The Hindu Huddle 2025: Anu Menon calls stand-up comedy ‘troublesome’ as individuals are ‘simply offended’ 

Actor and slapstick comedian Anu Menon in dialog with Suresh Balakrishna, the Chief Income Workplace of The Hindu Group.
| Picture Credit score: Okay. Bhagya Prakash

Indian comedy, particularly political comedy, faces an existential problem within the present socio-political local weather, noticed Anuradha Menon, a pioneering standup comic and VJ of India, in a session at The Huddle by The Hindu. 

Finest recognized for her Malayali-coded ‘Lola Kutty’ alter ego on tv, Anu Menon sat down for a light-hearted session on the inaugural day of The Huddle. 

Nonetheless, in the course of the chat, she referred to as consideration to the latest mob assault on Habitat Studio in Khar, Mumbai. The favored comedy club-cum-performance venue was vandalised after a YouTube particular taped there by comic Kunal Kamra offended a political group. Quickly after the incident, Habitat Studio shut down operations indefinitely. 

“They (the mob) went to the comedy membership and trashed the place when folks have been sitting inside,” Menon mentioned. “For some purpose, they didn’t realise comedy specials are shot just a few months prior, then edited, sound-mixed and launched later. It’s not prefer it’s taking place in actual time which you can go and ask, ‘Arrey, Kunal Kamra kidhar hai? (The place is Kunal Kamra?)” 

Menon remarked that folks at the moment are ‘simply offended’, and that it’s laborious to foretell what may offend them. And whereas satire and political jokes typically draw the heaviest fireplace, even seemingly innocuous topics—equivalent to Menon making enjoyable of her personal son—can rub audiences the improper manner.   

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“I’ve by no means been a political comic in order that has gone in my favour. I discuss on a regular basis issues. And my goal normally are my members of the family. However even then, I’ve been requested questions.” 

Menon, with attribute sprint, illustrated the challenges of being a lady comic in what’s, by and enormous, a male-dominated ecosystem. 

“One Ladies’s Day, I made sufficient cash to go on a vacation to Paris and watch my favorite tennis participant Rafale Nadal play. After that, it’s been a downward spiral as a result of individuals are too scared to the touch comedy typically.” She talked about varied limitations imposed upon comedians acting at company occasions. 

“Folks say there are few ladies comedians however it’s true of most professions on this planet,” she mentioned, including that typically, a efficiency by a feminine standup at a company present is considered as a ‘jokes mujra’. 

Menon mentioned she is ‘not snug’ with utilizing too many swear phrases in her standup, however doesn’t oppose those that do. “I don’t suppose there’s further advantage in me not swearing. If a comic is doing it, that’s utterly okay.”