She’s been one of India’s most recognisable standup comics for years now, but Aditi Mittal is still getting used to it. “I went to Haiti! Can you believe it, me, Haiti?” she says, excitedly, on a phone call from Mumbai, proceeding to give a hilarious account of all the trepidations she felt before embarking on that trip.
It’s her travels abroad that form the crux of her show scheduled for this weekend in the city. Part of a five-city tour, The Global Village Idiot takes a look at the experience of Indians stepping abroad, “the things that we encounter, how we are perceived and how we perceive the world.” It takes a look at the flaws present on each side of the encounter, both the host nations and the travellers (which include her). The very name of the show, in fact, is a joke at Aditi’s expense. “The job of trying to make people laugh has traditionally belonged to the village idiot,” she explains, “So this idiot will be talking about where she’s from and where she’s going. About how sometimes “home” is your home, while at other times “home” can be the whole world.”
If that sounds a bit vague, it’s because she’s being careful not to reveal too much. But what she can tell you is that her content is based on her experiences in real life, as usual. In fact, one of the occupational hazards in her line of work, she says, is that she is “always writing and editing. I have been developing this show for a year, and have done a bunch of trial shows for different audiences”.
Which brings us to the method of tailoring content for different audiences; Aditi says she hasn’t felt the need to do that yet. She is hesitant to categorise her audience in the first place, despite having performed in different cities around the world: “I don’t perform to a city, I perform to a room. I don’t want to equate that one gathering of people, on that particular night, to the enitre city.” Rooms, she says, have energies of their own — some more receptive to cleverly worded jokes than others.
In the end, she says, good content speaks for itself. “I’ve realised that the more personal your content is, the more identifiable it is,” says Aditi. This understanding came about, albeit laced with shock, after her Netflix special, Girl Meets Mic , was released. Among other issues, the show touches upon gender relations with her trademark sarcasm, and resonated farther than Aditi had expected it to. “I got feedback from so many women saying they identified with it; there were comments in Spanish, in Hebrew...”
It was a moment that drove home, for her, the importance of quality content. “The more honest you are, the better. People don’t react to the jokes, to punchlines. They react to the emotions behind it.”
Realisations like these also add to the respect she has for her audiences, she says. “I believe in their intelligence; you won’t find me saying things like ‘the audience didn’t understand my jokes’.”
Global Village Idiot By Aditi Mittal will be held at YCPA Sri Krishna Gana Sabha Trust, T Nagar, on February 3 at 7 pm. Tickets are available at www.bookmyshow.com
