Karunesh’s usual style of delivering punches, his body language and expressions are so good that even if there is nothing funny in what he is saying, the way he says it makes you go ROFL.

Humour Sapiens got into a Tête-à-Tête with the rocking stand-up comic Karunesh Talwar. Get to know him with us.

How was your first stage experience?

10 years ago on 13 June 2011 was the first time I stepped on stage. To my surprise, people laughed at my set. I was stupefied because I was screaming, and people were laughing and wondering as to who’s this angry kid.

Over time, I gained confidence and tried the same jokes, but no one laughed. That’s when I realised, it was because of my nervous energy that people laughed back then.

But yes, first time on stage was a great experience. When I got off stage, I had so much adrenalin and so much energy. I remember, this show was in Bandra, I just got out started walking on the road for kilometres at a stretch. With an excitement of something unexpected happening!

You’ve also been a part of Weird Ass Comedy. How has the journey been?

I started with them in 2012, it’s Vir Das’s company. So, Vir, obviously, Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya and I were a part of it. Then they started at AIB, and I began collaborating with them.

Do you remember any of your bombing experiences?

Oh yes, I remember many. The most painful bombing experience was the one at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2018. And it is embarrassing to relive it that at this time. So basically what happened was, I was doing 28 shows in the festival, along with 4 other Asian comics. The first 15 shows went really well, we even got a five-star rating, and we all were really excited.

On the 16th day, I decided to perform some new material, which was a terrible decision because I had just written it. I get on stage, and man, you could hear the silence. I’m not sure how to describe it, but sannata sunayi de raha tha! I could see the tears of disappointment in the eyes of audience. One person even heckled me and I didn’t have an answer to that. I got off stage, after somehow managing to get a few laughs – and I get to know that there’s a reviewer in the audience. It was a bad bad day.

I woke up the next day, and things hadn’t gotten any better. As I opened the newspaper, it was a disaster. The whole Melbourne was duly informed that the man named Karunesh Talwar is no go for stand-up comedy. The review was titled – 4 out of 5 comics make the cut. Clearly, I was the fifth comedian who couldn’t please the audience.

But, let me tell you, something good came out of it!

Of course, I was having a row of bad days, but worked really hard on those new jokes and a lot of them made it to my future comedy sets, some of which I have done in India as well.

So, I worked overnight on those jokes and performed them the next day and managed to get a good response. Rest of the festival went very well because of that, and I bagged the opportunity to perform on Australian television too.

I was a real rollercoaster that one month – full of highlights and lowlights back to back.

When you got into comedy, the scene wasn’t developed so much. What challenges did you face back then?

I didn’t get into comedy to earn money. There was no expectation of doing this for a living. I just started doing it because I was very passionate about it – so I thought I am gonna do it, but eventually, I will have to get a job. That was my perspective on it.

I was never looking at it as a source of income, but today I feel very grateful that it’s my livelihood and I have not taken it for granted.

The challenges have not changed. My challenges are what they were when I started off. Things like – this line isn’t as funny, what should be the next line, people laughed at this joke but the other one didn’t get as many laughs, I should find another angle to this story, new material was looking good enough yesterday but crappy today – these don’t change. At any level, these challenges are always the same.

Have you struggled for spots in your early days?

When I started doing comedy, there were hardly 15-20 comics, so getting spots wasn’t that much of a problem. Guess I was lucky. If I had to enter stand-up now, it would have been a tough cookie. As long as you could make someone laugh, you used to get the spots. But now it’s a whole different scene, you have to sell tickets, get people, then make them laugh.

It was comparatively easier to get on stage back then because you were responsible for making people laugh, that’s it.

Experience with annoying audience member or a heckling experience?

There have been many. And there are some, which cannot be told on this platform

So, there was this one girl – she was drunk and it was her birthday. She kept yelling ‘it’s my birthday’ again and again, and had bugged around four comics who performed before me which derailed their sets. I went on stage, she started again with her ‘it’s my birthday’ anthem. I said, “usually the maturity increases with age, but guess it’s the opposite with you”. Because I said, you are becoming dumber as you getting older – the audience that was equally annoyed with her laughed and applauded at this. It was then her birthday express came to a halt.

