Get ready for a crackling Sunday evening tomorrow, as funnyman, Nishant Tanwar takes over the mike, at his new stand-up show in Kolkata, called Nishant Tanwar Live- The New Special, presented by Comedy Circuit. The Dilli boy will be sharing his travel stories as well as stories from his previous workplace, at the show which is also going to be recorded for the Amazon Prime Video later this year.
Nishant spoke to us over the phone on the eve of his performance in Kolkata, when we got a sneak peek into his journey as a stand-up comedian and how it all started.
“My brand of humour is mostly observational. Sometimes I don’t even do it consciously, and whatever is happening around me just gets stored somewhere in my brain, and comes up naturally when I think about stories for my next performance,” informs Nishant.
.JPG?w=640&auto=format%2Ccompress)
“I have already travelled to a couple of cities with this show, namely Agra, Delhi, Pune, Lucknow, among others,” he adds. But there are still quite a few places, in the North East and South India, who are waiting to hear his new observations about life and people.
You would have hardly guessed that ‘Joke Singh’, another name by which he is known in the stand-up comedy circuit, was an introvert in school. “I was the youngest one in my class and everybody used to bully me a lot. Humour was always a defense mechanism against bullying, as I used to give my bullies unbeatable comeback jokes. That’s how my sense of humour developed gradually,” reveals Nishant.
Nishant Tanwar was also a journalist working for a leading media house, way back in 2005 and juggled both journalism and stand-up comedy for three years, before choosing one over the other. “My job was not easy- putting in 10-12 hours a day and then travelling to perform on weekends,” shares Tanwar. “The comedy scene was gradually growing in India and since I was getting more paid shows, I had to choose any one, and I chose comedy,” he adds.
But when did he know that he had that talent and perseverance to take up comedy as a full-time profession? “When I was working with a news network in 2009, a lot of my friends said that since my jokes were good and I excelled at making fun of people and making them laugh about it too, I should try my hand at stand-up too. It was my friends who made me realize that I was good at it. I never thought that I will be a stand-up comedian someday,” Nishant recalls.
But the stand-up comedy scene has only improved with time. We asked how he feels about the increasing number of stand-up comediand that has cropped up in different cities over the years.
He says, “Back then, we were still unsure if we could make a career out of stand-up comedy. Kids these days think that stand-up comedy is the new guitar- and that comedians are the new rock stars. Some of them really find it easy, while others do it as they truly enjoy it. Although a lot of them will get filtered out, at various levels, it’s good that so many people are coming up. The more people will come, the more the scene will grow. And the audience will grow as well.”
“Comedy is like any other art form,” believes Nishant, “which gives you the freedom to express yourself the way you want it.” “Different people do stand-up comedy in different ways- a lot depends on what the person wants to say on that particular day,” he adds. “For me, observing is a part of my job and even if I am not performing, my brain never stops working. If you wake me up in the middle of the night and put me on stage, I wouldn't hesitate to perform,” Nishant tells us, adding that he personally follows American comedian Dave Chappelle.
Nishant Tanwar Live- The New Special to premiere at Kala Kunj Auditorium on April 28, at 7:30 pm.