Amit Tandon | The stand-up comedian is back with yet another Netflix Original Standup Special — Amit Tandon: Family Tandoncies. He speaks with Shalini Saksena about what this act is all about and how it is different from the half-hour special that he had done for the platform earlier

What is the show about?

It’s called Family Tandoncies and is largely about my family, the coming of age of relationships — whether it is with my wife or the children and the challenges that come when you have two kids. There is a saying: If you have one kid, you become a parent, with two, you become a referee. The show is a mixed bag of things that includes my growing up days and how we coped with our siblings versus how my kids cope with each other.

This is the second time you have a show on this platform, what made you do it again?

The first show that I had done was half-hour show which was part of the series Comedians of the World, where they had shortlisted a number of comedians from across the globe, three were from India. The format was different, they had given us the setup and the audience. We just went there and performed. What I am doing now is a solo show. It is the first Hindi solo of the platform ever. Here, the complete responsibility of the show was on me. To get the production, creatives, stage design and even getting the director on-board was on me. Then there was the writing and the performance as well. This was a bigger challenge. At the same time, I had more creative liberty this time. Plus the style is different, back then I had done 30 minutes, this show is of 70 minutes. This makes a lot of difference when it comes to actual performance.

How much time did it take to put all this together?

It took me around 10 months from start to finish. It takes two to three months to write the show. Then you start performing it, testing the material, tightening the jokes, this takes another couple of months, taking the time period to three to five months. Then I practiced the performance 15-20 times in one month to ensure everything is on my finger tips, this is because I don’t have any cue cards during performance and there are no cuts. I need to have those 70 minutes completely in my mind so that I can do it with my eyes closed. It took another three-four months to get the production house on board, getting the music, creatives, hiring the studio and setting up the entire thing.

How is this live performance different from your other live shows on stage?

While this audience was also live, we got ticketed audience, there was an option to get guests but I didn’t want this. I did a proper ticket show, we did two back to back shows where we got the audience. The challenge here is the immense mental pressure. In a live stage show, if I get something wrong, I can always go back and pick up the thread since people won’t know if I have forgotten a few lines. When I recorded for this show, it was like recording a movie in one take. The challenge was that I performed well and there were no retakes. There is a lot of stress to deliver things properly.

Why use your home name Raju?

There is joke in the show where I talk about myself and say that saare chhotey bhai ke naam ya naukar ke  naam Raju hota hai. Hence the name and the joke.

Can you share a few more jokes from the show?

I talk about how relationship with your wife changes over the years — from the time when there is a lot of pressure to be romantic in the first few years of marriage and now we are at the stage, after being married for 17 years, we are not worried what he or she will feel — ab yeh kahan jayega. So you stop putting the efforts to be romantic. You realise that you don’t have to be together 24x7 and need to give space to each other. You start going out for parties with your friends. Then I talk about the days when we had our first kid, the parenting pressure, then you have the second kid and suddenly from taking care of one, there are two. There is much more responsibility.

Do you think that Indians have yet to learn to laugh at themselves?

Yes, a lot. We have very fragile egos in India. It is taking us a lot of time, there is some change but we have a long way to go before we have that sense of humour where we can laugh at ourselves.

How much challenge does this pose while doing a stand-up?

It is a challenge so I don’t interact too much with the audience. I have realised that if I want to do jokes let it be about myself than talking to them and cracking a joke on them and taking offence.

Where do we stand in terms of comedy, are we stuck doing slapstick comedy?

We are getting mature now. If we look at the evolution in India, we had hasya kavi sammelan. We used to have a lot of mimicry-based shows, this was replaced by slapstick comedy. But now the audience wants more. If you see the video content today, you would see how mature the audience has become.  This is limited to Tier-I and II cities. Television has slapstick since there is a market for that but it is not as big as it used to be.