Humour is one of the most common defence mechanisms we use while coping with reality. In today’s world, when we constantly find ourselves in the midst of never-ending problems, resorting to humour can help us look at things in a more light-hearted manner. Preetisha Sen, an event organizer at Jus’ Trufs, Bangalore which provides a venue for upcoming comedians to explore their talents, says, “Indians are usually not very open to laughing at themselves, but thanks to new age stand-up comedy, we are slowly acknowledging the humour present in our everyday lives and how funny our reactions are in response to them. Nothing is sacrosanct — from marriage to our relationship with our children and colleagues. Also, as Indians we have a cynical sense of humour.”
Serious stuff
Stand-up comedy in India is now being viewed more seriously as a profession.
Preetisha adds, “Stand-up today does not depend upon gender or age. We have excellent male comics in India like Kanan Gill and Vir Das, as well as prominent comedy groups such as All India Bakchod(AIB) and East India Comedy(EIC). There are a rising number of female comedians in our country including the likes of Radhika Vaz, Sumukhi Suresh, Kaneez Surka, Sejal Bhat and Aditi Mittal who have played an equally important role in expanding the scope of stand-up in India.”
It is quite interesting to see the different genres of comedy that comedians have ventured into, in the recent years.
All India Bakchod was founded in 2013, is known for tackling current affairs with a twist of satire. Some of their well-known sketches include Donations Ke Side Effects and Nayak 2- The Common Man Rises.
Self-deprecating and observational humour, enjoys a huge fan following with the likes of Kenneth Sebastian and Biswa Kalyan Rath respectively, who charm their audience with hilarious anecdotes about middle class life or the struggles of growing up as an introvert in Indian society.
Increased fan base
Apart from this, there are some popular caricatures such as Behti Naak by Sumukhi Suresh that depicts the life of an outspoken young girl who stands up against age old stereotypical notions. These successful acts, have increased the fan base of these individuals and the recent tie up of some comedians with Amazon and Netflix has made Indian comedy more recognizable at a global level.
Somnath Padhy, a Bangalore based comedian, says, “Five years ago all the successful comedians still had a day job, but today that has changed. The audience for comedy has increased and more people are looking at a full-fledged stand-up career. Stand Up comedy, also opens doors for a lot of other opportunities such as writing for advertisements or running a web series. Although, it is new in India, it is growing exponentially. All the major cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai have shows almost every other day. It is also reaching out to tier-two cities such as Jaipur, Indore, Chandigarh, Coimbatore and Kochi.”
Golden age
Sumit Sourav, another well-known comedian in the Bangalore circuit also feels, “This is the golden time to be in the comedy industry as there are a lot of open mics to try and a good number of shows. It is not as hard as it used to be three or four years ago when stand-up was limited to clubs and Mumbai was the only market. People are now aware of stand-up comedy and are willing to spend money to watch it.”
“As the demand keeps increasing, there is also a need for continuous supply of good content. If you are a successful comedian in the country at this point of time, and have good content for your one-hour shows, you can probably earn more than a traditional nine-to-five job. There are lot of venues coming up to support this art form. However, taking up comedy as full-time career is still risky, because it takes time to understand if this is your cup of tea. To generate good material, you need at least a year even if you are a good writer.”
Prashant Mishra, the founder of Stage Adda, another venue in Bengaluru that provides a platform for comics says, “Today, people are willing to pay thrice the amount of money that an average cinema ticket would cost, to watch a comedy show. For comedians like Zakir Khan, people are ready to pay as much as Rs 800. Social media has given a platform to all the comedians to reach out to a larger audience even from a small city,” he points out.
“You need to make a nice quality video and upload it on YouTube or Facebook and if your content is good people start responding to it. You start getting millions of views and likes and this becomes the game changer. A person becomes famous overnight thanks to a video on social media. If not for social media, these artists would have never been able to reach producers to release their video on some TV channel and the talent might have ended there.”
