Girls of laughter: These comedians address social and political issues through their art

Meet two upcoming stand-up comedians from the city who are using the art form to tackle body-shaming, mental health, LGBTQiA+ issues and politics, one gag at a time

Grooving to a different beat

A statistical programmer in the morning, an aspiring comedian by evening, a belly dance instructor on weekends, and a plus-size model, too. There’s even some amateur tennis in between all this. This is an average week in Anjana Bapat’s life, which she quietly breezes through, as though polishing off the many layers of an indulgent cassata. The Sicilian dessert is also what she uses to describe the colour-blocked, three-tier dress she’s wearing when we meet at her Vile Parle residence: “Yeh bina istri ka cassata maine mere paise se khareeda,” she chuckles, taking a dig at the bleak financial prospects of plus-size modelling.

Bapat is one of the newest stand-up comics on the block, having started out in the pandemic, by actively attending open mics since 2021. But the stage is not new to her. Bapat’s videos of belly dancing have been viral on the Internet. Growing up as that kid who knew all the steps to ’90s Bollywood numbers, dance had always been her first love. “After doing four years of salsa, I got bored of being led on the dance floor by a guy. I wanted to dance by myself. I joined a belly dancing class and it’s just been non-stop from there. It connects you to your body like nothing else,” shares Bapat, adding that it helps bridge the alienation that we tend to create with our bodies.

This refreshing sense of authenticity shines in Bapat’s hilarious, often self-deprecating gags where she takes on topics ranging from plus-size modelling and body shaming, to bipolar disorder and trolling. A family clown for years, she found her calling in comedy when she watched Daniel Sloss’ Dark. “I was like, ‘Why am I not doing this?’ I didn’t have the time because of my job, dance and modelling. During the pandemic, I got the time to sit for workshops, write material, and then, as soon as we were allowed to unleash ourselves onto the world, I went to an open mic,” she recalls. 

Looking back on her journey with body-shaming and bipolar disorder, Bapat points out that being funny was perhaps always a defence mechanism. “Even on Instagram, there are always some trolls shoving hatred my way; it has become my crowd work.” And juggling plus-size modelling, her day job, belly dancing and more opens up a world of content. “I like talking about being fat; being a fat dancer, a 30-something in the dating world, and the interactions with people who bring you down. I want to tell jokes that talk about body positivity because it is so important and misunderstood,” she signs off.
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Coming out with sass

Stand-up comedy had been a part of her life since 2017, but Ritushree took to the stage, as herself, only in late 2021. It was an 8 pm slot. After much convincing from her sister, Ritushree mustered the confidence to work the crowd as India’s first transgender woman stand-up comedian. “I performed for nearly seven minutes before 20-odd people, and it was the best performance of my life. Because I was doing it as myself,” recalls Ritushree, who has since been a familiar face at the city’s open mics.

We meet her at a cafe in Bandra, shortly after her performance at an all-woman line-up called Femtastic Four, which featured comedians like Kajol Srinivasan, Amruta Bendre and Anjana Bapat. It was hosted by veteran comedian Anu Menon. Quiet and observant in all-black avatar, Ritushree is the kind who drops a wit-laced laughter bomb when you least expect it. “How I talk to you, is how I am on stage. I was always that person in the group who cracked jokes. When YouTube came around, I watched the likes of George Carlin and realised, ‘Wow, this is also comedy.’ One day, I enrolled in an open mic, and in those four minutes, I realised I was telling the world, this is me. Maybe, it was my journey as a transgender that people never listened to me,” she recounts.

The comedian, who hails from Odisha, is also a trained lawyer and a diversity, equity and inclusion professional who runs The Outcast Collective. She slips into the role of a comedian over the weekends. “The best thing I like about comedy is that you have a mic, and you can tell people that something is wrong in a humorous manner. No one will listen to a two-hour speech. But say it in a funny way, people will remember that,” shares the queer rights activist. 

And so, she doesn’t shy away from being political. “Rather than just making jokes, I feel that I should use the stage to speak about something significant. So, I do make political jokes; because politics is in everything. People think politics is about a particular party or politician. But I talk about my life, the issues of the LGBTQiA+ community, same-sex marriage, marital rape, and more, but using humour,” reveals the comic, whose set is titled Coming Out. “I’m not changing the world with comedy, but I am showing them that something is wrong and nobody is addressing the elephant in the room.”
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