Straight away, Kanan Gill is in my opinion the most
interesting comedian in the Indian Stand-up comedy scene. Weirdly enough, the
only other comedian which piqued my interest as much was Eddie Murphy who was a
rage in the U.S. back in the 1980s. That says a lot about how much my opinion
is completely biased, or rather how much comedy I have actually seen. That’s a start.
Indian Stand-up scene has come of age finally. Ten years ago,
there was barely anyone doing it. YouTube was just starting. Now, the comedians
are everywhere. YouTube is full of fresh content, a dozen or so artists have
specials streaming on platforms like Amazon or Netflix. And this is where it
gets to me, what should I watch and what I should just skip. The flood of
content even in comedy, is exhausting.
Comedy, as I see it, is intelligent observation but with
a catch. The observation should be relatable but not too relatable to
the audience. A hint of alienation is necessary to sustain interest. And
that is why the flood of content exhausts me. Mediocre jokes about the average
Indian and his surroundings just bore me. Too obvious. Indian-Americans talking
about their unique yet frustrating lives growing up in the U.S. are not
relatable at all. A la Shashi Tharoor comedian pandering to foreign
audiences by introducing them to the oddities (read cliched criticisms) of
India makes me shake my head in despair.
And that is why I look forward to more content by someone like Kanan
Gill. His Stand-up is mostly in English which narrows his audience a bit. His
content also has a mild cerebral touch to it, he talks about Pavlovian Dogs,
Julius Caesar and Pretentious Hindi movies. That again narrows it a little bit
more. Gill himself admitted that a comedian’s loyalists might keep on shrinking with time if he sticks to his core, in a podcast with fellow comedian Kenneth Sebastian.
Yet, he is the most popular name in India today. His shows in India are instantly sold out
and he tours the world as well.
Gill started his comedy career doing a YouTube segment
called 'Pretentious Movie Reviews'. He along with Biswa Kalyan Rath, another popular comedian, humorously critiqued some of our much
loved Hindi movies. Stand-up comedy was next in the order. What is always
interesting is that his humor is razor sharp and his content is quite diverse.
Newer jokes which are relatable yet funny.
‘Yours Sincerely’ is his latest show on Netflix. It is themed
on a letter he wrote as a 15-year-old to his present self. The show bounces back
and forth from his current life to his past as a 15-year-old. And that is where
it gets funny but like a slow burn. Everyone quite relates to his past and this
where he humorously talks about harsh realities of growing up.
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| Kanan Gill, Yours Sincerely/ Netflix |
The show packs in punches on almost everything, millennial habits,
Indian aunties, silent airports and unrealistic expectations about growing up. Gill
has a put a lot of himself in the show quite obviously. The bits about ‘If
Possible’ when talking about love and ‘You Lose’ being a general judging
statement rather than a game line get sad laughs. Sarcastic detours into Julius
Caesar, writing letters in school and students being confused about metaphors
suggest an ICSE school which hasn’t really changed in all these years. Sanskrit
phrases draw people to their own memories of mugging them up.
The show has its hits and misses, mostly hits. It is
an affectionate pat on the backs of people nearing their 30s, yet nowhere close
to the lives they imagined 15 years ago. The humor is gentle and makes people
wonder about the things they have forgotten themselves. There is a line in the show
somewhere. “Is there anything lamer than how you used to be? Remember
previous versions of your personality?” It is a good line.
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