Bengaluru’s stand-up comedy scene is becoming one to reckon with.
With a number of incredibly talented comics, across different age brackets, multiple gigs take place especially on weekends. While it might seem like all fun and games, doing comedy in front of a crowd, is no laughing matter.
And 25-year-old city-based comedian, Rupen Paul, bears testimony to that fact.
Having grown up in the city, the youngster admits he was a shy kid and was all set to study engineering.
He recalls: “After 12th grade, I realised that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I convinced my parents to allow me to get a degree in science and completed my Masters as well. I never imagined I’d be doing stand-up comedy on such a large scale and get on stage close to 150 times a year to tell jokes.”
Over a span of three years, Rupen has performed across seven cities for a variety of audiences. However, he points out quickly, “All of these are not really achievements. It’s just work that you must put in to get better at comedy.”
His foray into comedy was rather interesting. He elucidates, “I used to make my close friends and family laugh but I had no idea about stand-up until I was 18 and saw a clip of Omid Djalili. Since then, I knew deep down, that I’d become a comedian someday. However, I kept pushing that dream away since I was too scared . What finally pushed me into comedy was my master’s course. It was a dismal period of my life. I hated everything about the course. I was about to quit. One day before an exam, I read an article that had a quote that said ‘while you are failing to try there is someone out there trying to fail’. It hit me and I messaged a friend who was doing stand-up and told him about my plans. I decided that in the course of the eight week vacation, I'd do eight open mics. I stuck to my plan and have not looked back since.”Rupen also has a day job as an IT professional. “Since comedy shows happen at nights and weekends, I can manage both. I am lucky that my company is supportive. I keep a day job as comedy does not pay a lot of money in the beginning. You work your way up slowly,” he informs.
Given that English stand-up comedy is still picking up in the country, Rupen feels that is satisfying to follow your passions.
“Sometimes, in a show, no one cares about your jokes. Sometimes your jokes don't work at all. Sometimes you run out of funny ideas. Sometimes audiences tell you mean and hateful things during and after a show and on social media. You have to teach yourself to handle rejection, disappointments, and frustration,” he explains, adding: “But it’s not that dark too. There are many great perks to doing comedy. You get to work with the funniest people in the country and hang out with them.
You get to travel. Most importantly, when you are in the zone and you're making an entire room of strangers laugh, you win more than you have ever lost in chasing a dream, and it all feels worth it.
There are nights when you can't sleep because you are upset and there are also nights when you can’t sleep because you are so happy.”
Rupen contends, “The main challenge is to constantly write new material and keep raising the bar . Comedy is an evolving art. Newer comics keep showing up and make jokes about tougher topics. You have to work hard to be at the top of your game, and keep finding ways of being unique in your own style of comedy.”
This column features those who choose veer off the beaten track