In the world of standup comedy, success rarely comes overnight. For Aashish Solanki, it was a six-year journey of dedication and perseverance before his breakthrough in Comicstaan Season 3 catapulted him to fame. Recently in Bengaluru for his show, Good Boy, Better Show, the Delhi-based comedian says the show helped him ‘sell his art to a wider audience’.
Recalling his initial years of struggle in front of a few people in Delhi, Solanki emphasises that art is an unconventional field where creating a name and finding financial stability takes time. “After Comicstaan aired, I started doing tours across the country and even abroad, and it was the first time that people paid money to come to see me perform. It was a wholesome and fulfilling experience,” Solanki shares.
Bengaluru, with its vibrant standup scene, is Solanki’s favourite city to perform. “I think it is everyone’s favourite city to perform. Ticket sales here are incredible, as people are more willing to spend money on standup shows. The audience is discerning and they like to try out different stuff. As a performer, you also get to experiment a lot and even if your joke is layered or subtle, it’ll work well with the crowd here. So it’s good for the soul, and great for the wallet!” he adds.
While his participation and eventual victory in Comicstaan Season 3 was a gamechanger for his career trajectory, he admits that he initially thought it would help very little with his craft. “Standup is a very non-transferable art, so you can’t really teach a person how to do comedy. But what amazed me was that the judges and the mentors in the show come with so much experience that while they might not teach the art, they were really good at helping me hone my craft,” he says, adding, “Coming from the Delhi scene, I was used to a very linear approach to comedy and wasn’t really experimenting. So Comicstaan really pushed me to change that approach, while the mentors were really good at pointing out things that I could do differently.”
Currently, he is focused on developing new bi ts for YouTube and aims to revive the art of clean and tasteful roasting. “I want to make roast comedy relevant again. The good and clean kind, not the crass or demeaning jokes. So I’m really excited about that,” he adds.