Laughter is a serious business. Vir Das, the stand-up comedian who received the International Emmy award for best comedy this year for his show Vir Das: Landing, sharing it with the British comedy, Derry Girls, would probably have agreed, as would his peers. Mr Das is the first comedian from India to receive the Emmy, and was also among the earliest in opening up the Indian scene to stand-up comedy a little more than a decade ago. To make people laugh, though, is one of the most difficult of the creative arts, especially since being funny while alone on stage before a sea of faces requires a finely written script, verbal agility, expressions provoking hilarity, unique content and style, perfect timing, the right punchline, smooth continuity and a touch of madness — with other gifts.

Playing the fool was never a joke, not even when Shakespeare’s Feste sang or Lear’s Fool spoke out of turn. Mr Das feels that to humanise kings or popular icons, the comedian must turn himself into an idiot. This is a gentle reminder that the source of comedy is incongruity, human absurdity and folly. Creating laughter opens up the way to humorous self-deprecation and reflection, but for that, comedy must engage with social foibles — the ‘cracks in society’ — and the political theatre. What makes the achievements of Mr Das and his colleagues remarkable is the fact that the atmosphere in India today is not conducive to laughter. The inflexible aggression surrounding matters of faith and of nationhood endangers even innocuous jokes and witty comments, as the comedian, Agrima Joshua, for instance, found to her cost. So did Mr Das, in an earlier show. Besides, fear rather than the sense of fun rules much of life nowadays. It would hardly be surprising if Indians lost their sense of humour.

But they have not. That is still the most promising aspect of Mr Das’ award, because it represents the popularity of the art he stands for. For him, as for all comic artists, the greatest punishment is a silent auditorium. To keep people laughing, comedians are constantly challenged to create newer and better content; Mr Das thinks even negative feedback should inspire the artist to go back and write jokes about that. Turn negativity into something beautiful. Satire, sly wit, smartly disguised criticism have all existed in the most forbidding, humourless times in history, evading everyone from censors to vandals by seeping cunningly into popular plays, animating cabarets, clowns, puppet-shows and numerous other forms of apparently ‘low-brow’ entertainment. But modern-day stand-up comedy cannot slip under the radar in quite the same way, especially since its present and future lie in big corporate platforms — it is Mr Das’ Netflix show that earned the Emmy. Beating repetitiveness is one challenge: dullness is an unforgivable sin in a comedian. But being funny in spite of the surrounding un-funniness means that an extra hurdle has been overcome.