Blue Material, an all-Dalit comic collective, brings three standup artistes on one stage

One of Ankur Tangade’s exes didn’t know she was a Dalit. “That’s not how you introduce yourself anyway! Like, ‘Hi, I am Ankur, I am a Dalit. Shall we date now?’” exclaims Ankur, 26-year-old comic from Bheed, Maharashtra, who is  part of Blue Material, an all-Dalit comic collective that aims at having more conversations and discussions around the caste system and what it takes to be a Dalit in a country that’s largely dominated by the so called ‘upper’ caste, albeit humourously.

The group comprises five members, out of which three will take centre stage in Chennai for the first time. Nervous? “Apprehensive is the word,” says Ravi Gaikwad, who is going to be presenting his material for the Chennai audience, mostly in Hindi. One of the collective’s founder members, Manaal Patil, will be missing from the Chennai line-up, but his trademark punch line — “I’m sitting and doing stand-up. I just wanted a seat” — will resonate with the performances by Ravi, Ankur and Radhe Krishna Ram, in the sense that the performances will not just challenge the boundaries of humour through centering caste in the Indian contemporary, but also actively challenge the boundaries of what may be considered art.

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As Ankur points out, “One of my exes (her material centres around dating) had told me, ‘My mother won’t have tea or water at your place because she is a vegetarian’; and in my head I was like, ‘yeah, we have our mutton in a cup!’ Come to think of it, he wasn’t the only one who said that. I have grown up listening to this vegetarian remark even at school from my upper caste friends.”

Before becoming a part of Blue Material, which allows her to be who she is, Ankur was trying to be “relatable” in terms of the material she presented as a standup comedian. “But deep inside, I felt that I had no space to be myself and talk about myself; I was just trying to be relatable like every other comic was. There was no ‘me’ in my performance. And then I met Minaal at an open mic where he joked about being a Dalit comic; I went up to him and told him I am Dalit too; and soon I was a part of Blue Material. It was time to change things, and talk about me — Dalit, queer, and a woman. Of course, that’s layered with lots of tragedy, trauma, but it’s fun and it feels free to finally be me on stage. I was done with those ‘Don’t you think reservation is wrong’ conversation starters,” Ankur shares.

Unfortunately though, it’s not been easy for Blue Material as a collective to get venues for their performances. “People say it’s 2023, these things (caste discrimination) don’t happen anymore; you guys are just making up stories. Right. And here, we are still rejected venues because we are an all Dalits group. Our jokes are risqué, filled with caste references, that’s the reason we don’t get booked because people who can actually pay us, places where we can make a living out of our art, reject us as they assume that our content will create problems. They don’t find our content relatable because they belong to the upper caste,” explains Ankur, who works with an NGO and is currently also working on a project with The New York Times.

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“Dalit or caste is a trigger word for most mainstream promoters or brands,” says Ravi, adding, “It’s been two years that we have been trying to associate with brands. Meetings happen, there are discussions and then they figure out that this could be risky, and everything goes down the drain. I think the problem is that we all know there is a problem, but nothing really is being done about it. Even if there are conversations around caste, they are ignorant conversations. Having said that, we are not here to sound preachy. All we are doing is presenting our stories, our experiences, which obviously have subtle nuances of how caste plays a big role and how we have dealt with it all our life.”

Ravi’s material will comprise three to four chunks, he tells us. “I have a 15 minutes set about comparison/difference between Swarna and Dalit rappers; then I have something on conservative uncles and conservative friends. They are all personal, observational and, of course, exaggerated,” says Ravi, who first got hooked to standup comedy during the lockdown.

For Radhe Krishna Ram, the stage is an extension of himself, a place where he gets to share all things that keep defining his life, with his identity as a Dalit topping it all. “I come from a small place called Asansol. Growing up,  I never knew my identity is going to be such a problem. I realised that when I moved to Varanasi for studies. There, people would not bully me, but they made sure I knew I am a Dalit. My material includes all my experiences, including the one with my Brahmin girlfriend,” says 24-year-old Radhe, who currently works in Delhi.

The inclusion of caste related jokes happened quite organically with Radhe. When I started doing standup in Varanasi, it would only be for five or six minutes, and within that time, I would only include a mention of something related to caste. And it so happened that people took note and told me I should write more of these. At one of my shows, a Brahmin in the audience walked up to me after my performance and told me that my joke was a slap on his face, but “I also laughed at it,” he said, and then added, “You should include more.”

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Blue comedy is a style of comedy that is off-colour, risqué, indecent or profane, including discussion around sex. The colour blue is also associated with the Anti-Caste Movement signifying the colour of the sky, a representation of non-discrimination, that under the sky, everyone is believed to be equal. 

Tickets: Rs 299 onwards.

October 20, 7 pm.

At Medai – The Stage, Alwarpet

Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @rupsjain