Emra Bombeck once said that there is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humour and hurt; these words sum up why doing comedy, especially in front of a crowd is no laughing matter. This and the possibility that the crowd does not laugh at any of your jokes, but that was not too much of a problem at the final round of Punchline Hyderabad, ‘a stand-up comedy contest for ages 0 to 125’, which was held in the city this Saturday.
On Friday, the stage was thrown open to anyone who was willing to risk it. Punchline Comics invited first-time comedians to register. Over 12 people participated. The eight who went through to the final round were chosen by audience votes.
Punchline Hyderabad also saw the most number of women take the stage – two. This may not seem like a big number but given that stand-up comedy, both India and abroad, see fewer women than men; the two ladies deserve applause. One of them, Asheta Suresh, even made it to the final round. Ask the other, Sriyushi Bose, about why they are so few women in comedy and she will tell you, it’s “Because women are the butt of most jokes!”
She was right in the case of some participants. Girlfriends and wives were hot topics, as were politics, sex and office humour. As organiser Arun Nair will tell you, there are no rules when it comes to comedy; some amount of profanity is inevitable. “How you put something across makes all the difference and there are some people who can pull it off well,” he says.
Winner Hriday took the audience through a series of ‘ideal’ advertisements, which involved among other things, criminals being subject to Arnab Goswami as punishment. Nishanth, who came in second amused with his deadpan delivery of some very funny one liners.
You would think Hyderabad’s penchant for extravagance and love for food will make for great comic fodder but few participants took on the city; there were more jokes about Bengalis than Hyderabadis.
Sishir Challa who came in third however, had the audience in splits when he acted out how to walk in Sitaphalmandi. The show ended with winners from Chennai and Bangalore, Vinay Menon and Kanan Gill taking the stage.
Stand-up comedy is only picking up in Indian cities and while it is has found a niche in Bangalore and Bombay; this is one of the first in Hyderabad. But organisers, who have held similar events in Bangalore and Chennai were pleasantly surprised at the response – about 120 people turned up for the qualifiers on Friday and the crowd only got bigger for the final round. Winners from all six cities will compete for the big title in a grand finale later this year.
In search of ‘creatiwitty’
We spoke to Arun Nair, founder of Punchline Comics who has been taking it to different places since January and is determined to take this brand of comedy to all parts of the country.
How did Punchline come about?
Every time I went to watch stand-up in Bangalore, I was seeing the same people perform and it became quite depressing after a while. And you can’t expect them to keep changing their material because it is not that easy. That’s when we got an idea to start this. You have a very niche audience and to satisfy them we need a variety of comedians, that’s what Punchline tries to bring about. We started doing this so that we can have more people laughing.
What did you think of the show in Hyderabad?
Surprisingly, we got more laughs here than in Chennai or Hyderabad. Everyone, except one, were first timers and to go out there and do what they did is very difficult. It’s a very critical job because if the crowd hates you, then they really hate you. When it comes to the qualifying round we set a mediocre bar, but we expect a certain standard for the finals but to have an audience which appreciates efforts like theirs is really nice. It makes us organisers, happy.
Do you do stand-up?
I don’t do stand-up as a rule, I make t-shirts in Bangalore! But I enjoy producing the shows. Stand up is not something which will get me roti and daal makhani. I divide my time equally between the two.
