Top

Confessions of a comedian

City comedian wins India's biggest comedy competition.

To be or not to be, was never a question for him. As far as Toby Thomas can remember, he always wanted to be a comedian. His potpourri of a childhood was made up of Malayali parents and Haryanvi friends which crafted an absurdity in his point of view on life.

Toby flipped the absurdity to be his strength and started channeling it into comedy. He recently won one of the biggest comedy competitions of India. Waves, organised by BITS Pilani Goa and Comedy Central, had comics from over 30 cities and an audience of 2500. Among that huge crowd of well-known comics, Toby managed to find his audience and beat everyone else to be the ultimate winner.

“When I reached Goa for the competition, seeing the kind of names who were competing, I was sure that I stood no chance. There were people who already have a huge following and nobody had even heard my name. I thought, I’ll just get through it and enjoy Goa for a few days and head back to Hyderabad,” says Toby. Little did he know, that not only would he beat everyone in the eliminations, but he would also be one of the two finalists. Akash Gupta, the other finalist from Delhi has been on stage for over five years and has one-hour specials to his name already. “Competing against him was an honour, but beating him was something I had never imagined. It was surreal.”

It hasn’t been a cakewalk for him always. “I have bombed so much in open mics in Hyderabad that it has induced a sense of shamelessness in me. I have never performed for an audience over a few hundred. This was 2,500. The minute I walked on to the stage, I started getting heckled by the crowd. For about 10 seconds I couldn’t even talk. But the shamelessness came to my rescue. I started by picking on one guy from the audience and they loved it. After that first round of applause, it all came together. I owned the crowd after that.”

Now, back in Hyderabad, Toby’s calendar is brimming with weekend shows. You can also catch his witty humour online from next week on his new podcast Men Ki Baat. It is quite evident that this comic is going places and we are glad that his journey began in Hyderabad.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
Next Story