Rouge and Rogue: Urooj Ashfaq
Aishwarya Shrivastav
If you saw her from the distance you’d see her as a cute, short hair lass. Until she makes a dead baby joke.
22 year old Urooj Ashfaq is as versatile on stage as she is in her writing. With comic timing and quirk filled in each of her pockets, this open-miker from Mumbai is relentless when it comes to making jokes, always looking to make people laugh. Coming in close second at the TLC Queens Of Comedy competition, we got to talking with the comedian about what it takes to be a Comedy Queen!
What’s your origin story and how comic/tragic has it been?
So comedy started for me when one of my friend who is also a stand up comedian encouraged me to attend one. A graduate in psychology ,I applied to a lot of colleges after the third year but couldn’t get in through any of them for masters.
I attended an open mic and it went well and then we both started doing comedy. Having a friend at open mic and going through the process together really helped and I had a gala time.
Why do you think there is such a dearth of female comics in the country? Who amongst them are you favorite?
Like almost every sector, women entered the workforce much later than men so there are fewer women in almost all of the professions. That doesn’t mean it’s okay but it means there’s a lot of work to be done to have an equal ratio of men and women in every profession. Talking specifically about few women in comedy, I believe it has a lot to do with how girls are raised in a certain way- not to be seen or heard much. Girls are not really encouraged to be funny as such but taught more to look after ourselves for our own safety.Media forces us to believe that physical beauty for a girl is much more important than anything else. All of that is changing surely with all the new women workforce emerging. Another thing is usually gigs are in the evening so going home alone is also sometimes an issue with women. Logistics can be an issue.
There are a lot of favourite comedians but to name a few- Supriya Joshi, Neetu Bhardwaj,Sumaira Shaikh.
Describe your process.
There’s usually no specific subjects but premise. Whatever premise we find funny we go with that. Also since I have started doing comedy for only an year now, I don’t really have a particular style per se, I am still figuring out. I include personal experiences as well but also incidents that are happening around.
Where does sexism in the industry meet your journey with comedy?
It depends entirely on the room. I have done gigs where I can feel that my script is funny but the room is against me because the front row of men can’t wrap their head around the idea that there is a female talking to them and moreover ‘being funny’. You can’t really call them out for being sexist because there’s no specific incident to point at. So there are two things that goes in my mind when the joke is not laughed at- They are not laughing because I am a woman or the joke is not funny enough.
Since we live in a patriarchal society, equality is still a subject rarely talked about., women talking about their experiences is still a new concept. Its met with a lot of resistance. Audience also resist when a woman talks about ‘women specific humour’ and mostly women are laughing hard unlike men because they just don’t relate. In general the norm seen is male perspective and female perspective is relatively new. Yes sometimes audience is uncomfortable while talking about sexual humour or curse words but some are clapping and really enjoying it. Yes, it’s harder. But at the end of the day, you got to be funny because that’s what you are here for.
Does politics influence your comedy?
Yes. I think I haven’t really put up anything political yet *chuckles*. But if I find something funny and it’s political then I wouldn’t shy away from saying it. I am not actively staying away from it. If you find something funny. You should just go ahead and do it.
Best Advice
If you are bombing (when a joke fails), do it gracefully. When you are doing badly, it really messes you up but you got to accept it and be chill about it.
About our writer: Aishwarya Shrivastav is a history graduate from University of Delhi. A spoken word poet, she likes to describe herself as a woman taking up more space than she was allotted by the society. Raging through words.
