Steel magnolia

She is tall, slender and comes across as one of the most harmless tomboyish girl-next-door with a sweet demeanour, until you see her in action — doing what she does the best — using her razor-sharp wit. Meet Neeti Palta, a deadly combo of good looks and intelligence, a gal who brings to the English stand-up comedy scene in India what it sorely lacks — a female perspective. With opening a show for British comedian Russell Brand at Talkatora Stadium in the capital to being voted as the best Stand-Up Comic at the Oz Fest, Palta has earned the title of ‘Women with balls of steel’ in the witty galaxy of stand-up comedy. She is also the India’s first Stand- Up to perform at Melbourne for the prestigious Melbourne Comedy Festival 2013.

“I’m an army-bred kid and have been brought up all over the country. That’s why I genuinely don’t get the rivalry between our cities for eg Delhi v/s Mumbai or Chennai v/s Bangalore etc., because when my father used to be out at the front, I don’t think he was fighting for just one state or one part of India,” says Neeti, as she begins to talk about her journey.

She goes on, “I have lived in the wild, played with Army jawans, seen life in the small barracks, travelled in trucks and played with all sorts of creatures, including snakes. I saw jawans beating the snake, rescued it, placed it in a tin, kept it under my bed for a night, took it to my school the next day, showed it to my science teacher, got my ENTIRE school evacuated, stood in the principal’s office after my parents had been called — I was only eight then,” she says with a chuckle. “Besides all that, I wanted to be a detective, a pilot, a soldier, a doctor till my mum pointed out that I would probably be disruptive everywhere but a creative field. So I started my career in the field of advertising. After a good period of 12 years, I quit JWT as senior creative director and soon got the opportunity to head a team of writers for Sesame Street USA’s Indian venture — Galli Galli Sim Sim.”

Neeti’s life took a sharp turn when she attended a show by Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood (of Whose Line Is It Anyway?), where she volunteered to do on-the-spot sound effects for the lines they were saying on stage. “What I did on the show turned out to be quite funny and they admitted that normally they didn’t take women for the part. And according to them I was an exception,” says Neeti, who has since then tickled many a funny bone across the country and overseas under her banner Loony Goons.

‘Wit’ said Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, ‘is educated insolence’. And insolence is not tolerated in our society. Right from their childhood, women are taught not to question elders, fathers, husbands or social values. Ask her how easy it is being a female humourist and she says, “The very fact that I perform in a pub is problematic for some people. But one of the important things comedians need is a thick skin. And being a comedian is as tough, if not tougher, as any other performance. I have to be fierce and funny, all the time tiptoeing forward and backward along an impossible tightrope, trying to convey how deeply I observe things... about all that people do while doing my very best to suggest that I couldn’t care less.”

Lastly, what would your advice be to women starting a career in comedy? “Don’t get up on stage with the albatross of your gender hanging around your neck. Just go up there and tell the voice in your head that constantly tells you that you can’t do it— to SHUT UP.”