What’s with the traffic situation, man? It’s really going from bad to worse. But guess what, that’s also where all the comedy lies—in t he absurdities and mayhem caused by human behaviour,” says comedian Amit Tandon. Along with all the vexation he encounters on Delhi roads, he’s also learnt to see the funny side of things, that he then uses in his scripts, making them relatable to the audience that watches him.
Having lived in west Delhi for years now, Tandon’s comedy finds large doses of ‘Punjabiyat’ infused in its routines. The bling, the bands and the brazen showoff, typical to that part of the city’s culture, embellishes his humour with all the necessary add-ons that make his shows big success. “A lot of my writing has been influenced by this very Punjabi belt. This is one community that is completely oblivious to how funny they are—the way they talk, express and behave is one hundred per cent honest, sometimes even blunt. From that place of honesty germinates a certain kind of rawness in their conduct that make their mannerisms absurd and amusing. My stand-up acts get the most laughs when I verbalise some of this reality,” he says.
There is another kind of reality he has to brace himself for everyday, usually after 7 pm. Even after years of practice, it remains a hard actuality to grapple with. It’s called “being married”, he laughs. A good part of Tandon’s jokes are on his wife, and most often come from the wife herself. In fact, when he has a new “wife joke”, he first tests it on her. “If she doesn’t laugh, I know it’s a good one, because it’s managed to annoy her. In that case, it’ll surely make the audience laugh,” he says. Having said that, Tandon finds his life anchor in the same person too.