Jaswinder Bhallaਜਸਵਿੰਦਰ ਭੱਲਾ

Early life in Kaddon and Doraha

Jaswinder Bhalla was born on 4 May 1960 in Kaddon, a village near Doraha in Ludhiana district, Punjab. His father, Master Bahadur Singh Bhalla, was a primary school teacher in the village of Barmalipur, and the boy was educated at Senior Secondary School in Doraha. The wit of Punjab's villages, heard at home and in the fields, became the raw material of his comedy. His first taste of a public audience came early: in 1975, while still a schoolboy, he was selected, along with two schoolmates, to perform for All India Radio.

The professor: his second life at Punjab Agricultural University

Bhalla's other career was built in the classroom, and it was no side line. He took his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana and completed his Ph.D. at Chaudhary Charan Singh Post Graduate College, Meerut. After five years with the Punjab Agriculture Department, he joined PAU as a faculty member in 1989 and rose to become Professor and Head of the Department of Extension Education, the branch of agricultural science concerned with carrying research and practical knowledge out to farmers. He retired on 31 May 2020, and the university marked his leaving with a special farewell. Even after retirement he stayed associated with PAU, serving as a brand ambassador for its research and outreach work. Students remembered lectures that used stories from everyday village life to explain difficult ideas, a method that came naturally to a man who spent his evenings making the same villages laugh.

Chhankata: the cassettes that made Punjab laugh

Bhalla's professional comedy career began in 1988 with Chhankata 1988, an audio cassette made with his PAU classmate and long-time stage partner Bal Mukand Sharma. The name came from the annual college show the two had performed at PAU. The series grew to more than 27 audio and video albums, with Neelu Sharma also part of the cast, and from 2002 the sketches appeared on video as well. Its characters were drawn from every corner of Punjabi society. Chacha Chatar Singh, the elderly villager who commented on politics and on the gap between village and city life, became so popular that Bhalla was known by the character's name. Bhana was the young man from Chatar Singh's village who had emigrated to the United States, JB was Chatar Singh's son, and Taya Fumhan Singh completed a family that audiences recognised as their own. Bhalla said his art was a way to raise social issues, among them female foeticide, drugs and unemployment, inside the laughter. His stage show Naughty Baba in Town toured internationally, including Canada and Australia, taking the Chhankata world to the diaspora.

What was Jaswinder Bhalla's most famous role?

Jaswinder Bhalla's most famous film role was Advocate Dhillon in Carry On Jatta (2012), a performance he repeated in Carry On Jatta 2 (2018) and Carry On Jatta 3 (2023). The character's catchphrase, which translates roughly as 'Dhillon has not worn this black coat for nothing', passed into everyday Punjabi speech, and the advocate, forever confident and forever entangled in the plot's confusion, became the face by which film audiences across Punjab and the diaspora knew him best.

Film career

Bhalla moved into films with Dulla Bhatti in 1998 and Mahaul Theek Hai in 1999, a satire that suited the style he had built on cassette. Through the 2000s and 2010s he became one of the most familiar supporting actors in Punjabi cinema, appearing in films including Mel Karade Rabba, Jihne Mera Dil Luteya, Kabaddi Once Again, Jatt and Juliet and its sequel, Daddy Cool Munde Fool, Mr and Mrs 420, Sardaar Ji, Vaisakhi List and Ashke. He often played fathers, uncles, coaches and officials, figures of everyday authority whose Punjabi common sense, or lack of it, drove the comedy. He acted alongside his son, the actor Pukhraj Bhalla, in Stupid 7 in 2013. His last film appearance was in Shinda Shinda No Papa in 2024, with Gippy Grewal and Hina Khan, more than twenty-five years after his film debut. He was married to Parmdeep Bhalla, a teacher of fine arts, and the couple had two children, Pukhraj and Ashpreet.

Later years and death

Bhalla retired from PAU in 2020 but did not retire from the screen, and he remained a public figure in Punjab, lending his face to social awareness and health campaigns as well as films. He suffered a stroke on 20 August 2025 and was admitted to Fortis Hospital in Mohali, where he died on 22 August 2025, aged 65. His cremation took place on 23 August 2025 at the Balongi cremation ground in Mohali, where family, colleagues from Punjabi cinema and former students gathered.

Legacy

No other figure in Punjabi entertainment combined two full careers the way Bhalla did: a professor and head of department at a major agricultural university by day, and the voice of Chacha Chatar Singh by night. Chhankata arrived before satellite television and social media, and its cassettes travelled from village shops to tractors to NRI homes abroad, teaching a generation of Punjabi comedians that satire could be sharp without being cruel. His characters held up a mirror to Punjabi society, its politics, its migration dreams and its family arguments, and his film roles carried that same recognition into the modern Punjabi cinema boom. For his students he remains Dr. Bhalla; for everyone else, he remains Chacha Chatar Singh and Advocate Dhillon, two names that between them cover a lifetime spent explaining Punjab to itself, and making it laugh while he did so.