Laugh lines for Jaspal Bhatti

Chandigarh: The two-day Jaspal Bhatti humour festival began at Tagore Theatre on Thursday to mark the birth anniversary of the late satirist. A team of Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi and Gursimran Khamba left the audience in splits on Day One.

Rana Ranbir, Amit Tandon and Sumedh Shinde gave a fitting tribute to the legendary comedian. The artists said they wanted to spread Jaspal's message of letting laughter brighten the dark patches of life.

LEDs were installed for the audience who could not get entry into the jam-packed auditorium. Deepak Raja, comedian and stage actor from Mumbai, hosted the show.

Stand-up comedies and plays were staged in Hindi, Punjabi and English. "Our aim is to transform this into an annual event, making it bigger each year by roping in plays, street humor, stand-up comics, cartoons and films," said Savita Bhatti, wife of the late comedian.