Rita Farhat Mukand

The Mumbai-born Rehman Khan is known for his versatility, sarcasm, satire, and unique technique of hitting out punch lines. An actor, writer, theatre enthusiast, and stand-up comedian Rehman Khan’s latest avatar is his famous creation of HumourBaaz. He hosted over 20 non-fiction and fiction comedy shows across various TV channels such as Star Plus, Colors, Zee TV, Sony Entertainment, Sab TV, and Life Ok, among others. Additionally, he has performed in more than 2000 live shows in India and internationally. He has worked in great television shows such as The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, Comedy Circus, Comedy ka Maha Muqabala, Chote Miyan Bade Miyan, Mad in India, Comedy Dangal, and many more and outdid himself in more than 2000 live performances all across the globe, with a huge fan following across all social media platforms that exceeds more than millions on YouTube. 

As a humanitarian, he has contributed plentifully to an NGO Salaam Bombay, with a theatrical production that highlighted the dangers of tobacco educating and helping those addicted to gutkha and positively impacting countless lives.  With his humour and humanitarianism, he instills purpose, laughter, and awareness into the lives of people in society.

For the 45-year actor, it started way back in school during school and college days when the young boy Rehman captured the art of mimicry of his school teachers and his particular targets were his history teacher, Hindi teacher, and a South Indian teacher spurring the class into splits of laughter.  Enjoying being the center of attention while entertaining his classmates, he furnished his skills to better levels. 

Standup comedian Rehman Khan during a live performance 

One day, when a temporary teacher was asked to supervision his class and he asked him, “Visheshan kitne prakar ke hote hain?” a last bencher boy quipped, “Sir, pakaau maat, since it’s not your period, don’t ask us all these questions,” and the entire class burst into laughter.  Rehman Khan tells Awaz-the-Voice, “These kinds of silly things incidents kept us entertained, and we spent our time cracking jokes over hilarious incidents and statements by our teachers, such as our history and Hindi teachers and we were especially amused by our South Indian in her quaint Hindi accent keeping us rolling in laughter.  In our school, most of us never conversed in English and 50% of the class was poor in English, so she would attempt to speak to us in Hindi, and would say amusing statements such as “Patanika to tumko bahut marega!” These small memories livened our otherwise studious days poring over schoolbooks.”

Observing teachers drew out his gift and imitating that before friends to get a few laughs, and attention loved that but had no idea it would become a profession. 

“Now with my career, I note that I cannot be completely myself as I was in school because not only do we have to follow the stage protocols but also have to take society and situations into consideration, so I am not completely free and not my real self on the stage and I know I am holding back,” he said. Excerpts from his interview:

Share an incident that transformed your thinking and way of doing things

I started my career late, way back in 2007 when we all together - me, Kapil Sharma, and others started - and hung out together. I used to do stand-up comedies from 2007 to 2016.  I started with modern contemporary stand-ups, inspired by many such as Carlin, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and more.  In India, in 2011 and 2012, stand-ups started to revolutionize.  At that time, I used the old standard technique, the television style, and wrote a few jokes. One day, when on the sets of a show, there was a British guy whose name I never caught from the London Comedy Store, known as the programming guy for the shows, also associated with the Canvas Laugh Club who watched my show intently. Though he never understood Hindi and I was killing the show keeping everyone in splits, this man caught what I was trying to relay. Right after the show, he approached me with the spirit of a critique, sat with me for about half an hour, and gave me a few snapshots about how I had performed highlighting my shortcomings. He also asked me quite a few questions that I could not answer properly, totally zapped while staring at him, not getting what he was getting at, and I thought, “Kya keha raha, ye banda, ye gora.”   

Standup comedian Rehman Khan delivering a speech

He said, “I want to know who you are, but even after watching the show, I can't understand who you are.  You are talking about your observations about how the auto rickshaws function, and about Bollywood movies, and sports, I still didn’t grasp the essence of you, who you are and your personality does not come across to the audience when you are speaking.”  This meeting opened my eyes to my shortcomings.

I realized I was following an old-school typical how-I-met-a-banana-walla, kind of one-liner funny joke and noted that in all these jokes, I could not find myself.  I began to ask myself, “Where was my voice, where is my pain, where is my pathos?”  Deeply introspecting what was bothering me, as I began to dig inside, the reality came outside and my shows became more real to my audience.  Earlier, my scripts were quite shallow as I could now analyze them. This was the turning point of my career.

I then set out to write a new piece that would become one of my biggest hits, a turn-around transformational script describing how weird I felt when I watched cricket matches between India and Pakistan with my friends, titled, Indian Muslims & India Pakistan Cricket Match.  After this popular show, I spotlighted all the stereotypes of questions people in the neighbourhood ask Muslims such as “Tu Biryani kha raha kya?” (Are you eating Biryani?)  When of course, we Muslims don’t eat Biryani daily and only on occasion, this drew attention to the perceptions within society of generally how people relate to Muslims, how Bollywood paints communities according to their mindsets, such as Christians with a Michael with his particular “Christian” persona or an Akbar with typical Muslim-exaggerated characteristics. 

With this jargon springing up in society, I began to specify the challenges I face as a Muslim in my locality. I did a few shows on the NRC, cracking jokes on that.  I also highlighted some funny anecdotes within the Muslim community of how they were avoiding vaccination, bundling together in fear.  In trying to highlight truth draped with humour, I also face backlash for some of my shows not only from the Muslim community and outside the community but nothing stops me, and I am least bothered about trolls and haters on Social Media.”

Standup comedian Rehman Khan during a live performance 

What was the turning point in the way of becoming a standup comedian?

