The Baigan Vines: Keeping it clean & slick

Making their own mark among the comedy groups in the city are The Baigan Vines. The group mostly touches on current topics, but many of their videos and memes give us an insight into Hyderabad and the lives of Hyderabadis, in a hilarious way. A lot of their videos touch several lakh views in no time. Started by five Hyderabadis in November 2014, the group has come a long way. They initially started from vines but later shifted to making short videos.

Aamer Bin Ishaq, 22, who just finished his graduation, says, “Ossama Tipu, 23, and I were inspired by watching the international vines and wanted to do something similar back home. Later my other friends, Mohammed Zeeshan, 19, Syed Farhan Ahmed, 21, and my brother Mohammed Bin Ishaq, 32, came on board.” “We have clean and slick comedy with no vulgarity for added humour. Our parents watch all our videos, they will probably disown us if the videos are not clean,” jokes Aamer, while his brother Mohammed adds, “We are very versatile, guess that clicks. We also explore the lives of Hyderabadis, people from different areas in the city, give it a hilarious and sometimes sarcastic twist, which our audiences really love. We mostly use Hyderabadi Hindi, because that is what most of our audiences like. Not just India, we have people from the US, Canada, the UK and the Middle East, too, who have subscribed to our channel and enjoy our videos.”

Adding to what makes them different from the rest, Aamer says, “Other YouTubers from the city are mostly confined to a single place, but we move around and shoot. We put a lot of thought into our videos and that shows. Many Hyderabad-is can connect to the stories.” Says Mohammed, “It’s usually Aamer and I who conceptualise, then we discuss with the whole group and come up with a script. The funny part, however, is that we do a lot of improvisation and hardly stick to the script. We come up with a lot of punch lines. One of our videos, The Viva, has also been enacted by students in colleges. A lot of our lines like Miyabhai bolte… aando and Abha English are also famous with Hyderabadis.”

Their popularity in the city has no bounds and the group is often stopped and asked for selfies. They are popular among politicians in the city too and have made videos for MIM during their election campaign. The group also wants to venture into stand-up comedy. “We had performed a skit during an event related to Save the Lake campaign. We had come up with a script in just 15 minutes and people loved it so much that we have been invited by many corporate bodies to perform. We want to take it slow but we will surely venture into stand-up comedy,” says Mohammed. “We want to show that there is much more to Hyderabad than biryani. Also, one major thing that promotes us is that many consider us as stressbusters. It’s hard to bring a smile on someone’s face and we try to do it through our videos,” says Aamer.