Stand Up Comedy - Aditi Gopinath's 'Love at First Citation'

Aditi is my student at the Department of Dance, SN School, University of Hyderabad. She is from Bangalore - a creative soul who has dabbled in copy writing, writing stories, dancing, and more. And now, to add to her impressive list of talents, stand up comedy.

As part of the 'Arts Management' course that I teach I generally ask students to  push themselves out of their comfort zone and do things that they really want to do - but are hesitating to. There were interesting responses from the group - learning to drive a car, going out of the campus alone, watching a late night show alone, taking certain courses with certain gurus, getting their dance school plan sorted etc. Aditi spoke about her desire to do stand up comedy as one of the things she would like to do and we egged her on to do her first show for the class before the semester ended. Though she was reluctant in the beginning she soon warmed up to the idea and took up the challenge. She agreed, followed up on it and fixed it on the date of the Arts Management final exam - May 15, 2024.

Aditi performing 'Love at First Citation'

Now writing comedy for a stand up act is not easy. I have not done it but I an imagine how difficult it must be to think up the jokes, keep them relevant, practice the same, overcome doubt and finally deliver before an audience who you are not sure will get your sense of humour. Performing before complete strangers is one thing but performing before your peers and teachers is certainly not easy. 

But Aditi did - fixed the date, and called. I had forgotten the date. I asked her for an hour's time to get to the University - the idea was to watch it live and I certainly wanted to. That's how we ended up at the Department to watch Aditi perform 'Love at First Citation - Jokes about Moving to Hyderabad, Academic Life, and More'  

Most of her classmates showed up - Renu, Anusree, Vismaya, Archiesmathi, Pavithra, Adhirsha, Reshma, Anupama. They took pictures and videos as Aditi launched into her performance. Aditi was pretty confident and nonchalant about it all - no signs of nerves as she took off. 

Anusree, Pavithra, Archiesmathi, me, Aditi, Vismaya, Reshma, Adhirsha, Anupama, Chandana, Renu

She spoke about life on the campus, the RTC buses campus and their vintage (of the Nizam's period), the self-help advise on the Ladies Hostel wash rooms, her research work (always thought MLA meant something political until she wrote her dissertation where she encountered a different MLA), her toxic relationships with the mess food (and her friend's rather casual approach to it), her best friend while doing her dissertation (Zomato/Swiggy) and so on. It was a funny, tongue-in-cheek capture of life on the campus - at once sentimental, nostalgic and funny. If I had not been present in the audience she perhaps would have taken a few shots at the teachers and the department which I am sure the audience would have loved but she can always add that in later.

Everyone laughed and had a good time from the word go. The jokes were relatable, accessible. Aditi also has this presence which makes you immediately smile and draws you in - something droll about her approach, something earnest which makes it seem like we are all on the same side and not that she is performing and you the audience, her poker faced delivery of jokes with a twinkle in her eyes. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and laughed at all the jokes. Though we had earlier joked that we would all laugh even if the jokes were not funny, we did not have to; they were really funny.

For writing out the content so well, putting some thought into what the audience may relate to, for practising and performing and mostly for actually pulling it off as a challenge to herself, Aditi deserves a huge congratulations and a pat on the back. It's good stuff to tick off all these boxes and it shows great potential to me - in all that she does including stand up. 

We were there at her first performance!

After the show, I asked her how it was writing the content and she said she wrote out a few more jokes, cut out some which she did not think would work, aimed for 5 minutes but ended up with 15 minutes. Some jokes she was not sure would land, did. One joke we all laughed before the punch line so there was more potential there looks like. I shared my experience at writing humour - and how I fully believe what someone said - there's nothing more funnier than telling the truth. 

Fantastic. Good show Aditi. I'll share the link to the edited version soon as you send it.

We took a few pics and then we split. Chandana came over and said she got a job at Chirec along with Sudheera. So happy for them. I can see how their goals list is slowly getting ticked off.

Like Aditi's. Damn good.