Pritish Narula presents a stand-up show inspired by his family and friends

Behind every artiste is a whole support system without whom they wouldn’t have been where they are. It is usually family and friends who act as the biggest cheerleaders, and this is perfectly applicable for Pritish Narula, a stand-up comic who is all set to present his show Picche Kya Bajta Hai? In this show, he talks about his parents, his wife, children, and “issues in the family”. As he primarily does observational comedy, he is majorly influenced by the people around him, and hence gets most content from them.

While his family is where he gets inspiration for his content from, it is his friends who play a role in writing and stringing the content together. He says, “A show usually takes a couple of years to write, and is often written fragments. While I am hanging out with my friends and having fun, it just occurs to me about how to string it together.”

When we asked Pritish about his journey and how he got into stand-up, he recalls always having a love for the stage when he would take part in theatre, debates and elocutions. “While the stage was where my heart was, because I come from a middle class family, I had to get a stable job to run it. I did my MBA from Ahmedabad, had a job in a bank for six years, and then ran a business for eight years. One day I had been to a café with my family, and saw someone perform stand-up in an open mic; I instantly thought of giving it a shot,” he says.

He is also grateful to social media for bringing him where he is today. He says that he gained fame and got bigger audiences after a video of his got viral, and that’s also how he realised what his audience likes. “People associate you with a particular phrase or video; Picche Kya Bajta Hai is a phrase from one of my viral videos, which is where the title of this show came from,” he adds.

Along with the benefits of social media—reaching a bigger audience, he also notes the disadvantages of it. He says that there is a constant pressure to churn out content, which might often lead to a compromise in the quality. This was also one of the challenges he faced along with staying relatable. “Because of the number of people of social media creating content, the competition is very high which increases the importance of staying relevant and relatable,” he explains.

On a concluding note, when we asked him what he would be if not for a comic, he laughs, “Maybe a golgappa seller.”

Tickets at INR 499. December 7, 8 pm. At Aaromale - café and creative community.