Can we tickle our funny bone without resorting to crudity?

After attending a festival of laughs this week in Mumbai, Joanna Lobo takes a critical look at the English language stand-up comedy scene. Do we have what it takes to tickle our funny bone without resorting to crudity?

A young man bounds up to the stage and is handed the mike. His arrival is greeted with raucous applause and a sense of expectancy; he is the first performer. Within seconds though, the noisy, 300-odd crowd packed into Bonobo’s, Bandra for a night of amateur stand-up comedy have fallen silent. The jokes turn you off laughter and food simultaneously. Would you laugh at a comparison of the vagina to a jellyfish? Or for that matter, the people of Hong Kong to a fruit salad of lemons, melons and bananas?

The English stand-up comedy scene is in its infancy in India. So, maybe the below the belt jokes can be waved off as teething troubles.

Getting on stage is easy
But stand-up is already a rage in Mumbai. There are a host of events, from open mic and amateur nights to weekly shows. And it’s only growing in popularity.

“The way stand-up comedy has grown, everyone is in the limelight. Some are even seeking the limelight before they are ready,” says Papa CJ, who has over 800 shows to his credit. CJ spent the first few months of his stand-up career in the UK, eating a single meal, travelling to far-off places for a five-minute gig, sometimes with an audience of just three. He did it everyday for two years. “By then, people at all those clubs knew who I was. That’s how you make a name for yourself.”

Today, in India, things are much easier. There are sponsored events, ready venues and social media for effective and cheap publicity. Comedian Sorabh Pant says, “A major reason why so many people are getting into stand-up is that there are no set-up costs. All you need is a mike to get started”. And talent, of course.
At the two-day Naked Comedy Festival organised by Bonobo’s in Bandra, there were both upcoming and professional comedians on stage. Some jokes were fresh and some rehashed but the audience seemed to lap up everything eagerly. But does that mean Indian stand-up comedy has truly arrived? 

Crossing the line
Back in ‘96, when Gary Richardson, actor and leader of the Mad Horses ‘glamour comedy group’ did his first gig at Raspberry Rhino, he was met with a stunned silence. “People were waiting for me to do mimicry and slapstick stuff,” says Richardson.
The audience has matured since then. They have watched the satirical intelligence of George Carlin, the amazing wit of Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor and Chris Rock. They’ve also been exposed to the sophisticated humour of English sit-coms. They know that comedy is more than just slapstick and crass jokes. “The Indian audience is not easy to please, because they have seen international artists and expect a similar standard,” says Pant, a three-year veteran, who learnt his lesson when a 45-second bit on female genitalia ruined a successful show for him.

While Indians love jokes about themselves — regional and religious jokes get the most laughs — vulgarity is still frowned upon. So, the ‘jellyfish’ man is met with stunned silence. Later, when Vir Das performs a song about hooking up with his sabziwalli, he garners only meagre applause.

Richardson confesses he looks down on people who use profanity and vulgarity in their shows. “Some people think it is funny. I prefer something witty,” he says. At a recent performance at the MCA Recreation Centre, Bandra, Richardson poked fun at Sachin Tendulkar, Akshay Kumar and a host of Indian celebrities, but without using vulgarity or abuse.

“The only way to learn what lines there are is to cross them. Everytime you cross a line you stretch it a bit. Stand-up comedians have to keep dancing on that line,” says CJ.

Content is king
Stand-up comedy began with the idea of going up on stage and making fun of people and institutions, saying things that are considered taboo in social dialogue. “Comedians are usually sacrosanct; they get away with a lot of stuff. But today’s lot don’t have the balls. The humour I have seen is not political, it is establishment- friendly and they don’t go after politicians. I think people are afraid of what will happen,” says Richardson.

In 1998, people across India sat up late at night to watch a show that changed the face of Indian television comedy, Movers and Shakers. It had Shekhar Suman at the helm, and ridiculed and criticised everything and everyone. Today, we have Jay Hind TV, whose jokes are topical and satirical. What makes it work is the content. “We tell our writers that they need to write about what gets discussed at the paanwallah,” says Abhigyan Jha, the creative force behind both shows.

“Stand-up comedy has got to have currency and relevance,” he says. Most of today’s comedy, however, is more observational than topical. “Observational stand-up ends up being joke-book comedy, deteriorates to Facebook status messages or email forwards. When stand-up is not based on news it becomes staid and has no staying power,” says Jha.

Slapstick comedy, of the kind exhibited on Indian comedy shows and in films has another drawback: the main content is dependent on unimaginative and repetitive stereotyping. Any show you attend will have the customary ethnic jokes — Gujjus are shrewd businessmen, people from UP-Bihar steal jobs, Marwaris are stingy, South Indians have funny accents and so on. All you get is base mimicry and generalisations.

“The curse of today’s comedy scene is the dearth of good
writers,” says Richardson.

There’s potential
While stand-up comedy is slowly starting to be recognised as an art form, seasoned veterans think it will be another three to five years before it becomes big. “It takes around ten years just to find your voice as a comedian. You learn with each show,” says CJ.

Today the audiences at most events tend to be friends and well-wishers of the performer. There is a ‘back-patting’ culture that older comedians think could hamper the comedians’ growth. “Some use stolen jokes, others count on a familiar audience…this is used as a crutch, till they gain more confidence,” says CJ.

“Everyone thinks they are funny, but going up in front of people and making them laugh actually proves their hypothesis, or not,” says Rohini Ramnathan. An RJ, she hosts the popular Krack U up nights in Mumbai, organised by the Bombay Elektrik Projekt.

That’s a line that could also apply to the English stand-up comedy scene in India as a whole, because it remains to be seen if it will stand the test of laughter on a bigger stage in years to come.