It’s January 2014 and we’re at the rather nondescript Bottle Bar in a by-lane near the Bombay Stock Exchange. It’s the kind of upscale dive whose walls and tables seem to have stained permanently from the salted tears and broken dreams of naive stock market traders. It’s early and, things are for the most part, slow. There is, however, a nervous excitement in the air, an emotion only ever so slightly evident on the managers’ faces as the place begins to crawl to half-capacity. It’s not the usual pantsuit-and-tie-wearing clientele, but instead a mix of red-eyed college folk and hip working professionals.
Bottle Bar’s mezzanine — a dank, dark space will play host to a series of intimate performances by stand-up comedians Amogh Ranadive, Daniel Fernandes, Kenny Sebastian, Rohan Joshi and an Australian by the name of David Quirk. We’re assembled here for a Brief , which like the Boxers and Pajamas , is one of a number of city-wide stand-up comedy takeovers courtesy Weirdass Pajama , a comedy ‘anti-festival’ that’s the brainchild of comedian/actor Vir Das. It actually feels like a comedy club in here, an incubator for the ideas and ramblings of comedians who will soon usurp some of their wildest ambitions and be thrust into the fore of modern Indian entertainment.
Prior to the Pajama’s first edition that year, Vir Das — decked out in a polka-dotted pair of pyjamas and flanked by a number of his Indian stand-up contemporaries at a Lower Parel office — was adamant that the two things keeping Indian comedy from really becoming an all-encompassing force of live entertainment were “unity and scale”. Things since then have come full circle. The Pajama fest was a massive success in 2014 and one of the most-hyped events that year.
In 2015, the Weirdass Pajama loosened its drawstrings in three more cities. This year, aforementioned unity and scale in tow, the Weirdass Pajama heads to nine Indian cities and lasts an entire week. What’s different? “The line-up is what’s new,” says a confident Das. “We took a call last year. We featured the entire domestic comedy line-up already, so this time we’re going to get at least 60-70 per cent of our comedians from abroad. We’ve got seven Americans, five Singaporeans, three Malaysians, two Australians and a couple of people from the UK to begin with. It’s the first truly international comedy festival in India.”
The demand for stand-up in cities outside of major Indian metros was a revelation for Das, whose Unbelievablish tour last year took him to places like Chandigarh, Coimbatore and Jaipur, where he realised “the markets had opened up, and people wanted to see more content”. So it comes as no surprise then, that Weirdass Pajama in 2016 has lots more to offer.
Das begins to list shows like the Non-Bong Show in Kolkata, which is an evening of performances by non-Bengali comedians, and Anti-Love Show in Pune, for those who’ve been screwed over by love.” There’s On the Pot with Vir Das in New Delhi where Das and friends will take ceremonious dumps on the news of the day, and even a Majama vs Pajama show in Ahmedabad. There’s Jesters Without Borders in Chandigarh, which will see international and Indian comedians on the bill together, and a Kings, Rajas and Ranis show with a mix of Hindi and English, male and female comedians set to perform.
And the weeklong, pan-Indian affair culminates right here in Mumbai this evening, in a grand finale christened Planet Pajama that’s set to have 28 comedians take stage at the Taj Lands End, in what Das says will be “a carnival-like scene with a beer garden and everything”. Things will be informal, Das insists, “Don’t don’t do you hair, show up in your pyjamas, we’ll even get a beer together.”
Tickets and information available at pajamafest.co.in
