On Saturday and Sunday night, a buzzing crowd of comedy fans assembled outside a non-descript building next to a petrol station in Bandra West, Mumbai. They had gathered there, braving Mumbai’s torrential monsoons, to say their goodbyes to J-Spot, the Bandra comedy club that has become a key incubator and hub for the city’s comedy scene over the last four years of its existence. The fans weren’t the only ones feeling emotional. Over the two nights, 30 comedians—including Anirban Dasgupta, Aaditya Kulshresth, Sejal Bhat, Abhishek Upmanyu and Amit Tandon—performed at the much-loved venue, taking the last opportunity to make a dig at the space’s infamous dance-bar lighting. At one point, the laughter was so loud that it drowned out the storms outside. It felt like the perfect goodbye.

Comedian Pankaj Sharma originally founded J-Spot in 2017 as a venture that produced open mics and comedy shows at venues across Mumbai. As it grew and found more success, Sharma figured it was time for J-Spot to have its own space. They opened the doors of the cosy 70-seater venue in 2019, and Sharma—along with a team that includes Tanmay Sawant, Jeet Mody, Neej Negandhi, Agadh Chaturvedi, Dipen Bhagchandani and Ilyas Khatri—spent four years building it up to become a comedy mainstay in the city, even keeping it alive through the economic shock of the COVID-19 lockdown. But, it turns out, the economic realities of Mumbai real estate are a harder challenge to overcome. Last month, the entire building the club was in was acquired by a major business enterprise. Sharma was told that they would have to vacate the premises in 20 days.

“The emotional burden of losing your own club has been very stressful,” says Sharma, who is now looking for a new space where he can resurrect the club. “My team is supporting me through this, other producers have expressed their support too, we’ve had to move a few shows and our alternate venue partners have been so kind they have taken up all our shows. Some comics have been so supportive throughout, I can never stop being grateful to all of them!”

That support and solidarity is well-earned. Ever since it began, J-Spot has been a club run by comedians, for comedians. Sharma and his team pulled out all the stops to ensure that it was a safe space for Indian comedians. “I love the venue and the reason I recorded my special there is because I knew these guys are comedians themselves and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid even if I had to modify the space a bit for my show,” says Navin Noronha, who taped The Good Child at J-Spot. “Anytime I’m there, I get this commune vibe from the entire team.”

In particular, the J-Spot team has always focused on scouting and supporting new voices in the comedy scene. They consistently hosted open mics throughout the week every week, even when the lack of big names meant that ticket sales would be low. Sharma was happy to take on the financial risk if it meant newer voices were able to get much-needed stage time. Many of these comics that he supported—including Rohit Mullick, Rohan Pillai and Anjana Bapat—took to the stage one last time on 15 July, as part of a special Champs showcase. “I get a major kick when I see a comic who is just starting out begin to do well and I really appreciate it when it happens at our club,” says Sharma.

Comedian Abinash Mohapatra says that Sharma would bat for up-and-coming comedians who did well at his open mics, constantly pitching them as openers to the scene’s more established comedians. He also appreciated Sharma’s decision to ticket his open mics and not have any guestlists, at a time when many such events were free to the audience. “It’s an audacious stand that Pankaj has taken where he made it a point to not allow any free tickets at any of their shows including open mics, which is a testament to how professionally driven they are,” says Mohapatra.

That professionalism, and the team’s dedication, is what helped J-Spot survive these last few years in a country where the comedy club business model is still precarious, even before you factor in the hit from COVID-19. Sharma takes pride in the fact that they managed to build the club into a sustainable business that always paid comedians a fair share of the profits. “That doesn’t mean we haven’t faced our challenges, of course we have,” he says. “We did need help with capital when we started, we needed to do really well for the first few months to get the club to sustainability, and the most consistent challenge we have faced is that majority of the big names still won’t come to the club to perform.”

That may have something to do with the space’s limited capacity, but Sharma also attributes it to a sense of elitism among some of Mumbai’s biggest comics. Though he’s careful to add that plenty of big comedians have also been regulars. Anyway, J-Spot’s reputation and standing in the scene depends not on big names but in the trust they have built within the community at large. Many of Mumbai’s comedians think of the space as a home away from home.

“I’ve been playing there since the beginning of beginning, when everything was different—the lights, chairs, mic stand, even the orientation of the stage,” remembers Sonali Thakker. “Over the years Pankaj has really built it into a great space for comedy. The building blocks of a lot of my sets were set on this stage because this was where I was never afraid to say the wrong thing or bomb in front of the audience. I could just be myself and that state of mind helped me better my craft in more ways than I can mention.”

Another regular who loves the space is Aakash Mehta, who performed the first show when the space opened up four years ago. Mehta also ended up performing one of the last shows there in what Sharma sees as a symbolic ‘full circle’. “It’s one of those clubs that share an open and honest communication with its artists and things get messy sometimes but it’s our mess,” says Mehta. “I’ve seen that room go from bare bones to what it is now and it feels like a home club is going away for a bit. But they are a very tenacious lot, Pankaj and the team. They are going to bounce back without a doubt.”

Sharma too is determined to rebuild. He’s already looking for a new space and hopes to reopen with a different address in the next few months. “This new space might be a little bit bigger, a little different aesthetically,” he says. “But everything else will be the same yaar.”