1. How and when did you choose comedy as a career?
I have been an entrepreneur for 6 years. I run a company called Sales5X which is into sales training and consulting. However, all through my school, college, corporate career, I have played the fool. I have always been the one who cracked jokes and others got punished because they were laughing out loud.
About 6 years back, I had participated in a standup competition which I won. However, I never took it seriously. About 3 years back, my friend asked me to perform at his 5th year company anniversary celebration. People loved the performance but I thought everyone was laughing because they were high!
A year back, I had another friend who asked me to do standup on ‘digital marketing’ at a digital marketing meetup. This was challenging because no one ‘jokes’ about digital marketing. However, I took it up and people were like ‘this was dope’. After that, I didn’t look back!
2. What type of content do you enjoy producing the most and is the most challenging?
My genre of standup is largely a business comedy since I couldn’t take the entrepreneur out of me! You can check them out here https://youtube.com/c/anmolgarg101. This is also a largely untapped niche. While there are comedians who cater to corporate jokes, business as a segment is largely untouched. I love creating content around entrepreneurship/sales/marketing etc.
It’s a challenge as well as these are typically considered ‘dry’ topics. They certainly aren’t as juicy as breakups or Modiji. Since this isn’t a mainstream comedy, it becomes challenging to have an audience which can relate with this content (it’s always easier to blame the audience for everything :p)
3. Do you prefer digital as a medium or do you enjoy doing live gigs more and why?
Of course live gigs! Doing standup comedy on zoom is like making kids online - you can never match the real experience :P With online, half the time is wasted in ‘can you hear me, can you see me?’ We can’t do comedy if everyone is muted because we need to hear the laughter, otherwise it becomes a lecture.
However, if people are unmuted, we are inviting a lot of background noise which sometimes becomes funnier than the standup content itself! In one of my shows, a wife was giving instructions to her husband on counting the pressure cooker whistles (she didn’t realize she was not on mute).
Also, online is not an immersive experience because there are so many distractions around for the audience. With offline, you have everyone’s attention because they can’t do anything else and the doors are locked :P
4. People, who are interested in taking up stand-up comedy as a profession, do they need a funny bone or they can develop one?
I truly believe that each one of us is funny! We were born funny! Have you ever come across a 3-year kid who isn’t mischievous? As kids, we laughed for no reason! It’s just that when we grow up, we are told to ‘behave’ like adults. The question is ‘How much of that funny self are we in touch with?’ The guys who are always grumpy and angry haven’t tuned in to their ‘funny’ frequency.
So it isn’t so much about ‘developing’ a funny bone, it’s about going back to what you were! Also, being funny isn’t about talking about funny things. It’s about talking things in a funny way! It’s about looking at the same situation from another angle, contrary to what people see!
Having said that, the more you do comedy, the better you become. You start understanding what people like/dislike, how to create content, how to deliver the punchlines to have more impact. If you want to be good at it, be like Sachin Tendulkar's story. He was blessed with an innate sense of timing but practised at the nets every day!
5. How stable is being a stand-up comedian as a profession in India and what is the future of this profession?
Standup comedy, as an art form, has come out of its infancy in India over the last couple of years. There is a great demand for standup comedians (given the not-so-great times we live in!) Thanks to the Internet penetration, standup content consumption online has increased exponentially! Standup gigs at social/corporate events have now become a norm. In short, this is a great time to become a standup comedian!
However, if you are looking at stability, standup might not be the best career option in the short term! Often times, it takes people 4-5 years before they can monetize their shows (there’s a chance your first video goes viral and you are an overnight success but the odds are against you!)
If you look at standup comedians who are multi-millionaires, they have all spent 20+ years mastering the craft. So if you are in it for the short term, then it’s a joke. If you master the art of making people laugh, the money will chase you!
6. What impact do you want to make in this world?
That’s a tough one to answer but I’ll share a story with you. When I started ‘Business News You Can Misuse’ (a show where I mix business news with standup comedy - you can watch it on youtube and Hotstar), my aim was to produce good quality content and have fun while doing it.
Soon enough, people started writing back ‘hey, I loved the episode, it was a great stress buster after a tough day at work’, ‘man, I was having a bad time till I saw that episode’, ‘thanks for making this video man, I laughed hard for a good 5 minutes’. When I saw this, I realized ‘this is bigger than me’. It’s not just about me making good videos anymore, it’s about giving people a reason to laugh at!
Standup comedy has now become a way for me to make a little dent in this universe (to cover the bigger dent that coronavirus has made :P)
7. Which is your favourite book and why?
I am an avid reader. Last year I read 33 books. My target this year is to read 52 books but I am way off the mark. However, my favourite book is ‘Influence’, written by Robert Cialdini. It talks about ‘6 principles of influence and persuasion’.
Our ability to influence others (btw, standup is a subset of influencing) is by far the most important skill needed to become successful in today’s world! The book talks about 6 key strategies which are applicable in every scenario. This is the only book I have read twice. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is reading this!
Interview By - Benil Joesph
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