Satire Elements in “Rosh Alo”

Satire is a literary technique which is used to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of

an individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule. We can see the use of

different kinds of satire in books, movies, tv shows and newspapers. In Bangladesh, there is a famous

newspaper called “Prothom Alo”. It has a special feature to entertain the audiences. It is known as

“Rosh+Alo”. It uses different elements of satire.

As we can see the title of this special feature is “Rosh+Alo”. The title is a great example of “wit”.

In English, ‘Rosh’ can be seen as entertainment and ‘Alo’ means light. So it entertains the audience with

humor and it also enlightens us with knowledge.

Rosh Alo is a weekly humor magazine of Leading Bangladeshi popular daily newspaper “Prothom

Alo”. It is a very funny magazine with current incident. It portrays current situations through humorous

context. It uses humor, wit, pun etc. to amuse the audience and also update the audience with current

occurrences of society.

The general people of Bangladesh is mainly the target of this magazine. This magazine is hugely

popular and also loved by audiences of all ages. Kids love this because of the funny cartoons and jokes.

Adults love this because of the humorous learning of different types of current incidents.

Rosh Alo targets every aspects of society. It targets corruption, misuse of power, political

repression through comic viewpoint. It judges society, find out the corruptive aspects and mock the

blind followers of blind rules. Sometimes it targets a group of people in Bangladesh. Sometimes it

targets a corrupted company and its owners. Sometimes it mocks an idea which is not necessary in

current context. It also targets individuals of our society.

 There are many elements of satire. Caricature is one of them. Caricature is a device used in

descriptive writing and visual arts, in which particular aspects of a subject are exaggerated, to create a

silly or comic effect. In other words, it can be defined as a plastic illustration, derisive drawing, or a

portrayal based on exaggeration of the natural features, which gives a humorous touch to the subject.

In this magazine, caricature is commonly used. We can see funny illustration with funny quotes which

represents a funny idea. In the quote section, we can see different caricatures which are used to make it

visually more entertaining to the audience. It creates a sense of appeal.

Sarcasm is a literary and rhetorical device that is meant to mock, often with satirical or ironic

remarks, with a purpose to amuse and hurt someone, or some section of society, simultaneously. It is

another device used in this magazine. In some articles, it mocks our education system which has flaws.

But the magazine does it in amusing way. Our education system is run by the people who are not

suitable in their position. It helps the audience to make them realize it.

Hyperbole is a figure of speech that involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of

emphasis. In the magazine, we see some jokes which use these types of exaggeration. For example- A

lover boy promises some unrealistic things for the sake of love. He can snatch away the moon from the

sky and give it to his partner. This type of promise is a good example of exaggeration.

Juxtaposition is a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters, and their

actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem, for the purpose of developing comparisons and

contrasts. Juxtaposition is commonly used in Rosh Alo. We can see the jokes of two different kinds of

characters who are opposite to each other. One character is clever and the other one is fool. They fight

over silly topics and the clever man tries to convince the fool by using silly logic.

Humor is a literary tool that makes audiences laugh, or that intends to induce amusement or

laughter. Its purpose is to break the monotony, boredom, and tedium, and make the audience’s nerves
relax. There are lots of humorous article in this magazine which make us laugh. For example- on 2

January, 2012 there was a feature about Spiderman and what he is going to do after marriage. It makes

us laugh. So humor is involved here to make audience laugh irrespective of the situation.

This is used to bring about lots of social change. There are many aspects of society

which are targeted. It targets corruption of government, political power. It deals with the false

judgement of innocent individuals. It deals with the change of education system and betterment

of human lives. When the actions become humorous there is an urge to change them or to

improve them according to the need. This idea is to encourage the betterment.

Work Cited

“Satire.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Aug. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire.