Till Our Lungs Hurt: An Evening With The Other Guys

On the 31st of October, all of Manipal adorned themselves in spooky costumes, to celebrate Halloween. In contrast to the eerie atmosphere, comedy-enthusiasts were gathered in Fortune Inn Valley, to watch the Manipal edition of ‘The Other Guys’, a stand-up tour by Karunesh Talwar and Sumit Anand.

Organized by Untied Laces under their flagship Baba Nights, the show featured two hours of fresh and witty material from the two. ‘The Other Guys’ is a stand-up comedy tour of India, covering over 20 cities, with Manipal, Karnataka as the last show. Karunesh Talwar and Sumit Anand are both seasoned Indian comedians, having garnered millions of views on YouTube with snippets of their material.

The highlights of Sumit Anand’s career as a comic has been his set in Canvas Laugh Club and his regular features on NDTV’s ‘Rising Stars of Comedy’. Karunesh Talwar is currently a writer and performer for Weirdass Comedy and has opened multiple times for Vir Das.

To witness the two perform here, was quite a treat for the aspiring comedians, comedy enthusiasts, and even the director of MIT, present in the audience.

After the opening act by our very own Shubhang Yadav, Karunesh Talwar was welcomed onto the stage with thunderous applause. In his hour-long set, Talwar ranged from a wide variety of topics including an insight into his daily routine (spoiler: it’s switching between sitting up and lying down in bed), the absurdity of Indian contestants on Masterchef Australia and America alike, with their preparations of bhajiya and khichdi.

With regard to the current socio-political climate in India, he said, “It’s a pretty interesting time to be alive in this country— unless you actually care about it, then it’s just sad.” Talwar had a witty insight to offer on the existence of Anti-Romeo squads, loopholes in demonetisation and the censorship board. No matter what the joke was, it received quite the reception whilst also maintaining the essential undertones of social commentary, and that’s where the value of his material lay.

With the conclusion of his set, Talwar welcomed Sumit Anand, citing him as one of his personally favourite comics. As soon as he stepped on stage, Anand earned the laughter and applause of the whole room. His set was inculcated with improvisational theatre, as he played with situational elements and the audience, with an edge of wit. At one instance, he made direct eye contact with the MIT Director, seated in the front row with his wife, and said, “Sir, I masturbated before I came here. I’ve always wanted to say that to a director, any director”

His set discussed topics like relationships with parents, the strange naming-culture in India, low standards of comedy that resort to Bihari jokes, the assassination of Gandhi and sex.

Speaking about the conspiracy theory of Gandhi being a sex maniac, he simply pointed that one should look at his face and all conspiracies would come falling down. “Dandi march bedroom main nahi hota hai. Do you think Gandhi took lines of salt on the bodies of women?”

The show ended with Anand pointing to a member of the audience taking a picture of him (re: me), which got him on the tangent of how Instagram is the best social media owing to the fact that nobody talks over the platform (for the most part).

After a thunderous round of applause, the audience filed out of the hall, with a smile on their faces and many things to ponder over. All in all, it was an evening that left everyone in splits.

 

– photos by Manan Dhuri, and Anmol Rathi

Leave a Reply

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