JOIN USComedian Kaneez Surka had early beginnings in comedy. As early as high school. Playing the role of an amnesia-ridden nun, Kaneez received a loud applause from the audience (including her proud mother), which only strengthened her resolve of becoming a comedic actor.
With the acting bug alive and kicking in her all through high school and university, things really started to work for her when she took a year off and came to Mumbai to do some, in her words, ‘NRI-stuff like charity, theatre and travelling’. In one of the improv shows, Kaneez’s rendition of a weather girl who speaks bad Hindi caught the attention of Cyrus Broacha and Kunal Vijayakar. After which, she found herself entertaining viewers with her accented Hindi banter on their show, The Week That Wasn’t, on CNN-IBN.
Kaneez believes everything in her career has been organic, something which she had never planned for. She met a guy in 2007 and got married, all the while learning improv, but her aspirations of balancing both family and career went for a toss when she got divorced in 2011. That’s when she decided to pursue comedy seriously, and make a career out of it.
Connecting with fellow comedians like Abish Mathew, Tanmay Bhat, Kenny Sebastian and others, she became a regular participant in comedy festivals and sketches. There was no getting out now; she had become one of their own.
Although Kaneez has done all kinds of comedy shows like stand-up and sketches, her true love remains to be improv. In fact, she’s the number one source to learn
improv from in the industry. Calling herself more of a storyteller than a comedian, she feels that her style of comedy is edgy and abrasive, and even awkward at times.
In an interaction with Sunday Herald, Kaneez sheds light on some aspects of
being funny...
How do you prepare your material?
There are three styles of comedy: stand-up, sketch and improv. For stand-up comedy, people perform on pre-written content, while in improv, comedy is created on the spot. There are a few people with you on the stage, and you are expected to create chemistry with them and carry forward the scene. There’s no preparation involved in this. Sketch
comedy could either be about one person or a group; they are written and rehearsed kits. When it comes to improv, I depend on my relationship with the other person, and perform. In stand-up, I draw from my personal experiences to make jokes as I don’t really have views on politics or pop culture. The same goes for sketch.
Audiences across the country...
In Mumbai, people enjoy references to politics and Bollywood during comedy shows. But in New Delhi, people love comedy that is loud and Hindi-oriented. In New Delhi, I have noticed that many comedians start in English but quickly shift to Hindi. Bollywood and politics manage to crack people up here easily. Bengaluru, on the other hand, demands a different style altogether. Bengalureans love quirky and offbeat sense of humour, nothing loud. Compared to the other two cities, Bengaluru has a more introvert kind of crowd.
Gender and comedy...
Gender doesn’t matter at all when it comes to comedy. Yes, sometimes, when I make jokes on some female aspects like breasts, I might get a ‘tch tch’ from the crowd, but that’s it. Things have worked out for me because I wanted to make them happen. If I sell it confidently, the material will work. But, if I get embarrassed, then people will, too. I have never felt like I have been hindered because I am a female. However, I have noticed that female comedians don’t have the confidence that men comedians do. They don’t trust their material as much as men. Men would have had a bad show, but they would consider it to be decent enough. But women, on the other hand, would have a decent show, which they would look at as a disaster.
On Indians having no sense of humour...
I do fear Indians have no sense of humour. Just look at Tanmay Bhat’s Snapchat fiasco. According to me, he wasn’t insulting anybody. He was just being silly. It wasn’t about Sachin Tendulkar or Lata Mangeshkar; it was about him being funny, and that’s all there is to it. I don’t understand why people chose to look at it in a negative way. I think it will be some time before Indians understand our style of comedy. The only comedy that they have seen till now is loud, slapstick comedy, which I personally don’t like.
Can one really teach improv?
Yes, absolutely. When you teach improv, you don’t teach content, but you teach techniques of improvisation. Even though it is improv, there are certain principles to follow. For instance, the first rule of improv is to be in agreement always, which is to say ‘yes’ all the time. If you say ‘no’, the scene doesn’t go anywhere. Also, making statements in improv works better rather than asking questions. When you ask questions, you are not giving any information to your fellow performer to work upon, and you are putting the onus of taking forward the scene entirely on him or her. So, establishing your character and your environment through statements is
another thing that one could learn in improv classes.