Ashwyn Singh, a Toronto-based comic comes to Hyderabad with his new special Hypocrite

For this Comedian, stand-up is more than just making people laugh, it is freedom of expression and choice, and saying things fearlessly. Ashwyn Singh, a comic based in Toronto, bagged a special place in everyone’s hearts with his Bollywood songs infused comedy on social media. He comes to India with his show hypocrite where he talks about difference in sensibilities and hypocrisy in people’s behaviours.

“There is always a double standard in behaviour when it comes to something people like versus something they don’t; how they treat someone versus how they like to be treated. They also have different levels of thresholds about something that is sensitive to them versus something that is triggering to others,” he explains.

In this show, Ashwyn touches upon politics in a general global context. He also highlights the idea of religion and how people are so sensitive to it. “Comedy is the most useful and least dangerous platform to talk about social and political issues,” he says.

Ashwyn gets content from whatever annoys him. As he starts writing about it, eventually the annoyance disappears. He gives us an example, “Someone once said that they think I’m on the spectrum. It annoyed me how people classify autism as a mental illness, when to me it is merely like neurodivergence. This gave birth to a small segment about mental health.”

Talking about social media, he says that if you can have music, jokes, explanation and comedy all in one, it is considered unique content and people get attracted to it. Writing about bollywood is very easy for him as he consumes it everyday, and lyrics are a medium he observes very naturally. He notes that the way people consume content on social media makes the audience like the person, but not particularly the work. They get an opportunity to see only small snippets of the work, hence it isn’t something they will come back to.

“Love and comedy have one thing in common—performance is practice. Only when you get on stage you know what works and what doesn’t,” he says. Ashwyn, a former techie was great at his job, but always kept wondering if this is all tech has to offer; until he tried stand-up. “When you find something you love, you immediately hate everything else you thought you liked. You liked those things only because you didn’t know any better,” he says. During the pandemic he would do online shows, and post that he started touring and opening for other comedians. He says that stand-up enabled him to travel extensively, and gave him an opportunity to meet different people make new friends.

Tickets at ₹799. January 11, 5.30 pm. At The Comedy Theatre, Gachibowli.