Masala Comedy Club’s 4.0 version was unleashed last week at the Sunnyvale Theater to sold-out shows, reflecting audience confidence and appreciation for the fare. Desi humor dominated in 8 minute slots, with memories of trips back to the homeland, trysts with Bollywood, current experiences at corporations, driving lessons and much more.
The impressive lineup of eight comedians was introduced by Ritwik Verma from Jharkhand, rendering that itself as an act, with his impressions of thespians like Rajkumar, Shatrughan Sinha and Pankaj Tripathi.
As the opening act, he lists the ways in which Bollywood has impacted our lives, and contributed to chasing difficult targets (Shah Rukh teaching us about not taking no for an answer with his leading ladies), dancing at weddings, and personality development (Sridevi as Nagin) to name a few.
Abhay Paranjpe scoffed at profiles over achiever techies put up on LinkedIn that have little bearing on reality, either in physical terms or made up titles. (CEO is the Chief Entertainment Officer?)
Ashok Vijay, the “swami”, clad in saffron and rudraksh flaunting pure Hindi, in his self deprecatory style again leaned heavily on lack of self esteem and self confidence growing up, yet scoring in the end, as the hot, desirable women is now the mother to his children!
Veteran Neha Goel “Phuljhadi” was very comfortable with the audience, taking them along to a surprise solo visit to India, where a series of questions were posed by her mother expressing wonder at who is showered in a “baby shower” when the baby is yet to come.
Divya Sharma, one of the two newcomers, attempted humor on the status of women. Charting a path through history, she exposed the trials of women who are not considered equals. Alternatives to the stereotypical portrayals of women, either as the timid, obedient, and submissive Gandhari, or everything opposite, as the chudail“witch”, are sadly lacking.
Gorakhpuria, Deepak Sharma, a new entrant admitted to having belly button philia and how that shaped his relationship with his Bombay girlfriend.
Rajiv Nema, actor and comic, expounded on reasons why his wife doesn’t answer the phone, which is vastly different before and after marriage, when wooing is no longer needed.
Snehal Pachigar, a versatile comic focused on a single theme of teaching his girlfriend to drive, ending with a shout out to her abilities.
Interestingly, common references were threaded throughout the sequences within unique themes of each act. What also stood out was clean jokes, without resorting to profanity, which is rampant in others. It is good to see talent search by way of biweekly Open Mic sessions open to all from which mentoring and nurturing is provided to the promising ones.
All 15 current members need to prepare fresh content for presentation to the group, from which the top 8 get a shot to be on stage. Heartening to see how MCC is building capacity in a niche area where there is clearly demand, and will surely keep us entertained for some time to come.
Archana Asthana
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