QUEEN'S ROAD: District 6 at Malleswaram recently showcased some of India’s finest comic talents and one of the star performers was Sanjay Manaktala who not only regaled the audience with his wit during his show but also shared his thoughts on being seriously funny with us.
Sanjay was brought up in the US and like most Indian guys in his group, he worked in the IT industry but then the comedy bug bit him and he began to groom himself as a stand-up comic. Soon, the hobby became a passion. He says he was always the funny guy in his group and decided to give comedy a serious try. He first attempted a few open mic nights and as the laughter began to overtake the silence, he was hooked.
He later moved to Bengaluru for work and in his spare time approached venues to see if they would let him crack jokes. He said, “They would let me tell jokes while bands were taking breaks during musical acts. Then they started giving me my own slots. Things took off from there.”
Sanjay hits the right chord when he jokes about things he has generally observed but with a scathing insight. His style however encompasses more than just ‘‘techie jokes.” He says, “Comics tend to tell the best jokes when it’s about things that are close to the truth in their life. I do talk about IT a fair bit but the crowds even in India will probably have a maximum of 20 per cent IT folks. So unless I’m doing a show dedicated to engineers,I keep this bit only as a small portion of my act.”
Sanjay has been feeding the crowds, his humorous take on life for more than a few years now both in the States as well as other countries in Asia too. About the varying audience behaviour, he says,”Audiences in the US are used to the jokes they’ve heard for years (bedroom habits, marriage problems, tough times, travails of being single). In Asia since the comedy scene is nascent, these topics sometimes get a better response. Also in Asia there are so many more cultures/regional differences that are ripe for the comedy pickings. Obviously in America, jokes about Punjabis and drinking won’t really get a laugh, and in India people won’t laugh as hard at the differences between the white people and others.’’ “Sanjay is sure to get anyone rolling around laughing. Make sure you catch him the next time he’s around,” says a fan as we get up to leave.