With her charming North Karnataka accent and frank demeanour on stage, bringing her millions of views, Bengaluru comedian Sonu Venugopal is one of the hottest voices in Kannada comedy space today. With her show ‘The Sentimental Saree’, in collaboration with Maitri Saree Library, happening this Friday, Venugopal is set to find humour within the treasured garments found in all our homes – sarees. “Wearing sarees is like wearing a piece of art. That’s what makes them special and that’s why there are a lot of sentiments attached to them. I’m just tapping into those emotions,” she says.
This set is different from her others, moving away from her own experiences to make room for others. “I have stories to share, like the first time I wore a saree to school, but I’m not digging deep into just my life. I’ve spoken to a lot of saree connoisseurs who have interesting stories to share. I also talked to my grandmother about her wedding saree. It’s going to be interesting to see how the show comes together because there’s no dearth of content.”
Seven years into her career as a comic, when Venugopal looks back now, she traces her instinct for comedy to childhood – as a little girl who loved to tell stories. “I was a great storyteller. I enjoyed telling stories that were cooked in my own head,” she says, adding with a laugh, “It’s weird because my daughter is also doing that now – she recently told me about a lion who loves eating idli-sambar. I think I was as absurd as her. The stories weren’t always about humour. I wanted something funny because that’s the toughest emotion to tap.”
New fans who discover her through her standup comedy may not know that she was an RJ and a radio producer for years, which helped her sharpen her funny bone. “Radio gave me solid training in terms of how to say things in the most concise way. It’s a thin line between speaking about your life and being self indulgent. You have to cut through the crap and know when to stop. With about a minute-and-a-half on air, you have to make it count.”
Despite being a fluent English speaker, and the English standup comedy scene being much more established compared to the Kannada scene when she started in 2018, Kannada was a natural choice for Venugopal. She says, “It wasn’t like I sat down and decided, ‘Oh, I’m going to do Kannada comedy’. I just felt that there is a reason it’s called mother tongue. There are so many things that you can convey that are impossible in English or Hindi. I didn’t think about the larger picture, I just wanted to try it and to be honest, I didn’t think I would sustain this for so many years.”
The stark change in the Kannada scene, once limited to TV shows but now thriving online and in Kannada comedy nights all over the city, is especially apparent to Venugopal, who has witnessed it up close. “We used to struggle to sell 20-30 tickets and now we’re selling thousands. We’ve come a long way not just in terms of audience size but with the fact that people are willing to spend Rs 1,000 to watch you,” says Venugopal, who recently performed in cities across the world with her ‘High Risk Low Return’ tour.
With her international tour (in Kannada) tickets selling like hot cakes and a solid fanbase behind her, Venugopal is now trying English comedy too. “I think when you leave the country, you become majorly homesick and want to hear things in your language. Luckily, we were able to sell all the tickets and that gave me a lot of confidence. I wanted to see whether it’s possible for a regional comic to do.” She adds, reassuring fans, “I’m not going to stop Kannada comedy but I want to dabble a bit in English – there’s nothing wrong with diversifying."
(The Sentimental Saree will take place at Shankaraa Foundation, Kanakpura Road, on October 31 at 6.30pm. Tickets are available from `890 onwards on bookmyshow.com)
