The Nation Wants To Know, a stand-up comedy special by Anuvab Pal, was hosted by the Ladies Studies Group on April 7. The evening saw a wonderful gathering at ITC Royal Bengal, filled with laughter without a pause. The event began with a brief introduction of Anuvab before he took to the stage to perform excerpts from his famous segment, The Nation Wants To Know, which he has performed across the country.
Pal began with a slight poke at the sophisticated gathering, declaring that for a change, it would be an unsophisticated evening with a lot of comedy. Highlighting the fact that his mother was in the crowd, Pal garnered a series of chuckles after pointing out that in the past 12 years of his career, his mother had never come up to him and prodded him to not embarrass her. His special covered everything, taking digs at the affluent sections of Kolkata, nostalgic school days and hilarious reunions, and even India’s stereotypes despite being a cultural hot-pot. The latter of which had everybody doubling over in laughter. He comically also veered into a mini tour of India, picking on comical and interesting facts about cities such as Delhi, Kolkata and ‘start-up hub’ Bangalore. He ended on a hilarious anecdote surrounding ‘yoga for unfit Indian husbands’ and his time in that particular virtual class his wife made him sign up for. The witty narration had people wiping their tears from laughing too hard, long after the comic signed off.
Sumita Roy
“Anuvab’s comic show has given us a fun time. After a long time, a perfect event came to be and we all enjoyed the show. It was a jam-packed hall. His well-crafted jokes and comical timing had the members laughing through the hour and craving more,” said Sumita Roy, president of Ladies Study Group, after the show.
The event concluded with a high tea, on the sidelines of which The Telegraph sat down with Anuvab for a chat. Excerpts...
What was the most exciting part about going on stage post the pandemic?
It’s just nice to be back on stage in Kolkata. It feels great. The audience feels good. Comedy theatre, it doesn’t work online. How do I recreate the magic on Zoom? So this always feels special. Each room has its different energy. This is a five-star hotel... G.D. Birla has a different room and then you have Victoria memorial, it’s open and with TopCat comedy club, it’s a small room. So with each audience comes its own little story. Today was a different story. Different Kolkata audience, different story.
What have you been currently up to?
I had a big Amazon special that was released on May 6, it’s called Empire and there’s quite a bit of Kolkata in it. The most interesting thing that I was able to do is a BBC sitcom with Rasika Dugal and Stephen Fry in which he speaks Bengali. It’s available online and to everybody.
Looking back at the incident at the Oscars with Will Smith and Chris Rock, how did you perceive that as a stand-up comedian?
I guess don’t say anything about somebody’s wife. It’s tricky. I think that any sort of assault... I mean, imagine if someone got up on stage and hit me... any sort of assault is tricky. You can’t condone that under any circumstances. But Chris, he didn’t swear or anything. If a comedian is fearful that someone is going to hit him, then they’re not going to say anything. This takes away from everything.
Has this incident affected your writing and the trajectory of your shows?
Yeah, I’m a little careful. Like the line about the British accent (referring to a joke cracked earlier) or how we like speaking English. The actual line is, ‘You’d speak English like someone is shoving a javelin up your a**’, which is something I could do at GDB but with this crowd, I was like maybe I don’t want that image. Maybe just do poke with a javelin’. So I’m altering my text all the time.
How do you feel about the censoring of stand-up comedy acts, and being considerate towards the rising sensitivity — especially since there’s a thin line between comedy and being offensive?
I never believed that comedy should punch down the underprivileged. It should punch up to the privileged. It’s okay for me to tell a few jokes about the wealthy because they’ll take it in good spirit. But imagine making fun of the less privileged. I would never want to do that. So I think comedy should be woke… you don’t know who will misunderstand. You can only write with the conscience that you have. There are things in the Amazon special I had to be careful about because I had to think whether this was something I really wanted to say, etc. You want to be very careful about that kind of heat.
What’s your current favourite watch on OTT or TV?
So there’s Severance on Apple TV which I really liked. It’s a good show. I started watching Gilded Age on HBO.
What was the last funny work that you saw and loved?
I’m looking forward to this movie called The Bubble. It has Vir Das in it. It’s been a while since I’ve seen something funny. I was on a flight and I was seeing something serious. I’ve seen Encanto which was sweet, but it wasn’t funny. I saw Spencer and it was very serious.
Any collaboration that you are looking forward to?
Parambrata (Chattopadhyay) from Kolkata and Aritra Sen. They have a production company called Roadshow Pictures. We’re talking to some streamers and we’re developing some scripts together as I’m very fond of Kolkata and we’re trying to build a Kolkata-London thing for stories.
How did you get into scriptwriting as a craft?
Well, Loins of Punjab Presents was the first script we wrote. It was launched in 2007, it’s a very old film. It ended up becoming quite a success. So that kind of propelled me into writing The President is Coming and subsequent films. I ended up working with Bollywood for quite a bit. But it was mostly Loins of Punjab Presents that started my scriptwriting. My favourite part in all of this is collaboration. Meeting fun people. Also, it’s great when you write a comedy script and it comes to life. It feels really good. I think there’s a big gap in India in the urban comedy space. There’s a lot of action, a lot of Mirzapur. Serious stuff is taken. For comedy, however, there’s a lot of space.
Given the state of our world right now, comedy plays a huge part in times of crisis like these specially. What’s your take on that?
I think it was mostly during the pandemic where I was like ‘what am I doing? It’s such a waste of time’. And people write to you saying ,‘We’re down with Covid and watching the videos really helped.’ You realise that comedy does fulfil a purpose. Like someone telling me they’re in the hospital and watching my video or some guy has dementia but he watches your videos. He doesn’t understand but he laughs. Messages like these are what make you carry on.
Pictures: Rashbehari Das
What they loved...
“I was enthralled by the quick wit and unique stage presence of Anuvab Pal. His punchlines smacked of intellect, which made his show cerebrally stimulating. The humour was laced with a capacity to laugh at himself and his surroundings, a refreshing interlude at a time when we find people pensive and weighed down by life,” said Rupali Bose, managing director and CEO of Woodlands Multispeciality Hospital.
“It was indeed a wonderful evening. Anuvab Pal surely kept the audience entertained. A much-needed change that had been missed so dearly,” said Gayatri Bhartia.
“The members and their guests laughed and laughed their hearts out on his take on things and their presentation. His wit, humour and body language brought the house down as the audience giggled at the satire aimed at them and their fellow countrymen with an open mind. Anuvab’s old-school thoughts won him a quick vibe with us who lapped up the comedy and loved the comedian as he went on and on. It was indeed the best way to come out of the pandemic years and to foster bonhomie among members over sumptuous snacks and of course pure laughter,” elaborated Chandreyi Mitra.
