BENGALURU: If you speak to most people in India, the first time they ever laid eyes on a stand-up comedian was on a digital screen. Earlier, there was no culture of watching stand-up since it didn’t exist. Bit by bit, the scene developed, and the internet played a major role in it. A viral YouTube video can do wonders for a comic’s career.
One of the recent examples is of city-based comedian Rahul Robin whose stand-up videos – ‘Radhe Radhe’ and ‘Sambhog’ – have been doing the rounds on the internet with the former crossing a million views on YouTube. “Anyone who practices an artform would like their work to gain recognition. Your video gets views and more people subscribe to your channel.
Once this happens, you will also have a higher influx of people attending your live shows, which is the intended goal. With this, the stand-up scene also continues to grow. Nowadays, you can see a new stand-up video pop up every week,” says Robin, who started doing stand-up in 2018 from Bengaluru.
After the success of his videos, Robin has seen an increase in his live audience as well. “We build our material from open mics where little to no one shows up. Sometimes we have to cancel the mic because no audience showed up. But now, I can pull a decent crowd and have been doing small shows across the country. I started with Bengaluru and went onto Hyderabad and Pune. Now the goal is to grow my audience,” shares Robin.
Speaking of audience, something strange happened after Robin’s first video took flight. In the past few years, comedians have been criticised by politically right-leaning masses for their jokes on Hindu gods and religious practices. Robin, however, found an audience among those people through his bit ‘Radhe Radhe’.
On asking, he insists that this development has been purely accidental and he has no intention to specifically appease any part of the political spectrum. “Before I could sell tickets as a solo act, I was doing line-up shows where various types of comedians used to perform. When I wrote that bit, my only intention was to make it funny. And before any comic uploads a stand-up video, they first try that joke in hundreds of open mics and shows to be certain whether it works or not. I have performed this joke in over a thousand shows and everyone laughed. Now, all those people must have different ideologies, right? It is impossible to have a crowd at a line-up show where everyone shares the same beliefs,” says Robin.
But as they say once your art is out, it’s for everyone else to interpret it. So, is the recently viral comedian worried about people misinterpreting his work? “That is always a worry but live stand-up is never offensive.
You are present in the moment. But even as a video, I do not mention any god’s name in the bit. I called the video ‘Radhe Radhe’ because people say that from where I come from. Since that was my first video, I was essentially greeting the digital crowd,” says Robin.
With two videos in the bag, what’s next? “I just started my second tour with a show in Bengaluru recently. The scene here is democratic. But I also plan on going to more tier-2 cities this time around. There exists a culture around comedy in those places as well but it’s just that the local scene might not be very happening. But that will only change when comedians like me and other comedians who are much bigger than I perform there more and more,” concludes Robin.