Shafaat Ali brings laughter to KLF

KARACHI: Shafaat Ali became a social media sensation after a video of him mimicking politicians went viral.

At the Karachi Literature Festival on Sunday he had the audience rapt in a loop of humour, in a stand up comedy gig.

Shafaat began with comparing Lahore, where he currently lives, to Karachi. In a jibe at the workaholic city Karachi is he said "in Karachi people live on tea, eight cups of tea a day. People in Lahore live on food, eight times a day"

He narrated a scene at the Lahore Airport where he was boarding a flight to Islamabad. Politicians from the ruling party Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) including the Prime Minister and its arch-rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) including its chief Imran Khan were among the passengers.

As he proceeded, he changed characters from Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif, to Khawaja Saad Rafique and Fawad Chaudhry.

The plane faces a technical fault and and fails to take off, with top political leadership of the country aboard.

What follows is political pundits and conspiracy theorists predicting possible outcomes. Shafaat went on from mimicking hosts Amir Liaquat to Dr Shahid Masood to journalists Javed Chaudhry and Shahzeb Khanzada- all trying to bring their viewers exclusive news.

In the process, Shafaat managed to draw sharp criticism over the noisy electronic media and political idiosyncrasies in Pakistan.

The plane takes off. But no one knows who the pilot is --- until the someone welcomes them on board--this time in Chinese.

While most in the audience failed to get the joke- Shafaat was in fact likening the plane to Pakistan and the pilot to the person who runs it.