Comedian Zakir Khan is one of the few exponents of the Hindi comic genre who has pushed the boundaries and stepped out of its usual slapstick format. The comedian, who performed at the Spoken Festival last week, revealed a side to himself that many had not known about before. “I’ve been writing poetry since the time I was in college. It was just a way of expressing my surrounding and some of them are part of my stand-up special as well. But I’ve never performed just my poetry pieces at any show. I’m still a storyteller at heart and my set at the festival was a story with poetry weaved in. I hope the audience connected with it,” says Zakir, humbly.
As a comedian who has been performing in Hindi, Zakir feels that he’s has to face his share of challenges. On the other hand, Hindi comedy is not without it’s benefits, according to the stand-up comic. The comedian feels that laughter transcends language. “I use Hindi because that comes naturally to me and anything forced is always jarring from an audience perspective. There is no Hindi/English comedy circuit in India. We all are comedians irrespective of the language used,” he explains.
As a comedian, one has to hold a mirror up to society and Zakir has not taken that responsibility lightly. Indeed, he says that no one person can have such a role. “All we do is express our opinions, whether it is in the form of criticism or humour is subjective from the audience to audience. We just express our views in context,” he shrugs.
