India's stand-up comics are pulling no punches

Stand-up comedy, as its name obviously suggests is a comic style act where a comedian performs in front of a live audience – usually directly talking in front of them. Known by various names such as stand-up, comedian, comic, stand-up comedian or even stand up, the feedback of the audience is instant and crucial.   

Stand up comedy in the United States had its roots on popular entertainment of the 19th century and Americans sought this entertainment to escape and confront city living. Nightclubs became the breeding ground for stand-up acts. Popular television shows such as The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live helped to publicise the careers of comedians Jay Leno, Bill Cosby, Janeane Garofalo and others.

India and modern stand up comedy – is quite a young platform:

Many are not even aware of the fact that Chakyar koothu - a performance art from Kerala, South India is also a traditional equivalent of the modern stand-up comedy act, that incorporates commentary on current socio-political events (and personal comments directed at the members of the audience).

This art form is a highly refined monologue where the performer narrates episodes from Hindu epics (such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata) and stories from the Puranas.

It was only in 2005 when the TV show ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge’ had garnered a lot of popularity did stand up comedy begin to find a niche for itself.

Many other comedians became popular and started performing at venues – live and for TV. The comedians that were popular then were (2005-2008) were Kapil Sharma, Raju Srivastav and Sunil Pal. Their acts were mainly in Hindi.

The first one to appear on The Great Indian Laughter Challenge was Raju Srivastav. Finishing off as a second runner-up he also took part in The Great Indian Laughter Challenge Champions where he won the title of The King of Comedy.

In fact, Raju Srivastav and Johnny Lever are known to be strongly associated in stand-up comedy. In recent times, one can say that it has perhaps evolved into an industry as a whole where people can get access to it.

Cyrus Broacha too was one of the first few people to introduce comedy to the country through his MTV exploits, which gave the audience a different taste of comedy and also during certain political rallies.

 Later on, a lot more comedy was seen in his Jon-Steward inspired satirical news programme – The Week That Wasn't. This type of comedy was very much appreciated by comedians, Vir Das who also entered the scene with ticketed shows.     

 Of course this led to many changes and the audience too had changing perceptions, a growing audience seeking a female niche, an industry which was slowly moving away from large metros to other smaller metro cities and a subsequent spur of comedy to regional languages.

 Radhika Vaz was one of the country’s first professional women professional women stand-ups. She dealt with a lot of a lot of different content from other comedians –many personal things such as sexism, sexuality; things that nobody was talking about. 

 One of the biggest comedy stars from Chennai was also one of the first to in fact start stand-ups in South India- Aravind S.A. There were several problems of course when he started out and the one advantage was that since there was no other competitor around, mediocre material was easy to get away with.

Aravind S.A

A lot of his success is credited to the Chennai-based Evam Standup Tamasha that was founded by Karthik Kumar. He was the one who saw the like of Aravind and Naveen Richard flourish.

 Hindi stand up got a fillip (trigger) when Zakir Khan came on stage in a set of a programme called AIB Diwas in Delhi. The use of his catch phrases, local slang and the trope of a small-town boy making his way through cosmopolitan Delhi hit home. 

It was comedy in a regional language but none of the misogyny and absurdity of the outlandish ‘comedy’ nights on TV channels.

Today, Khan’s hour-long Amazon Prime Video special Chacha Vidhayak Hai Humare and series Haq Se Single are the two of the most popular shows on Amazon.

 It quickly spread in Gujarathi and Marathi; Bharatiya Digital Party (BDP), for example, is the first Marathi-only online comedy brand. 

The All India Bakchod (AIB) comedy company has played an extremely important role in how this form of comedy gained popularity in India.

They were one of the first fully-fledged companies that were involved in the comedy business and secondly the controversial nature of some of the first few videos – especially the roast of Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor led to an overblown outrage across the country.

This led to one of the best instances of “All publicity being good publicity” seen.  Many people became aware of what comedy actually was about  and got interested in it. 

A lot of people got interested in this avenue of comedy and entertainment, thereby blowing up the stand-up comedy scene in the country.

Kapil Sharma is one of the most admired personalities and is currently hosting The Kapil Sharma Show and Comedy Nights with Kapil.

India has also seen popular comedians such as Papa CJ and Vir Das return back to India and make an impression on the comedy scene here.

Even ‘The Comedy Store’ from London opened an outlet in Mumbai’s Palladium Mall where people could regularly enjoy watching comedians from the UK. The Comedy Store is well known for its support for local comedians and helping them grow; an outlet, which eventually got termed as ‘The Canvas Laugh Club’. 