Tell us something about your new special ‘Aalas Motaapa Ghabraahat’. We saw the trailer and loved it, especially the bit where you nudge us to confront our parents.

*laughs* Kar dena chahiye confront, definitely!

It’s important to set boundaries with the parents too, show them the real you. The love won’t vanish, you won’t become a bad child if you have a healthy argument with your parents.

This special is basically on two topics, one, on my relationship with my parents and second, on my relationship with my girlfriend.

Watching this didn’t bode well with both my parents and girlfriend.

I have taken many pot shots at my parents and then I went into a self-depreciation mode.

Watch the Amazon Prime special here!

The post TÊTE-À-TÊTE WITH THE ROCKING COMIC KARUNESH TALWAR appeared first on Humour Sapiens.

And these players are sure a delight to watch! Here’s a roundup of 8 rising comedians to watch out for!

1. Prashasti Singh: From being a 10^th boards topper in Amethi, pursuing engineering, then MBA, and having a successful corporate run, to becoming a comedian is absolutely an unconventional way to fame. She starred in the first season of Comicstaan.

2. Kumar Varun: Married and has an MBA – that’s the information you will gather from his Youtube videos. His first ever stand-up video got 2.6 million views in mere three months. If you have been a fan of AIB’s Honest Engineering Campus Placements videos, you would probably recognize him as Failure. However, in real life, this engineer scored 9.06 CGPA, passed the CAT with a 99.3 percentile and completed his MBA from Faculty of Management Studies in Delhi. He came across his partner in Random Chikibum – Rahul Subramanian during his corporate stint at Mahindra. Together, they went on to win the Comedy Hunt organised by OML in 2015. Kumar Varun has starred in Amazon Prime’s Chacha Vidhayak Hain Humare and appeared in TLC’s Queens vs Kings.

3. Aakash Gupta: As an active performer of the theatre club of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, Aakash Gupta honed his stage skills, and as per him improv comedy liberated him as a performer after which he decided to sign up for different kinds of comedy opportunities. After performing at open mic gigs for 2 years, he felt confident enough to upload two videos on YouTube in 2017, which are nothing less than a hilarious ride. Gupta is currently writing a solo one-hour show and planning to go for a multi-city tour in August.

4. Supriya Joshi: Most of us know her as Supaar Woman on social media. She was very recently seen on Comicstaan’s second season. Insider described her as, “caped crusader battling the pointlessness of life, one meme at a time.” She even made it to the Verve magazine’s (Em)Power List for getting back at fat-shaming trolls, gracefully.

5. Rahul Dua: Attaining the second spot in Comicstaan 1, Rahul Dua is beginning to get into the genre of political satire. He believes we are way behind in terms of stand-up comedy in comparison to international standards and wants to hone his skills before diversifying.

6. Nishant Suri: He describes himself as an ‘introvert comic’ and this introverted funny man won Comicstaan 1. Being an engineer turned investment banker turned wedding photographer, he decided to explore yet another field of comedy. He is loved for much relatable, self-depreciating humour. Suri along with Rahul Dua do live shows together and plans to go on tour in November this year.

7. Raunaq Rajani: His comic sense developed as a shield to cover his low self-esteem, or so he says. He had dreams of becoming a real estate agent, but eventually, comedy turned out to be a viable option for him. He came to light as a Comicstaan contestant. Rajani wants to create his one-hour show to tour across the country.

8. Anubhav Singh Bassi: Former Supreme Court lawyer is a hilarious storyteller. His video Cheating was no less than a fun masterpiece. His ‘Bas Kar Bassi’ is a 50-minute show on his lifestyle choices and career, that he performs in multiple cities, including Bhopal, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Surat, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Kolkata and Mumbai.

The post 8 rising comedians to watch out for! appeared first on Humour Sapiens.

How did you develop interest in comedy?

