Funnyman's got a plan
New-York based stand-up comedian Vidur Kapur is happy with the cultural explosion in India and hopes he’s aiding it, too.
Stand-up comedian Vidur Kapur had his first audience in New York on September 10, 2001. The next day, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in the city collapsed from a terrorist attack. “They were terrible times for the city. No one wanted to laugh,” says Kapur. But like so many other things in the city, stand-up comedy survived and so did he. Today, he is a headliner for several Comedy Club shows in the city; is extremely popular on US college campuses; was a nominee for the “NewNowNext” award by MTV Network Logo’s Channel as “Brink of Fame: Comic”; has opened for stand up comedians like Russell Peters and will also be opening for the Iranian comedian Maz Jobrani. He was recently in India for The Park’s New Festival organised by Chennai’s Prakriti Foundation.
It wasn’t always like that. For, like Kapur says, he had all the “training” to make it big in the corporate world. A London School of Economics graduate, he finished his masters from the University of Chicago and joined a healthcare company and moved on to an executive search multinational. “That life was slow death for me. I did well but couldn’t see myself taking it to the ultimate level,” says Kapur, who started stand-up comedy as a hobby. But something blossomed and his brand of “I’m an Indian, I’m gay and I’m screwed” brand of comedy clicked with the audience.
He gave up his well-cut suits for a full-time ca reer in stand-up comedy in 2007. Kapur says it was tough in the beginning. “There was a sense of shame. What would my friends think? How would my parents in Delhi react to jibes like, ‘Oh, so now your son’s doing stand-up comedy?’” But he persisted.
That the overall stand-up comedy scene was becoming big helped. But that also made it more competitive. Kapur says that where writing material for five minutes took him two months, he’s improved and learnt to interact with the audience more. What aided him were his experiences when he was growing up in Delhi — which was far from being funny. He was ridiculed at his feminine and “strange” ways. “But like they say, comedy is anger made funny,” says Kapur. That he has a grandmother with a caustic tongue and hails from Punjab — a matter of innuendo-ridden jokes for him —makes it better. “Stand-up comedy is about the individual and not the community,” says Kapur.”
But how does proclaiming his sexual preferences help? Kapur concedes that although it has hurt him at times when conservative clubs have turned him down, it has also helped. “It’s my unique perception of the world I give,” he says. He’s also trying to find a foothold in TV and movies back in the US. “But for now I’m only being offered roles to play Osama bin Laden, a cab driver or an Asian waiter,” he sighs. Here’s hoping the laughs last longer.
(Prerna Ratur is a Kolkata-based freelance writer)