A new face of comedy

online sensation

One of the creations of fuelling imagination with the question “what if?” is a video that has rooted Batman in Chennai. As the city’s resident, the global superhero is so local that he is warned by a biker (in Tamil) about his fluttering “dupatta” (cape) as he zooms on the batmobile (a bike). There could not be a weapon in his arsenal to deflect this kind of burn.

This video is part of the What If... series hosted on Put Chutney, a YouTube comedy channel that wants to share with its now 75,000 subscribers “witty, irreverent, funny and clever south-side stories.”

The Avengers, too, are recruited from South Indian states in this series of videos. Now the Batman video has over two-and-a-half million views and a sequel that has the superhero tackling a mid-life crisis.

Put Chutney was started early this year by the entertainment company Culture Machine, who are also the masterminds behind the older channel, Being Indian, which creates content catering to various regions and all age groups. But “the demand for South Indian stories kept increasing, because some viewers felt underrepresented. The need to start a channel focused solely on content for and from the south of India seemed important,” said team Put Chutney.

The creative team comprising six members, headed by Rajiv Rajaram, “begins its meetings with pitches from its writers,” although it considers ideas from outside. It refines the stories by adding big punches and jokes later, and finalises the script.

The script dictates who is cast, and the team takes “into account the actors’ strengths and lets them improvise the story (a little bit) to come out with the best possible version.” Actor Delhi Ganesh (who plays Alfred in the ‘Batman’ videos) is a recognised face among the mostly fresh cast.

The team at Put Chutney believes that “humour is purely a gut-based appeal.” “If it feels right and if it makes you laugh, then we are pretty confident that it will work. We realised that Batman video resonated with the audiences only when they started making memes out of it. But in the larger scheme of things, feedback on the net is something that’s instant — a beauty. We get audience responses faster than ever before. We also make it a point to show our videos to test audiences,” they shared.

Another video segment called Road-side stories is a platform for Chennai’s residents to voice out their opinions on a chosen subject. And then, raising the ordinary to a lyrical storytelling is the Life Commentary video series, in which some of the mundane things in life, like making tea in a kiosk and playing carom within a community, are narrated with enthused commentary.

The Chennai-based channel’s newer offering is a video that explains the art and tricks of eating on an “ingeniously grown banana leaf”, a first in the series of South Indian 101. So welcome, non-South Indians. Although the videos are infused with Tamil words and catchphrases, the narration is in English, mostly.

On the novelty and perks of hosting videos online, they said, “It’s an alternate medium. It allows for a creative outlet for many who would otherwise not have a platform to showcase their talent. And, society needs to see stories from all perspectives rather than a few.”

The channel’s name is inspired by a popular film scene featuring comedians Vadivelu and Vivek, “which has now become a form of expression with the advent of memes,” the team explained. They added, “We realised ‘Put Chutney’ as a name resonates what we want the channel to be — spoofy, and most importantly, representative of South India.”