With her hair tightly pulled back in a bun, spectacles perched on her nose and a proverbial frown on her face, Mrs. Janaki is difficult to ignore. She knows how to silence her rowdy students with the trademark jibe: “Is this a fish market?” And she also knows the bad apples of the batch: “The Section B kids are naughty,” she admonishes. In fact, this KSRMM Matriculation School is a social media craze now. And why not? After all, how many teachers come in ‘Animoji avatar’?
Stand-up comedian Abishek Kumar has made sure that his creation Mrs Janaki’s no-holds-barred takes on news have sneaked into every household. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to countless teachers, Mrs Janaki knows a thing or two about retorts. In fact, Abhishek’s four ‘Mrs Janaki reacts’ videos on Facebook and Instagram have an average of 250K views and counting. With English dialogues peppered with Tamil phrases, Mrs Janaki has something to say on everything—from online classes and nepotism to Chinese products and the solar eclipse. “From the first video on, I realised that Mrs Janaki was going to become a cult. But I did not think it would become this big,” says the 24-year-old creator.
It all started with a phone call from a cousin who was ecstatic over the board exams getting cancelled, it seems. After getting the call, Abhishek—an engineering student—just wrapped his mother’s sari around himself, created an impromptu Animoji video and posted it on his feed. Within hours, it was trending and going viral by the second. A new character was born. “I may have subconsciously drawn from some teacher I studied under. But it is not based on anyone in particular. All my friends, however, have told me that it reminded them of one particular teacher or the other,” he smiles.
One tiny bit of impromptu addition that is making the video gather more likes is how towards the end of her ranting, Mrs Janaki reaches out to end the video. And in doing so, she keeps grumbling inaudibly to herself. This character trait, unique to many people who are using video recordings for the first time, is striking a chord. “I did not expect that to be picked up by the audience. But it seems to have added to the charm,” Abhishek says.
While it may seem like child’s play, it takes a lot of work—in unexpected areas—to bring Mrs Janaki alive. “There’s zero editing involved; everything is done in one take. It wouldn’t seem natural if I were to edit it. So I make sure I practice the lines some 10-15 times, take some 10 takes and the 11th take is finally worth putting out. But sometimes consistency is a problem, what with so many retakes,” he confesses. Abhishek has much to do in terms of facial expressions too. The Animoji may provide a face to the character, but it requires him to emote three times as much to get the animated face to carry her emotions through.
Even as his alter ego has him in the thick of things, the stand-up comedian has kept himself busy with a series of online performances all through the lockdown. “I am a very interactive comedian. I keep engaging with the audience as I perform. Online, it is quite restricted. But I make sure that I still talk to the audience. I ask people to unmute their video and have a conversation. It helps me with the next act,” he says.