The Monday Open Mic night distress call

I’ve been staring at a blank screen for the last 45 minutes and I’ve just realised it doesn’t flow as profusely as it used to.

I don’t know why this has happened. Something is jammed in between those little cogs that used to rotate quite freely earlier – with content both good and bad. I’ve produced/created/built nothing of value since the last nine days I’ve stepped back into Bombay.

Monday Open Mic was the usual with the regular hits and misses and nothing I’ve added in the name of new ‘material’ works. You keep trying and trying and trying – until one person in the crowd yields. One laugh, that ‘catches’ across the rows and then turns into a wave – apparently everyone enjoys the irony of the term Protestant Bhaiya – it’s almost an oxymoron to them. I don’t even find it funny. I just say it because it’s a crowd pleaser. There, I said it. And all the thoughts I find honestly hilarious die a natural death on that little stage and you kill the remainder – each one of them individually – during that walk of shame from the stage back to your seat.

My skin is a lot thicker than it used to be. For example, it’s now become easier to admit defeat. The thickness of my skin has even transcended to other spheres of my life – yes I am pathetic and I implore you to approve of me and I am going to keep trying until you look at my work and casually say, “Not bad”. Yes I like you and I know it’s not going to happen and I know about her but can we please be adults and set this aside for the time being because this world, right now, is greater than you, me and her.

Peter Griffin (look him up yourselves) once told me that stage fright keeps you honest. Except it’s not fright anymore. It’s plain resignation. It’s not that I ‘tank’ completely or I ‘kill’ in the Xircus. It’s a lukewarm – oh-we-just-got-that – response, that doesn’t exactly seize the room. Nor does it warm you up from inside. Today I am lying awake wondering why I continue to put myself through this every Monday night. I am also looking at the grainy footage of the trainwreck that my ‘set’ was today and the Instagram images that are less than flattering.

I took a shot at relating the Exodus to a Bandra gathering today – I know the comedian community is already filled with Yehowah’s people and I am sure as hell a tonne of them have taken on the books of Moses. But after a reading of the Old Testament at home (Uttar Pradesh is knee-deep in religious fanatics and my mother is no exception – I still love her to bits and I won’t have her any other way), I was starting to wonder if the Jews they speak of in the Bible are painted as (I choose my words very carefully here – take note) a little bit brat-ish. Again, it’s the character portrayal I am looking at, not commenting on the true nature of our Hebrew brethren. I shall continue to explore this thought because even if I can’t get them to yield – the thought is still mine and because it occurred to me, I shall continue to explore it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to watch one hour of a really bad print of Crimson Peak before going off to bed. Tom Hiddlestone is the new Colin Firth and this is the closest thing to Jane Eyre right now.