I Might Be Going Mad

Before you read this one, I think it’s best to put it out there that everything I’m going to write from hereon is an unfiltered rant on thoughts that I cannot seem to logically segregate and socially comprehend. It’s mad man’s talk. You know how when you’re passing a worn down street and a homeless person aimlessly shouts, “Elvis is still alive you nitwits” or something even more scorn-worthy. This is one of those. So, ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for a worded vomit of life sequences and paradoxes vented out on the internet due to the liberty of free office wi-fi? Yeah? Yeah! Let’s go.

Firstly, the Broadway Comedy Club show went super smooth. The crowd erupted, I got a nice tape out of it, the producers gave me a spot on an upcoming pro-show and I also made it to the waiting-list of the Manhattan Comedy Festival. Woot Woot! Not so much. I played 140 people that day. My biggest crowd in 5 months. Fun and all that yes, but as I got off stage, I experienced the weirdest feeling ever. I felt hollow. Ecstatic but empty. It was unexplainable. I was amongst friends and other people who appreciated my set and reassured me that all was great. Still. Something was amiss. And an hour later it dawned upon me. I missed silence. Numerous mics filled with no humans and sacred solitude made me befriend the nothingness. It’s like Tarzan or one of those jungle movies. You’re bred in the damp forests and darkness for years and you think that the city is going to be great with tall buildings and unbridled excitement. Then you get to the big apple and it’s filled with garbage and malice too corrupted for you to digest. Your happy ending then is returning to the woods and hooking up with Jane under aloe trees. Have you ever had all that translated into a moment or a feeling? It’s okay. I know it’s just me.

I think I’m going mad. It has to be the start of me becoming a lunatic under the educated pretext of art and cynicism. You can call it a critic or whatever classy words begin with C. The core of it is pure insanity. Also, I absolutely detest one thing that people always say in such situations. It’s a phrase that defines whether they will ever amount to anything in life or join that homeless man in believing that Elvis is still alive. It goes something like ‘Grass is always greener on the other side BRO’. To which my usual reply in the words of the great Bill Hicks is ‘FUCK YOU’. This has nothing to do with two equally enticing sides. It’s between identity-crisis and the pinnacle of appreciation. Between having nothing at all or everything at once. And how can you crave nothing? It’s an one-sided affair you foresight-handicapped organism.

I warned you at the start about this entire thing being too dark and vain.

Initially, I thought this was just a phase and would pass. Isn’t that a sweet lie we tell ourselves till we realize the phase becomes a part of our forever? “Woah woah Deep, you really don’t want me to make a pun on your first name after you said THAT huh?”

Okay my bad. I do believe in phases passing, however I also am of the opinion that each one leaves a morsel of it behind that adds on to your ongoing existence and overall molding as a person. Here’s when I realized this is who I might be becoming. On Monday night, I performed with the SnG Comedy boys at a sold out show which they put up since they happened to be in New York. I did a fairly short set. About 10-12 minutes. But, it was one of those where everything you utter lands as a punchline and even four bits seem to last an eternity because of the applause. I am obviously over-exaggerating. I get off stage and then Varun Thakur, one of my early-favorites from the Indian scene goes on to destroy for 40 minutes. I get the compliments and the appreciation begins. But with every nice word that was spoken by those super kind audience members, I felt like I did disservice to silence. I felt like a traitor. Now, tell me if this isn’t a sign of psychosis then what is?

From here it’s all a wait game. I have two options. The first is to breathe, take a step back, analyze the importance of silence and make sure I come to an agreement on visiting it regularly, so as in not to feel crazy when the applauses come in. Just absorb the fact in its entirety that this might be a normal stage in the process of trying to become a comic who wants to be good first and not famous. The second way out is a tough road. I’ll have to believe Elvis is still kicking and alive. That’s genuinely downright ridiculous. Hmm, wait what if he actually is…?