Clad in a lab coat and armed with a grin and PowerPoint presentation, a few months ago, Harshit Mahawar donned the role of an All India Rank 1 holder and, in a sweetly sarcastic delivery style, made fun of the systemic issues around NEET paper leaks, in a way that connected with 11.5 million people watching his now-viral reel. He did it simply because if you have the skill of getting attention, you should direct it towards some things that need it. Built around this same idea, the Bengaluru-based comedian is set to bring his full-length show, AIR 1, to The Underground Comedy Club, Koramangala, on October 24.
Speaking of the show, Mahawar calls it ‘a little political, a little topical, sometimes very personal and educational too’, while embodying his viral character and others not yet revealed on social media. “I try to cover some recent political and education-related events, how it was interpreted by the government and by regular citizens… but I wrap it in the package of humour and satire,” he says. At a time when many comedians think twice before joking about politics and sidestep anything that could cause controversy, Mahawar says his confidence came from the facts backing his jokes. “It was a little risky, but it was not like I had an opinion and was finding facts to convey it. I researched my jokes and built them around facts. So I had the confidence that I was not doing anything wrong and, surprisingly, that got a lot of appreciation.”
The comedian, an IIT graduate and former engineer, had a slightly unusual start: with his LinkedIn posts. He explains, “I used to write random jokes on LinkedIn because I was too shy to come on camera and Instagram was not my thing. I was just sharing my opinion, but some of them got a lot of reach, were covered by major news outlets and ended up on YouTube shorts too. Getting a laugh offline, though, is a completely separate craft.”
With this newfound confidence and increasingly lucrative standup comedy gigs coming his way, Mahawar quit his IT job without his family’s knowledge two years ago. “At a job, your boss or company creates deadlines, but when it comes to personal projects, you can always stretch it to an infinite number of months. It had felt important but never urgent to quit my job. But when CEOs started calling me for shows and paying me well for it, I decided to buy a year for myself,” he says, adding that the response he got in that year convinced him to keep going.
Though most people know him from his social media presence (a mix of clips from his shows and comedy reels speaking to the camera) it is a means to an end. Mahawar’s true focus is his live shows, with his writing process too is deeply tied to the same. “Today, your art will only reach people if the algorithm wants it to; it is a broker between me and my online audience. So I have had to understand its language. But it’s only jokes that are ‘retired’ from my shows that make it there; you won’t see the same jokes at my shows.”
His writing process for live shows is built on observation, of people around him and the news, noted down, then tried and tested at open mics. “I have an infinite number of notes at this point. But you pick the stronger ones to try at open mics, then if it works, keep going. That’s how a two-minute joke becomes five minutes long. Simultaneously, I also try different jokes, and once you do a full show, you see how one five-minute section is related to the other. Pearl by pearl, it becomes a garland.”
(Tickets available on bookmyshow.com)
