At this time when everybody is tearing into Tanmay Bhat and stand-up comic in general, two women from Mumbai have no trouble getting their funny on. Pavitra Shetty and Sana Khan aka the Sidechicks, are engineers by profession but stand-up comedy is where their hearts are (or is it mouth?) at. Understandably, Pavitra and Sana met at a stand-up comedy show and bonded almost immediately. The duo set the net alight with their very first video — a parody on Tinder, the dating app. Comedians like Biswa Kalyan Rath shared it and it got a lot of hits.
Women stand-up comics have been gaining popularity in India, with the like of Radhika Vaz, Aditi Mittal and Neeti Palta really opening up the market. But where Pavitra and Sana stand apart is that they’re tailor-making content for the online audience. When asked why they weren’t just content with doing stage shows, Pavitra said, “Stand-up stage shows have many restrictions — from scripting to the language allowed. Social media allows us to be more interactive and explore different genres of comedy unlike the theme-centric sets that people do. We wanted to show that anyone can entertain people if they have a sense of humour. We wanted to encourage and inspire girls out there to pursue their passion.” She giggles at the end and adds, “As you know, we are the ‘Sidechicks’…It’s the audience who take the center stage, we are there to entertain them and are happy being sidelined”.
So what sets these chicks apart from other stand up artists? Simple. They sideline the usual themes like politics, social issues, and feminism and instead, entertain through their personal life experiences, happenings, random things they come across in daily life and so on. A beaming Shetty says, “we need that personal connect with the audience, especially when they watch our videos.”
‘Serious’ IT professionals by day and totally laid back stand-up comics by night, these girls are now doing weekly shows at different bistros and cafés in Mumbai under the Chalta Hai Shows banner. Pavitra is part of two hit shows, the Undateable and Damefunny. The first show — Undateable’s — main concept revolves around her and her friends, with jokes on how badly single and un-dateable they are. “The reality of today’s youth”, says Pavitra. Damefunny takes up issues like feminism, adds some sugar and spice to it and serves it to the audience on a platter.
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