While the ardour around the arts is fostered in Kolkata, there is, sadly, no audience for it. The City of Joy was in deep sleep and Anirban Dasgupta did not have a hard time convincing his parents that he would quit his corporate sales job to pursue comedy as a profession. Non-Calcuttans may find it surprising that Anirban’s parents were happy for choosing a completely different career path, especially because Indian stand-up comedy is relatively new, even if its future is bright.
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“A drawback of the art form would be lack of awareness as the art form is still very new,” he tells us, adding, “It needs to spread across the larger masses of India. It has been about 10 years since its inception and Indian standup comedy is still a very urban concept. There is a huge difference between attending live shows and watching a performance on YouTube. The latter easily gets misinterpreted. People who are not that exposed to standup comedy do not see the craft behind a video.”
Based in Mumbai, he has been telling jokes more ardently ever since his Amazon (Prime Video India) special, Take It Easy came out in 2018. In that show, he rightfully sounded disgruntled in describing the cluttered industrial future of Kolkata. Currently preparing for his upcoming India tour with Polite Provocation, Anirban waves away any grand intent behind his work, noting, his deadpan style is just how he talks.
However, comedy was always a conscious choice as the career did not even exist 10 years back when he involved himself in it. “All comics are accidental ones,” he shares. The comedian who has made us laugh with jokes about marriage, kids, parenting and the nouveau riche, says that he has been an avid comedy consumer for as long as he can remember. Besides TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld being his exposure to comedy, Anirban also adds that his introduction to standup comedy was actually through YouTube.
In Polite Provocation, Anirban will express his observations around a routine existence to dig into the family, consumerism, and Indian socio-politics - all for which, funnily enough, he admits that one of the possible inspirations is India itself. But how can a joke sustain itself? How does one ideally develop a sense of humour? While Anirban treasures the value of making others laugh, he also tells us, “If it is a good joke that takes you by surprise, that is probably a way forward. I visualise myself as an audience. Comedy is subjective and I make my material funny for myself. But it can also be repetitive. So, in every show, I try to find something new.”
Anirban Dasgupta will be touring Polite Provocation from June 10 across Bangalore, Thane, Gurgaon, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Hyderabad.
E-mail: chokita@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @PaulChokita