Vir Das is, perhaps, in the hottest streaks of his life. Over the last two years, he has performed to full houses at home and abroad.
He has opened for Conan on TBS and has been on Netflix and Amazon Prime. He will soon return to movies this year (the sequel of Go Goa Gone is being readied).
One could argue that it is tougher for a comedian to prolong his success than it is for other artistes, say a musician. A tune, like wine, can get better with time. But jokes, usually, go stale soon. To remain relevant, Vir attempts to veer away from the usual.
Take his latest Netflix show, For India , for instance. It was neither a political satire nor a collection of exaggerated personal stories — the two themes that is oft-repeated in the Indian stand-up scene.
With For India he chose to speak, sitting in front of a door on stage, to an audience segregated into Indians, foreigners and expats. He was talking about what he thought made India to those who knew about the country and those who wanted to know.
Vir’s The Loved Tour , which was supposed tour 49 cities across India, including non-metro ones like Patna, Meerut and Shillong has been indefinitely postponed. He took to his Instagram on March 9 to make the announcement.
“This new show is going to be about love. How one man questions all kinds of love — love for your family, your spouse, nation, God,” he says.
Vir who performed at Forum Shantiniketan Mall on March 7 for the Bengaluru leg of the show speaks about For India , his process of writing comedy and more.
Excerpts:
You said in an interview that For India was born out of this question: ‘If I could tell you four things about my country, what would they be?’ There have been a few major developments in our country, like CAA, since the show. Today, if you were to tell four things about India, what would they be?
It will be the same. In the show, I tried to talk about an India that can endure whatever is going on now. Leaders of today will be gone tomorrow. The tragedies of today will be gone tomorrow. But things like Old Monk, respecting your elders and Taj Mahal will live on.
Still of Vir Das from ‘For India’
For India 's audience had an interesting seating arrangement, wherein a segment of expats and foreigners were seated separately. What was the idea behind that?
The idea was simple. You have a group of people, who are not from the country. And, when you are talking about something that is relevant to you; you try to be inclusive and make it relevant for them as well.
The reason why I seated them separately is because I take some time to explain certain things exclusively for them.
So, it is easy to highlight them with the lighting [when they are seated separately]. And, visually, it is interesting as well.
A still from stand-up special ‘Vir Das: Abroad Understanding’ (2017) on Netflix
Was it especially challenging to write for this show considering there were two sets of audience?
The idea of this show was to challenge myself. A Netflix [comedy] special is usually 10 stories about your life.
In this case, it wasn’t about me at all. It was 10 categories and five things per category. So, you are writing about 50 to 55 things as opposed to 10 things.
It was definitely challenging. But I kind of enjoyed that.
With ‘Jestination Unknown’ , you took standup comedy to places such as Patiala, Kumarakom, etc. Do you think standup comedy would find a substantial audience in rural parts of India as well?
I think standup comedy has a larger audience in rural parts of India than in a metro. You find Hindi standup comedy videos getting 25 million views and English getting one or two million views.
So, the larger audience is the regional segment. [With Jestination Unknown], the idea was to take live English comedy to these places. Hopefully, there will be an audience for that as well.
A still from ‘Jestination Unknown’ with Vir Das (centre)
You speak about looking at standup comedy as art. And, it is increasingly becoming popular in India. Do you think it can be formally taught in educational institutions?
I don’t think so. It can be learnt by watching. Of course, you have workshops about joke-writing. But you have to be a fan of the art form.
Could you talk about the difficulty in writing comedy. One would assume experience makes it easier. However, there might also be the challenge to differ from your previous work.
For me it is getting harder. Because I make it that way. I like to have a healthy fear of failure on every subsequent project.
You are never really in a comfort zone. You try and write something different each time.
Do you talk to your audience after every show?
No. But the audience talk to you during the show. And, I am not talking about comments, but about laughter.
The kind of laughter is more informative than the comments. So, I record every show and listen to it later.
Comedians usually exaggerate something to make it sound funny. But if you do too much, then, it becomes forced. Where do you draw the line?
I don’t draw the line. The audience does. I figured that out a while ago. I am not in charge of the line, they are.
I just have to keep writing and they will let me know where the line is. But if you are worried about drawing the line yourself, you are not going to write anything great.
