A sense of humor is a good quality to have but not everybody can say that they are funny or have the ability to make people laugh. Shreya Pokharel calls herself ‘just somebody who wants to be funny’ but her humor is evident in the simplest of words she speaks and the mannerisms with which she tells her story. It is this that led her to the stand-up comedy scene where she is beginning to make quite a name for herself.
“I’ve always been someone who likes to try out multiple things at the same time. Uniformity and stillness bore me and I just can’t hold onto a certain thing for long. So I’ve tried acting, written scripts for commercials, I’m the editor for Startups Nepal, but all in all my love for comedy has been the one constant over the years and it is this that fuels me more than anything. I mean who doesn’t want to be the person behind someone else’s laughter,” says Shreya.
Always the joke maker in the group, Shreya wonders if she got her sense of humor from her mother who she calls a ‘social butterfly who is always inciting laughter everywhere she goes’. However, she maintains that humor isn’t a virtue you are born with. It’s something you hone as you experience things and try to see them from different perspectives. “Humor really is seeing life with a positive lens. Once you learn to take in the brighter scenes and pay no heed to the darker ones, humor will come to you,” she adds.
As an undergraduate student at SRCC Delhi, she came across remarkable comedians while attending stand-up comedy events namely the Canvas Laugh Club (CLC). It was this platform for live comedy that prompted the jester in her to want to get up onstage and engage the audience in a rapturous trance as she delivered her own pieces of ‘comic genius’. She was clear about what she wanted to do.
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But reality hit her as she landed in Nepal, where the stand-up comedy scene was still in its infancy. “Even by the end of 2017, there wasn’t much happening in the comedic circuit. But 2018 has been explosive. There are so many open mike events happening now and many people sign up for them and the audience reaction has been overwhelming. It may also be because events have always meant live music here and people wanted something different. Stand-up comedy seems to be seamlessly subbing that these days,” she explains.
Some of her first skits were on open mike shows such as the one at Sukrabar organized by Comedy Tuktuk. With great apprehension but backed by the incessant support of her friends who were the only audience she was used to, she somehow did it and she hasn’t stopped since then. She has done stints in the Storytellers and Astra Mike, another open mike event organized by Jatra Events and it was here that she learnt some of her earlier lessons.
“In comedy we have this term, ‘bomb’. Essentially, bombing a show is when a comedian gets a lukewarm reception or worse no laughs from the audience. Some comedians told me bombing a show is inevitable and that each comedian has to face it one time or the other. But it still doesn’t feel good, knowing everyone experiences it is only little consolation. I bombed my Astra Mike skit and while it was disheartening it also taught me a lot,” says the bubbly comedian adding that certain material might work with an audience but it might bomb with another and expecting the same reaction everywhere is getting ahead of oneself.
Shreya finds inspiration from her own life and the things around her. Comedians, according to her, fall under two categories: the ones who narrate events around their own lives with great punch lines and wittiness and the ones who observe and absorb their contemporary surroundings and prepare their material often practicing analogy use. She claims to be the latter.
“I’ve often been reminded that my stuff belongs on YouTube more than they do on a standup show. I do accept that but I’m trying to find a balance. I’m still developing my style. But I’m loyal to my craft and I’m adamant on presenting new ideas every time. Just like I’m bored by the regularity of routines. I don’t find any thrill in repeating my materials,” she says.
But how people view humor these days is rather conflicted and often baffling. People mask ostracism and libel under claims of humor and Shreya believes that anything that does so isn’t humor. According to Shreya, humor often comes from a dark side so using it to taunt the darker sides of others is a gross violation of the very idea of humor. “Obscenity isn’t humor. And it’s appalling how sometimes it passes as one. Comedy emerges from the depths of insecurity and angst and making fun of others is definitely not on its agenda,” she says.
And true to her words, Shreya doesn’t make fun of others and mock people to elicit a few laughs. She would rather use instances and circumstances and build her narrative around them. With her head in the right place, we believe this young comedian is definitely going places.
