0
He flew in to Karachi the night before and is off to Turkey in a few hours. A quintessential jet-setter?
“I’m not jet-setting between parties. I am on a tour of 16 universities in Pakistan as part of the University of Freshology. It is a fun initiative aimed at solving the maslas of all the young people we come across,” says the comedian, earnestly believing comedy can help provide healthy outlets and important alternatives for Pakistani youth.
An obvious question is what sort of maslas did the jokester have during his own childhood? “There was no creative outlets. I did play sports but other than that, none of the academic outlets allowed me to be who I wanted to be,” he recalls. “If I had different outlets, I think I would have achieved more by now. The biggest problem is our youth doesn’t have healthy outlets.
Gaming zones, etc. are mere distractions. What we need are piano teachers, drama clubs and green fields where you can safely run around. Even the avenues we had growing up like playing cricket in the street, we don’t have anymore. What Freshology does is bring the shows to the kids in their school environment where they can comfortably interact and be part of this experience.”
And amidst all that, he was always funny. “I don’t think anyone would have hired me for a show back then, but I think I did make my family laugh. You definitely get funnier as you get older. In terms of age, being a comedian is the exact opposite of being, say, an athlete. Your career starts at 30.”
At 33, it’s clear the Sagittarian has come into his own, “Comedy has taught me to take pride in my work and always do what makes me happy.”
He now has a good 10 years of professional experience and comedy was a career he was drawn to, rather than actively sought.
“I had just come back to Pakistan and it was just post-9/11, the atmosphere was depressing and it was the beginning of the never-ending war on terror. I wanted to focus on comedy performances that could be done on a regular basis and so I decided to put together the improvisational comedy troupe, Black Fish.”
Later, he left it because he wanted to focus on his stand-up art — he felt he had something he wanted to say — while still managing his workload at his family business. But he started missing improvisational comedy and started training at a New York comedy school which led to his founding the Shark improv troupe for a one-off tour.
In between Black Fish and Shark, Haroon teamed up with Danish Ali to do The Real News and Pakistan’s first solo English stand-up comedy tour. He enjoyed the creative freedom they were given on television but soon craved stand-up and so took a hiatus from the project to focus on a second solo stand-up comedy tour.
With comedy becoming more and more serious business for Haroon, he quit his day job five years ago. “I slept on my desk a lot. Also, I told my boss I was just going to the bathroom, so I don’t think I can go back now,” he jibes.
Throughout the course of the interview, Haroon peppers our conversation with witty comments, ad libs and inevitable punchlines. He tells Images on Sunday about wooing his wife with “humour and Blackberry Messenger”, and how his friends are his test audience, and their wives, and their friends.
He says he continues to enjoy the humour of his favourite Pakistani comedians: Anwer Maqsood, Bushra Ansari and Behroze Sabzwari among others. His international mentors include Dave Chapelle, Mitch Hedburg (RIP), Jon Stewart and Bill Cosby. He even finds his friends entertaining. “When I am with them, they are the ones entertaining me and so I find many of them to be funnier than I am.”
Not everyone is funny though, “Comedy is a harsh profession and no one will show you kindness, they want you to make them laugh, there is no middle ground.”
Commenting on the flak female comedians have taken, especially Pakistani ones of late, he adds, “You should look at how funny they are. I know lots of very funny women, and I am sure we will see many more in the coming years.”
Haroon has been careful not to cross too many lines with his own comedy. His shows tend to be family-friendly and rarely vulgar or offensive, “It was and is a conscious decision, I do play to an audience and the audiences here do not react well to content that crosses the line. I do have some jokes that cross the line but I tell them because either they are true or to make a point, and so in that situation I do take some creative license.
“Vulgar comedy is an easy shortcut, but it is also funny. We have all told that dirty joke at some point in our lives and still laugh at others when we hear them. I think we have many blue comedians because we have many people who want to hear those jokes. Some people turn to comedy because they want someone to say the things they cannot say.”
Haroon is excited that his tour might inspire some students in the audience to start performing or becoming part of comedy acts, “There so many people who have been part of my journey like my guitarist Amin Arif, partner in crime Danish Ali and now young Ali Gul Peer who is currently performing with me as part of the Sprite Freshology Tour, and is a wonderful budding comedian. It would be wonderful if others joined us in this journey and found hope and joy in comedy as a profession,” says Haroon.
