When Sorabh Pant says he brings you ‘The Worst Show Ever’, should you go? Before you decide, here’s a brief.
It is Sorabh’s first multi-city show after the pandemic and the stand-up comedian is glad that the zoom shows he did all through the lockdown didn’t let him lose touch with his craft. “The lockdown and the work-from-home period was a tough one for all, but the fact that a comedian makes money only when he is travelling hit me hard. Ten days into the pandemic, I realised I had to keep doing something for my sanity.“
As a result, Sorabh started the Youtube lives 10 days into the lockdown in 2020, the first solo, then switched to doing it with guests; he ended up doing about 170 shows virtually. He elaborates, “It was good because I got to interview people like Ramachandra Guha, Hardik Pandya, Harsha Bhogle, Jwala Gutta, Dipa Karmakar and all my comedian friends. These were all long-form interviews so it was good fun. When the opportunity to do a live show came at the start of 2021, I didn’t feel rusty at all. All the live shows between 2020 and the beginning of 2022 sort of induced me to get out of the funk of not having shows.”
Adapting to the pandemic, says Sorabh, made him realise that there should always be scope to improvise irrespective of the situation one is in. “ I have children and needed some means to make money. The lives kept me sane and wanting to look forward to work.”
That is not to say Sorabh’s jokes, are all about the bitter experiences from the pandemic that everyone went through. He says some of it is so old that it is fading from people’s memory. Sorabh elaborates, “What I will talk about is the experiences on Zoom and MS Teams. In the 10-minute set, I bring up random nudity and heckling that took over serious meetings on these platforms. This is an experience that those who used these platforms will never forget. “
The current show, ‘The Worst Show Ever’ is about the worst shows I ever had, while having a pretty decent show now. I celebrate the fact that I can have another decent show after what we all went through together. I do talk about what I went through and that I borrowed money from my parents.” He says the shows he is doing now are a celebration of work and life.
When doing live shows at the start of 2021, the sight of just 20 people in a 100-seater place didn’t disappoint him. “People were scared of going out even to get their groceries, so I wasn’t expecting many people to turn up despite safety measures being followed. The 20-odd people made me feel grateful and hopeful about life in general.
Did his children get him to know more? “I spent a lot of time with my wife and children and tried playing the strict dad role and succeeded at times. What I succeeded in doing was getting my son hooked on cricket, much to my wife’s annoyance. He got a little ambitious and started cricket coaching. I plan to do the same with my daughter when she grows up a little more. I also cooked for the whole family during the lockdown and now it’s a part of my routine. Apart from cricket. my son also got hooked on Mathematics and is taking classes. He is doing complicated fractions and it wouldn’t be exaggerating if I say my son has surpassed both me and my wife’s mathematical capabilities.”
Apart from getting back on stage to packed audiences and requests for extra shows, Sorabh is happy that his fourth book Vote for Pant (Rupa publishers) is also out. “I started writing this non-fiction book about world affairs at the beginning of 2020. So, when I began to write it was all about news, Bollywood, nepotism, China etc with a comedy angle. As the lockdown continued I had to keep updating it because the news was a part of it. Eventually, I ended up re-writing a few chapters about four times. But it’s all good.”
Next, he plans to work on his fifth book which he feels should be about ‘How one works with children around.’ There is no joking with this one.
Sorabh’s show is on today and tomorrow at Heart Cup Cafe, Jubilee Hills.
