You have a very interesting name and you’ve used it quite creatively in the name of your website (www.sonofabish.com). What does it mean?

I actually have a joke written about it. My elder brother’s name is ‘Anish’ and there was another brother ‘Binish’. So my Dad put together the ‘a’ and the ‘b’ and made it ‘Abish’. But the funny thing is, if he were supposed to continue with the same alphabetical order, he would have had six kids no? A for Anish, B for Binish, Cinish, Dinish, Einish and Finish!

You have a very off-beat career. How did it all happen for you?

When I was at school, I was into a lot of music. I was in a rock band, used to host a lot of shows… So I got a lot of experience as far as stage is concerned and what the audience likes. Music continued in college, so did a lot of hosting and I went into debating. I always wanted to do radio, comedy, acting, singing, dancing… all of it; all the performing arts.
I got an opportunity, while in college, to intern with Radio One for a month. They liked me so they put me up on an internship for a year. So I learnt a lot about radio and it’s functioning. Then, by the grace of God, I realized that there is an opening at Hit 95 Fm so I went and auditioned. They liked it, I got it.

You’ve been working with Hit 95 since three years now.  Can you take us behind the scenes at the office and tell us what exactly goes on there?

I do a show at Hit 95FM starting 5 in the evening till 10 at night (Hit evenings with Abish). People think there is a radio jockey, there is a producer, and there is an assistant producer. In our station, there is nobody. I produce my own show, Sarthak does his own show, Suroshree does her own show. Every game segment is thought of and every call is screened by me. Every link is live, even the callers that we take on air are live, there’s no recording. So if I take somebody on air and they say something controversial, I have to cover up for it. Behind the scenes is a little tough because right from the time you enter the studio, you have to talk about the song, you have to talk about what’s coming up, you’ve got to make it small because people are not there to listen to you, people are there to listen to the music. And while playing music, you are looking at the SMSes, you take a caller out, you speak to them, explain the game – the rules and regulations, put them on hold, say something, put them back live on air, speak to them, make it a little fun, keeping in mind that there’s not just you and the second person, but a third person listening to you. Because what you’re trying to do is make the person you’re talking to on air feel good about themselves as well as make the third person laugh, they should be like ‘Oh, this is fun, I should give it a shot too.’ Then you’ve to take them off air, then say ‘coming up this’, call them back again, take their addresses, mail it to the rest of the people. So honestly, it’s quite a bit of a work, it’s not as easy as it seems. And having no producer, 5 hours of you doing everything alone, it is kind of taxing but it pays up. People like what you do and whenever they come up and appreciate your work, you feel happy every time.

You’re really great at multitasking!
Very good at multitasking. I think I am a little bit of a woman there. Women are brilliant at multitasking, I mean they could be BBing, calling, driving, doing their exercise at the same time, skipping rope; all of this while they are driving a car!

Skipping rope while driving a car?!
I am telling you! You should know, you are a woman, aren’t you?

Ye-ah…
Ahan! Got you there, with a little awkward ‘yes’.

Now to talk about standup comedy, it requires a lot of ingenuity, on-the-spot thinking and a lot of confidence. What’s your mental set-up before a show?
As far as stand-up is concerned, every comedian goes about it differently, right? I believe 70 percent is prepared, and 30 percent you let yourself be. You need to know what you’re going to talk about, where your punch lines are, how your set-up is. Every time you crack a joke, the audience responds to it differently and sometimes an audience member heckles you, they say something back…

Have you ever been heckled?
Many a times. Every show, in fact. It’s not bad, but people will say stuff like ‘That’s not funny, man!’ so you’ve to say something back. You don’t have to abuse them or say anything bad about them. What I try to use is a lot of self-derogatory humor and observational humor. I make fun of myself on stage, so if you make fun of me I’ll make fun of myself even more and everyone goes home happy. So, the mental state before a show starts is – calm. Your memory needs to be sharp. If you’re good at any performing art, if you’re confident that you’re going to have a good time, you’ve done your preparation. You could be going there with a mindset that ‘My girlfriend must’ve broken up with me, I must’ve failed my Math exam, I drove the car into a tree, my Dad is going to ask for payment, I’m bankrupt.’ but before the show, your mindset should be that I’m going to have a great time. It sounds very clichéd, but that’s your preparation done.

Sometimes you get calls from the female admirers of your fan base. How do you handle it?
Well, honestly, anyone who appreciates the work you’ve put in on radio or in stand up or even as an artist, I would always be appreciative of it. I feel very happy. But since you’re being specific about female admirers, it’s a good feeling, I will not deny that. It may sound egotistical but it gives you a really nice feeling about yourself.  So when that happens, I don’t make them feel awkward because if someone has taken the time and courage to come on air or on stage, you’ve got to admire the fact that they have let their inhibitions go and they’ve let their ego go down…

What about girls coming on air and declaring that they have a crush on you?
Yeah, that has happened with me. Errr, it’s nice. It’s embarrassing, yes, but it’s a good embarrassment. It’s not embarrassment like tumhara pants niche gir gaya hai; it’s like an embarrassment that ‘Aww, that’s so sweet of you to say that to me’. BUT I don’t know what to say now. (laughs).  It makes me feel like, yeah dude if someone has a crush on me on air, because of what I am, because I am not a personality, what I am off air is what I’m on air, like speaking to you right now or speaking to my parents.

