In my 3rd standard, my mother thought that her son deserves to study in an international school, and hence my school was changed. The new school was actually the "cool rich kids" school. My dad was a software engineer at capegemini, so it was not that we were poor, its just that I din't knew we were rich, and I dint knew how to show that I was rich. So I was isolated from these kids as I did not had any likeability factor, I did not know what addidas was, I did not listen to western music, heck I dint even knew who Michael Jackson was. School allowed the kids to bring iPads with them if they had them, my typical Indian father would obviously not buy his 8 year old only son an iPad even if we could afford it. So again a deep barrier was created between me who did not have an iPad vs majority rich kids who had the iPad. 3 years and made no friends, never played with anyone after school, never got invited to any of their birthday parties. It was really tough on me who was just a child who wanted to be noticed by his classmates. Well the kids used to give me the peasant look and always frowned when I tried associating with them. They din't even wanted to share their food with me. Now lets jump to the important moment which happened in the school's annual event. Our "international school" held an annual event where students will get their own stalls at the school ground. The entire class will divide into 4 teams and prepare for a topic: Global Warming,Corruption etc. Everyone will prepare charts, skits, games, presentations on global warming. 1 day before the event, our team had to put up charts in the stall. Now there was this biggg chart that we had to put on top of the fabric wall. No surprise that none of the 10 year old kids with their short heights could put up the chart. So we had a table, which only reached quarter of the height, we put a chair on it, which reached halfway now. When the tallest boy in our class couldn't reach, we had Akruti give it a try. She was THE tallest girl of our grade,but even she was able to just barely reach it. When the kids finally saw that we need something extra to finish the job, someone yelled "We need more chairs", another guy yelled "We need more tables". I looked at the scenario in front of me and I said "We need more Akrutis".
As I said this, the whole group looked towards me and bursted into laughing. The "coolest" boy of the group walked up to me, gave me a Hi-Fi and said with a laugh "that was a good one". I stood there realising what just happened, everyone just suddenly started taking note of my presence, my existence, because I made a joke. In that moment, the 10 year old Wadad did not feel lonely and realised something, "people like you if you can make them laugh, regardless of your status" ^_^ Even though I knew humor is the way, I did not had any sense of humor back then. I used to search online how to make people laugh. I found a book with title "Get paid to make people laugh" I was like this is nonsense, who will ever pay you to make people laugh? Wow I was so naive back then.
Throughout my schooling, whenever I was asked what I wanted to become when I grow up, I thought journalist because I wanted to talk, I wanted to give speeches. When my grandfather told me what kind of job it was, and how less the pay was, the 15 year old me forgot about it. In 2016 (man, more traumatic past now), I shifted to Mangalore and joined Alvas college. Long story short, I had joined the localite batch where I was the only person from north karnataka and rest all were from south karnataka. Language of karnataka is Kannada, but in coastal karnataka it's "Tulu". I did not know Tulu, so I could not communicate with anyone properly. And since I was from north karnataka, I was introduced to "cultural racism" this time. Nobody wanted to be my friend, everybody maintained their distance from me. Am a muslim, so I thought I would atleast get along with muslims of the class, as Islam is all about concept of single brotherhood. But to my surprise, these muslims were of different "caste". Now I did not know there were castes in muslims that time. When I read the quran now, the concept of caste does not exist in Islam and it is all man-made. I was bullied by the same muslims who were supposed to be my brothers in religion, slapped by them in an ongoing class and humiliated by them. When I complained this to teacher, the teacher had inturn punished me as I was from north and they spoke something in tulu to convince the teacher I deserved to get slapped.
In youtube, I saw my first standup comedy video of Zakhir Khan. I enjoyed it alot! I saw more of his videos. Then I saw his "Youtube fanfest" video where thousands of people were shouting ZAAAKHIRRR ZAKHIR on top of their lungs. Did not even let him perform for 5 mins, just shouting. It was at that moment I realised, that Zakhir Khan, even if he was a muslim, he was cheered and loved by people. He showed me that despite your circumstances, you can still win the hearts of people. He became my second idol in life. Since my first idol, APJ Abdul Kalaam had died, I decided that I need to meet my second idol, and not just meet him but become part of his life. Hence it was then I decided that I will become a standup comedian.