             
                                                                           

What really helped a lot though, was social media sites – Facebook and YouTube, where people have been able to share videos and expand the genre further. Big cities started to have open mic events and stand-up comedy clubs sprung up all across the country.    

In 2017, 14 stand-up specials were released on Amazon Prime Video, three stand up artists made their debuts as show writers who explored genres beyond comedy and on Netflix the first female comedian to make her debut with a stand up special!

They made a sensational entry into the Indian streaming space announced a partnership with Only Much Louder (the company that manages the comedians), where it streams content featuring 14 top India stand-up comics for different segments. All of the comedians were allotted 60-80 minute slot on Amazon Prime Video.

The names of the comedians who have been roped in by the company include:

1.  Sapan Verma (Obsessive Comedic Disorder)

2.  Sorabh Pant (My dad thinks he's funny)

3.   Kanan Gill

4.   Kenny Sebastian (Don't be that guy)

5.   Zakir Khan (Single magar haq se)

6.   Biswa Kalyan Rath

7.   Naveen Richard (Don't make that face)

8.   Anuvab Pal (Alive at 40)

9.   Varun Thakur (Vicky this side, Varun that side)

10.  Azeem Banatwalla (Cometh the hour)

11.  Neville Shah

12.  Aadar Malik (Stand up – The Musical)

13.  S Aravind (Madrasi Da)

14.  EIC Outrage special, a live show based on EIC's immensely popular EIC Outrage series will be part of the series.

The Indian comedy scene has an interesting mix of some of the funniest people. They are:

·     Biswa Kalyan Rath: An Indian stand up comedian, writer and You Tuber, he came into prominence through a YouTube comedy series - Pretentious Movie Reviews with fellow comedian Kanan Gill. He is well known for his jokes and punch lines that have easily become recognisable memes.

Kanan Gill: An Indian actor, stand up comedian and YouTuber, he has won the Punch Line Bangalore Competition and is well known for his YouTube series –Pretentious Movie Reviews, where he reviews all the flawed yesteryear Bollywood films alongside with comedian Biswa Kalyan Rath. He is well known for his special Keep It Real which deals with topics such as relationships, a disconnect with the older generation, stereotypes about communities and cities. 

·       

       Zakir Khan: An Indian writer, presenter, stand-up comedian and actor Zakir rose to popularity by winning Comedy Central’s India’s Best Stand Up. He is the nucleya of the stand up scene and no other comedian has ever been able to bridge the gap between the greater small-town, college-going demographic  and the smaller urban hipster crowd of Canvas Laugh Club. His special, Haq se Single is a series of stories that are inspired from his own life with the central theme being living with your head held high despite not having a romantic partner!

·     All India Bakchod (AIB): An Indian comedy group that was founded by Tanmay Bhatt and Gursimaran and later joined by Ashish Shakya and Roha Joshi, it is one of the most viewed channels on YouTube. The channel is on its second season of their show On Air with AIB, that made its debut on Star India network in 2015 and has moved to online streaming platform Hot-star this year. It is an attempt to take a John Oliver look at the news through a commentary. 

·    

      Abishek Upamanyu:  Doing wanders in his stand up comedy career, he prefers live shows rather than uploading his videos on YouTube. He has released only 4 videos on YouTube however which have all gone viral in 2017. He is on an international tour and we are only waiting to see his new stand-up special, Thoda Saaf Bol.

Niveditha Prakasam: A stand up comedian from Chennai, she may not be a tech-savvy comedian yet but she has deadpan expressions and wry humour that catch the attention of many. She is dripping with keen observations about general life and sarcasm and was the winner of the first season of Queens of Comedy. Of course she credits her Tamil roots for being the inspiration in her life as Tamil Nadu is a  place where the people are big fans of comedy. 

Urooj Ashfaq: One of the runner ups in the Queen of Comedy is Urooj Ashfaq who is a writer and comedian working in Mumbai. One of the promising comedians in the circuit she is creating waves with her slick humour and cute face.

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       Neville Shah: Right from his three minute performances in the US to 57-minute specials for Amazon Prime Video Neville has come a long way in the stand up comedy scene. He likes to choose topics that are humanitarian in nature and according to him “A really great joke is when you don’t see it coming.”

        

Now, its 2018 and stand up comedy in the country has gained tremendous popularity and this particular rage doesn't even seem to end any time soon!

However, looking back on the years, can we really say when the comedy-scene really started in India?

It was only till the late 2000’s when the Internet brought International comedy home, mainly through Russell Peters – the Canadian comic of Anglo-Indian origin.  

However, one may wonder if the comedy scene has grown fast and exponentially — is it anywhere near inclusive yet?