With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet.

Tell us about your practice sessions and preparations for the inter IIT meet.

Unlike other contingents, we cannot have fixed practise sessions. We need to rack our brains and brood to come up with good jokes. Sometimes it takes us days to build a decent joke while someday we prepare the entire script in one go. It takes a lot of brainstorming, research, voice modulations, hand and body gestures to make a complete standup piece.

What goes behind writing a comedy piece?

We either build imaginary scenarios or talk about real life incidents. Comedy is more about being observant and picking up tiny details of common day situations and characters. Our pieces should be written according to the target audience. For example, in the inter IIT meet, according to our audience our content can include jokes on Indian society, college students, engineers, IITians, exams, JEE preparation, teenage romance etc.

Based on your previous experience, what are your expectations from this meet?

Last year, quite a few stand-ups involved vulgarity and obscenity which caused heckling in the audience. Though we have the freedom to do include anything in our performance, we expect a healthy competition and that people come up with good jokes keeping vulgarity at bay.

The stand-up club is in a very nascent stage in our campus. How the inter IIT platform will affect its growth?

Since there was a standup competition in the previous cultural meet, I was motivated to start a formal stand-up club in IITR. It is a different form of art and should be given a space to flourish. Competition is usually helpful in bringing out the best in us. Therefore, through this platform, we will grow as individual comedians as well as a team.

How has been the support from the institute and the inter IIT core team?

When we pitched our idea to start an official club we knew that we will have minimal requirements and the administration showed full support. Unlike metro cities like Bombay and Delhi, which have various comedy circuits around the city, Roorkee needed an independent club to bring like-minded people under one umbrella and practise comedy in a professional way. The administration has constantly helped in our promotions and encouraged us to try new things.

There are times when you don’t get the expected reaction on a joke and have to face awkward silences. How do you deal with it?

One important thing about this art of standup comedy is that the entire authority of your performance is in your hand. We face negative comments, booing and awkward silences quite often but a good comedian always has a way out. It takes a lot of guts and confidence to be a stand-up comedian along with good portions of humour of course.

Who is judging the event?

Shashwat Maheshwari will be judging our event in the inter IIT meet. He started out on youtube but now he is a writer in Filtercopy and works with Scoop-Whoop and Being Indian. He was a contestant in Comicstaan which earned him popularity.

Any ending remarks?

We do sense some home advantage because there are points for the crowd. We are geared up and look forward to a good competition.