Anuvab Pal, Jokes apart

I am not a good performer and I don’t enjoy performing...” are probably not the words you’d expect to hear from a stand up comedian like Anuvab Pal. And its especially tough to take these words seriously when records suggest otherwise. A regular performer at Mumbai’s Comedy Store, Anuvab has more than 100 shows to his credit and apart from recurring shows in Delhi and Bangalore, he will soon be performing at the Comedy Store, London.

While he will be in Bangalore on November 4, 5 and 6, giving you a dose of his sense of humour, Anuvab’s better recognised as the writer of plays like Chaos Theory and Fatwa and movies like The President Is Coming and Loins Of Punjab Presents. Now for someone who writes for leading magazines in India, has a book 1-888-Dial-India and many plays to his name, the very act of being a stand-up seems a whimsical choice. So, where does being a stand-up comedian fit in with all that writing?

“Whether you are writing a film or writing for a stand-up act, both are essentially the same,” he says, quite nonchalantly. However, its the freedom that stand-up offers (to do what one wants to with your written material) unlike being a scriptwriter where “the directors and actors take over your material,” that has Anuvab taking the stage to crack people up. Also, as he explains, “It is difficult to write stand-up stories for someone else.” Anuvab’s entry into the stand-up comedy circuit was a light push rather than shove.

Recalling it, he says, “I was initially asked to do a story on the Comedy Store during the launch. The founder Don Ward then suggested that I do stand-up. And so, during the auditions, I started with a five-minute act that quickly grew to 10- and 20 minute-long performances, and today I’ve done 100 shows.” “I think my stint as a comic has got a bit out of hand and these days I think it’s more about getting me out of the house,” he jokes.
And even as he good-humouredly claims that he has become “a lot less funny after I started comedy,” he views his acts less as witty, one-liner jokes and more as “sharing experiences about the absurdity of living in contemporary India.”

Now, what are the topics that tickle the audience’s funny bone and leave him unamused? “I personally don’t find sexually-suggestive jokes funny,” he reveals adding, “I also don’t understand people getting together to laugh without provocation in laughter clubs. I find the whole concept (of laughter clubs) inane.”  While the best audience according to Anuvab are “drunks because they are more forgiving and will laugh at anything”,  he sure has certain subjects that are off limits to making wisecracks. “Jokes about my landlord and the municipality ward are a strict no-no. I wouldn’t want to mess with them. They could easily disconnect my water connection!” he reasons. It’s the question of his survival, see?