East India Comedy: Spinning comedy gold

Do what you love, “and we love being juvenile,” says Sorabh Pant, one of the seven comics of the East India Comedy. While speaking to the EIC team, it becomes apparent that the name the team has made for themselves is because of their sheer talent. “I have no vision, I just wanted to do comedy. It was Kunal and Sapan who came up with the idea for a company,” says Sorabh.

They may not be visionaries, but EIC is funnier than funny bones themselves. Within a few short years, they have become one of the faces of comedy in the country. It wasn’t always like this though. For one of their shows in Hyderabad, almost seven years ago, only 11 people showed up and Kunal and Sorabh had to go around the mall requesting people to come for their show. They had to pay their dues, but the paying did pay off. By their own admission, all of them, Sorabh, Kunal, Atul, Angad, Sapan, Sahil and Azeem are so busy these days that they hardly get time for themselves.

EIC is also one of the few prominent comedy companies in the country with no FIRs to their name. “We have been waiting for them for the past 4 years. We do speak out on the issues, but we tow the line a bit intelligently and have managed to steer clear of controversies,” says one of them. Sapan and Sorabh share the thought that, “We do need to grow up as a society. In fact, I think 97 per cent of the people are intelligent enough to not get offended by comedy. Of the remaining three, only one per cent  people take offense seriously and file FIRs.”

EIC All Stars, the show they performed on December 16 in Hyderabad, was their biggest show ever. According to them, they have never tried anything like this before. All seven of them performed in this 2 hours long show. “There was something for everyone. Whether you like English comedy or Hindi, stand-up or sketches, issue related jokes or just juvenile nonsense. This show had it all,” they say.