Shifting career paths from a corporate job to selling out auditorium shows as a comedian sounds like the dream, right? Well, Mandar Bhide gets to live it. The comedian, who is one of the leading Marathi-language comedians in the country, had never really thought of performing standup comedy. He was the funny guy in every office, classroom and family gathering but that was about it. Until one day in 2014, when he went to watch live standup comedy for the first time and thought of taking a stab at it.
Since then, Bhide has put out several viral YouTube videos, has performed at least 40 shows overseas and has been touring with his solo special Shubh Mangal Savdhan for two years. He’s currently touring with the show one last time before releasing it on YouTube some time in November. He has a few shows left in Mumbai and Pune from 20-27 October. That’s not all. Bhide is also heading out on the road with his newest hour Aale Pak 19 October onwards. So, if you want to catch him live, now’s your chance.
He’s practically one of the founding fathers of the Marathi standup comedy scene. But it was a long way to the top, especially when you’re carving out your own niche. We caught up with the comedian to find out how he managed to achieve this, what his standup comedy journey has been like and what else he has in store for the coming years.
Were you always interested in comedy? Even as a kid?
I always liked telling jokes. Even as a kid I would hear something funny and go and narrate it to my group of friends. I even had a lot of joke books as a kid. I would add an Indian twist or some local context to these jokes. I have a brother who is four years older to me. I would always prefer hanging out with his friends. And when you’re with people who are older to you, you had to find something to stand out so you aren’t treated as the errands boy.
So in that process I discovered that this was my strength. And then throughout school, engineering college, my MBA days, I was the guy in the group who was always making funny comments and observations. It was the best way to break the ice and leave a lasting impact on your peers. So yeah, that’s how it started.
How did you get into traditional standup comedy? Do you remember some of the early acts that you saw?
My first exposure to what we would call contemporary standup right now was probably Russell Peters. Those were the early days of torrenting and I remember downloading his specials and watching them. I think for a long I didn’t really watch or listen to any other famous international comedian. I would say I found out about George Carlin somewhere around 2013.
As far as live comedy goes, there was this venue called Canvas Laugh Club in Lower Parel. So a friend of mine had booked tickets to go watch a show. Atul Khatri, Amit Tandon and Ashish Shakya were on the lineup. And I recall it being blown away by the experience. Watching live standup comedy is completely different from watching clips. And I went back for another show a couple of weeks later. After that particular show, we were having dinner and my group of friends told me why don’t you give it a shot? That’s how I started my standup journey I would say.
So, when did you start going up on stage? What were some of your first open mics like?
Honestly, I was a little skeptical when my friends suggested this. The comedians I had seen were at a professional level in my head. Like I said, the people I saw the first time I went to watch comedy (Khatri, Tandon and Shakya) had already started rising in the scene and had videos out on YouTube that were doing well. When you witness something of that quality it almost works as a deterrent. And I had never thought of going up on stage to tell jokes.
But things changed when I moved to Pune for work. In the initial months of the move, I was living alone so I started watching a lot more standup. And in the process I discovered some open mic videos that gave me some confidence and motivation. It proved that everyone starts somewhere, right? So I started writing jokes. I workshopped them at a family function. But there were barely any open mics in Pune at the time to perform on stage.
Then one day I came across an open mic happening at High Spirits in Pune. I went there and realised that the open mic was for bands to perform. I told them that I wanted to do standup so they asked me to wait for a bit. Around 10pm the manager of the club came up to me and said you can go up on stage for five minutes and perform for the 20 band members who are there. There was no real audience even! But this was the first time I performed anyway. It went pretty well.
Around that time Daniel Fernandes was curating a show at High Spirits on Wednesdays. The manager kind of hyped me up to him and I got four minutes to perform on a lineup that had Fernandes, Atul Khatri, Azeem Banatwalla and Deep Chhabria. That was the first time I performed at a proper comedy event.
After the first performance how did things pan out?
Actually, I had recorded that performance at High Spirits. I thought that you’re supposed to record every performance and upload it to YouTube. I had got some 1,000 views and I thought wow, I’ve made it. At the time the most viewed standup clip was about 1,00,000 views. I thought I’ll start getting calls now. But nothing happened for the next two months.
Around that time, Punit Pania had started putting together open mics across the country. He started in Mumbai and then I remember he had put some up in Surat and Vapi, places like that. Eventually he came to Pune after people told him that the city had a good crowd and outdoor scene. Khatri told Pania that I met this comedian Mandar Bhide at a show. We put together an open mic with seven people and a host. From there on, Pania was like my mentor and guide in comedy. He taught me how to look at comedy, how to sign up for open mics. And then I started travelling to Mumbai for mics. And eventually we just moved back to Mumbai in 2015 so stage time was not a problem any more.
When did you start performing in Marathi and how was that shift for you?
So I came across this collective called BhaDiPa that used to organise Marathi standup shows. They had a slightly weird audition process where you had to send a video of you performing at home. By this time, I had already performed at Canvas a bunch of times. I thought I don’t need to audition. So I decided I’ll put up my own Marathi open mic. But very soon I realised it was not wise to compete in such a small space and started performing with BhaDiPa.
That changed the game for me. Till this point, I was performing in small rooms to 20-30 people. And suddenly, we were performing in sold out auditoriums in Pune. I was suddenly performing in front of 600-700 people. I had opened for people like Khatri and all but the people weren’t really there to watch me, right? But with these Marathi shows we were on the posters and people were coming for our material. And then I started writing specifically for Maharashtrian audiences. That was one of my first YouTube videos that went viral. People started recognising me. So that was the turning point for me.
When did you start writing your show ‘Shubh Mangal Savdhan’?
Basically, in 2019 I quit my job. And me and a bunch of other Marathi comedians were approached by a big streaming platform for a show. So we thought we’ll give them our best material. But then the pandemic happened. And we were all stuck in a state of limbo. So when things finally opened up again, I thought the best way to make up for lost time was to do a show in Marathi. That’s when I started writing this show.
One thing I had in mind was that a lot of the people who came out to watch me were my age. People have children and can’t really go anywhere without them. So I decided to write a clean show that even kids could come along for. The show is mainly about Maharashtrian weddings, what happens leading up to marriage and how life changes after it. And there’s a lot of nostalgia for people who grew up in the eighties. Eventually I started touring with it. 6-7 months into it, we announced the Australia-New Zealand tour which pushed the show further. Now I’m doing my last run of the tour.
Are you planning on releasing this material online?
So the show is already recorded. It’s currently being edited. And I’m thinking of releasing it towards the end of November. The idea is that, we are thinking of announcing some more international tours. And having the material online might help in reaching out to more people and it’ll help in ticket sales for future shows. That’s the idea.
There are also a lot more comedians performing in Marathi now. What do you think of that?
Yes, many people are putting out Marathi content now. And some people might look at it as competition but I see it as a collaborative effort of building a community. The more people come into the picture, the wider the pool for Marathi standup comedy becomes. That helps everybody in the long run. In the beginning, I was almost the only one doing these shows in Marathi. Because of that, not a lot of people who would have otherwise been interested in coming knew about these shows. Now, that has completely changed for the better.
You have a new show too called ‘Aale Pak’. Can you tell us a little about that?
So I did a bunch of trial shows for Aale Pak because I can’t really go to open mics. Mainly because they don’t happen in Marathi and secondly because the audience there is fairly younger than the people who will relate to my material. This show is mainly about the last few years of my life. And for that, I needed people who have some context about my life and have seen my material to come. That’s why I listed some trial shows and now finally I’m going to start touring with it. My first show is on 19 October. So yeah, this the show I’ll be doing for the next year or so.
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