Meet Amit Tandon, India’s leading stand-up comedian and founder of Grandmasters of Comedy club. From running a successful HR firm to becoming the leading stand-up comedian of the country, Amit has come a long way. He feels that it’s his style of writing that makes people feel connected to his content and that is his strength. During the pandemic, he started an online #TalkPositive series, where he interacted with COVID+ patients during the isolation period and received a lot of positive responses. As he begins his new Podcast series, Andar Ki Baat that features regular people with interesting stories, he talks to TMM about his journey and his future plans.

You are an IITian, who was leading recruitment consulting in Delhi.  How and when did comedy as a profession happen to you?
I was running my HR firm, and we were doing fairly well and we were also voted among the top 25 fastest-growing firms in the industry. But then I started doing comedy more as a hobby, in the beginning, to freshen up. My whole day was occupied in the business, and in the evening, I set myself free and gave time to practice my hobby. I started going to open mics and initially, it was purely out of fun. I made a lot of good friends there and we would meet and discuss new material, new concepts etc. After two years, I started getting paid for my performances. I also got an opportunity to do a corporate show and that was a turning point for me. I realized how good it would be to be a standup comedian. The whole idea of travelling, staying at luxurious hotels, getting advance payment, and just perform for 20-25 mins was very fascinating.

Were you always inclined towards getting into the entertainment industry or it happened later in your career?
I had done theatre during school and college days and was known as a writer during college time. We had a group of friends who used to participate in everything and I was the one to write scripts for the act or drama. And that’s how I was involved in the entertainment bit, but there was nothing else that I did after that. So I was fairly new in this genre.

A decade ago, being a comedian was not a full-fledged career. How do you see the shift and demand?
Social media and the digital world have been a great blessing for overall performing arts and not just comedy. Ten years ago, even though YouTube did exist, we had no idea how to use YouTube to put our content out there. In India, we never really had that culture of buying tickets to watch a live show, except for watching movies at the theatre. In Bombay or Delhi, there’s hardly any culture of buying tickets for live events. So it took a few years for that to build up. And then, thanks to YouTube and videos getting viral on WhatsApp, and then Amazon and Netflix stepping in and taking it to the next level changed the entire game. In the next few years, I feel tickets would be sold not just for standup comedians, but also for people who are entertainers in general.

Your Instagram profile reads- Standup Comedian, Writer, and Storyteller. When it comes to narrating a story, how do you choose the subject and how do you process it?
I write stories that are close to my heart, something that I have experienced in person. My stories are generally not fantasy stories but they are something that I have lived or have observed. That’s how I connect with my audience through relatable stories.

During the pandemic, your online session for the COVID+ audience received a lot of positive responses. How easy or difficult was it to explore the same?
#TalkPositive series is a set of sessions that I have initiated to connect with COVID-affected people who are isolated or home quarantined and are alone. It is just a platform where we connect with people on Zoom call, talk to each other, crack jokes, and discuss casual topics. I came up with the idea because even if I am not tested positive for COVID, I am staying home with my family just to be safe but sometimes sitting alone is frustrating. I thought that if I am feeling so, how would those people feel that tested positive are and are alone, they might be facing the same issues with more challenges. I thought of using my network to initiate the series and talk to people who are alone and try to make them feel better.

A few sessions were fun but there were a few sessions that would drain out my energy. We had a 25-year-old kid, who was hospitalized due to blood cancer and COVID, we didn’t get a chance to see him, and we could just hear him as the phone was kept on the table that was facing the sealing. And, he just wanted to be heard for a little while and hear people talk that’s it. It was great to connect with about 2000 people in approximately 2 weeks.

You were the third Indian comedian ever to launch a comedy special on Netflix. Any plans for new collaborations in near future.
Yes, I was the third comedian and first Hindi comedian because the first two specials from India were in English; mine was in Hindi. I am looking at doing another special, also looking at platforms on how we want to take it out.

What do you prefer more- live stand-up sessions, web series, or movies?
Stand-up will always be my first love, web series and movies come later. As I said, I also love writing I think once they come out well. It’s a different level of satisfaction. I think the challenge is that in stand-up, you know you are alone, you have to take care of the entire show, but you still have that option of course correction. But in web series or movies, there’s no way of doing any course correction. So, right now it stand-ups only.

Comedy is a lighter medium to highlight key social issues. Your comments.
Yes, comedy is a lighter medium; you can bring out key social issues. But I think at the same time, a comedy act should not always be burdened with the expectation of talking about social issues. That’s something happening every time you get on stage. I think the larger job of comedy should be to ensure that people laugh and have a great time and they forget about their worries. Social change, yes, we end up talking about it also, because, most of the comedy comes from a place of pain, anger etc.

Tell us about your Podcast series, Andar Ki Baat with Amit Tandon with Spotify. What will it offer?
Andar Ki Baat is a podcast which is something I was very interested in doing because my whole life I talked to people who have interesting stories to tell. When I started the podcast, I was very clear that I don’t want to start another celebrity podcast, where I get a friend to talk to or a celebrity to talk about their experiences and their story. So I thought of getting regular people to tell interesting stories. That’s how Andar Ki Baat came into being – where I am talking to a teacher, a doctor, an Uber driver and understanding their perspective and believe me their stories are as interesting or even better because we never tried to listen to them.

What are your future plans in the industry?
There are no fixed plans for me in the industry. I am just going with the flow, with what I want to do right now. That’s how I’m doing stuff right now. I just want to learn new things, so I want to learn filmmaking; I want to learn radio, podcasting. And that’s how I am picking up a lot of my projects.