First Live ಕನ್ನಡ Stand-Up Comedy

I live 50 meters from the place where two of the most successful internet age comics of India started out.

The people I am referring to are Kannan Gill and Biswa Kalyan Rath. (Google them if you don’t know who they are). The place I am referring to is Urban Solace. Quite a few of my Wednesday nights over the past two years has been spent enjoying the comedy night there.

For all the stand-up comic shows I have attended, there was one common theme, everything was in either English or Hindi. Which was a shame cause all of us know, irrespective of our mother tongue, there always was a comic in our school or college classes, but it was not really a viable field, probably until about now. Internet has been a great leveler for some of the things like this.

This is where I lead you to the First Kannada Stand up comedy which I attended.

I am not going to spoil any jokes for anyone. So just read on.

It was a group of about 6 people, five guys you will see in the picture below, plus another lady who had done well at an open mic event. (meritocracy FTW)

The event was lead by Anup Maiya(center in the photo), the founder of KannadaGottilla.com. He was pretty great anchor to the whole event. Also involved was Pavan Venugopal (top-right in the photo) of the boo my show fame. These were the two guys I had heard of before the show.

It was a diverse set of comics, with guys from all across the state, from Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Raichur to Gulbarga.

I particularly loved Sudarshan (top left in the photo). A fellow engineer, he had a lot of jokes which I could relate to. Especially once delivered the way Huccha Venkat does(If you don’t know the legend, again Google) .

Karthik Pathar (bottom right photo), from Gulbarga is a great beat boxer. Had great punchlines, and the North Karnataka accent makes most things funny for me already. He was also part of the skit after the comedy show.

Hampa Kumar Angadi (bottom left in photo), from Raichur went a little adult with his jokes, I am sure all the parents who had got kids to the show would have a lot of explaining to do.

Seema Rao (The lady who won the open mic), from Mangaluru, was very very eloquent with her words.

The team was really talented and the show was totally worth the time and sneaky Saturday evening traffic.

It was followed up by a Mad Ads skit from Paisa Vasool team. Reminded me of all college skits I have been a part of.

The surprise at the end was Rakshit and Rishab Shetty of Kirik Party fame showing up at the end to release the trailer of an independent film titled 96.

Here is the trailer.

Trailer looks good, and definitely try to give it watch when it comes out.

It was a great marketing initiative with diverse parties collaborating. Good to see such a conducive environment and support for art forms of various kind.

More of the art forms like these stand-up comedy, independent movies etc. needs to be supported.

It is just a part of evolving fabric of our culture and language. Each one of us should try to encourage them in whatever way we can.