Raised in a family that enjoyed watching comedy serials and sitcoms, inclination towards comedy had to happen. Also, TV was not really an idiot box before K serials appeared and took over. We used to watch every comedy serial broadcasted back then; like, Flop Show, Shrimaan Shrimati, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Hum Paanch, Tu Tu Main Main, Hadd Kar Di, Family No. 1, Hum Sab Ek Hai, Zabaan Sambhal Ke, and the likes.  I still believe Gudgudee on Zee, Aflatoon on SabTV, and The Great Indian *Comedy* Show were the most underrated shows of our times. Enough nostalgia.

To top that all, my family is pretty much into liking live comedy in different forms. My father got me interested in comedy, and he was my companion in discovering comedy shows on TV. He used to take me to Kavi Sammelan (Poetry Recitals). I feel Kavi Sammelans laid the foundation of stand-up comedy culture in India, as it used to be a place where 12-15 poets gathered on stage to recite poems and anecdotes that were either funny or nationalistic. In fact, Kavi Sammelan is the proof that India was always interested in comedy, stand-up comedy just gave it a proper tag and made it a viable career option.

What do you consider was your first step into the comedy world?

I remember my first tryst with comedy. It was in the 4th standard when I became a news reporter for a fancy dress competition. My Mom had my dress sorted but had no idea what I will say on stage to complement my outfit. The only thing I knew was, it had to be something funny. It was the day of the competition, and I still had no material to present. But something clicked, and just half-an-hour before leaving for school I wrote random lines on things that I was aware of; a few jokes from Current Affairs section, Sports, Weather, and the likes. I recited those jokes to my mom and she laughed. I went on stage and won hearts. And luckily, the prize too. Looking back, I can say that, that was a really tight set.

Apparently, I pulled of a ‘Last Week Tonight’ before John Oliver made it a famous thing. Here’s the proof that I was way ahead in time.

How did you get into stand-up comedy?

As I grew up, I kept up with comedy through Shekhar Suman’s satire, pre-memes twitter era, and AIB podcasts. But I still never knew that I will do stand-up at some point in time.

It took two ‘Biswa’s (Biswapati Sarkar & Biswa Kalyan Rath) and regrets-to-taste to get me into stand-up comedy. In 2015, I was a big TVF fan and a bigger Biswapati Sarkar fan, I met him at the Permanent Roommates success party. We talked for a good 15-20 minutes about the craft of writing and many things profound.

This conversation inspired me to start a podcast channel in IIT Madras along with two other friends.  I was a writer-editor of the podcast and wanted the podcast to reach the masses. So in order to advertise the podcast, we started a facebook page where I used to put funny observations related to the institute, which people related-to, to a great extent and the page started to get good traction. I liked the validation and started observing things keenly, to look for pattern that would be relatable to everyone. Eventually, I started sharing content about not just the institute by also about life in general.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I attended a stand-up show in Canvas Laugh Club, which had then not-so-popular Biswa Kalyan Rath in the lineup. We were left impressed! I became so much interested in comedy that I started following everything that had comedy associated with it. I attempted mimicking Arnub and got a chance to roast the Director of IIT Madras. My impression of Arnub wasn’t really impressive, but the jokes worked! This gave me confidence that I can translate the written jokes into a performance as well.

After passing from the IITM, I went to an open mic with 10 odd jokes that were written while collecting material for the facebook page, and to my surprise, people laughed and enjoyed. That was it! I haven’t looked back ever since. Now, this human being needs more and more validation from people every week by saying things that mostly make no sense at all.

What are the challenges you’ve faced in your journey?

I was not getting enough open mics to perform initially but everything changed as I started a room for open mic. Now, I make sure there are enough spots for new open mic-ers at my venue as I can relate to their pain.

Your key achievements?

A few achievements which deserve a mention are: (a) Successfully Roasting the Director of IIT Madras, (b) Got laughs in my very first open mic, boosted my confidence, (c) My joke made it to Reddit front page.

Any bombing moment?

Bars and naïve comedy audience are what I sometimes find difficult to perform to. Once in a bar, the crowd was so dead in my set that I got off the stage in 2.5 minutes from a 7-minute slot. My words before getting off stage were, “Okay then”, which apparently was the biggest laugh of the evening.

That night I considered leaving comedy, but I went to another open mic the next day and the jokes worked Confidence regained!

