Artistes Rajasekhar Mamidanna, Sandesh Johnny and Saikiran Rayaprolu were right in comparing the state of the standup-comedy scene in Telugu to infancy and our inability to come up with its right translation in Telugu. Telugu Tamasha, Hyderabadass-group trio’s first attempt to breathe some life into Telugu standup comedy scene post Mahesh Kathi’s ‘Chaturulu’ took off at G P Birla Auditorium last weekend. A limited crowd, so much that Sandesh Johnny compared the turnout to the lack of audience to the Pawan Kalyan-starrer Johnny , was witness to a show that presented humour unique to the language.Given the limited turnout, Telugu Tamasha was more interactive than an average standup act. Rajasekhar described how difficult it was to convince his parents and explain ‘standup’ in Telugu. The humorist took the liberty to introduce various attempts at bringing forth standup-comedy in Telugu, also pointing out the efforts of Shankar Narayana in weaving humour on a single issue through an act.
Presenting social issues laced with enough tongue-in-cheek humour, Rajasekhar engaged crowds with references to marriage, cricket, death from his own family. One of his stories dealt with playing cricket with his neighbour on his grandfather’s death, as the ball landed on the dead body; this being the last instance that Rajasekhar touched a cricket bat. Another moment talked of how his grandma being locked up in a bathroom turned out to be a good omen for the Indian cricket team. His disinterest to marry, the experiences of watching a couple go the extra mile in displaying public affection, being in Whatsapp groups with members posting only ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ messages, Rajasekhar’s act in simple Telugu mirrored the trivial yet not ignorable travails of a regular urban youth.
Sandesh Johnny
After ringing in some familiarity to the genre of the event, Sandesh Johnny, who straddles standup with his day-job at Amazon spoke of his family and friends treating him as a customer service guy of the e-commerce giant. That his choice to intersperse terrorism with the choice of Gokul Chat as a blast venue wasn’t most welcoming, yet his straight-faced and dead-pan expression helped crowds move on quickly. His satires on his father’s miserliness and the rubbarolu that he dropped on a cop’s leg at a Delhi railway station made for some interesting moments, though it was clear that the artiste wasn’t in his best form-neither with the language nor his timing.
Saikiran Rayaprolu
It was Rajasekhar’s interludes between the acts that brought smiles, his wit in dealing with the crowd’s replies was unparallaled though Saikiran came close. The latter spoke of the Telugu media’s reference to the Outer Ring Road as baahya valaya daari and an air-hostess as gagana sakhi . The artiste also suggested another Telugu name for an air-hostess, gaali gumma .
Controlled self-depreciation is a common sight in the standup scene, Saikiran did that in good jest too. Like how his near-death experience by hanging onto a fan, standing on a bucket spewed a discussion between his parents on the broken fan and a safe bucket over his close escape. The words mantralaku chintakayalu raalavu were proved when Saikiran, being the second child to his parents was expected to be a girl. The priest had apparently suggested them to read the sloka to grant them a male child in reverse to fulfil their wish. Though the experimental and slightly amateurish nature of the acts showed, the fun-quotient of Telugu Tamasha seemed a promising return; the standup scene in Telugu is here to evolve.
