Laughter
Have you ever been to a comedy show where half of the stand-up was in another language? It's a true test of your sense of humor!
Last Friday after work a few Nielsen colleagues and I piled into a cab and headed to my first Indian comedy show. The show started at 8:30 and was around two hours from the office. One of my new friends at Nielsen is an aspiring comedian in the Mumbai stand-up world and he graciously let us come along to watch his set. We even got free tickets to the show!
We arrived at the comedy club and I was immediately reminded of the Upright Citizen's Brigade in Los Angeles. The atmosphere was vibrant, and the crowd was full of young people from different parts of the city. There were four comedians that night, one of whom was my colleague, Jaideep. The first two sets were in English with jokes about Indian culture. Even though I am still new to India, I was able to get about 50% of the material and laugh along with everyone else. One of the comedians was a woman and her set poked fun at what it's like in India when you're 25 and still not married. It shed light on an issue that I have only started to learn more about here: how dating/marriage works (I unknowingly signed up for dating website that was guised as an Ex-Pat group. Imagine my surprise when my inbox was flooded with 'wink' messages from strangers).
The real fun began after intermission. At that point in the show the stand-up was delivered exclusively in Hindi. Jayashree, my coworker, was kind enough to translate some of the jokes into my ear during the show. I was surprised at how much I was able to pick up on just by the intonation and gestures used by the comics. The exception to the Hindi-only jokes was a hilarious and accurate joke about Americans that went something like this:
I do not understand why Westerners come to India to 'find themselves'. This is a country of over a billion people.
It was an entirely new way to experience comedy. Whether the jokes were delivered in English/Hindi/or Hinglish didn't matter, but laughter was the common language that connected all of us.
I've been very busy exploring the city this week (and working...of course), so look out for another post this weekend.
A blurry snapshot of Rashmi, Me, Jaideep, and Jayashree after the show
Completely unrelated to comedy, but I found a familiar treat over the weekend!
Cheers,
B