Any experiences with annoying audience members?

None, yet! Thankfully.

Connect with Manish on Instagram & facebook

The post Tête-à-Tête with Manish Jain appeared first on Humour Sapiens.

How did you get into comedy?

I always had a knack for humour. However, I was not aware of the comedy scene in India. I was fascinated by the fact that people have taken comedy as a profession. The only comedians I knew were Russell Peters, Jerry Seinfeld, Rowan Atkinson, Ellen DeGeneres and the great Jim Carey. I followed more of Indian comedy back in my school days and used to love “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge”. That was the only platform that I was aware of. I started YouTubing more in 2013, and I came across the channels “The Viral Fever” and “All India Bakchod”. TVF and AIB used to make spoofs/sketches and I loved them. I became a religious follower. I started writing funny one-liners and stuff and shared on social media. The first few stand-up videos I had seen were of Amit Tandon, Zakir Khan, and Jeeveshu Ahluwalia. I could relate to the jokes, which led to me watching one after the other. In 2015, I witnessed the Weirdass Comedy Festival live in Bangalore with 20 hilarious comics in the lineup.

It was then, that I decided to hit the stage someday. I happened to find out about the open mics. I did my first open mic in November 2016. However, for me to get on-stage again, I took 8 months (courtesy: JOB). I switched my job to focus on comedy as well. Since July 2017, I have been on stage every week working and struggling to find the funny stuff.

What are the challenges that you have faced?

Though I am a writer, but a budding comedy writer. I take time to build jokes, which unfortunately end up being non-funny sometimes. That’s the most challenging part. Some of my peers are better writers than me and I am striving hard to reach that level, and go beyond. Hopefully, I will.

Also, the number of people performing at open mics has exponentially increased over the years. Another challenge has always been to find stage time. Even if we find stage, we seldom see audience.

Your key achievements?

In a short span of a year, I am not sure of any achievements. Whenever a joke works, I feel accomplished that I could connect to the audience. However, I have performed for 80-200 people at different instances and I did manage to make them happy. That certainly motivates me to write better jokes. Even then, it’s a long road to travel and I hope I achieve the goal of making people laugh and have a good time on stage.

Any bombing moments?

The first few bombing moments were disheartening and then I got used to it. I feel that this art will always keep you grounded. I bombed at an open mic where the audience just stared at me and all I could manage was 5 minutes of silence. One of the worst evenings of my stage life. I was so apologetic that I went to each one of them and said sorry after the show. I know there will be more such experiences and I am working on how to get back the audience in those situations.

Experiences with annoying audience members?

I can give it in writing, that in every show there will be one. I was hosting one of the open mics and there was a guy who proclaimed to be a journalist. He started heckling us comedians, and we had to give him back by taking a jibe at him. By the end of the show, he had given up and was listening to the jokes. But, he never laughed. He was annoyed to such an extent, that he forced his partner not to laugh either.

In another show, a couple of ladies were not letting us narrate the jokes and were getting offended at everything we said. We made them understand that these jokes are on us and not on them, and they can relax. They eventually left the venue and we had a great show after that.

Connect with him on Instagram.

The post Tête-à-Tête with Pronoy Chowdhury appeared first on Humour Sapiens.

Their most favourite and popular genre seems to be spoof, and each one of it is simply hilarious. Our most favourite has to be…not the obvious one of Alia Bhatt, which was also, by the way, intelligent and well-thought of spoof (in-the-moment) …but, the one titled ‘Honest Indian Weddings’. This video was released in two parts and it was a perfect and humorous satire on the wedding process in India – the dowry, the pretence of liking each other’s interests, the relatives finding faults in the preparation – everything taken into consideration and presented in the most humorous way possible.

Our another favourite is the one on ‘Honest Indian Flights’; it is nothing but the absolute truth. Right from the start, where the ‘pilot’ starts off by saying, ‘Apparently, it’s not enough that I have to keep you alive in this giant metal tube, thirty thousand feet above the ground, I also have to talk to you like I’m a fxxxxxx RJ’ till the end, where the airhostess is saying goodbye to the passengers by saying things like ‘Don’t fly with us again’ and ‘your baby is an axxxxxx’ while smiling all the while. This has to be among the AIB videos that you need to watch for sure.

