Aditi Mittal's new stand up show takes a funny dig at the pandemic

Aditi Mittal

While the world is still reeling from the long-lasting impact of the pandemic, sometimes being able to take a step back and banking on humour may be the best way to cope with it. Stand-up comic Aditi Mittal's new show, The Unreliable Narrator, promises to do just that. While her earlier show, performed online, focused on fake news and how we responded to it, this one is quite different. "It feels as if we don't really want to talk about the pandemic and want to forget all about it because it was a time that was really bad for us. I'm concerned that because we refuse to talk about it, in a few years, we are going to forget that it happened. A part of me feels like it never happened," admits Mittal. "I believe the pandemic was a great learning moment for us as a race, and I think we didn't take that learning. The show is about how we write our own histories and how the pandemic and the narrative within it inform my present," she explains. Just when we nod in agreement, she quips, "I'm intellectualising it - it's a bunch of ridiculous jokes about the pandemic."

Mittal who has just travelled to Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai on tour is performing live on stage after three long years. "I still get nervous when I see a crowd where no one's wearing a mask. There was a whole new level of paranoia," she confesses.

When we ask her if she was worried about how the audience may react since the pandemic is a sensitive topic, and many people who experienced hard times may be offended easily, she says, "During the pandemic, a bunch of handles came up that were actively searching for positive news. We all found our own ways to deal with the bad news and the stress of the pandemic. One could say, ‘Hey my family members are in the hospital, why are you looking for positive news right now? But that's just each one's way of coping."

The 60-minute show will look at all that has changed and all that has remained the same post the pandemic. "When I told a few friends that I wanted to do a show about the pandemic they said it's 2022, so why are you talking about 2019? I said we live in a country where the news talks about issues about a 14th-century temple. People are still fighting about the same things," she shares. "The pandemic wasn't a fad. It wasn't low-waist jeans or crop tops. The Unreliable Narrator is my attempt to find myself in what happened at that time. It's amazing when people identify, relate, and laugh along but on a personal level I think it's just me trying to process what happened and find a way to laugh about it or the enormity of it will kill me," she concludes.

On: December 30; 8 pm
At: The J Spot, 368, SV Road, below Hotel Siddhartha, next to Bandra Talao, Bandra West
Log on to: in.bookmyshow.com
Cost: Rs 499