Stand up comedy in India

After the last blog, it was great to see the feedbacks of many people who share similar thoughts and that something like that needed to be spoken about in today’s world. 

Today’s article is about one of my favourites “stand up comedy”. There cannot be a single person who would not like to watch stand up comedy. However, the craze of stand up in India has started recently and I so wish that it grows to a level wherein we get to have amazing stand up shows in almost every town/city of India. 

After a very hectic day, no matter how bad your day has been or if you’re upset about something , sit down and start watching stand up comedy, laugh your heart out to few of the jokes and trust me, it’ll actually feel good.

There have been comedians before who have shaped the comedy of India initially like Raju Shrivastava,  Ahsaan Qureshi, etc. The first time I’d seen Raju Shrivastava was in “The great Indian laughter challenge” when I was a kid. I’d found him so funny and me and my dad used to watch the show just because of the amazing jokes and eventually got hooked on to stand up comedy. Back then, no one used to take this profession seriously as it was not a conventional profession like doctors, engineers, teachers, etc which every other parent expected their children to become. But these people were shaping stand up comedy in India back then. 

Being a 90s kid, all of us would’ve heard at least one or two shows of Russel Peters (Indian origin comedian) in our early teenage life and actually loved the way he used to speak targeting the audience. It took a long time but yeah, today’s stand up comedy in India is far far better in every aspect possible considering the fact that there are comedians having content in every stand up genre possible.

Today’s stand up comedy in India is set by few people who I like to think desire the entire credit, the people who started the initiative of Comicstaan and a few other people who had made their careers by themselves solely on talent. I believe a lot of people will agree to this fact. To mention few of the names: 

1. Biswa Kalyan Rath: One of the best. I’ve seen him LIVE in Mysore and you surely can’t stop laughing. Self made comedian with a background of engineering from IIT Kharagpur. It takes a lot to leave everything behind and start a career in stand up especially when you’ve completed engineering from the best institute of India. 
2. Abish Matthew: Started his own show “Son of Abish ” which is fun to watch and a good “timepass”.
3. Kanan Gill: Biswa and Kanan started “ Pretentious movie reviews” together on YouTube back in 2014 which got them the spotlight and they took it to heights of insanity in each of their comedy careers from that.
4. Kunal Kamra: If you want to listen to political jokes, there’s no one better than this guy right here. However, if you’re not open minded and unbiased towards politics, he isn’t the guy for you. But there’s no doubt about a single fact spoken by this guy and he’s as logical as anyone can get. I’ve seen him LIVE in Bangalore.
5. Abhishek Upmanyu: Amazing comedian. Doesn’t have any specials anywhere (only YouTube videos) but would love to see him on stage LIVE.
6. Anubhav Singh Bassi: Amazing story teller. You’ll get hooked up to his stores.
7. Vir Das: A salute to this guy for learning to do stand up professionally . His way of explanation is very different from everyone. I’d seen a video of a speech that he had given at Knox college (worth the watch). 
8. Zakir Khan: For all the Sakth laundes out there, you’re probably wondering why I hadn’t mentioned him yet. You always save the best for the last. I’ve seen him LIVE in Mysore as well and the way he expresses comedy, simply amazing!!! I haven’t seen anyone do comedy so slowly and also keep the audience engaged to the maximum possible extent.

These are just a few of the top people who I usually watch. There are multiple stand up comedians who’ve come up into limelight recently and are doing actually good. Few of the names being Akash Gupta, Devesh Dixit, Varun Grover, etc.

For people who aren’t a fan, I would request you to take out some time from your busy schedule and actually LAUGH OUT LOUD rather than just sending LOL texts to people. Many shows are informative as well. Here are 10 must watch stand up shows:

1. Mast Aadmi: Biswa. Available on prime video
2. Sushi: Biswa. Available on prime video
3. Losing it: Vir Das. Available on Netflix 
4. For India: Vir Das. Available on Netflix 
5. 10 on 10: Vir Das. One episode released in every one week to 10 days on YouTube.
6. Haq se single: Zakir Khan. Available on prime video
7. When I met a Delhi girl: Zakir Khan. Available on YouTube 
8. The big bhang story: Divesh Dixit. Available on YouTube 
9. Cheating: Anubhav Singh bassi. Available on YouTube 
10. Hostel: Anubhav Singh bassi. Available on YouTube 

To conclude, I suggest everyone should make time for stand up comedy and if you think you’re capable enough to make stand up comedy as a career, please don’t step back under peer pressure. Pursue the same and make yourself stand out of the crowd. 

