Femina India – August 09, 2019

(Jacob Rumans) #1
t seems she simply has to go up on stage,
talk about the tragedies of her life, and she’ll
have the audience in splits. Or she makes it
look as easy as that. No, I am not joking, she
has pulled it off multiple times in her new
career as a standup comic, where the jokes
are centred around her parents, her job, her
love life, or the lack of it. In one of her acts, she
says that since childhood she had a feeling that
her father was the superhero, and, her mother,
his clumsy sidekick.
For engineer-turned-standup comic
Prashasti Singh, her new-found craft is all
about being honest, and talking of things
that she as experienced in life. The idea has
worked well, it’s what clicks with the audiences
and she feels it is her USP. Even if she has to
comment on social situations or her workplace
gender equations, the best way for her is to
make it self-deprecating. “That way, I become
the mirror of the society, I become the biased
person, I become the person with a sexist point
of view. It is much easier to write jokes on my
biases, and have the audience laughing at me,
rather than commenting on a third person,”
she says.
In Singh’s profession, the ability to laugh at
oneself can prove to be an asset, and in doing
so, encouraging others to join in. She says that
comics find humour in really odd situations,
and most of their comedy comes from pain,

REALITY what it takes to be


There’s no ambiguity that her favourite
topics to write jokes on are the tragedies
of her life. Standup comic Prashasti Singh
gets candid with Shraddha Kamdar on
why it works with the audiences

anger, or some sort of angst. “Although I am
not laughing at it in the present tense, in
retrospect, it still requires me to laugh at how
pained I was at that time. My biggest strength
is to laugh at myself or to make a complete
fool of myself and still not care about what
people will take away from that, and it works
for a lot of other successful comedians as well,”
she says.
For a person who was living it up in the
corporate world after pursuing an MBA from
IIM Lucknow post her engineering degree,
navigating the waters of being a standup comic
may not have been a piece of cake, but she
planned it well. She juggled both for over eight
months before she decided to ditch her cushy
job to pursue her passion for standup comedy.
Only when she felt she was able to make this
‘Act II’ financially viable, did she decide to
make the switch. A year down the line, Singh
still finds that her mother is often unable to
digest it. She didn’t speak with Singh for
a while, then tried to convince her to do it for
two months if she was so “bored”. Now, Singh
confesses her mother has become milder in
her approach, but has not given up. “Just this
morning a random acquaintance of my mother
called, letting me know of a job opening.
I know who is behind it all. My mother thinks
that if she could find me a job which is not
hectic, I may take it up, and leave this life. That’s

“PEOPLE LOVE


INSULTS WHEN


THEY’RE NOT


ON THEM”


“MY BIGGEST
STRENGTH
IS TO LAUGH
AT MYSELF
OR TO MAKE
A COMPLETE
FOOL OF
MYSELF AND
STILL NOT CARE
ABOUT WHAT
PEOPLE WILL
TAKE AWAY
FROM THAT.”
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