HYDERABAD: Vivek Muralidharan from Hyderabad is the only stand-up comedian in India to have been performing an hour of online stand-up comedy every night since August 14 in his show ‘Vivek Muralidharan Live’ on Zoom. Vivek, 30, explaining his decision, says, “The main purpose of stand-up comedy is to put smiles on people’s faces, and if people do need it at any point in time, it is now.” A multi-lingual comic, who can perform in English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, Vivek, has been performing stand-up for the last five years and says he is thrilled to reach a wider audience.
“When I started online shows, I was happy to perform for Indians across the country. Now, two months in, I have performed for Indians in Singapore, UK, Australia and the USA. It is one of the most beautiful things to happen through online shows, having your content available across the globe,” comments he enthusiastically.
Vivek, like most of us, thought the lockdown would last a few days and took the time to take a well-needed break. However, “As the situation worsened,” he started doing Insta Lives and Zoom shows before ticketing platforms started equipping themselves to help the online model.
“These has been great so far,” says he, adding, “There are people who come once a week, and then there are those who bring their friends to the show the next week.” On performing for Hyderabadis, he says: “Performing sarcastic jokes to Hyderabadis is like trying to teach batting to Sachin Tendulkar! They have a sharp sense of humour, which in fact makes the show more enjoyable and challenging.” With his sharp observations, physicality and intense story loops, it is no wonder that his YouTube videos have a cumulative five million views, with his ‘Surviving Maths’ video about mathematics alone garnering over two million views.
Vivek’s shows have a good socio-political mix. Vivek comments: “If you are a citizen in a democracy, you are automatically involved in its politics. I have largely kept my political opinions away from stand-up as I felt I do not know enough to comment on issues. However, it has started increasing through the lockdown, because I have enough time to read, speak to people and form opinions.” Though Vivek longs to get back on stage, he sensibly wants to stay away from clubs and live shows until there is a vaccine. “Through the last eight months, I have personally seen people lose loved ones to Covid-19.
As a comic, I definitely miss the stage, but I don’t mind doing stand-up online until it is absolutely safe for my audience,” he adds. Vivek has made his art financially viable for himself again and plans to continue the online format of shows, spread joy and laughter in the safest way possible. “Along with live shows, I might do online shows post pandemic as well, because this is a nice medium to reach more people.”
— Tamanna S Mehdi tamanna@newindianexpress.com @tamannamehdi