Transcript

journey of a management graduate to a full-time comedian | Angad Ranyal | TEDxNMIMS

so let me start by introducing myself as you guys know my name is Anga Singh ranal but what you guys don't know is that I was an average student an average Sports person then I did my engineering in electronics and communication I worked as a network optimization engineer for 21 months in a telecom joint then I did my MBA in and majored in marketing then I worked in an e-commerce firm for 15 months and I did all this in my life so that one day I could quit a stable paying job and become a stand-up comedian I just hope that my audience doesn't find my jokes to be average but whenever whenever you hear stories about people who have taken these unconventional paths you hear them talking about how it was their passion since childhood how they were a rebel in their families how they fought Against All Odds to achieve their dreams my story is nothing like that I'm 27 I got introduced to standup comedy at the age of 17 and in a manner just like every other Indian I illegally downloaded a torrent of Russell Peters but when I saw that I never thought that one day I will become a stand-up comedian it's as recent at two years that I started believing in myself that actually I can become one which brings me and and standup in India is a very recent phenomena English standup is as it's it's not even a decade old in India we used to have standup around ' 60s '70s and 80s but it was more of a mimickry not standup which brings me to my first question what what is standup standup is an art form in which the comic is directly talking to the audience expressing his opinions in a funny manner what are his likes what are his dislikes what he feels about a certain issue we have some other styles in India currently one of them is improv in improv the audience as well gets involved in the ACT suggestions are taken from the audience and the performer thinks on the spot about a particular issue so in an improv you will find each show is different it's Unique because the performer is thinking on the spot but in standup the show is well rehearsed the jokes are well practiced it's a it's kind of a scripted show but it is performed with the energy of the audience lastly a style which in India is picking up is sketches sketches are basically small comedy Vates or let's say a short film and uh in terms of Life performances it hasn't really picked up it's a big thing on YouTube right now I guess you know all about these channels tvf aib EIC which are coming out with comedy sketches and talking about issues that we are facing now all these three have they're different mediums they have different processes but what everybody's trying to tell is a joke and and I always get this question asked you know Ang how do you write a joke it's it's pretty simple it like most thing in life it starts with a simple idea like last night I was at a bar I ordered a beer and the waiter asked me sir do you want your beer to be chilled that's an obvious question why would he ask me obviously I want my beer to be chilled but this it's an idea where the waiter is asking an illogical question that's not the idea the idea is to take a step back is that people ask you illogical questions so what you do is you take this idea what people asking illogical questions and think about everything that happens in your life and try to take these cases like you might be at a movie Hall you meet an old friend who's asking you what are you doing here obviously I'm watching a movie what else I'm doing here so you collect all these similar ideas all right and put them together but they're still not jokes they need to be made a joke for instance when the waiter asked me sir do you want your beer to be chilled I told him no absolutely not what an outrageous question I want my beer to be heated at 100° Centigrades then bring it to me I'll take beer vapor from it now this is an excessive rant you know I'm taking I'm taking it to a complete different Zone you can also relate it to things like I can say the red in tedex is so red that it reminds me of Sunny Leon's lips you know anything bizarre situation so not every idea will take you to a joke but some of them will so let's say these three ideas they took me to a joke now I have these jokes but I need to put them in a series so that people this so audience can understand so I have these five jokes in a series now I have a story I have a set ready now what I will do is I will go out and tested in three different audiences what we trying to achieve over there are two things first of all that we appeal to all people of different ages so even an 18yearold and a 60y old there's something for everybody there second is that we try to have at least one joke every 15 to 20 seconds even a small chuckle a small smile so when you try these jokes you figure out that already you know some things that probably you thought were funny and you thought you were a genius because you came up with them maybe the audience doesn't feel that much or maybe something that you felt but then suddenly the people are laughing so you start building up on it so what you do is you basically drop the weak jokes and you're left with a strong solid set that you go you try out at many places over a period of time you try to hone that skill and that's how a comedy set comes along now as I was planning to quit my job there were a lot of things that I had to consider but I figured out I could probably put them down into four simple points where I feel anybody who's planning to quit his corporate job and trying to take a road L taken should go through the first point I believe is that you should test yourself all right whatever idea you have for example yes so you should test yourself no matter so if you have a talent if you want to be a singer you want to be a dancer you want to be a cartoonist people around you will tell you you know you have your talent take the risk take the risk my friend I will tell you hold your horses all right I'm not saying you're not talented or you don't have the potential but in today's world where social media is so big everybody is consuming it every second 7 Seconds you have the perfect platform to test yourself out so if you want to be a singer release your covers on Soundcloud if you want to be a dancer put your videos on YouTube in fact you know even if you have a different business idea there are communities that you can go and test it out and today's time you have no excuse to not really test yourself out I started doing standup comedy in 2012 and we start by shows called open mics open mics are shows where anybody can come and try a four or a 5 minute sequence when I did my first four to five minutes it was terrible nobody laughed except for one joke so just like in a boxing match where you get beaten up your face gets injured this is what my face was after that 5 minute sequence but you don't give up I to my mind I thought that okay I at least made them laugh on one joke I will build on that