How many of you have heard of Biswa Kalyan Rath? Or watched
him perform on stage or on
For the uninitiated, Rath is a stand-up comedian who broke
into the scene when he and fellow comedian Kanan Gill presented the ‘viral’ Pretentious
Movie Reviews on YouTube. He then hosted his own shows, cracked the audience up
at his gigs and so on and so forth.
I, myself, was unknown to this name till yesterday. Because
I am not into stand-up comedy and moreover, entertainment for me is much more
than what becomes ‘viral’.
But, somewhere, while watching Rath’s video clips just now,
I realised I need to stay abreast of these remarkably talented young fellows.
Not only was he funny, but that voice, gait, confidence and language play were
traits that I haven’t seen in many youngsters of late. His self-deprecating
jokes were sharp and sarcastic and I know where they come from. As Bengalis, we
almost always passed snide remarks at the Oriya clan, not realising that they
can be talented as hell as well. My interactions with local weavers of Odisha
changed my perspective completely. And now Rath.
Anyway. I got introduced to Rath through Lakhon Mein Ek, a web-series he produced
for Amazon that stars Ritvik Sahore. While ad clips familiarised me with the
series a while back, yesterday I finally watched it. At 12 in the night, I pushed
myself to complete the series at one go. Because, it was unputdownable.
Compelling, realistic and dark to a large extent, the series revealed that
sharp and sarcastic side of Rath that he often passes off with a laugh on
stage.
