Comedian Azeem Banatwalla was in the city last weekend to entertain the crowd at a riveting session at the first ever Kolkata Comic Con, held on February 22 and 23 at the Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan. Banatwalla, who has been involved in comedy for the last decade (East India Comedy fans, make some noise!), spoke to t2 after his set, which touched upon everything from parking habits in India to why people in Goa, where he currently lives, never manage to get anything done: because everyone is always waiting for the carpenter to come put their lives back together. Excerpts from our chat:

You’re here on the first day of the first ever Kolkata Comic Con. What has it been like? What did you like about the crowd?

It’s very cool, yeah! It shows that Calcutta is also now on the map, and Calcutta as an audience is very keen on things like pop culture, entertainment, and even comedy. The audience is super enthusiastic about the shows, and it’s great. I think all cities should have a place for all the geeks and the nerds to get to come together and have a space of their own. So it’s always fun and it’s nice that Calcutta also has that.

You’ve been involved in comedy for so long. What has the journey been like over the years, and do you think it’s different now?

It’s been a long time, yeah. But I think the scene keeps changing, and that’s part of life, right? Everything changes, nothing remains constant. There’s that age-old cliche about change being the only constant, so I think it’s important that we keep reinventing ourselves. And of course the industry keeps changing, too. Initially it was just live shows, then it became about YouTube, then about Instagram and all sorts of other stuff. So you just have to keep evolving and just keep doing your job.

You mentioned Instagram and YouTube, and I was going to bring up Minor Celebrity (Azeem’s most recent special), and the fact that it’s doing so well online. How do you think streaming platforms have contributed to the industry over the years?

Oh, absolutely. Streaming is huge, and it’s great in the sense that it allows you to reach your audience. But it can also have drawbacks, because sometimes if it reaches an audience that’s not necessarily ready for it, then you can have people getting upset or offended. So that’s an issue sometimes, but I think the net result usually is positive. And of course there’s this whole thing about exposing people to new stuff, or new content. A lot of people don’t know my work and when they see it for the first time, they’re often like, “Wow, this is great!”. And then equally, a lot of people find my work and say, “No, it’s not for me”. So there’s that aspect of discovery for everyone.

What do you think is the future of Indian comedy, especially as compared to what it was 10 years ago?

It’s very hard to say what the future is. I mean, in 2019, we thought we were going one place and then suddenly a huge world event like Covid happened, and everything completely changed overnight. So one can always project and say there’s a certain trajectory to which things are going and they will continue to go that way, but you never know, right? There might be just one weird random event that happens in the world and everything can change.

Coming back to Comic Con, who’s your favourite superhero character?

I think for me, it’s always been a toss up between Batman and Iron Man! But I’m slightly more biased towards Batman in general, because it’s not just the TV shows and the movies and the comic books, but also the video games. He’s just slightly cooler than the rest!

So if you were Batman, what would you do to protect your city? What would your superpowers be?

Ah, I’d be a very boring municipal corporation Batman! My superpower would be to stop traffic, and make people drive properly. I would be a very boring superhero. I would be a good municipal corporation slave but a very bad superhero.

Last question, which villain do you think would be the worst stand-up comedian?

Loki, probably. Because he’s too overconfident! And when you get too overconfident in comedy, it’s not a good sign. You need to be a little scared at all times. Things can go wrong at the drop of a hat!

Subhalakshmi Dey
 Picture: Meghnil Mondal