I will come back next week next month and have a solid 5 minutes and that what I did I went from 5 minutes to 10 minutes to 15 minutes to finally reaching a point where I had 30 minutes as a comic When You Reach 30 minutes is when the audience starts really noticing you where people remember you it took me 18 months to start from 5 minutes and reach to 30 minutes during this time 80% of the time I was a student rest of the time I was working in a corporate firm and you know and during this time I honed my skills I understood how the industry works I I I even Tred to understand whether it is financially viable for a person of my talent it's only then that I decided to take this risk and when people talk about you know how do you find the time to do this you know you were studying you were working how do you do that I'm saying it's pretty simple the next point I want to say is that you should change them to I you will find 9 million reasons to not do something but the only reason to do it is because you want to do it in a nutshell stop being lazy get out do what you want to do in life stop pointing your fingers at others don't blame them that they didn't let me do it if you're not doing something blame yourself see as the announcer said that CN and I been red me as one of the top 20 standup comics in India so at one point C and Ian believed that I was one of the top funniest people in India do I think I am no there are people who are way more funnier than me but they're too scared of being on stage they don't know how to write jokes they don't know how to construct a story line in their mind how was I able to do it because I took everything that came my way I never said that you know my family is against doing that or I have too much studies I found the time to do those things way back in 2007 I started this blog called funny Stein terrible I wrote some 50 posts please don't go read go home and read them it's very bad but what happened that when I was started writing it there some people who started liking it commenting on it and that became a drug for me because at each every post I wanted more likes and more comments if at a particular post the comments would go down down or the likes would go down I would Analyze That and come up with a better pose the next time I truly believe that if I hadn't start started that block in 2007 I wouldn't be today here talking about this thing similarly I started doing Dramatics when I was in btech I used to travel one and a half hours one side where my friends used to party and everything but I never went for those parties because I used to go for rehearsals and everybody used to ask me why are you doing this and I said because I enjoy it that's the only reason I never thought that that time which I spent will give me a confidence in my voice we give me voice modulation would today make me a better comic so if there is anything out there that you want to do it just go ahead and do it don't find excuses to miss out on it which brings me to my third Point whenever people are talking about taking a creative site they think that education is not important job experience is not important what they basically think is about this we don't need no education what I believe is this we need education when I told my parents that I'm planning to quit they had this Theory they were like beta you're a btech you're an MBA what about these degrees there will be a waste I believe no education is ever a waste look look at MBA I studied about brand management today I am a brand manager I'm a brand manager of myself I'm my own product the packaging might look bad but I am my own product I have to position myself in the market so that if one of you sees my face on the the poster you know it's a guarantee that it will be a good show inside we talk about consumer Behavior how the consumer are reacting my audience is my consumer I need to know what is trending whether it is Facebook Twitter or Tender when I say Rahul Gandhi certain things automatically come in your mind women empowerment etc etc but I need to know that these things are changing what if tomorrow Rahul Gandhi's image changes I can't say the same thing so I need to understand how my consumer is behaving my audience is trending these days and what happens is that you know I can go on talking about different topics it's not about different topics it's about education as a whole because what education does to you it makes you smarter it makes you responsible it gives you discipline which straight away gives you an edge over every other person in that same field so if if there's anything you can come and tell me you know how in this profession education will help you I will tell you ways in which it can help you just need to look it through a different lens but the one bad thing education does to People of Our Generation is it gives them ego everybody thinks oh I'm an MBA why should I do this I'm a btech why should I do this and this is where I believe that if you want to pursue something that you really like don't get B bowed down by your own e weighed down by your own ego you kill it forget about it when I was talking about starting Dramatics my first big role for which I used to travel so much and miss all the college fun was of a horse-headed man so my face was covered with a horse mask nobody knew that I was performing the director asked me to walk like a horse so for 2 hours I was walking like this on the stage but if I hadn't done that I wouldn't be confident enough to stand here today as an as a standup comic we get opportunities to perform at marriages we get opportunities to perform in people's drawing room on their rooftop rich people obviously but once I was sitting down with my MBA friends and I told them that hey I'm going to perform at a marriage they never they didn't say anything but the body language and the face kind of said that dude really you're an MBA from such a Prestige Institute you're not going perform at a wedding and I'm thinking why not at the end of the day they are also my audience I'll share a true story with you as an MBA I was working in this e-commerce firm where I sat for one whole weekend clicking on 1,000 links one after the other just to check whether the product had the required information I didn't do MBA so that I can click on 1,000 links either if I'm doing that because it's part of my job it's part of my responsibility so when I'm taking a different path it's part of my responsibility to grow myself up yes there will come a day when I will perform in front of 1,000 audience but today if I'm getting a marriage show I will take it so the way I see it if if there is something that you don't like about what you are doing either become so big that you don't need to do it or either become so big that you have somebody else to do it I will just leave you with this final thought that I have I've already said before if there is something you want to do in life just do it don't blame others blame yourself for not doing it thank you everybody [Applause]