Laugh out loud with Amit Tandon

Often dubbed as ‘The Married Guy’ of Indian stand-up comedy, Amit Tandon has carved a niche for himself with his hilarious takes on middle-class life, marriage, and parenting. With a style that is both relatable and uproariously funny, he has become a household name, resonating deeply with audiences across the globe. He has performed in multiple countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and Singapore, connecting with the Indian diaspora and local audiences alike.

Amit is bringing his latest show Halwa to Hyderabad on July 21 at Heart Cup Coffee, Gachibowli, and comedy enthusiasts can’t keep calm! In a conversation with us, the ace comedian talks about the show, his journey from engineering to comedy, and lots more.

New content, new challenge

“The last show, which was called Humare Zamanen Mein, was totally based on nostalgia. So, this show I have built largely on my married life. Exploring different parts of the relationship, how they’ve changed over the years,” he explains, adding, “Hyderabad is one step ahead of Bengaluru. A 90-minute show would go to 100 minutes just because of how excited the audience is. The applause breaks out longer, the laughter goes on for a longer time. So, that’s what I’m looking forward to in Hyderabad.”

Transition to comedy

Before diving into the world of comedy, Amit led a quintessential middle-class life, complete with the pressures of education, job, and family responsibilities till the age of 35. An engineer by education and an MBA graduate, he spent a considerable part of his early career in the corporate sector. The transition from a corporate job to stand-up comedy was neither immediate nor easy. Amit’s journey into comedy began as a side hustle while he was still navigating the corporate world. Elaborating on the challenges faced in his earlier days, he says, “The first few years were challenging. It’s not easy in the beginning because in India there’s hardly live entertainers unless they become famous. When we started in 2009-10, nobody even knew what stand-up comedy was. So, we were performing in bars and restaurants where you get five minutes on stage and people are eating, drinking, it’s loud. One of the biggest challenges was to make people listen to you. Sometimes you are even booed off the stage. The second challenge was making money from comedy. For the first seven years when I was doing comedy, I had to run my business during the day and do comedy in the evening — almost like a double shift — taxing for both me and my family. Over the weekend I would travel, so my wife would take care of everything at home. Now, the biggest challenge is to write a new show every year, which is a big difference between a lot of other art forms and comedy. In music, at a concert, people want to hear the hits, but in comedy, you can’t repeat your jokes.”

Unique concepts

Sharing how he creates content for his shows, Amit says, “I write my content by basically looking at all the challenges that I’m facing in my life. Most of my content is largely the things that bother me and then I try to write a story around it and make it funny.” Amit’s comedy is characterised by its clean humour, a rarity in the contemporary stand-up scene. On working alongside his contemporaries who are in their 20s or 30s, he feels that there’s no competition at all. “Everybody has their own audience. Everybody builds their own space. And right now, I think, we are at a stage where comedy is still growing in India. So, when a comedian does a bigger room, we all are actually happy that a bigger door has opened for everybody else. We suddenly realise that, oh my god, you can do a 2,000-seater show or a 6,000 one like Zakir Khan did at Royal Albert Hall. I think the entire community is proud of it, going to London and selling out a 6,000-seater show. We are just opening doors for each other right now than competing,” he says.

Interestingly, Amit not only admires the hard work Zakir Khan and Vir Das are doing on stage but their work in web series and movies too. “Apart from them, I find Johnny Lever very inspiring. Internationally, I like Whitney Cummings, Nikki Glaser, and Bill Burr.”

Amit believes he gets the loudest cheers from his shows abroad. “My audience is still largely Indians and a few Pakistanis. The difference is that the response is 1.5 times of what you get in India because it’s not just a show for them. It’s also a lot of nostalgia attached because you’re telling them stories from back home. So they are way more invested in the story. Secondly, when people come for a show in India, they’re coming for a stand-up show. They left their home, came for the show, and went back. When you go to New York or New Jersey or London, when people come for a Hindi show, for them it’s almost like a festival because that day they’ll get to see 1,500 people who speak their language, they’ll get to laugh with 1,500 people who are from the same background as them. It becomes almost like a festival for them.”

In a world where comedy often treads the line of controversy, Amit stands out for his integrity and commitment to making people laugh without offending. “I’m pitching a few projects for OTT and then there will be a chat show that I will start on my channel in September or October, once I’m back from my US tour. So, you’ll see a new format coming out with multiple comedians on my channel,” he says summing up about his future projects.