Is The Strain Of Constantly Being Funny Taking Its Toll ?

Even while Kapil Sharma’s mental health continues to be a matter of grave concern for all his friends and colleagues, another stand-up comedian Siddharth Sagar has been quoted as saying he ended up in a mental asylum because of family pressures.

Is the strain of being funny on camera too much to take? Kapil had once told me how difficult it was to live up to people’s expectations all the time. “Wherever I am ,I am expected to crack jokes be funny all the time.If I am not, I am chided, ‘Kapil , koi joke sunao’ As if I am humour-spewing machine. If I am waiting at the airport for my flight people coming up to me for pictures and laughs. Thodasa ajeeb lagta hai. If you see Sachin Tendulkar on the airport you won’t ask him to show you his cricketing moves .Then why am I expected to crack jokes all the time?”

This conversation has a deeper relevance in the light of the fact that Kapil is nowadays loath to shoot for his show.

Says a source close to Kapil, “He has to not only write funny lines and quips for himself he must also write them for his colleagues quite often on the show. Sidharth Sagar ke saath bhi aisa hi kuch hua. He was constantly required to be funny. Dressing up as a woman for the stand-up act causes an identity crisis. Then on top of that Sagar was apparently under pressure from is family. He caved in.”

I tried to reach Sidharth Sagar’s colleagues from the comedy shows on television, and most of them remained silent.

Krushna Abhishek who has worked extensively with Sidharth said, “Great talent .Really sad…I was looking for him.I tried texting and calling him many times. No reply.”