Some of the biggest comics are those who are telling stories in Hindi: Amit Tandon

Amit Tandon began doing open mics about 12 years ago. Known for standing out from the crowd for his Hindi language sets, he admits that it wasn’t easy to carve a niche in this space that is largely dominated by English as a medium of communication.

As he looks back, he says, “Stand-up comedy started around 2008 with Vir Das and Papa CJ. The audience was largely in tier one cities and cosmopolitan centres like Delhi and Mumbai. The elite crowd that was exposed to live stand-up in New York and London used to watch these gigs in high-end bars in South Mumbai and South Delhi.”

But it was the YouTube boom that when Hindi “got some acceptance in stand-up shows”. “I was told that this is primarily an English format. In 2014, people started putting up videos on the video streaming platform. The live stand-up scene moved from tier one to tier two and three cities and Hindi stand-up picked up. Today, some of the biggest comics are those who are telling stories in Hindi,” Tandon says.

The comic, who recently did a show Chalo Koi Baat Nahi, has become popular for his family-oriented brand of humour. “When I started doing comedy, I already had kids and I was living with my parents. In the first couple of years, I was used to controlling my language at home. When I would be performing onstage and would see a kid or older people in the audience, I used to be extremely conscious about what to say and what not to,” he shares.

“That’s when I decided to do clean comedy because then I wouldn’t have to think about where I’m performing and have lesser stress about pleasing the audience. Fortunately, over time, it became my brand of comedy,” says Tandon, who is known as The Married Guy in the comedy circuit.