In 2012 when stand-up comedy was still picking up in India and the group All India Bakchod, popularly known as AIB was yet to become as popular as it is today, I had done a story on the women stand-up comics in India for a daily newspaper. Speaking to the handful of such female comics, I had realised that it's difficult to survive in an industry which was dominated by not just men, but men who cracked jokes on women. Neeti Palta, one of the few performing women in the stand-up space had remarked that it's a completely male-dominated area. While another female comic Sharmila Bhatia, happily married and a mother, who loved her small stints as a comic artiste, had remarked that performing on stage gets really annoying at times. “The reaction of men in the audience becomes intolerable. It may be one reason that more women don’t pursue comedy seriously,” she had said.
It's been five years since then and a lot has been changing. At least people have taken notice of the skewed ratio in the Indian comedy scene – a conversation on the “skewed sex ratio” in the Indian comedy scene saw a participation of Aditi Mittal, Tanmay Bhatt, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Kanan Gill and Vipul Goyal. Moderated by Anupama Chopra, the conversation was criticised that the only participating woman hardly got an opportunity to speak. The gender imbalance in the vocation was also evident when Amazon Prime Video announced its line-up of comedy shows earlier this year with 14 well-known names of the stand-up comedy scene, but only men. Most of us wondered aloud the absence of female artistes.
But now, a show dedicated to Aditi Mittal on Netflix (eveidently Amazon's competitor) has brought a sigh of relief. Netflix, which earlier did an original comedy act with Vir Das, announced earlier in the day an original stand-up comedy special, Things They Wouldn’t Let Me Say with Aditi Mittal.
The show will debut on Netflix on July 18 to over 100 million members across 190 countries globally. Reacting to the announcement, Mittal was quoted in the release, “Having a platform like Netflix is a dream come true for anyone in entertainment and comedy today. Even while I give this quote for the press release I have to pinch myself to confirm that this is real. The journey of this show has been absolutely exhilarating. I hope Netflix fans all over the world will enjoy the show as much as I have in making it.”
Mittal’s distinctive brand of humor touches life, gender, sex, beauty (and ugly) secrets and more. As one of the few female comedians in India, Things They Wouldn’t Let Me Say is gender revolution rich with taboos of being a woman in India today.
Swati Shetty, Director of Content Acquisition, Netflix said, “Aditi’s success reflects the growing pool of Indian stand-up comedy talent that is already gaining international recognition and we are proud to showcase Aditi’s bold wit and humour on the Netflix service.”