A busy schedule with oodles of stress plagues the city-life which calls for a detox regime over the weekend. Hyderabad received the ‘funny’ treatment from Nitin Gupta, a young stand-up comedian who regaled the audiences with his act in the city recently.
What Dharmendra did for Chupke Chupke, Nitin brought to life on the stage. The dichotomy between spoken English and Hindi is still a favorite among the audiences as his English to Hindi translations had the audience in splits. The fact that he hails from Delhi earned him brownie-points.
“It is all in the language,” began Nitin, comparing a sentence in English with its verbatim Hindi translation -- “Hey Pooja, will you join me for a drink?” and translates it into Hindi saying “Pooja, Daaru peene aaoge?” The audience at The Park, Raj Bhavan Road was in splits over the smart and the mundane.
The alumnus from IIT Bombay is also known as Rivaldo, a moniker he earned in college and which stuck. “My first platform was college. I gave my first performance when I was in final year and from then on I haven’t stopped. I decided to not to go with engineering as a career option as life on campus was splendid and life after that . . . “ he laughs.
His background however, helps him reach out to the large section of IT-crowd in the city who laughed out the loudest during the act on Saturday. “Hyderabad is a hub of engineers and the audience and I share a common mindset. I love the weather here and performing here is like performing at home,” adds the 28 year-old.
Irreverence is definitely one of the strong points of the comedian who abbreviated IIPM as Indian Institution of Paisa Management and Pathetic Management. This is what keeps him away from the TV as a medium to promote himself. “TV content is always restricted. We can’t crack jokes with freedom. We can’t be impish at advertisements, as they sponsor us. Nor can we joke about politicians as they support these channels. So what remains is slapstick, which is not my thing,” he adds. A play scheduled on a similar vein during the stand-up act on the upcoming 2014 General Elections in the country could not be staged due to technical glitches.
The IITian started his own stand-up comedy company Entertainment Engineers in 2009 with four performers. The group calls itself the premiere stand-up comedy company in India which appears for shows across cities. The company comes up with plays, short films and have also performed at Singapore and Sri Lanka.