All India Bakchod (AIB), the most infamous comedy collective, also the biggest selling stand-up act in India, are all ready to take Australia in a whirl of laughter and glee this May. The comedy collective that boasts of having more than 1.4 million subscribers on their You Tube channel and comprise of some of the best comedians known for their perfect comic timing, effortless humour, satire and creativity—Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya will make their maiden visit to Australia.
Indus Age caught up with Ashish Shakya, one of the key members of AIB, where Shakya shares how AIB was started, its popularity, their plans for their Australian visit, and a lot more in an exclusive interview. Excerpts:
By Nidhi Kumari
AIB has gained huge popularity and acceptance today, did you expect it to become such a hit when it was started?
No, not at all when AIB was started it was started as a broadcast by Tanmay and Khamba. It was just a broadcast talking about current affairs. And they were just students having fun there were no big agenda as such. But the broadcast became really popular and then Rohan and I came on board and then we were doing live shows and those turned out be fun and we did that for a while and then You Tube happened , once we went to that space it just all exploded. We didn’t think of going to You Tube when we were doing live as we were all writers or stand-up comedians and loved the stage so that’s not we thought we would consider but then You Tube came out, where we could put varied content…people around the world can watch it so when that happened it picked and then we were like okay. We did more of it and it exploded from there on and people started liking us and then the roast happened, so nothing was planned we kept going from one to the other and thankfully people liked it.
Popularity brings with it both appreciation and criticism, how do you deal with both?
It depends upon the type of criticism you are talking about because once you reach a certain point no matter what you do some people will criticize you and that’s okay and more important is the–people who like your work. People tell us, here’s what we didn’t like about your new video, here it could have been better or here its lacking, we welcome that and we work on those areas. And I think we’ve been very lucky whether it’s You tube live or You tube video people have supported us and liked us.
All your series, scoops, sketches, episodes are known for its perfect comic timing and effortless humour. If I had to ask you the most hilarious moment/s you have had while shooting any of the sketches, videos, etc. Your answer would be?
There are so many….I think we have worked on different aspects…I really enjoyed doing Bollywood party song …it was really fun to do, it was something we had never done before. I thoroughly enjoyed the sketch we did about Yash Raj for not allowing us to do a parody that was again a blast as we were annoyed and that was our creative way of expressing ourselves..So, it was great fun.
Do you guys have any plans of making a full-fledged film, any time soon?
Absolutely, while we’re doing YouTube right now we are also working on developing web series. Then we also have the AIB’s First Draft which is basically where we call the writers’ from across the country, we audition them and ask them to do some writing etc. the idea is to pick up the best writers from across the country as we can’t just be restricted to just Bombay writers, right? We have people across India who are so talented. So, they are trained in writing and they have penned down fiction, web series, and they are also writing scripts for films. When we pitched the ideas we found around 15 of them were excellent. So that’s about AIB’s First Draft which has brought forth talented writers writing down scripts of all types and kinds.
AIB is going to have their Australian tour on 6th and 8th May in Melbourne and Sydney respectively. So, what’s in store for our audience?
Well, all our humour. There will be sketch , there will be jokes about bollywood to other occupation, there will be music and I can assure you on the fun experience when we come. People will be able to connect with us. It’s going to be an enthralling experience for the audience.
Message for your fans in Australia.
Come by tickets guys. We are coming really far, we are making a long ride and your presence will be worth it.
Tickets on Sale
Melbourne: Friday 6th May, 2016
Book at Ticketmaster 136 100 www.ticketmaster.com.au
Sydney: Sunday 8th May, 2016
Book at Festival Box Office 9020 6966 www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au or Ticketek 132 849 www.ticketek.com.au
AIB: India’s Edgiest Comedy Collective Set To Tickle Australia added by Indian newspaper Sydney on
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