Really? You feel you’re not different on air?
No I’m not different on air; I am not different on stage…

Some would have a persona for their on air self…
I can’t (Pauses). Imagine this – For 3 years, I can’t put on a personality when I’m live on air. If it’s recorded, then I can say this is too much of Abish, let’s put this ‘super cool’ personality. This is how I am. And that’s why when someone compliments me or says I have a crush on you, I feel even better about myself because they like me for what I am actually. It’s awkward when people say I have crush on you, so I try to make them comfortable and say let’s move on before my mother calls you for tea!

Criticism on stand-up comedy, especially in India, has not always been very favorable.  Yet I saw such an article posted on your blog with the caption ‘We welcome our critics’. That’s a refreshingly sporting way that you’ve adopted. Does criticism not affect you at all?
No, don’t get me wrong when I say that ‘we support our critics’ because let’s face it, there are all kinds of people in this world. Like when I’m on air, you might like what I’m talking about but there could be 10 guys who’re thinking ‘Uff yaar, this guy is just talking random nonsense’. I am not saying they are wrong, they could be. That’s why I say that if I can do it, you can do it much better than I can. But the whole point is, you can’t win everybody. You can either choose to serve the people who like you and try to win the people who don’t like you or love the people who like you and don’t care about the rest. It’s easy to like people who like you. Even when someone writes something nasty about me, I would still put it up because the point is I was important enough for them to criticize. And anyway, if you listen to the opinions of everyone around you, you will definitely go down and you have to always be happy in a profession like this one.

You have yourself mentioned elsewhere that you need to constantly evolve in this profession. So who do you depend on for constructive criticism?
Constructive criticism comes from everybody. Say after a show, I am thinking it’s not that great but there are good friends of mine who come and say ‘You were awesome, amazing’.  So they found me to be great, but for me, my standards were not met. So if someone comes to me and says, ‘You were good, but you were better there’, I will be like, ‘Yes! I was better there.’

So you depend on yourself?
You are your best judge for your talent.  A lot of people get competitive with each other. The best way to stay away from all of that is when you’re competing with yourself. If you know that there is a standard that you can reach and you’re not reaching there, that means essentially you need to work your way out instead of thinking what the other person is doing.  Out of 100 percent, a fragment of the brain power is being used by you to write jokes or for performing. If you give even that small amount into thinking about others, then you’re not putting in all your best energies into it.

Well, that’s a great thing about you. Even on your website you have a ‘Support My Friends’ section. I think this is the only place where one promotes one’s own competition…
See, you see it as competition. I don’t look at it as competition!

You look at them as ‘friends’..?
Yeah, I look at them as friends. No matter what they are – photographers, comedians, bloggers, website makers…they’re friends because they’ve helped me out, and they’re good. It’s not like they are average people. The reason I do this is because I don’t believe that one can grow on its own, you can only grow if everyone else grows. Humans are social animals, and the society needs to grow for you to improve. The person who invented light could’ve said ‘Haha, this light is mine, I won’t give it away. I’ll impress the girls and get laid.’ but that’s not the point. He gave the light out, and today we are over-exposing light.

Do you feel reality shows are to blame for a certain dumbing down of the sense of humor of the masses?
Again, I believe the reverse here.  An entertainer or an entertainment channel will provide what the audience wants to watch. Because 5 channels made reality shows so big, the 500 other channels will make so many other reality shows creating so much more opportunity. But what they don’t realize is that there is no extra creativeness coming from anywhere else. Everyone is remembering the mass over class.  People are writing mediocre shows but it’s working. I feel that every society goes through a point of decadence, and then it breaks and starts again absolutely fresh…

Like a renaissance? You were a History student at college right?
Yeah, since you know (laughs).  So reality TV is a phase, like we had the saas-bahu serials phase and it will get over.  The content you provide intellectualizes the society or dumbs them down but it’s the society which chooses to entertain such things.

You’re a confirmed speaker for TEDx-ITMU (November 13th, 2011). Congratulations! This is almost like receiving a medallion of honor for being a ‘thinking individual’! How are you planning to use this platform?
I was extremely honored when I got the call. I even called them up to confirm it wasn’t a prank! I take it as an honor, an honor that I think I don’t particularly deserve. But the reason I’ve got it is because they’ve seen something in me and I need to deliver my best there as far as I can. They have very strict rules about the time you take, which I’m very happy about because when you condense a 2 page matter into 2 verses you know you’ve got the cream of it.

What would people be shocked to know about you?
People who know me on-air will be shocked to see that I’m 5.5”! People who know me through stage are shocked when they find that even off-stage I am pretty much what I am on-stage. They’d be like you can put your act down now Abish, be yourself but I AM myself! That’s why I never feel like I’m ‘working’, or doing a ‘job’.

Is that how you project a happy voice on radio every day?
See, when you say ‘project’, it’s incorrect. I don’t have a persona. You might not be in a happy mood, but when u take your focus away from ‘I’ and take it instead to ‘You’ or ‘Them’, you’d realize that you’ll be happy.

If you could catch a youth by its collar and give him one life-saving advice, what would it be?
I would hold the youth by its collar, and I’d tell them, “Stop cribbing, start doing.” That’s it. Stop saying that the country is not working, do something about it. Stop saying that the education system is ruined, the police is corrupt; do something about it. Join it, change it, and speak out about it! Don’t go abroad and say, “You know people in Dailli, are so rrude.” (With a fake accent)!

You have a packed, hectic week doing radio, stand up and what not. How do you unwind?
I am unwinding when I’m doing all of that!

Great thought indeed! Thanks so much for taking time out for this Abish, and all the best with all your future work. Youth 360 wishes you the very best!