Pant-ing Laughter

Gayathri Krishnaraj

The leading comedian of India could be described in a variety of words and phrases but to be put simply, I’d say that it is common for the audience to go crazy with laughter but for a comedian to go so crazy with his jokes that it’s not just his joke making you laugh anymore but the mere fact that he’s stepped on stage… That my dear readers is Sorabh Pant!

Could you tell us about your childhood? I had two sides to myself, one was when I used to play cricket, the other was when I was not playing cricket. When I was playing cricket, I was the worst human being you’ll ever find. I was sledging everyone I was abusing people. I used to bowl very fast when was a kid and I tortured everyone in my building because my bowling pounces as I bowled directs. I was a tyrant; a dictator. So, I think both of those personalities fed off of each other. In my building I was popular as I was loud and was good at a sport which always impresses people. My school life too wasn’t bad and I started becoming vaguely popular in school too because of cricket.

Did you ever try to make cricket your profession? If I was ten years younger, I would’ve gotten an IPL contract for 40 lakh Rupees but wouldn’t have played any matches. They would’ve put me on the side. Also, I was really good with rubber ball cricket and never played the season ball too much. I used to play overarm, I hated playing under arm and I hated the people who played underarm. I was really fast when I was a kid I still have friends who want to play with me today when I’m 37-years-old.

How did that help you be the person you are now? How did the aggressive cricketer become the funny dude? I’m relatively friendly with people in general and I always have been but my sister introduced me to a friend of hers recently whom I was stuck in the lift with. Suddenly, an other lady enters and this friend is introducing me to the lady. Once I step out of the lift, my friend told her that I’m a comedian and she said she didn’t find me funny at all. But I’m thinking – ‘I was in the lift for twenty-three seconds with you, you expect me to pick up a mike and start saying jokes!’ So, in real life I’m pretty boring. Actually, I withdraw what I just said, I’m super entertaining. (Laughs).

Do your kids get an overdose of dad jokes? My kids are four and two. They don’t understand jokes. My son asked for a joke and I told him a very simple joke.

“Vikram, why was six afraid of seven?” and the answer is six eight seven right?. My son goes ‘No wait, six is eating something?’ So, both my kids are way funnier than I am. My son was telling me a story the other day and it was basically ‘Once upon a time there was a pig and there was another pig. The end.’ That was their story and they’re really funny.

I’ve written a whole stand up set about both my kids They’re my favourite jokes now because they come from a place where I really admire them. Literally a minor thing happens where people feel it’s over; it’s done but I’ll be making notes. My son and my daughter are both very funny, because what other purpose do they have? It’s to entertain me because, I’m entertaining them throughout the day as is my wife so now you’ve got to give it back, you can’t just sit there and do nothing.

So, have you ever made a terrible pun that made you cringe? Everyday! I’ll make a joke and somebody who doesn’t know me that well except my wife who’ll be sitting with a straight face will get looks saying –‘You must be used to this.’ The advantage I have is that my wife is also funny. She’ll make horrible jokes and say, ‘Don’t judge me, that was horrible what you just said.’ We’re just constantly judging each other. Whoever is in the better mood will make the jokes and usually it’s me. Two or three times a week she’ll say something really stupid too.

Your wife’s a writer and so are you, did you ever think you should collaborate on something? It’s never worked. I was her boss technically and she was refusing to accept it. We were working on a show for POGO, it was called FAQ where I wrote 6-8 episodes and I played a character called Dr.Cool. My wife was working under me and she just refused to listen to feedback! And I was her senior! She just goes, ‘No I’ve seen you as a person, you can’t be. I dismiss you.’ However, she’s very collaborative with regards to my jokes. I’ve run like a lot of jokes by my wife and she’ll help me out.

Comedy has squeezed it’s way to Bombay only a few years ago whereas in Chennai it’s been around for a while. Why do you think there’s this gap? There’s a group of people stepping out to entertain things which aren’t movies specifically in Mumbai and Bangalore. I saw Enthiran and I died. I’ve seen Sivaji the Boss. Even if it’s an extremely serious film, it needs one person to create jokes. Even if they remake it, there was no comedian and hence comedy wasn’t there. That’s when I realised, Bollywood doesn’t have comedians in films.

It’s a recent phenomenon. What happened in the 90’s was that there were a lot of silly stupid movies that I really loved including all the Govinda and Kishore Kumar movies. There is a movie called Shakti which had a sequence where people tried to grow the longest beard. It was the most deranged thing you’ll watch. I think currently what’s happening in Bollywood is that it’s either really stupid movies like Housefulls or nothing.

Why do you think the comical layer is absent in Bollywood? I think the phase where a comedian like Johnny Lever or Khader Khan and many such guys who did comedy in films have moved out and the top comedians have their own TV shows. That might be the reason where they might not prefer to be the third spring guy. It’s quite fascinating.

In Tamil, stand-up comedians are becoming actors. As soon as they become a hit, they do movies. Do you think that trend will be seen in Bollywood as well since Kanan Gill has acted in a movie called Noor? I think that’s definitely a trend now. Vir Das is a prime example. He’s ambitious enough that he’s going to be producing movies in two years. We wrote a movie together which was basically his idea but I helped him with it. It was ages ago but I think he’s got a producer for it and he’s going to be making it soon.

And all the guys from AIB, earlier had a film division and obviously I’m not commenting on that. For me, I’ve never been fascinated by movies. I prefer watching stand-up and doing stand-up. I watch ridiculous amounts of stand-up and I do it because I love it.

Who is your favourite stand-up comic? Right now, my favourite is Michelle Wolf. I find her really funny. She’s this American comedian who did the white house correspondence dinner and got into a controversy over it but her stand-up special was hilarious. There’s a lot of them though.

Where did the idea for EIC come? Initially, the plan was to do stand-up but then friends just got together it became ‘Let’s do this, it’s work’. I agreed. We went with the flow and it was sort of shepherded for a while. My aim was to do stand-up and political comedy specifically. There was a lot of work and I don’t think it reached where it was expected to go. I always thought EIC will get views. The reason we were doing it was because I wanted to talk about all these things.

it was a lot of work to produce these things yourself. We did 55 episodes an year, out of which I was in 25 or 30 of them which was a lot of work.

What do you think would be the biggest achievement in your career? I don’t think I have any. I go through my old videos and I think all of them are shit. I’m serious, I don’t like any of them. Not a fan.

I like what I’m doing currently though.

Isn’t growth a part of the career? Yeah, but I don’t want people to see the part where. I still don’t think I’ve reached where I need to be as a comedian. I want people to be there when I’ve figured it out. I don’t want you to see the rubbish part (Laughs).

Speaking of writers, western countries have specific courses for writing. What do you think of the writers’ scene in India? It is changing. I remember when I started as a writer in TV in 2009, back then the budget percentage for a writer was 8 lakh rupees for a 2 crore project. I still think the numbers are decent to write movies. If you’re a TV writer you can make money. I’ve done TV writing. I was offered a lot of money to write soap operas but the volume was ridiculous. We were essentially churning out 20 episodes a month of utter garbage but the show had to go on. I definitely think it’s changing one of the reasons being a lot of books adapted as movies.

Is there something you’re working on? Oh, there’s been a lot of stuff. I’m working on two and a half hour of stand-up and it’s a lot. Some of it is genuinely good, and some of it will be extremely good or it’ll be silly and stupid. I’ll figure out a way to make it happen.