For our return trip to Mumbai, Tushar had 6 shows lined up, every night from Feb 10-15, but only ended up doing half of them because comedy venues began receiving threats of violence as a backlash to the controversial AIB (All India Bakchod) Knockout broadcast on YouTube. The AIB Knockout was a comedy roast with a format almost exactly the same as the Comedy Central-style roasts in the US, complete with Bollywood stars and central figures to the emerging stand-up comedy scene in India, as well as a live audience of 4,000. The Knockout was standard semi-explicit fare by US standards, but for India, it was pretty shocking humor in terms of the amount of sexual, racist, and politically incorrect jokes. The 3-part video of the roast has since been removed from YouTube by AIB, but is still available on other sites like DailyMotion: 

Of the three shows Tushar did perform in Mumbai, two of them were at Canvas Laugh Club, India's only dedicated comedy club. Although there has clearly been a lot of money put into the venue and production at Canvas, a lot of the smaller venues we've done thus far have been more fun and engaging, compared to the sterile theater environment at Canvas. While in Mumbai, Tushar got the opportunity to network and hang out with a lot of the working comics here (a small but growing group), and has been considering moving to Mumbai to be a part of the burgeoning comedy revolution here. So we also took some time to meet with a local realtor, who showed Tushar around six different apartments ranging from studio to 2-bedroom units in Bandra, a fairly posh area of Northwest Mumbai considered barely in the "suburb" area of the city.

This week we're in Delhi for the last leg of the tour. Tushar is booked for three shows, starting at a cafe tonight, then a brewery on Thursday, and closing on Friday night at a pub, before flying back to the US early on Saturday. If you're in the area, check out our tour page for show and venue details, and come see Tushar perform! The Thursday show at Manhattan Craft Brewery is supposed to be the best venue in India according to comics here, so we're all excited for that. On Wednesday we're visiting the Taj Mahal, so we can at least say we lived up to our blog's header, maybe even get Tushar to do something culturally inappropriate enough to turn even more heads to comedy.

After a rough start for his first few shows in Mumbai for the Pajama Festival, Tushar had a solid mix of ups and downs for the next 5 shows (2 more in Mumbai, 3 in Bangalore). In fact, the only thing we can be sure will bomb over here is the WiFi. After 3 open micers went up at Three Wisemen Bar in Mumbai, Tushar came on as the headliner and really got the crowd going, especially with a bit of crowdwork thanks to an intimate dive bar space. His set in Pune (an otherwise overall unimpressive town) at an open-air venue called High Spirits (pictured above) for about 200 people also went pretty well. 

We were also fortunate enough to have Tushar interview Vir Das, India's father of stand-up comedy, the creator of the Weirdass (pronounce it with an Indian accent... "Viiiiirdasss") Pajama Festival, and minor league Bollywood star. They talked at length about the stand-up scene in India, where it might be headed, and Vir Das offered Tushar advice for connecting with Indian audiences.

The last 3 days of January we spent in Goa, a popular beach resort destination, where Tushar emceed a wedding reception for his Indian-American Chicago relatives. The wedding was a grand production, complete with colorful decor, outdoor buffet, and dancers, but we could all sense Tushar's flustration at somewhat unexpected logistical duties. Don't worry, Tushar, someday it will be you way up high, awkwardly straddling that elephant amongst all your friends and relatives at 8am, leaving all your worries behind, in a mighty trail of dung.

We're now on our 5th day in Bangalore, staying with Tushar's comedian friend Sanjay Manaktala. So far, Tushar has performed here on a show, two open mics, and at the cancer ward of a local hospital for a "Because Laughter is the Best Medicine" show to raise the spirits of cancer patients and doctors there. Every show has been a different challenge for Tushar based on the audience and venue, and he's both been experimenting with some new material, and reverting to the tried (tired?) and true material he knows works in LA.

After 3 more shows here in Bangalore, we head back to Mumbai for a week, and then back to Delhi for a another week, both full of shows. Keep up with our trip photos, clips of Tushar's sets, and other funny production bits on our Facebook or Instagram daily!