The reason why I am obsessed with this pretentious duo!!
If you are one of those unimpressed sardar kids who think that they are too kool with a K, too cynical and just too straight faced to be humored by the generic humor of the Bollywood/Indian TV comedic scene and have spent most of their adolescent years watching Friends, How I Met Your Mother, etc, while not being able to relate to most of the humor of Bollywood/Indian TV and wishing something like ‘Friends’ or ‘How I met Your Mother’, but better existed in India; then you are probably someone like me who spends a substantial amount of time on YouTube.
For a long time we never had a medium or a team of individuals who could demonstrate what a lot of young Indians are all about. We don’t have to come from a particular sector of society or know a certain language or be of a certain “sensibility”, as they would like to call it, to enjoy humor.
YouTube has done it for us. A lot of amazing talented people have come forward to represent us and entertain us through this amazing unapologetic, uncensored, unbiased and truly, but brutally, democratic medium.
So it brings me to write about a couple of those cool guys: the crackling duo Kanan Gill and Biswa Kalyan Rath. I came to know about them through their YouTube channel where they do amazing reviews of old Bollywood movies. Even though they are well known stand-up comedians from Bangalore, for Indians residing outside India, it’s a bit of a long shot to witness them live.
I have been religiously following their channel since its beginning. The content of the videos, the jokes, the puns, the movie logic, the old vs new shows, has become a part of the internal jokes we crack among friends. We watch them again and again, we laugh, we mimic and we scream with excitement whenever a new video is published on their YouTube channel.
It’s amazing what difference some people can make in your life. When you become increasingly alien of your own identity in a foreign country with no family or less friends, you come across this amazing medium which connects you to your roots. I personally never believed that humor had the power to do so.
When I decided to visit India, I knew I had to see these guys perform live, in flesh and blood, and validate my admiration for not only their art but also for their amazing personality.
I was in Bangalore on the 27th Dec, for their show “Pretentious Nights” with my best friend, it was magical. I didn’t get the opportunity to greet them personally but it was pretty exhilarating to be there and I thoroughly enjoyed the show.
The best part was that my friend who had not followed them much or seen their videos could still relate to the jokes and the only complaint she had was that her jaws were in pain the whole time due to excessive dose of laughter.
I am not very much of a fan girl unfortunately, but if I ever get an opportunity to meet them, I will probably tell them that what they do is one of the coolest and most amazing thing ever and that they have the capability to make a difference: to lighten people’s lives and to heighten their sense of humor.
Also, considering that Biswa is my most favorite person, I would probably give him a Desi Oscar for imitating the most authentic, genuinely funny, Bhojpuri accent ever and let's not forget that fu*k all impression of Morgan Freeman, its pure genius!!!
**Sigh** Ahh, well! I guess we all have a dream.
In closing I would like to say that they rock to the power of infinity. FIN.
