When I Created History with a Standup Comedy Performance

And Not many people know about it

All of us have this one event that makes us super proud and ironically most people don’t know about it.

For me it was in 2015 when I single handedly created History.

During my SPJain MBA days we visited XLRI for inter college cultural competition.

It was a tense situation with rivalry last seen only between Rajput vs Model College or the Eagle vs the Bichhoo gang (90s nostalgia).

In the fest, there were multiple stage performances (dance, singing, skits etc.) from both the colleges and after every performance, there were applauders and the nay sayers.

The group that performed received a lot of laud from their peers and a lot of hate from the other group.

Sometimes even before the stage performance, the students in the audience used to have verbal altercations leading the auditorium to look a lot like fish market.

In this high tense moment I was given the mic to perform my first standup comedy show.

My mission was clearly articulated — I need to get unite the rowdy audience. And what could be a better way to unite them if not laughter.

Back in those days, Standup Comedy was not a competition, it was something fresh and intriguing for the audience. They were eagerly looking forward to it. And I could sense their excitement for a comedy show.

Now comedy is subjective, so how can I make it so interesting and jovial that everyone in the audience was on the same page. 🤔

This was my greatest challenge and also my defining moment of glory.

It was my Kumar Verma moment. Remember Baahubali’s movitational words —

“samay har kaayar ko shoorveer banne ka ek mauka deta hai. wo kshan yahi hai.”

Bahubali’s motivation

(If you don’t remember you can see a quick refresher here)

Coming back to the story.

The microphone in my hand was the power, and the responsibility it carried was Huge!

I took a deep breath, and then went on to stage to deliver my historic standup comedy performance.

The content and the jokes were customised, and brand new. Afterall, I wrote it just a night before.

I spoke about relevant topics like — MS Excel, MBA fee, Placements …

Even juggled a few comedy structures like — puns, anecdotes, roast ..

And then in less than 5 minutes, I did something that no one had ever anticipated — I united the audience from both the rival colleges with my well crafted jokes.

Suddenly there was silence and they were no longer fighting amongst each other anymore. No hate against each other or abuses on the colleges. I had tamed a bunch of wildlings into a united army driven by a common cause of unity. The cause being —

To get me off the stage!!

Turned out, my well crafted jokes were so bad that all the audience booed in unison. My college friends united with their rivals to oust me of stage.

↗ Some shouted cuss words.

↗ Some begged me to stop.

↗ And some proactive ones went back stage to cut off the mic.

Seeing the protest, I cut short my performance went backstage … took another deep breath to sink in what had happened, and then gleamed in victory.

Warts and all, I think I accomplished my mission of bringing truce. Not the way I had anticipated. Definitely not the way I would have wished. But all’s well that ends well.

Probably not all heroes wear a cape, or get applauds.

Somewhere from the sky, Mikhail Gorbachev looked down and gave me a nod of approval.

Today when i look back at that comedy video, all i can feel is sympathy for the poor listeners. I feel lucky they didn’t throw me out of the college.

In my comedy journey, this has been a very humbling experience.

Since then I have come a long long way to be at the pedestal where I have done received standing ovation at multiple shows — again uniting the audience, but this time in a fun filled happy way.

And that is the story of life.

Sometimes we have to fail terribly, to later on shine brightly.

Because if we don’t fail, we won’t truly know the path to success. You get it the first time, you just don’t know what all can go wrong. It is such a safe space to go from failure to success than the other way round.

As Charlie Chaplin said —

“Life is Tragedy when seen in close-up but Comedy when seen in Long Shot”

Wait for that long shot and treat your failures as events when You created History for yourself.

If you have had a massive failure that you are proud of, do share it in the comments. Don’t make me feel I am the only one with embarrassing moments of life.