K. Ramya Sree
Stand-up comedian Aakash Mehta recently won the first season of Netflix’s Social Currency. Aakash is a well-known stand-up comedian, who travels across the world for shows and is gearing up for his YouTube special Nasty, which will be out towards the end of June. In Social Currency, Aakash is the only stand-up comedian vying for the winner’s spot against some of the most sought-after influencers. The Pioneer got in touch with the comedian to know more about the show, his passion for comedy, and more.
Excerpts from the interview:
Can you share about your YouTube special Nasty? What is it all about?
Nasty is a show about sex and sex education! After a particularly odd show I did in NCR once I realised that in India, we’re not exactly keen on having conversations around sex, and that leads to a lot of sometimes hilarious, but often scary situations in our lives. I felt like if we can’t talk about it seriously, we can at least talk about it in between jokes and that’s really where the idea of the show came about. The name was just a way of letting the audience know what they were in for when they buy the ticket and now, when they click on the link.
How does it feel on winning the first season of Netflix’s Social Currency? How emotional was it?
It’s a very fairytale feeling. I think most of us realise, as life goes on, that life really isn’t like a movie. There are no petty pack endings and clearly defined milestones while you’re living life and so that feeling of having succeeded at something isn’t quite there. Each success is more of a precursor to the next thing. But here I was, fireworks going for me for the first time in my life and after 21 days of learning and readjusting and overcoming obstacles, I could say that I had succeeded. And that’s a magical feeling.
What preparation have you gone through before participating in Social Currency?
I didn’t really know how to prepare except for making sure that I asked my friends to water my plants. And honestly, even if I had done something to get into the mindset, nothing I could have done could have prepared me for something like this!
Starting your journey as a stand-up comedian to winning a reality show on Netflix, how will you describe your journey?
In one word? Ongoing! But in many, I’d say it’s been a lesson in patience and consistency. I’ve always been in love with comedy as an art form and I’ve never really prescribed to what people around me thought was a success. Most people equate success and fame. But joy is the true takeaway from anything one does in life and fame is, if anything, an often annoying byproduct.
When did the comedy bug bite you and what inspired you to take up stand-up comedy?
When I was still in school my brother had a lot of episodes of this American show called Comedy Central Presents where they’d have one comedian doing a set in every episode. Even though I couldn’t understand half the jokes, I was absolutely amazed that one person on stage could get such a huge reaction from an audience just by talking! As time went by and shows like laughter challenge came around I was absolutely in love with the art form but never imagined I’d do it myself. Then, when I was in my first year of law school, I tried a Stand-Up comedy competition at a college festival. The feeling was absolutely electric not only when I was on stage, but even after when I kept reliving the moments in my head trying to figure out why they laughed at certain points and why they didn’t laugh at others. The rest, I suppose, is history.
Which genre of stand up you generally perform and what interests you about that genre?
I like to do the kind where I talk and they laugh. Sometimes I scream also.
I think pinning it down to a type of genre really narrows down what a joke can be when you’re working it out. Gun to my head, I’d say I’m conversational, nerdy, and honest, which is incredibly interesting to me because it gives me the opportunity to be the kind of person I am off stage, and on stage too. It’s a journey of being the most ‘me’ I can be both on and off stage.
What’s your writing process like for your comedy shows? And where do you draw inspiration from?
I don’t really write anything down. That’s the first thing for me. All 10 odd shows worth of stand-up I’ve written is all in my head and I write before going on stage just a rough idea of what I want to say. The jokes sort of just happen while I’m on stage and then I refine things from there. As for inspiration, I think my stand-up is really an absurdist response to a chaotic world that’s full of overwhelming stimulation. In this world, there’s never a lack of things to talk about.
Who is your inspiration in stand-up and your top 5 favourite comics?
Mitch Hedberg, Raju Srivastava, Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, Mike Birbiglia, George Carlin, and Joan Rivers
Can you describe the best night of your life in terms of comedy?
This is too difficult to answer. I feel like the best nights are the ones where it feels like you and the audience have gotten together to do something special. Like the show you can see in my special No Smoking, it’s a great example of this. We didn’t go into that show intending to shoot a special. But by the end of the night, it felt like the audience and I collectively turned that 1 hour into something truly one of a kind!
Having toured across the world, which is the best city to perform in, according to you?
Each city comes with its pros and cons. Bangalore has huge crowds but bad traffic. Delhi has super food but I can’t manage to sell any tickets. Bhubaneswar has the best company but I don’t get to go there so often. I can tell you that there are certainly cities I do not like to perform in, but maybe that’s for another day.
Can you enlighten our readers on how cool or difficult your job is?
Comedy is the best job in the world! It’s the freedom to be who you are and be recognised for it (albeit slowly and over the course of 1000s of shows). You get to travel all the time and you get to meet all sorts of people and every time you think you’re too good to be true, comedy will humble you with a horrible night where you can’t even manage to get one decent laugh. Comedy is also an incredibly difficult job. The grind is hard and the learning curve is often incredibly steep. If you’re not lucky enough to go viral or have a network of friends or the right agency, you can get stuck in a rut for years on end having no option but to do 100s of shows just to make ends meet, constantly travelling for work and never really having any time with your friends or family, just a constant stream of new faces again and again and again. Every high is inevitably extinguished by the inevitable night when you’ll bomb on stage and not even get one decent laugh. So I guess it really boils down to how you look at it. Heaven and hell are both just in your head.
