Comedian Jeeveshu Ahluwalia recounts his journey, his style of comedy and his views on the Indian roast. Ankita Jain reports
His fascination with comedy normally sways between a fat guy's classic life and his failed attempts to please his over optimistic mother whose only dream is to get him married. Well, we are talking about Delhi based comedian Jeeveshu Ahluwalia whose comic bent can be easily spotted in his spontaneous one-liners and witty jokes. Jeevesha performed in an ‘Uninvited’ by Comedy Central Chuckle Festival along with Daniel Fernandes and Sundeep Rao. The funny guy talked seriously about his comedy and humour in the country, ahead of his performance and his main stay was to catch up with all the gossip with his mom and stalk his ex’es on facebook. When asked about how he came up with comedian as a profession, he said, “It just happened. I think nobody looks up to be a standup comedian especially in India since it is not an art form which has been portrayed as a career medium. I think it just happens to you and then you go to the floor finding that your real call is probably this.”
His comedy career began as an extension to his antics at a mundane desk job. His humour style is derived from observational everyday conversations, quirky monologues, peculiar situations and some eccentric friends. Endowed with a rare snappy sense of humour and a vivacious flair for comedy, Jeeveshu has risen notably from a novice to an audience favourite across all ages. Talking about the evolution of comedy in India, he elaborated, “It is just broadening horizon so to say. look at old movies, specially the Bollywood references, from Hrishikesh Mukherji’s to the clean cut Jane Bhi Do Yaaron, Andaaz Apna Apna, I think those are one of the family oriented ones. Now we are actually segregating into a lot of observational, a lot of tabooed stuff. It gets exciting as each day goes by because the audience is also getting matured. So that is how we are evolving along with it.” He further added about his take on roast, “Roast is a way of art form. It’s an insult comedy for one to be introduced or inducted, or one to be put on a dais and insulted. For that you can actually get as negative as you can, or as clean as you want to be. The choice is very personal for each comic.
For me, I am not a guy who would want to get very personal. Then there are times when I am very comfortable with the person that I am roasting, so I might just get into it.” Further talking about how roast is taken in India, he added, “It is one of the things that is still catching up in India. I think AIB’s (All India Bakchod) roast video is one of those that made a big foreword about it. I think it has got different tangents to it, from an aspect of doing clean roast to doing a dirty roast to doing mediocre roast, and it depends upon each individual, based on the style and the form that they carry makes the kind of roast that it becomes out to be.” He ended sharing how he prepares for his show, “There is no method behind the madness, you can derail this train any day. For me, each time I appear on stage, I am very nervous and always preparing because I do not want to over deliver, over promise and then under deliver to my audience. I always aspire to be well prepared. And as a piece of fact, under the pressure I perform really well. For me, it is largely the portion that I want to bring in my game there. People have paid money to see me, so I am going to bring my ‘A’ game, I am going to give them a time of their life.”