Jaydeep Sarkar is funny, and effortlessly so. He spent his growing years in Bangalore and Calcutta before he moved to Delhi. “South Delhi” he is sure to mention, “Being thrown into South Delhi after Calcutta and Bangalore was not easy. It was a hardcore, brazen, Punjabi area, and that's where I began to pay attention to absurdities and started narrating my observations to my friends,” narrates Jaydeep, who now lives in Bombay and works a day job as a screenwriter and filmmaker.
Jaydeep was in town for Three Kings, a Comedy Club show, which was also his first time on stage. So from entertaining crowds at parties Jaydeep has found a way to make money of his gift, and in the process earn himself his 15 minutes of fame. “The biggest challenge I face in this shift is making the act more structured, so now I do my stories, but they need to be bridged together and flow seamlessly,” says Jaydeep.
He used to be an actor in school and was very gregarious and outgoing, “I figured early on that humour was the best way to keep people around you, besides being in the spotlight is addictive. So right now the plan is to get a few gigs, be funny on stage for 20 minutes, and make some money on the side. Bombay is just too intense and you need to get away from time to time, so if I'm going to get paid for weekends and travel around the country and may be more, I'm not complaining”
Jaydeep also writes scripts for teleserials and has also recently launched his production house with a friend and has just finished directing videos for the new Kailash Kher album. “I have always tried attempting humour in my writing and in Bollywood to be a screenwriter you also need to be a killer narrator, because nobody in the industry believes in reading the script. So, ultimately you wind up being a very good actor yourself. Since I have a knack for humour I can marry the two and it worked.”
Jaydeep continues, “But stand up does have its moments, the best being the times you go beyond the script that has been written, and come up with something spontaneously. That is when you get the most laughter, and you surprise even yourself. The thing about stand-up is that you are trying to build a sense of intimacy with the audience, and you cannot pretend, because the art in itself is very transparent.”
From his time in Delhi, Jaydeep has created himself an alter-ego, who he calls “Gaandu Bacha” a character he has borrowed from a childhood friend who was called “gaandu” by his grandfather. “Delhi is a really absurd city, so the idea was to become one of them and tell the story through an eight-year-old Punjabi boy with an interesting world view. But with comedy it is very culture specific, I cannot perform the same set in Delhi, because over there, there will be seven people in the audience who knows a “gaandu bacha”. When you come in from another place your perspective is always that of an outsider and one tends to fall prey to the clichés. You cannot pander to what the audience thinks, and pre-empt that they will be cheeky.”
Jaydeep believes, “It is my body language that makes people laugh, the voice and the theatrics, and to a large extent the improvisation. As a screenwriter, your ego takes a bashing. I have an aunt who says, ‘ Beta, serial tho adhe ghante ka hota hai, baki time kya karthe ho .' This is my moment in the spotlight, and I love it.”
