Intro:
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Giving audiences a bellyful of laughter, Radhika Vaz is nevertheless giving them a lot of fodder to mull on as well. A stand-up comedienne who took to the craft after she moved to New York in 2000, Radhika has been tapping on this great source of communication not only for personal reasons, but to highlight many topical and contemporary issues. “I just happened to chance upon a workshop in comedy during my acting classes in New York. What stuck me about this act is the honesty that people brought to the table through it,” explains Radhika who later trained with members of the prestigious Groundlings School in Los Angeles as well as the Upright Citizens Brigade and the Magnet Theatre in New York.
Fine-tuning her comic act over the years, Mumbai-based Radhika is today acknowledged as one of India’s most well-recognised stand-up comediennes with an international following. Her first one-women comedy show ‘Unladylike, The Pitfalls of Propriety’ and later ‘Older, Angrier, Hairier’ (2013) have received rave reviews in New York as well as India. “My topics address more general issues that are topical and relevant rather than political or cultural ones. For example, in ‘Older, Angrier, Hairier’ i speak on the broader issues of women and children or issues relating to age especially those of women and the positive and negative aspects of ageing. The topics I choose largely depend on the audience and the topical issues of the time,” she elaborates. While at most times Radhika has been able to relate to her audience, there have been odd occasions, she confesses, when they are not in sync at all.
Beyond the ‘comic’ act, Radhika’s writing talents have seen her freelance for
Vogue, Verve, GQ, and Chicken Soup for The Indian Couples’ Soul as well as a fortnightly column ‘Read it and weep’ in a popular national daily. Recently, her edgy web-series ‘Shugs & Fats’ was nominated for the 2015 IFP Gotham Awards in New York in the Breakthrough Series (Short Form) Category.
Now in her mid-forties, Radhika is taking a look back in time in her debut novel ‘Unladylike, A Memoir’ which is likely to have its first formal launch at the Goa Arts & Literary Festival 2015. “The book is a collection of anecdotal stories spanning four decades of my life. They are stories about my childhood wishing I could change everything – including my parents, my delayed puberty, my college years, my marriage and the issue of marriage and my thoughts about it. Of course, a few stories of my shows have been interspersed among the stories,” she says of the book which has already been released online.
