If Raouf Gangee tries to hide in a crowd, he will have to make quite an effort to do so. The stand-up artiste has quite a distinct personality and dapper dressing style, and possesses a baritone voice that is easily recognisable. He is the founder of the Komedians, a collective of stand-up comedians from multiple cities in the country, and is performing in Puducherry for the first time this weekend.
Based out of Kolkata, Raouf founded the group in the year 2012, and has since then roped in artistes like Shikha Singh, Varun Luthra, Satyavbat Mohapatra, Kaushal Dayani and many others. Komedians has its presence in over 20 cities in the country, which surprisingly does not include Chennai. Raouf admits that they “are a bit swamped right now. But it will happen sooner or later”.
For now, Puducherry will get a taste of Raouf’s ‘crass comedy’, as he likes to call his solo show, World Crass Comedy. “I like difficult jokes based on wordplay. Since I do English comedy I don’t get to do too many of those either. After all, you can’t expect the audience to pay you to make them think too hard when they want to relax after a hard day of killing flies at the office. So I try to do my fair share of jokes that people get easily and enjoy.”
“I’m actually half-German. If I was wholly German, I would be upset that the French got to Puducherry first (and the British to India),” he quips. Is he confident of making Puducherry laugh? “I try to be informal and make friends with the audience. They will listen harder and laugh louder if you establish a bond,” he says, adding that he does have a few French jokes on standby.
“This will be my first performance here. The reason it took so long is that I wanted to save the best for last. Actually, I say that to every new audience, except that in this case I mean it!” he says.
At The Pelican Playhouse, Puducherry. August 11. 5.30 pm. Entry at Rs. 175. Tickets online.