Ironic take on urban life

Performed as four sequential stand-up acts, its cast takes you through their experiences, wittily explaining the tragedies and misfortunes that each of them has experienced, but keeping the tone of the narrative light and optimistic — a tribute, one supposes, to Evam’s chief philosophy of ‘looking at the brighter side of life.’

These are problems, the audience is told, that all of us encounter at some point or the other, whether they be first kisses, getting dumped or falling victim to the
not-so-subtle scams of auto drivers.

From a Tamil Brahmin maami, who currently resides in Los Angeles to a self-proclaimed eunuch magnet, Urban Turban 2 portrays a set of relatable and yet wittily twisted characters who keep the audience entertained for one-and-a-half hours.

The first act is performed by SA, a ‘two time visa reject’ and ‘big mouth from down South’.
He describes his misfortunes as a football fan who is denied entry into the UK because he doesn’t support Manchester United, and as an enthusiastic Stiffler (apparently the baap of Barney Stinson of ‘How I Met Your Mother’) worshipper who bungles his first kiss and is humiliated publicly on his school notice board.

Next up is Naveen Richard, the boy who has travelled from the ice-cream parlours of Coimbatore, to a boarding school that is reminiscent to the ones Roald Dahl describes, and finally finds himself in the beer-filled streets of Bangalore. Taking off on all aspects of the City, ranging from the bands of eunuchs that seem to regularly accost him to the crowded buses, Naveen didn’t fail to entertain.

Madhuri, the self-conscious Iyengar whose mother is desperate to marry her off before she becomes a bald, Chinese girlfriend-toting lesbian, was humorous in parts, although her introductory lines to the audience fell a little flat.

The star of the show, however, was Yudi, aka Yuddhishtir Shamshedh Jang Bahadur Rana. A Nepali who migrated to Bangalore, and braved the roads of Chennai, his self-appointed tagline is “My name is Bahadur, and I am not a watchman!”.

Yudi keeps the audience in splits with numerous references to his heritage and digs at Chennai’s auto drivers and Lalit Modi’s objections to his IPL team, the Nepali Ninjas.
The audience’s reaction to the Urban Turban 2 was on the whole favourable.
Shubhadeep, a software engineer, says he enjoyed the show although he would have preferred less swearing. Shilpa, who has seen the first installment of Urban Turban, believes that it was superior, although she enjoyed this one as well.

Prarthana, also a software engineer, says this was her first experience of stand-up comedy, and that she loved it.