Way back when I was a comedian in school, I was heavily into mimicry. Eventually, I left mimicry and switched to theatres. I was into theatre for ten years, both with commercial theatre and with an NGO Salaam Baalak Trust and Salaam Bombay Foundation. I performed more than 1000 shows of a play based on the Anti-Tobacco theme. I worked as an actor, writer, and director in Hindi, English, and Urdu with many inter-college and professional plays and also anchored live orchestras.

In 2007, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge where the late Raju Srivastav and Bollywood stars were seen on one platform. My friends encouraged me to join. I did not think highly of this art form. I considered it a below-average show probably because I had not seen the Western styles which were more structured and calm.  However, I decided to give it a shot because it was a popular form on Indian TV and a good platform to lift one’s career. I was selected and qualified for the semi-final. I remember being painfully aware of my glaring errors.After the show, one of my theatre gurus asked me, “Have you seen your videos, performances, and recordings?”  I replied, “Yes”, and he said, “Then why are you asking (for tips)?” 

I watched my performance and cringed to see how loudly I was.  I was bad, I was yelling and screaming and not speaking, and I knew something was missing.  I started working to improve. I worked on controlling my actions, voice, and body language,  modulated my voice, and curbed my somewhat noisy and distracting animation.  I picked up pointers by myself.  I started observing other famous comedians, watching their style and noting how casual, cool, and informal they were.  They were more one-on-one.  Watching a lot of stuff helped me a lot.

I met Johnny Lever Sir and others like Raju Srivastav, and Naveen. I read The Comedy Bible Book by Judy Carter, and Greg Dean’s Step by Step to Stand-up Comedy and watched a lot of YouTube on others such as Robin Williams, and Eddie Murphy absorbing their cool comical styles and grabbing witty manner of speech.

My all-time favourite is Johnny Lever. Once he invited me to open a show for him in Dubai and Bahrain,; it blew my mind.  When Johnny Lever came on the stage, I was speechless seeing his 2-hour performance. I felt I could never replicate it.  When I see other comedians on stage, I feel I could imitate them, but ingenious Johnny Lever took the stage to a whole new level.

Standup comedian Rehman Khan

My other favorite late Moin Akhtar of the Loose talk show that he did with Anwar Maqsood. Moin was one of the finest comedians in the Subcontinent. I did not get to meet him. Of my contemporaries, I like Zakir (Khan). He has played a big role in transforming standup comedy from its earlier English form to the Desi version. Due to him, Hindi standup comedy surged in popularity in India. Amit Tandon is great, Vipul Goyal is one of my favourites and I admire his style. There are quite a few others but I don’t know their names.  Anubhav Singh Bassi is excellent with his knack for engaging the audience with his strong distinctive and relatable style.

Who was one of the big influencers of your personal life apart from your professional life?

“My late father had a big influence on my life; he was a teacher and a man of principles. I remember when we were younger if my brother bought himself a shirt, my father chided him for not bringing one for his brother.

If people visited us from the village, he exhibited excellent hospitality and taught us all to treat everyone equally.  A few principles that I imbibed from him which helped me is to think beyond yourself; and work for your family, friends, and neighbours. Go out of your way to do something for them without bragging about it.

He spoke impeccably as he was a Sankrit-Hindi language teacher. Hindi and Urdu shone out because in Mumbai, no one speaks good Urdu or Hindi and we say “Arela, jarela, hogela, etc., and all of us including my brothers spoke the Mumbai Hindi.  As a child, I was always fascinated by his poetry.  He would deliver rich Sanskrit, Urdu, and Hindi poetry and verses. Because of him, my language skills and articulation improved.”

Where do you want to see your art go?

“Well, I just tried my hand at doing some things differently and in 2023, reflecting on how I could evolve, and aware I am good at acting and good at poetry also,” he paused modestly and said humorously, “Zyado ho gaya if I say I am good at, but I do these kinds of stuff, so I thought of making something entirely new, an amalgamation of three to four art forms where in one show we have poetry, theatre, kind of storytelling, and comedy and I came up with a show called HumourBaaz, it is a new art form and I started. It is Hunar Baaz in Hindi and I invented the name HumourBaaz.  I did a show at Jashn-e-Rekhta in December 2023 at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in Delhi. It is a blend of these three to four art forms.  I finally aim to hold these shows in the USA, UK, and around the globe drawing out anecdotes from the lives of great poets and writers such as Mirza Ghalib, Dagh Dehelvi, Munshi Prem Chand, Manto, Kunwar Bedi Sehar, and Firaq Gorakhpuri. 

During these shows, I recite a few of my poems and do my stand-up also in the show and soon going to incorporate a bit of music that I will sing.  These four to five art forms though different will blend in this primarily standup comedy show.  I have done six shows thus far opening with the television fraternity, and Kapil Sharma and his entire creative team and others were there, I have done performances in Gujarat, Delhi, Bhopal, Lucknow, Dubai, and USA. Things are going smoothly and I want to carry HumourBaaz forward.  I love it and people too like it because it has a unique flair.  One of my friends who is a Hindi writer for Bollywood says “In your show, people get to see poetry, comedy, and theatre and it is good.” 

I have a general small library set where I move around, sit for tea, play characters, and talk to the audience and it is a very interactive and interesting concept.  With seven to eight years of research, along with all I have written and put on the stage, it is going well.  Whenever something is done with your whole heart, it is never wasted, he said with a glow of satisfaction. 

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In his unpretentious way, he concludes, “By the grace of the Almighty, I am just playing my part, touchwood God is kind and people are somehow responding well and liking it.”

Rita Farhat Mukand is an independent writer and author.