July 2018, the first Open mic in our city was going to take place. I thought that it was some kind of destiny, I then worked on some jokes to perform there. There were 5 comedians who performed during that Open mic, 3 had done in kannada and they did really very good. One did in hindi and sadly no one laughed. I did in english + Hindi + Kannada, to be on safer side. I was really nervous, my legs shivering, my premises really long, and I got few laughs but I knew it was not up to the mark. Still I felt good as this was finally my first step in Comedy. Next I performed in my college, engineering 1st sem. I was still nervous, but I had a solid set this time. The crowd had went crazy when I had accidently roasted a girl(I apologized to her later, I can't think before I say when am really nervous on stage). Overall it was a success, and everyone started calling me comedian. I then performed in another college's event as well, this was a weak set but people still enjoyed it.
In August, there was another open mic, but the difference was that they will record our video and post it on instagram & youtube. I had went with a solid set this time. I was really very nervous back then, my legs were shivering, my throat was dry. Confidence is not about zero nervousness, confidence is being nervous but not showing your nervousness. Well it was a real success. The video got 2k+ views (which was a big thing for me back then). And here's some main character vibes for you. After 2017 when my 12th had ended, nobody had stayed in touch with me. After my video reached 2k views, all of a sudden many of my 12th classmates started sending me follow requests after 1 year of ignoring me. Heck even the girl who had rejected my proposal sent me a follow request. The comedy open mics happened every month. I used to go there and focused only on one thing: Build up stage courage. There are few times were you don't feel nervous at all in front of the crowd. Zero stage fear comes with practice and when you are in that state, you have the dynamic confidence to own the stage. Even if your jokes don't get laughs, you quickly improvise something funny on spot to get a laugh. Whenever I used to get a chance to perform standup, be it class or among friends, or any event, I used to do it. I used to push myself to overcome my stage fear. The tip to absolute confidence is to practice thoroughly what you are going to speak on stage and have a self belief that you are here to kill it today.
During the year of pandemic, I started putting up videos online. Keep in mind that instagram was still free of cancer i.e no reels. I started getting 4k, 5k, 8k views on my videos. Along with alot of followers. In februvary 2021, I got an offer from a restaurant to make a promotional video for them. They agreed to pay 8k Rs. I then called my female friend, my cameraman friend and a supporting role friend to shoot the video. It was an amazing time shooting, we got to eat free biryani every time we went there. The video was released on Valentine's day, got 12k Views on it.
The video was a success but the guy still did not pay the money yet >_<. Anyways, later I was invited by a college as a guest standup comedian. I had performed online for them. They had even created a poster of mine. So memorable, my own college never used to support me but other colleges invited me as their guest wow. Later in august, I was invited to perform standup comedy for Deshpande Startups' 5th Anniversary. It was an amazing time since most of them were engineers and understood my smart jokes. I even performed at farewell party of our seniors. Sometimes, after I finish performing, a stranger comes up to me and says "You perform good, don't give up on this, continue doing it and one day you will become the best standup comedian". Not everyone says this to me, infact when I had said I wanted to become standup comedian in early 2018, not a single person supported me, they kept giving reasons as to why this is not something I can achieve or that am not funny enough for this. Being a standup comedian does not mean being the funniest person in room, there are people who are more funnier than you. A standup comedian has to take a joke and perfrom it 100 times on stage. After every iteration, he must edit the joke continously to make it even funnier. You need to have your own personality and the confidence to win hearts of people. That's what it needs to become a standup comedian.
After coming to Bengaluru, I thought this is the year to go viral. I even met a local standup comedian, he laid out the entire roadmap to becoming a standup comedian. So now I understood what it takes to become a standup comedian. This will not be achieved through just going and performing on saturdays & sundays. The artform demands its own respect. You need to dedicate your 3 whole months, everyday performing, writing content, practicing and improvising. This year, my life has gone into its worse phase. People have ups n downs, my life just decided to go straight to the core of earth. Whenever I get a chance, I still perform, but I have taken a break now. My plan is to first set up my career, get married and then continue my standup journey. My end goal of standup comedy is to become a "symbol of happiness". I declare war against hatred, depression and loneliness in this world. I want to be such a person that if anyone is in pain, is sad or feels suicidal, they just have to think of me and they will smile. This is my dream and I will achieve this. Inshallah, I will become the No.1 Standup Comedian of India one day ^_^