Do we really need to know that when we are up at 20,000 feet in an airplane the temperature outside is -40 degree Celsius?
Or what happens when a child who sings well is repeatedly asked to sing in front of any guest who comes home? Delhiites and Gurgaon residents got all the answers within an hour, in the craziest and whackiest manner. Stand-up comedy is one talent that is widely
ignored in India when not playing on television. But this summer, Delhi has been all for it, with one act almost every weekend.
The [V] Spot Café + Bar has started the Armageddon – Live It Up, Drink It Down festival from 14 July at Gurgaon and Delhi. On the July 15, Rajneesh Kapoor and Abish Mathew created a laugh riot at the café and left the crowd asking for more.
The event began with Rajneesh Kapoor who won over the audience with his jokes on daily life’s conundrums which actually made you think. He told the crowd about how guitarists are a hot favourite of women but not shehnai waalas; while boys, always check out a girl’s ‘eyes’ when they first meet. He included the audience members in his jokes but made sure they were not hurt. Rajneesh’s jokes were plain, with just a hint
of vulgarity but did make people laugh.
Next in line was Abish Matthews, who started with taking digs at the names of the people there and the car they had driven up in. He did have a point when he said that the guy sitting with hot chicks in that café couldn’t possibly be driving a Maruti 800 like himself! His next piece was a song he wrote for this girl who was the best girlfriend ever. Needless to say, the song was filled insults and expletives written funnily.
This was followed by another song which he had composed for aunties and uncles in front of whom parents often force children to sing. Unfortunately, his joke about languages resembling different musical instruments failed to impress someone from the crowd, who made his displeasure quite clear.
Rajneesh has been performing stand-up comedy for about two-and-a-half years now. “The English stand-up comedy scene in India is very new while Raju Srivastava has been around for a long time,” he says. Abish has been performing since March 2009 and has a website called Son Of Abish and also runs an online comic show called Punliners. “Hecklers, those who heckle in between an act, are usually looking for a conversation so I carry forward the joke most of the times and the audience enjoys that as well, especially when someone rowdy is being put down.
But I let it go with someone much older than me,” he says. Rajneesh is quite clear that television is not his thing. “For me, stand-up is the purest form of comedy and I love it. I don’t want to cheat audience with written scripts,” he says.