India Stand-up, Represent!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!

Hey, how are you? Just needed to do the whole ring-master opening yell for some reason, sometimes I think you just get an impulse and can’t help but go with it! In my case, it’s a double-edged blade – sometimes my timing brings me to that oh-so-familiar moment of awkwardness when you can actually hear the cricket chirping as he hitches a ride on that lonely tumble-weed rolling across the room…

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… yeah, those are …special. But! On the flip-side the timing works out juuust right and I end up with such excellent moments of levity and wit (or at least ones that are chuckle-worthy). Sometimes I wish I had better control over it but for that you need either (a) a gift or (b) practice and forethought. I’m still waiting on either to be honest. No, I appreciate the kindness, but it’s cool. A stand-up comedian I’m not.

That said however, I’m here to talk about folks that genuinely DO have both a gift as well as timing and a proper act. Two particularly funny guys, both of Indian origin – One from the motherland, born and raised. The other is an Indo-Canadian humour machine that I’m ashamed to say I never came across until recently and is hilarious.

First up, I’m going to put up the man from the frozen, icy-northern reaches (hey, I’m near the equator, to me Canada is as good as the north pole.) – Sugar Sammy. Those of you who know him, he needs no introduction, to the rest, “I’m sorry it’s not Russell Peters, but there are other Indian comedians worth watching!”

Are you not entertained? Not enough still? Good.

Next up we have the comedy stylings of Nitin Gupta, a guy who is a real rarity : he’s a native Indian stand-up who is nowhere near as well known as he probably should be and in my opinion comes across as far superior to more than a great many of his contemporaries. Sharp, biting and unabashed, what struck me here was that this was a guy not only willing to push the envelope a little, he picked it up and opened it by venturing into topical humour and current events in India and public figures – a thing that in my experience does not happen in India.

Some of you English-only readers will lose out on 2/3 jokes where he veers into his native Hindi (to hilarious effect though) but mostly it’s all English so anyone can get a kick out of it. Enjoy!