Apart from that, AIB also does songs with celebrities, also a satire. The one which features Kangana Ranaut, where through way of a song, they bring out the bitter truth of Bollywood, where the actress is just considered as an ‘item’ and nothing else, is brilliant and funny at the same time.

Not just that. They have also done advertisement videos; one which sticks out is the one they had done for Truly Madly, a start-up dating portal and it was titled Creep Qawwali, where two women are fighting it out in the form of Qawwali, which of their stalkers is the ultimate creep. Once again, smart and rib-tickling.

They also have a News Comedy series and a Roast in their name; the latter became a controversy, but that just made the group stronger. Politics, Bollywood, Society – they have explored everything. They definitely have a great understanding of what comedy is and that reflects in all their works. Just watch any video that they have created, and we assure you that it will leave you tears of laughter!

ALSO READ: 5 FUNNIEST INDIANS TO SUBSCRIBE TO ON YOUTUBE

The post India’s Edgiest Comedy Group: All India Bakchod (AIB) appeared first on Humour Sapiens.

Aren’t TV serials a reason why watching TV has taken a backseat for the younger lot and Internet has replaced it? The internet is providing us with some fresh content and our beloved comedians are making us laugh by taking the funny-job to the series. But we must thank Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the likes for saving us the torture of TV serials.

6 web series By Indian stand-up comedians that we recommend you to watch are listed below

Pushpavalli – Sumukhi Suresh

With life all planned, Pushpavalli was going smooth when shit happened. She was going to finish her Food Science degree in Bhopal and marry a decent Brahmin man that her mother approved of. But everything changed once she met a charming Okra exporter named Nikhil Rao at a food conference. Enchanted with their rendezvous, she decides to move her base to Bangalore to pursue the ‘okra selling’ suave gentleman. It is the story of her managing to get a job at a children’s library run by her short-tempered childhood ‘friend’ Pankaj and finding accommodation at a girl’s PG run by a greedy and unstable landlady named Vasu. Meanwhile, her obsessive pursuit of Nikhil continues. Amid screwing up at work and having barely enough money to cover her rent, what will her persual lead to? Let Pushpavalli take you on a fun light hearted comedy ride and dramatic stalking turns.

Cast – Sumukhi Suresh, Harminder Singh Alag, Manish Anand, Ashok Pathak, Naveen Richards, Urooj Ashfaq, Sumaira Shaikh, Sharaddha, Niharika Dutt

Lakhon Mein Ek – Biswa Kalyan Rath

Aakash, who plans to study commerce in Raipur, is sent to an IIT Coaching institute far away from Raipur by his father. There, Aakash, pretty soon realises that he is a misfit. A dark, yet relatable and fun story about the IIT dream, and the life of Akash and many like him. Let ‘Mast Aadmi’ Biswa take you on an enjoyable tour in this series.

Cast – Ritvik Sahore, Dharmesh Patel, Alam Khan, Jay Thakkar, Raju Akki, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Kuldeep Patil, Mayank Parekh, Mukund Pal, Saurav Mehta, Harish Kapoor, Natraj Khurram, Manav Soneji, Shiv Kumar Subramanium, Kumar Varun, Gaurav Kamble, Benjamin Yangal, Ajita Kulkarni, Mrunal Raju Yedellu

Going Viral Pvt. Ltd. – Anuvab Pal

A company which is joined by hopeful Indians, with their dreams and money, to fulfil their aspiration of becoming successful by going viral. What will their fate be – success over social media or ending up in a disaster?

Cast – Kunal Roy Kapoor, Kubra Sait, Prabal Punjabi, Aneesha Shah

Shaitaan Haveli – Varun Thakur

When B-Grade filmmaker Hariman decides to shoot his horror flick at an old haveli, the crew is freaked by the unexpected occurrences. It only makes them realise that they aren’t going to just shoot a horror film, but soon going to live one. A parody of horror genre, can it make the fans of scary movies give it a cheer?

