A stand-up comedian with old and new ties to the show business, will debut his solo comedy show in the city this weekend
A young Kashyap Swaroop with filmmaker Kamal Swaroop at work in the background. Pics Courtesy/Kashyap Swaroop; Underground Comedy Club
Most comedians climb the stand-up ladder the usual way. Gig around the city, launch a solo show, maybe go international, and if it all goes well, land a short stint with a Bollywood celebrity. With city-based comedian Kashyap Swaroop, it feels as though someone handed us his resume upside down. He recalls writing ad films for your favourite tinseltown A-listers back in the day, has the city’s top comedians on speed dial and recently performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. After all that, he debuts his first solo, Would You Rather? in a Powai club this weekend.
“I have a full-blown identity crisis, and there’s some inherent humour to it,” admits Swaroop, who grew up in a familiar half Kashmiri and half Tamil household. Familiar for him, and for us. The 33-year-old’s parents, filmmakers Kamal Swaroop and Priya Krishnaswamy gave the world parallel cinema classics such as Om Dar-B-Dar (1988), which continues to be cited as inspiration and referenced in films by the likes of Anurag Kashyap and Imtiaz Ali.
Kashyap Swaroop
Inspiring is not exactly the word the comedian would choose, though. “As much as I love experimental films, they don’t make you much money. I wanted to take my writing to a wider audience,” he reveals. Swaroop recalls his own earliest inspiration, “I remember watching a clip of American comedian Lenny Bruce. Standing in a sea of policemen in his audience, he read out a legal notice they’d just served him to stop the show. I was sold,” he adds.
A decade later, Swaroop swears by his satirical one-liners. But he might not have many takers, we’re afraid. “I wasn’t a big fan of where the bar was set in Indian comedy. The storytelling style of humour had more takers than any other genre. And It really put me off initially. I looked overseas for audiences that appreciated deadpan, dry-wit one-liners,” he recalls. In his upcoming new solo show, however, he calls truce. The 90-minute set is sprinkled with anecdotes from the comedian’s personal and familial life. “There was a time when my father and I would frequent a pub where he got offered a fortune by an infamous shady figure to write his biopic. That’s a story and a half,” he offers a sneak peek.
Swaroop has tested waters, albeit far from home, before the big showcase. Last year, he signed himself up for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF). “It was like a comedy gym. I was performing almost every night of the week. It burnt a hole in my pocket as an independent comedian, but by the end of the trip, I was at a break even with my expenses. Performing to a diverse international crowd shows you where you stand in the global scene,” he recalls.
But a thumbs up from Down Under will barely keep you afloat amidst changing tides back home, he admits. “Like many comedians before me, I will tweak my jokes to play it safe; especially with the way things are looking for comedians right now,” he sighs. Nearly 30 minutes of Swaroop’s set from MICF will make it to the upcoming solo show. As for the rest, he’ll “save it for a time when jokes don’t invite jail-time”. Like he said, he’s not a big fan of bars.
ON May 3; 7 pm onwards
AT RA Studio, Saki Vihar Road, Manohar Nagar, Powai.
LOG ON TO in.bookmyshow.com
ENTRY Rs 299
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