KalaRasa in association with Round Table India and Ladies Circle India organised a charity stand-up comedy show featuring the Delhi-based comedian/actor Vir Das on September 25 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall. A Harvard graduate, theatre enthusiast, and musician, Vir is one of the most popular, top- billed, stand-up comedians in the country right now and he had the Bangalore audiences rolling in their seats as he dispensed joke after joke, inspite of suffering from a very bad cold.
Vir discussed everything from Indian politics - taking time out to specially talk about Modi - to history to women to sports. Mentioning that he was into educational comedy at the moment, Vir went onto incorporate the French revolution, Hitler, the Romans and more into his sketches. Making use of most of the stage, sometimes hugging his mike, sometimes running only to jump the next minute, Vir was first endearing to watch and then exhausting.
A lot of his jokes also centred on regional stereotypes, whether mocking Marwaris, Punjabis or Bengalis. Although not very original, the were are backed by his self-assured, confident style that most stand-up comedians could emulate. With the show an hour and a half long, Vir managed to keep the audiences going, with only a couple of lulls in between always coming back with a punch, almost making you wonder if these lulls were also orchestrated. One could find traces of an Eddie Izzard or even Russel Peters (for the various accents imitated by Vir Das) in his sketches.
With over 700 stand- up comedy performances behind him and after creating over 18 hours of original stand-up comedy, Vir has been working for the last six years in India now.