Cast – Varun Thakur, Bhupesh Singh, Hemant Kumar, Kanchan Pagare, Neha Chauhan, Anand Vikas Potdukhe, Pippa Hughes, Shweta Singh, Mukesh, Surender Thakur, Monica Gupta, Adi Irani, Hemant Koumar.

Humorously Yours – TVF (Vipul Goyal)

True to its tagline, it unfolds the drama behind comedy. Following the life of Vipul Goyal, a stand up comedian, it depicts a very Indianised approach to stand up comedy – encasing the struggles with Vipul’s personal and professional life. A good mix of fiction and reality, would this desi take on life prove to be a fun watch? Try it out.

Cast – Vipul Goyal, Abhishek Banerjee, Rasika Dugal

Better Life Foundation

A documentary, err, mockumentary pursuing the lives of five passionate NGO workers and a reluctant volunteer, trying to make the world a better place. With every plan ending up foiled, will the hilarious bunch be able to set everything right in the end? Watch it to know it.

Cast – Naveen Richards, Sumukhi Suresh, Utsav Chakraborty, Kumar Varun, Sindhu Sree Murthy, Kanan Gill

ALSO READ: 5 FUNNIEST INDIANS TO SUBSCRIBE TO ON YOUTUBE

The post 6 web series by Indian stand-up comedians that you cannot miss out on! appeared first on Humour Sapiens.

Zakir Khan

This ‘sakth launda’, with his genuine smile and down-to-earth comedy, has become a darling of the masses. He is your ‘guy next door’ type of guy when it comes to his acts; you keep wondering throughout if he is talking about himself or you! The USP of his comedy lies in the way he talks to his audience – simple and just like you would talk to your friend. He takes on the nuances of daily life and adds his personal touch to every anecdote. Watch his special on Amazon ‘Haq Se Single’; it hits all the right notes.

All India Bakchod

Well, apart from the fact that they are probably the first ones in India to come up with stand-up comedy and make it so popular, these guys are ‘creatively’ funny; it is hilarious and at the same time, hard-hitting. Take for instance, their sketch on ‘Honest Indian Weddings’ – it is definitely rib-tickling, but also thought-provoking. Their videos are so popular that foreigners review them and find it awesome!

East India Comedy

Yet another group, which is taking over the internet. The comedy is just crazy and so are the members themselves. Not sticking to just videos and individual stand-up acts, they also have podcasts and a show called EIC V/S Bollywood, where they rip apart the worst movies of that year in their own comic style. Not just that, once in a while, they also come out with songs, mostly political, which will make you cry with laughter. Watch their song on Donald Trump and you will understand what we are talking about.

Abhish Mathew

Every time he’s on stage, it is a total laugh riot. Apart from the various stage shows that he does, he also has his own chat show ‘Son of Abish’, with leading comedians and actors as his guests. His acts are anything but usual – energetic and improvised. He is so versatile that he has been part of many sketches and videos including AIB. The topics he chooses are usually generic but the way he says it leaves the audience in a split always. He has now taken the role of anchoring Comicstaan on Amazon.

Varun Thakur

Varun’s acts are a mix of observation, and impersonation among others. He states the facts as it is but with dollops of humour and with an alter ego, Vicky. In fact, the character became so famous that Varun came out with a one-hour special called Vicky this side – Varun that side.

While we share the deets about funniest Indians to subscribe to ON YOUTUBE, we certainly cannot miss out on these:

Vir Das

He is the face of Indian English stand-up comic acts. The weirdass humorous content of the channel is sure to make you laugh out loud.

The Viral Fever Video

The brain behind Viral Video ‘Rowdies’ & Bollywood ‘Aam Aadmi Party’, TVF is very similar to that AIB, with more than 4M subscribers on their channel.

Cyrus Brocha’s ‘The week that wasn’t’

Starring Cyrus Brocha, it is a satirical news show based on the day to day happenings in India. Tough no new videos have been uploaded in the past few months, but old videos are equally worthy to make you laugh.

The post 5 Funniest Indians to Subscribe to on YouTube appeared first on Humour Sapiens.