Stand-up comedy, comedy that generally is delivered by a solo performer speaking directly to the audience in some semblance of a spontaneous manner.
In India the culture of stand-up comedy as entertainment is very new. Growing up in the early 2000s, Indian comedy was not the exciting, rapidly growing, and politically contested space as it is today. Our most famous comedians had only a shaky relationship with the live stage. Instead, they mostly plied their trade on the big screen, playing the hero’s goofy sidekick or the scriptwriters’ strange punching bag, a role perfected by Mehmood, Johnny Walker, and Johnny Lever. You could watch Jaspal Bhatti sitcoms (instant classics!) or listen to tapes by Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi and Devang Patel if you wanted something a little more edgy (Patelscope was a rite of comic passage for many young millennials). And if you’re really, really lucky, you might get to see them perform their most popular jokes at a Press Club event or a corporate show that your parents’ friends were able to sneak you into.
It only took a little more than ten years for “standup comedy” to evolve from being the setup for a particularly bad dad joke to a thriving entertainment industry with millions of devoted fans. As the comedy industry enters another decade of growth, possibilities, and problems, we thought it would be a good moment to reflect on the highlights, mistakes, and lessons learned thus far. Building on the inaugural episode of DeadAnt Huddle, our comedy roundtable series on YouTube, which featured a line-up of comedians discussing the growth of the Indian stand-up scene, we’ve put together a rough, non-complete first draught of Indian comedy history. Consider this a highlights package or a supercut of some of the most notable highs and lows.
Rohan Joshi, Vir Das, and Kathik Kumar all believe that Das’WeirdassHamateur Nights, which began in the late 2000s, had a significant role in bringing together many future standup artists for the first time. “Hamateur was the open mic that ruined all future open mics for you because there were 300 people up and laughing and there was that instant confirmation,” Joshi said.
Das downplayed his claims by stating that he was not the forefather of Indian humour. “There were many individuals before us, including BomanIrani, Ash Chandler, VikramSathe, Papa CJ, Bharat Dhabholkar, and MahabanooMody-Kotwal.” But [standup comedy] was either a shaadi affair in the UP-Bihar region or a super-sophisticated BomanIrani/Bharat Dabholkar scenario.”
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In 2010, Indian stand-up comedy began to be seriously professionalised. Our new, deregulated, ready-for-globalization economy had been in place for less than two decades at this time. As a result, the watershed moment was always going to be ushered in by foreign investment (cricket, for example, was professionalised as a result of the 1996 World Cup’s record-breaking TV figures). It all started with The Comedy Store opening a store in Mumbai’s Palladium Mall.
BRAND-BUILDING, PRIME TIME VENTURES: 2004-2008, 2012-2014
There have previously been pioneering initiatives in Indian comedy—the 2010-11 era just marked the beginning of the standup scene self-organizing in an organised, though still crude, manner. Johnny Lever, who would go on to dominate 90s Bollywood with his goggle-eyed antics, began doing standup comedy in Mumbai in the 1980s. Lever would stand with a spotlight to his face, allowing him to witness those almost inconceivable facial contortions. In the mid-2000s, Indian television witnessed three major comedy shows: The Great Indian Comedy Show (2004-2006), Comedy Circus (2007-present), and The Great Indian Laughter Challenge (2005-2008).
Varun Grover, a writer and aspiring stand-up comedian, was a member of the writing team for The Great Indian Comedy Show, which included a mix of skits and straight stand-up performances. The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, judged by Shekhar Suman and the human megaphone Navjot Singh Sidhu, pitted standup artists from around the country (and later, Pakistan) against one another (Kapil Sharma was first marked as a future star after winning the third season). Comedy Circus used a middle ground approach, with the inaugural season pairing TV actors with standup comedians in skits. All of this, however, did not amount to a ‘scene.’ Building a ‘scene,’ or a functional ecology, necessitates tenacity, size, and, as a result, cash. Vir Das and Papa CJ sowed the seeds for it, and the mid-2000s were crucial years for both. CJ was working in London after finishing his MBA at Oxford when he attended the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2004. CJ moved to Delhi in 2008, inspired to quit his corporate career and pursue comedy full-time, and began performing in the city. Das had been playing in India for a few years by that point, having returned in 2003. Not simply concerts, but also seminars with prospective performers.
The Canvas Laugh Factory, interestingly, was the name under which The Comedy Store rebranded itself in Mumbai. In a 2013 interview, Charlotte Ward, the director of Comedy Store India, stated that this was due to “financial issues I am not permitted to discuss,” which was a highly enlightening statement in retrospect. Aside from shady transactions, this move gave the platform to a lot more Indian comedians. The fact that they were selling out concerts with ticket prices ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 750 also suggested to other promoters and companies that Indian comedy had an audience, and one prepared to pay.
Other venues have also sprung up to meet the rising demand for live comedy. Regular comic evenings were soon held at Mumbai’s Cuckoo Club, Bangalore’s That Comedy Club, and Delhi’s Habitat Centre.
Vijay and Ajay Nair founded OML (Only Much Louder) in 2006 as a multifaceted event management firm that also served as a digital newspaper, booking agency, record label, and a variety of other functions. They were best known for presenting NH7 Weekender and being the (business face of Indian indie music), but now OML is betting big on Indian standup comedy, co-producing the WeirdassPajama Festival with Vir Das and curating a roster of 69 performers (awesome!). To overcome the entry hurdle of Mumbai’s notorious traffic, they divided the city into four zones and dispatched a group of artists to each zone. “Comedy comes to you no matter where you live.”
Humour and entertainment have become evidently inherent in the emergent stand-up comedy. Various issues bordering on human relations, politics, religion etc have become the predominant context for stand-up comedies. Those issues are portrayed with the use of humour and satire significantly easier for audiences to intake as a means of entertainment.