Like all good storytellers, Modiri Keseabetswe punctuates the conversation with anecdotes. One of these is about a stern-faced and much-feared head of the family who never laughed at home ÔÇô not with the wife, and certainly not with the young son. He was watching a cartoons programme on TV one evening with his son when a funny scene unexpectedly threw him off-guard. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t hold back the laughter. It was such a scene and an occasion.
“Mommy,” the little boy who till then had never seen his father laugh shouted as he raced towards the kitchen, “dad is laughing.”
The moral of the story? We have become too serious we don’t laugh anymore. At another level, we associate laughter with weak people, or even dimwits.
“How long has the president been in office, but how often have you seen him laugh? Yet he jokes daily,” he observes. “We think one shouldn’t laugh easily,”
Better known by the stage name Mod, he is building a reputation as a rock star comedian with a steady flow of invitations to perform at various functions, including corporate events.
His first attraction to the art of making people laugh came with watching American and South African comedy. You may say he carried a chip on his shoulder, but he was convinced that he could do better. He comments somewhat cheekily, “I remember watching Eddie Murphy, and saying, ‘this is for kids’.”
The big break came a few years back with the introduction of the President’s Day arts competitions. I like the way he recounts it.
“At the regional level, there were 30 competitors and I proceeded to the national finals on a wildcard as the third guy; something like, ‘ok let’s give this guy a chance and see what he can do’. I went on to be the inaugural champion. It doesn’t matter who was second, I will always be the inaugural champion.”
That kind of opened doors ÔÇô and eyes. Prior to that he had done about two shows with his partner in crime, a funny chap who carries the moniker Ribcracker. By his admission, it was tough going. Now having been at it for the past six years, Keseabetswe is confident about the future of comedy in Botswana.
“People are realizing that comedy is here and they can’t ignore it. The future looks good,” he states.
It’s a far cry from the days when someone would be startled that the man charged a performance fee of P5, 000 per gig. He swears that in one office he was once asked: “O batla P5, 000 go dira bodela hela?”
Through the comics’ association registered in 2009, Comedy for the Nation of Botswana, he has travelled throughout the country ÔÇô in his words ÔÇô “to look for that guy in the village who nobody knows about, to give him an opportunity to prove himself on the national stage”. He holds that while the President’s Day competition is a good platform to unearth talent, unfortunately there is no programme for continuity and development of the talent.
“Comedy is an art you perfect over time,” he points out. “It’s not something you do once a year.”
He asks why a comedian cannot be invited to lighten up the atmosphere at a full council meeting, for instance. This is one idea the association is working on.
Like all arts, comedy is often a reflection of life as it unfolds around us. Keseabetswe’s work mostly revolves around politics. He says he goes for topical issues because they are fresh on people’s minds.
“When you do corporate gigs, sometimes they would say ‘please no politics’, and we go with what the client wants. I have done shows for the Law Society; you do a bit of research and create jokes about what is happening in law,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows in disbelief when he says the next sentence: “Sometimes you struggle to have people laugh.”
Really?
“Oh yes,” he feigns a serious face. “You stand there and ask yourself, ‘what am I going to talk about?’.”
There’s something else. Apparently, he even seeks divine guidance before a show. “I pray for a good joke,” he insists.
Then as if in prayer, he goes, “God give me a joke to use at this event. God please make these people understand this joke.”
I’ve heard some of the most experienced entertainers talk of butterflies that come just before going on stage. Keseabetswe says backstage before making an appearance he is such a wreck ÔÇô he gets nerves.
“Once you get on stage the first joke determines your fate,” he laughs. “When you are known it’s much better because you get good reception. But when you are a nobody the pressure is even more.”
One of Keseabetswe’s favourite subjects is President Ian Khama, and jokes about the head of state are always a hit with the audience. But it turns out that even the daredevil in our midst knows his limits. He points out that he has to strike a balance between artistic licence and “maitseo a Setswana”. But that is not to suggest that there are holy cows.
Perhaps it speaks to the level of maturity ÔÇô or tolerance ÔÇô of our society that he cannot recall a single incident that his jokes got him into trouble. His explanation is that he is very careful not to cross the line, even in the face of the ever present temptation to push the envelope a bit further. It appears there is a general consensus within the industry that it has not yet matured for some content. He says to a great extent, comedy’s development as a medium of social commentary is guided by the media.
“Like the media, comics are social commentators,” he says. “When I want to push my envelope I’d go like, ‘I was reading this newspaper and apparently….’ Then I’d push some other sensitive issues that your normal guy wouldn’t ordinarily say in public.”
Now, back to that guy who never laughed at home. Why do we need to laugh?
“Doctors say laughter is the best medicine,” he responds. “I believe Batswana from time immemorial have been a laughing people. If you go to funeral in Serowe or Pitsane, oh the Pitsane story, or wherever friends would recount funny stories about the deceased person so that people laugh and remember the departed individual in a good light. It’s our therapy.…Laughing comes as naturally as crying. As a nation we are known not to cry, so we have to be a nation that laughs.”
If you ask Keseabetswe why it is that we have suddenly taken to laughing less, he infers that it could be due to the pressures of modern life. He says individuals face different pressures of life on a daily basis, and the coping mechanisms are different for each individual; the family ties are different as well owing to the breakdown of the extended family setup ÔÇô “and as a result, you no longer have that funny uncle that you would visit to have a good laugh, and we have become too serious about issues”.
It speaks to the infancy of Botswana comedy that one of its chief exponents still has to hold a day job (he is a diamond sorter at DTC Botswana). Now, juxtapose that with his potential equal in South Africa, Trevor Noah, who has a team of no less than 10 people behind him. That is the direction that Keseabetswe wants to take his art ÔÇô to turn himself into an industry with writers, researchers, and the works. What’s more, he’s even learning Chinese. He says he is only following the market.
“I want to do jokes in Chinese. That’s where the market is going to grow. China’s influence [in the world] is growing. No one can ignore that, unless they want to be left behind,” posits the comic who professes to hide his shyness behind comedy.
In case you’re wondering, he is a family man, with a five-year-old son ÔÇô and another one is on the way. No, he’s not the guy whose guard was shattered by the cartoon programme.
