He’s one half of the ‘‘Pretentious Movie Reviews’’ duo and a stand-up comedian in his own right. While his YouTube videos might have propelled him to fame, his stand-up acts are much appreciated as well. Blessed with a wry sense of humour, artiste Biswa Kalyan Rath is all set to regale Hyderabadis this weekend at Vivanta by Taj, in what is to be his second outing in the city in a span of three weeks. In a chat, the comedian reveals that he finds the audience here quite open to all sorts of humour and his dislike for films.
“I performed here around two weeks back and I’m looking forward to this weekend as well. The audience here is no different from the audience elsewhere. The crowd that we get is a metropolitan one and I don’t see much difference in them when compared to my acts in say Delhi or Mumbai. What works for my audience elsewhere works for the audience here as well, apart from local jokes that prove to be a hit as well,” he says.
Biswa was working with a tech company before he decided to give it up to pursue his passion. “You have 24 hours in a day and I found it wasn’t enough for me to do a full-time job and pursue my passion for comedy. Also, I began making enough money from comedy and didn’t need to do a job,” he says, adding, “Comedy is one thing I can do really well and I enjoy writing jokes and making people laugh. I would mimic teachers on Teacher’s Day in school but then I gave it a break in college. Even after I started working I didn’t really give it much thought. Suddenly one day I realised that it was an avenue I could explore.”
Incidentally, Biswa is well known for his ‘Pretentious Movie Reviews’ alongside Kanan Gill. However, the comedian whose hilarious one liners and take on films shot him to fame does not like watching movies at all. “I’d really rather watch a documentary. I don’t like watching Bollywood movies; I just don’t have the patience for them. I only began watching them from a reviewer’s point of view. We go through the list of films and watch about a few minutes of films we shortlist before deciding which one we’ll review,” he explains.
The comedian tests his jokes at open mics before deciding whether to include them in his shows. According to him the Indian audience is quite open to all kinds of jokes and they enjoy a wide variety. “I’ve never faced a situation where some jokes haven’t worked with the audience. If a joke doesn’t elicit laughs it’s probably because the joke is unfunny. India is a culturally rich country and the audience here laughs at everything from political, satire, sex jokes whatever it may be,” says the artiste, who takes life one joke at a time and doesn’t believe in making grand plans.
