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Regular-article-logo Thursday, 07 August 2025

Ha-ha man

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PRATIM D. GUPTA Published 27.10.08, 12:00 AM

After adorning many a funny show, ace stand-up comedian Raju Srivastav now has his own show on television. Raju Haazir Ho comes three times a week on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, at 9pm on NDTV Imagine. On the show he will be joined by a couple of his friend comedians and also celebrity guests for one hour of unalloyed fun and laughter. So over to Raju on his dream show…

This is the first time a TV show have been named after you. How do you feel?

Bahut achcha lag raha hai. I am also hosting a show for the first time. Of course, I will also be doing my stand-up comedy routines. Also, two celebrity guests will be coming on the show every week. They will be from the world of comedy like Sajid Khan, Jaaved Jaaferi, Rajpal Yadav, Arshad Warsi… They will not only sit there as guests but they will also perform. So they will do a full 10-minute segment each. I will do three 10-minute segments. Every episode has a theme. Like festivals, fashion, sports, journeys, India… So if it’s a fashion episode, the entire one hour will be on fashion.

Will it be just another comedy show on TV? What is different about Raju Haazir Ho?

There are no judges on the show! There are no points to be given out. No one is judging anybody. There’s no elimination, no wild card. None of our performers are asking for SMS-s from the public. “SMS dekey humein bachaiyenaisa koi baat nahin hai… Sirf hasiye aur hasiye…

But you are all over television. Why would people tune in to this particular show?

For the last six months I have not performed on any other channel. I haven’t done a single new comedy episode on TV in this period. Whatever you see are repeats of earlier performances of mine. I have prepared from scratch for this show. As people have rightly said, I don’t say jokes… I just put in my observations. So jokes you may have heard before but newer observations happen everyday. From newspapers, news channels, everywhere.

What about a funny line or two?

Zamana aisa aa gaya hai, aadmi jitna fati jeans pehenle utna high-society ho jaata hai. Pehle khana khatey khatey log cricket ya politics ki baatein kartey the, ab high-society ke log apne apne doctor ki baatein karte hain, bimariyan ke baat kartey hain. Who has more blood pressure, who has diabetes… and which food item has how much calories, how much fibre… The lady in the house will talk about the cholesterol content of prawns, phir koney mein jakey paya-vaya khakey aate hain….

Other stand-up comedians have fizzled out. What is the recipe of your success?

I am very natural. Jo mere dil mein hain, woh hi bahaar hain. I am still friends with all those people with whom I have grown up — people who still have small shops and sabzi ka thela. I am more comfortable with villagers… I don’t fit into the high-society, their cocktail parties. If Salman Khan and John Abraham come in their long cars in their dark shades, they will do fine. But comedians need to stay rooted. The more they mix with common people, they get more stock for comedy.

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