A festival that wants to make us laugh in these easily outraged times

On a visit to Banaras, the story goes, Guru Nanak found worshippers offering water to the sun. He turned his back on them and began to pour water in the opposite direction. When asked why, he remarked that if water could reach the sun it would surely flow into his farmland in Punjab’s Kartarpur.

The fable serves to illustrate how the founding guru of the Sikh faith questioned unexamined rituals. But for Maheep Singh, a writer and comedian, it’s an example of humour that Indians have now forgotten how to appreciate. This is particularly true of humour in verboten areas such