JOIN USThose who turned up to watch a stand-up comedy act and a short play Do Mastane by IIT alumnus, definitely had more fun than they had anticipated.
The evening at LTG Auditorium opened with a rib-tickling stand-up comedy act by Vipul Goyal, a pass-out of IIT Mumbai. During his 40-minute act, he spoke on contemporary subjects in a manner that left the audience chuckling.
Having performed in various cities, Vipul knows exactly what topics to touch upon while performing in front of an urban audience. Therefore, his jokes were related to traffic jams in cities, marriages, dowry and topics that the young audience can find relate to. Unlike many comedians, he steered clear of ‘non-veg’ jokes.
Vipul, who quit his job two years ago to take up stand-up comedy professionally, says “I mostly choose topics which are universal such as cricket, traffic. I also keep in mind the age group of my audience. I don’t do ‘sex’ jokes because that limits my audience though that is far easier than writing neat jokes.” Vipul is part of a group called ‘Humorously Yours’, comprising IIT Mumbai’s graduates.
Speaking on the growing stand-up comedy scene and competition in big cities, he says, “The content is the king. It takes a year to write one-hour content. Competition has grown but so has its scope,” says Vipul, who prefers performing in Hinglish.
The second part of the event called ‘Teri Keh Ke Lunga’, presented Do Mastane - a play presented by Tarun Singhal, Vivek Agarwal and Yash Gupta. It is an adaptation of a short story by renowned Hindi writer Amarkant. All three actors are also part of Desires Unlimited, started by alumni of IIT Delhi. Pankaj Nanda handled the production.
Devkinandan Majnu (Vivek) and Raj Shekhar Madmast (Tarun)’s story is narrated by a peon (Yash). Poets Majnu and Madmast become the best of friends, despite their age difference as both think they are great artists and finally turn to be each other’s worst enemies because of jealousy and egos. To add to the tension, a newspaper where they are editors gives them an opportunity to for a face-off where Majnu, takes a lead, but Madmast out of jealousy, knows a secret which can render Majnu jobless.
While Vipul’s show got an excellent response, the play too got a good reaction from the audience. “We will perform this across cities and hope to improve with each passing show. We started in 2009 with Shit Happens but the group had been formed while we were still in college in 2006,” says Tarun, who adapted the story. The group performs almost after every three-four months.
Like Vipul, Tarun and Vivek are also into theatre full-time. “We were theatre and film enthusiasts in our college days. After passing out in 2007, I took a job but soon got frustrated. I decided to take this further professionally and revived the group. In 2009, we did our first play and we have had about eight productions since,” says Tarun.