Feature

And if you ridicule,
shall we not laugh?

Fantastic Mirrakkel experience

THEY say laughter bridges the gap between races and social classes. I started believing in it after watching the performance of Bangladeshi performer Mosharraf Khan at Horlicks Mirrakkel Akkel Challenger 5 - a Kolkata based Indian television channel at Zee Bangla aired on every Thursday to Saturday at 10:30 pm Bangladesh Time.

'”Mosharraf Khan Yaafi” from Dhaka Bangladesh, as called by anchor Mir, is a versatile standup comedian, who can rejuvenate the audience with laughter and yet manage to have a social message at the end of his every performance. His satirical scripts were quite popular on both side of East and West Bengal as it brings out a different flavour of humour among the rest of the performers of Mirrakkel.

He ridicules about the glaring chasm in Asian's social classes. He pokes fun at our pompous self and reminds us that beneath all our titles and our tuxes we are all yearning to be tickled. It earned him a big hug from Paran Bandapadhay, the famous actor and director and also one of the Judges of Mirrakkel. This gesture was first of its kind in the 5 seasons of the show.

Yaafi with his brilliant acting skills, biting scripts and lopsided grin gained popularity not only among Bangladeshis but also amongst the migrated Bengalis of Kolkata. He reminiscences about his Mirrakkel experience - one day when he went to watch IPL Cricket match at Edengarden stadium, a lady in her early fifties came running to him. She held his hand and very emotionally said, “Your accent reminds me so much of my father who was from old Dhaka. You take me back to my childhood in Dhaka. You are our pride as much as you are Bangaldesh's”.

Yaafi's passion for stand-up comedy started way back from his university life at North South University. His audience's always ended up with sore smile muscles. After coming back from Mirrakkel, he has performed in Naveed Mahmud's first ever Comedy club in Bangladesh. He believes that humor is a very good tool to bring about much-need social changes.