Inder Sahani - One Could Make Billions From Comedy or One Could Struggle to Make Ends Meet (Stand Up Comedian)

I find one-liners and storytelling very challenging, one-liners because saying something appropriate & funny with the minimum possible words is super amazing & stressful at the same time

1. How and when did you choose comedy as a career?

I started falling in love with stage in and around 3rd standard when my Dramatics teacher "Mrs. Meenu Sharma" chose me for the very first time to perform in a stage play, then the love affair with theatre started and in my early days of 11th standard my then mentor Meenu ma'am asked me to try doing solo skits/Monologues in comedy genre. Cut to 2013 i.e. my 1st year of college I discovered myself emceeing my college first, cracking jokes here and there, interacting with people, and running the show as a host by the time I graduated. 

2017 was the first time I gathered enough courage to write 5 mins of my own material and go on stage (an open mic) to perform. It would be fair to say that comedy chose me rather than I chose comedy, as far as choosing a career in the Comedy domain is in question, I left my full-time Job in Oct'21 only because it was getting out of hand to have a full-time job and make the most of this world as a comedian.

2. What type of content do you enjoy producing the most and is the most challenging?

I love doing observations, comedy comes from the most common things that everyone notices but we comedians go that extra mile and just say it out loud with a stage beneath our feed, a spotlight on us, and a mic in our hand. If one could keep that observation hat on all the time, comedy keeps flowing to him/her. 

In terms of challenge, I find one-liners and storytelling very challenging, one-liners because saying something appropriate & funny with the minimum possible words is super amazing & stressful at the same time for me at least on the other hand the art of storytelling is something that is gift to a few from up above, from last couple of years storytelling has been a part of my shows and I would feel very lucky if I can come close to Zakir Khan and Anubhav Singh Bassi as a storyteller.

3. Do you prefer digital as a medium or do you enjoy doing live gigs more and why?

Digital is the need of the hour, one can't go to every city with live shows as there are a lot of challenges when it comes to live gigs (Logistical and whatnot). We create Digital so that we can connect with parts of the world by being in one corner and everyone gets a flavor of what we wish to serve. Standup Comedy is best enjoyed live and live only, every comedian would choose live gigs over anything but at the same time we can't be selfish, so we keep creating Digital so that people can cherish us at their respective homes as well.

4. People, who are interested in taking up stand-up comedy as a profession, do they need a funny bone or they can develop one?

I am not the right person to tell who can or who cannot do comedy, but my 2 cents on this would be that Comedy is either a funny person saying random things or a random person saying funny things, if you fit any of this bracket, I think you are very much there. It is an art form, you work on your craft day in and day out, keep honing your personality, and get better with the passing day.

5. How stable is being a stand-up comedian as a profession in India? And what is the future of this profession?

Comedy doesn't start paying from that start, you need to invest a lot of time, money, and hard work before it starts to work for you, One could make billions from comedy or one could struggle to make ends meet, all depends on how you embark upon this, of course, it does become stable when you sell tickets, get a lot of commissioned work, corporate or other gigs, but all of this takes time, you can't push start this journey and cruise at jet speed

So having a 9-5 job is important, the job will provide your bread and butter and the expenses comedy will need from you (Video recording expenses, traveling to open mics, or editing videos), doing comedy while working a job is not impossible, I have done it, my friends are doing it to top all of this I will share exactly what Zakir khan told me in 2018, "Unless you are making twice the money from standup than what you are making in your job, don't leave your job, Also if you say Comedy is your passion, I don't think there is anyone in the world who can't make time for his passion if you can't make time for passion then I am sorry it is not your passion"

6. What impact do you want to make in this world? 

Haha, that's a very big statement to make, but I feel if I could keep sorrows away from the maximum possible souls on this planet professionally and personally, I would consider my job done as this is one of the prime reasons I started doing comedy.

Bio

This is Inder Sahani. He is a stand up comedian. He has more then 80k followers on Instagram.

Interviewed by - Ashmeet Kaur

Edited by- Arunangshu Chatterjee