This blog was a little informative but it’s always good to talk about things which make you happy. Do leave your suggestions in comments if you liked it or if you want suggestions of more stand up shows. Even suggestions for blog topics would be taken into consideration for my next blog. I was thinking of continuing the story of my Europe trip back in 2015 (3 blogs already available); do let me know if you wish to know more about the trip.

SOCIETY- BOON or BANE

So this is after a very long break of around 5 years probably that I’m posting a blog. I’ve lost touch and even confidence in writing, something that used to make me feel good about myself. It’s strange how a pen can actually be mightier than the sword. However, few people believe in this and few don’t who actually turn towards violence and a means to show off to prove their point.

A lot has happened since the last time I blogged. I won’t be boring everyone out with details of it. However, to sum it up, it wasn’t boring at all. Probably, if I continue writing, we might have more exciting details coming up in upcoming blogs. It has been a crazy adventure since I started out my career in Mysore, Karnataka. There have been ups and downs in life throughout the past 5 years. Hell, we have a pandemic going on for crying out loud. 

Amongst everything that has happened in these past 5 years, one thing has awestruck me so deeply; the fact that no matter what happens, whether you explain some people a fact with proper logic and data, they seem to be ignorant of that fact and keep believing in something which should’ve been obsolete considering this is the 21st century we’re living in. But, who am I to stand in between the mindset of some people in our society. 

Yes, SOCIETY. A very decent word, but sometimes, it brainwashes the f**k out of people. A society is expected to grow in all aspects (mentally, spiritually, technically, logically) as the world evolves which in turn will evolve and make your nation what we eagerly expect to become “ A developed nation”. However, from the time I remember reading in school books, I’m only hearing that we’re “a developing nation”. Truth be told, probably our grandchildren will also be learning and teaching their children the same thing if we continue to go forward in this way.

Did you guys know that there are castes in Islam? Forget about Shia and Sunni which probably everyone knows about are the two denominations of Islam . There’s caste in Sunni and probably in Shia too. I myself belong to the Sunni denomination and I wasn’t aware about it myself after living 26 years of my life until last year when someone pointed this out to me because I fell in love with a girl from my same religion, but little did I know that we belonged to different caste. It was then that I asked my parents about my caste and they had to search online and get back to me. LOL!

As Chetan Bhagat had rightly pointed out in his book “2 states” that in India if you love someone, that’s not enough for you to marry that person. He mentioned about both families loving each other’s families, families loving the boy and the girl being together, etc . But the situation I was in was really messed up. There are people who would be ready to let someone’s life go into ruins just for the sake of this decent word SOCIETY. Because “ log Kya Kahenge?”

In today’s world, where we’re fighting a pandemic and rovers are being sent to Mars for finding out proof of existence of water, do these problems leave a freckle on the existence of humanity. Why can’t people be just happy and let others be happy with their lives? More importantly, why can’t people be happy seeing other people’s happiness? There are people like Elon musk who have ushered us to an era with the immense advancement of technology in segments unimaginable in today’s world with booming success and at the same time there are people who are arguing over the fact that the logo of Myntra looks like a woman’s legs spread wide open. I’d actually seen this as a meme probably a year back and laughed a lot but I was surprised to see that it became news and people were actually discussing this seriously. Myntra has been running with same logo for 13 years and suddenly someone points this out and it’s news. I mean, who are these people!!!! Get a life, man!!!

Sometimes it’s just people’s ego that just gets hurt because of which they go to their extremes to prove a point to which you’ll feel like “What do I even say to this!”. But sometimes it is actually what they believe and no matter how much you try, you cannot change their perspective, let alone, God himself came down and probably told them otherwise. Who knows, maybe then they’d change their thoughts because after all, we’re God fearing people. 

Some of us might be feeling that probably the next generation will be different, have a different approach towards everything. But understand this, there are children who are learning from elders with mindsets like these and I’m scared of the fact that even the next generation will have such misfits. I’m not denying that our cultures and virtues are wrong. India is a land of diversity with its rich culture and we all should be proud of that. I’m just telling to think logically and analyse before making a decision about anything. Learn to ask WHY! If someone gives you a valid explanation and you see it fit, go ahead. But if you have a doubt in that, keep asking “why” unless you get the valid explanation that seems logical. 

I felt like writing this because I’d never felt so deeply about someone in my life till date for whom I’d written publicly like this. But I lost her even after every possible effort from my side because of this decent word which we all know as SOCIETY. Speak up if you want such mentality to change; to ensure that we actually grow as a society with reason to understand right from wrong and not take everything for granted without questioning. She still means a lot to me and probably always will but sad that I can’t tell her this.

With a heavy heart I bid farewell till next time. And remember “ Always ask why!” Because it’s your right to ask. 

Feel free to leave your thoughts in comments as this is my perspective and I’m always open to criticism unlike the rest of the society.