When you try to establish a benchmark concerning trends in Pakistan, you’ll find that in the past few years, there’s been a certain meteoric rise of a comedy scene in the country. Now we can’t fault ourselves this, because there’s only so much we can remain blinkered and stony-faced as the limbless beggar taps insistently on the windows we have placed (hopefully) between us and our jagged and slowly unhinging society, until some sort of macabre and Gaiman-esque psyche prevails.

There used to be a time, and I can count the months since then on my two hands, when there were only the two or three performances or online resources of sardonic societal wit.

Now resources of “the funny” are countless, and they are indeed all very, very funny. ‘Saad Haroon’, ‘Danish Ali’, ‘The Agency’, ‘Roznama Jawani’, ‘Karachi Tips’, ‘Maila Times’ and so on and so forth, give us the freedom, even permission to laugh at who we are, what we have become and where we find ourselves in this most crucial of junctions in our country’s progress (questionable, but let’s leave it there for the sake of argument).

Strikes, bomb-blasts, near-misses, mistreatment of minorities, inflammatory remarks by pseudo-emotional politicians, starving heroin-addicted children begging at your windows, whispered-about gang rapes of both men and women, worries about loved ones, spies, ignorance in politically active and passionate youths, medical negligence, religious zeal, natural disasters that could have been averted, dacoits and kidnappings, all of these everyday ‘gifts’ to the common man have led to a strange mentality, one we quickly label as a ‘desensitised nation’... a mentality that is summarised by the now oft quoted term, “Pakistan Ka Haal”, which almost always has negative connotations.

Humour, comedy, laughter, these qualify as the last emotional resort in an environment where constant dire consequences are perpetually being dreaded or caused. Better that we laugh than we cry, no?

Or ought that be answered differently?

Regardless, I worry that this may pass and I know that I, myself, do not want this to happen. I know there are many like me who prefer a giggle to an ‘oh dear, that’s terrible’ - which devolves into an entire day wasted in a steady bath of depression and sadness and anger, that slowly stews the mind into the consistency of freshly melted butter.

However, I’ve always found it commendable that our public rarely trusts anything, even our media. So now when I am about to draw a parallel with America, let me first mention this: When it comes to the media – it seems that the majority of American citizens believe that they are being shown facts. They trust CNN, Fox News (a channel that has been known to be duped by a Pakistani satirical website) and Reuters etc. The naiveté would be sweet, if America wasn’t a world power.

However, political satirists and comedians in the media, are answerable only to an audience of the potentially less-ignorant and more-informed type. The apparent ‘intellectual elite’ of the society. One that is able to detect the nuances of a finely tuned and well aimed satirical piece thrown their way. In order, therefore, to actually put the factual news (which is largely ignored by the sensationalist media) out there for the public to have access to, it now must almost exclusively be done via humour and comedy.

Take for instance, the only real news or political corruption coverage in the United States of America is currently being hounded by noted satirists such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The same can be said of the UK’s Mock the Week. Dara tells it like it is. Period.

Perhaps (just perhaps), this is the way we get our real news. Pulling back the curtains on the ridiculous is not all that is done: pointing out discrepancies, consistencies, inconsistencies and blatant lies also happen – even if we have to read between the lines to get the point.

There is the unfortunate chance that since its humour, no one takes it seriously. People here, as well, will eventually pass it off as a ‘time-pass’. They’ll miss the actual message, and there will be little or no concrete change using what could be a devastatingly effective tool.

The rapid rise of various Facebook pages and the growing audience for comedy, while at first heartening, makes me worry a little that it will all soon pass, and that the seriousness and morose nature of life in our beloved land will wash over us once again.

Thankfully, humour seems to, at the moment, prevail.

Though, it can be argued that there’ll be no end of the ridiculous in Pakistan, and that there will always be something to parody (Maya Khan, anyone?) but at the end of the day, the dark humour (and no matter how much it makes us giggle, Dark Humour is exactly what it is) will suddenly stop being so funny. Like all fads, this will also end.

Just like there was only so much we could remain stoic, there’s now only so much we can laugh in the face of an angry, sad, dirty and hungry person, and I’m not talking about that limbless beggar at your window. We have a very serious life, and very serious children growing into very serious adults. There’s only so much more we can laugh, before we start to choke on that laughter.

Like all these fast and eventful rising stars… we can only expect a fast and, depressingly uneventful fall. I just really hope this is one star that will be the harbinger of life in its vicinity, and not engulf those who mass around it in its death throes.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.