with people’s emotions; that I had no right to make fun of anything; that I should shut up because I was just some overweight author.

I still have no idea what being overweight had to do with anything. After my second book, someone also asked me if I planned to become the Madhur Bhandarkar of publishing.”

Sane feels that “humour is still a joke in India” and he hopes to change that. “I am doing my bit, one book at a time,” he says solemnly, and promises that there’s a lot more where Coming Soon. The End came from, “I am baking some fiction in my head currently.”