CHENNAI: Stand-up comedy, of late, has been instrumental in upping people’s humour sense, evoking comic writing abilities and inspires public-speaking talent. Chennaiites are exposed to stand-ups for a long time now. But, since 2016, stand-ups in Tamil started to flourish in the city. Since then, the growth of Tamil stand-up comedy is outstanding that it is reaching the position of English and Hindi stand-ups in Chennai. To give more information on this, stand-up comedians Chockalingam and Sudarsan Ramamurthy talk to us about how youngsters are getting into the field and what the future has for stand-ups in the Tamil language. While the scene went virtual during the pandemic, it is back on track.
“Initially I tried doing stand-ups in English. The authenticity and spontaneity were missing. Then, I saw people performing in open mics in Tamil. That motivated me to try Tamil and the audience also likes it,” says Chockalingam, famously known as Chocku, who is based out of Madurai but winning the hearts of Chennaiites with his Tamil humours. He adds that the exposure for stand-ups was very less in 2016. But, now it has increased to quite a large extent, thanks to social media. “I was interested in storytelling during my school days. I have not heard about stand-up shows taking place in Chennai. So I used to watch it online and learn. I feel that Tamil stand-ups started gaining momentum in our city because Tamil is a comfortable language for the people here. Tamil stand-up comedy became mainstream when comedians, instead of thinking in Tamil and translating it to English, gained the confidence to perform in Tamil,” shares Sudarsan Ramamurthy, popularly called Soda, a Chennai-based comic, who does stand-ups in Tamil, English, and Hindi. He also says that stand-up comedians performing in other south-Indian languages such as Telugu and Kannada are much lesser when compared to Tamil, making Tamil mainstream.
Each stand-up comic will have a unique style of performance. Social media is playing an important role in the growth of stand-up comedy and also helps comics to gain audience. “With social media, one can mark his presence and gain a global audience. Frequent presence in social media platforms helps comics to grow their popularity and also get new shows,” says Sudarsan, who is also the winner of Comedy Central’s Sterling Reserve Comedy project. Chocku shared that English performers are less in Chennai as people prefer Tamil stand-up comedy. He also adds that there is a similar pattern in the style now, which will vanish in the near future.
When asked about the future of Tamil stand-up comedy, Chockalingam remarks, “Many youngsters will come into the field. The idea spectrum will become broad as I might restrict myself from saying a few things, for which youngsters will have a different point of view. There are many fresh faces and point of views, leading to healthy growth.” Sudarsan talks about the culture still being a dream in Chennai. “Stand-up is still not a culture in Chennai like it is in Mumbai and Bengaluru. The field lost a huge number of comics post-pandemic because of various reasons. However, I feel that there will be more line-up shows in Chennai, where people get exposed to new and fresh stand-up comedians,” he concludes.