The Rockin’ Anti-Hero from Odisha
Stand-up comedy review
Stage: That Comedy Club, Bangalore
Date: Sunday, 10th July, 2016
Host: Rupen Paul
Comics: Biswa Kalyan Rath, Kunal Kamra
Open Spot: Vikramjit Ray
Correcting Being Humans through the Power of Humour and Offence– since very recently.
In every story there is a Hero and a Villain, that’s a given. If its a Bollywood movie, there are dance numbers, trophy Heroines and all the IPL level drama in the vibrant mix– anything to distract you from the actuality.
In India, amidst general anarchy, there is a unproclaimed, highly volatile civil war; except there is no Good or Evil, Black or White; just an apeirogon of all kinds of misplaced opinions. Rising from the ashes of the causalities of war, are the countless Heroes, Villains and the Anti-Heroes– oscillating in between the two extremes. Anyone can be any of those three things, as long as they have either the Power of Humour or that of Offence.
This is the story of a certain Rockin’ Anti-Hero of Odisha, who took Bangalore by storm, this past weekend.
Who is an Anti-Hero? The typical answer would be, “An Anti-Hero is an individual that lacks ‘heroic qualities’”. Conventional knowledge dictates that the three qualities that define a Hero are Admiration, Bravery and Nobility; would that mean that an Anti-Hero is none of those? Well no, because that would mean that Batman, Wolverine and the Incredible Hulk are not Heroes– and we definitely can’t have that, can we?
These are the Anti-Heroes– the dwellers of the Grey light area.
In no way, am I, specifically implying that Biswa Kalyan Rath, is equivalent to Batman, but if my understanding serves me correctly, he has the personality of one.
Let’s break it up, Biswa is clearly a crass, no-nonsense, hot-headed vigilante figure, with the explicit knowledge of his Superpower– Humour. He also knows that he has control over a large mass of “illiterate m****c****s”, except he really hates this said mass, but he also needs them… it’s confusing for everyone, really. He’s sort-of like Batman in this context or as Frank Miller would frame Batman “a dionysian figure, a force for anarchy that imposes an individual order”.
He has a loyal gullible audience, that maybe doesn’t understand him, but is nonetheless, mesmerised by his superpower; and Sunday’s stand up performance by Biswa, was the perfect example, to this analogy.
Biswa’s set was broken up into three distinct acts. Act I, opened with him literally and shamelessly ripping apart a couple in the crowd– yes it was in “good humour”, but wherever is the line anymore, anyway, right? You don’t want to offend a celebrity, either; but, let’s face it, the tables turn both ways. He spent a good amount of time, mooching off the audience for pedestal material. This is not a judgement on him, just his offence game plan. Though, for any audience that can read where he was coming from, it was borderline disturbing.
Act II, moved on to the crowd pleasing defence, where he had the audience relate to him– middle class, poor people– the works. As the host, Rupen Paul, aptly put it in the warm-up set about the overzealous crowd, that everyone wants to ‘identify with us comics now’. Biswa, under his cloak of Relatability, built in his dire reading of India, more in the form of commentary than misdemeanour. He had interesting resolutions and insights about major touch points between Indians and our ‘mentality’, with as little cynicism as possible on his end.
Then Act III, summed up the experience with a smooth, purposeful, built-in self-righteous grey area. He worked in the pursuit of happiness jargon quite beautifully, and was possibly my favourite segment of the performance– without losing the crowd’s awe.
So you may now see, why Biswa comes across as an Anti-Hero. He swam across a sea of emotional turmoil within him, and posed questions that many disregarded as mere performance. He may not be poised as an entertainer, and may not fit quite right as a conventional artist; but, there is no doubt that he is a highly sensitive, skilled and conscientious, comedian. He has flawless articulation of his craft and a charming grip in his material. His sidebar dialogue with his characters in the act, is ever so entertaining; and his ability to empathise with a nation of misfits, in a crowd of misfits, from a position of a misfit Hero, must be draining.
Nonetheless, Biswa is what he is. He has our admiration, but not always our approval; he is brave, but not diplomatic; he is noble, but not particularly humble. He is an Anti-Hero in his own right.
Everyone’s expecting everything to be in black & white, but history lies in the grey, the untouchable colour. The Grey is the battlefield for the Anti-Heroes, and this is their age.
This account does not require a reading of the audience, specially with the patronage of That Comedy Club. Though, for the sake of full disclosure, I was late to the show; and besides respecting a performance, the fact remains that I was (and am) terrified of entering the theatre with a comic on stage. But judging from the consistent laughter, Kunal Kamra possibly, did get a lot right. I apologise for my ineffectiveness.
Rupen was a refreshing host. His innocent personality was a delightful, warm gooey place to be in. He micromanaged the crowd well, and has his original tone of material. In the previous civil war analogy, he’s like Ant-Man– looks harmless but is very capable of starting a “riot”. But, again, my tardiness, makes for a biased opinion.
With That Comedy Club introducing new upcoming comics in open slots and open mic nights, it’s great to see the rise of the new blood. The Kolkata boy, Vikramjit Ray, who was on open slot this day, was a welcome surprise. Since his last performance at the club, he’s put in a strong interesting spin on his previous material and is very apparently working hard on himself. He does still needs to reign in a motif. Nonetheless, he would make an interesting read of the future of Indian Comedy with his eventual stand in the war.
The above report may seem dubious to most, but from the front row, the inevitability of an Open Source revolution makes for a concerned documentation of the mass entertainment that Comedy in India prescribes.
And while it all, unfolds, find a seat in the spill zone of these amazing shows and carry an umbrella.
