There's a new space for regional comedy in Mumbai, and here's all you need to know about it

(From left) Aditya Sawant, Atharva Hingne, and Sudhir Bhalekar during the rehearsals in Thane. pics/ashish raje

For years, Marathi comedy has thrived in living rooms, family gatherings and the endless stream of WhatsApp forwards shared between relatives. Long before stand-up became mainstream, humour in Maharashtra was passed down through stories and jokes. This writer still remembers her maternal grandmother's favourite joke, Kapus Kondyachi Goshta Sangu - an endless loop of repeating the same line until the listener is driven to playful frustration. It is this familiarity that Agaau Pora hopes to bring to the stage. Founded by Atharva Hingne, Aditya Sawant, Siddhant Belvalkar and Sudhir Bhalekar, the comedy collective is creating a space for contemporary Marathi stand-up.

The audience gathers at a Thane venue to listen to the trio

"It started as an impromptu stand-up performance during Holi in March 2024 which gave us a show to have yet another show soon after during Gudi Padwa in the following month," explains Sawant. Adding to that, he says, "Today, Agaau Pora has grown into a Marathi comedy collective that is slowly carving its own space in the state's stand-up scene." The response to the two performances encouraged the group to take the idea further, turning what began as an experimental show into a recurring stand-up collective.

"For us, the collective was born out of a simple belief: jokes are often funniest when told in one's mother tongue. While some of us had begun performing in Hindi, we found it far more comfortable and expressive when speaking in Marathi. You are much more at ease on stage when you perform in your own language," says Hingne, adding that the idea was to create a platform where newer Marathi comics could perform alongside more experienced names. The group first performed small-scale shows in Thane and Dombivli before expanding their reach.

Atharva Hingne

"All of us have different writing, speaking skills; we possess different genres, and ways to execute our shows. For Atharva, it's based on comedy that he is familiar with. When it comes to Aditya, the jokes are followed by observations. With Siddhant, since he has more experience and has a better grasp of current affairs, his comedy is more refined, for example a good satire or clean political comedy and for me, it's more about the peculiarities of Maharashtrian life," adds Bhalekar.

"Like most stand-up comics, we develop material individually before testing it at open mics, refining jokes through repeated performances, and exchanging feedback during group writing sessions," adds Belvalkar.

As a relatively new collective, audience building remains one of their biggest challenges. "Sometimes, our audience is largely made up of people aged 60 and above. Many come in with the expectation that if they've paid Rs 500 for a ticket, every minute of the show should make them laugh. As relatively new faces in comedy, it takes time to earn their confidence and get them to warm up to our style. Beyond that, there are the constant challenges of finding venues, managing logistics and independently producing our shows," reveal Hingne and Bhalekar, acknowledging that alongside managing venues and operations, earning the audience's trust takes time.

Even so, the collective remains driven by an easy philosophy. "There's no grand ideology," Hingne says. "We want people to come, have fun for two hours and enjoy stories that feel familiar."

On June 27; 8 pm
At The Playce: Coworking, Events & Cafe, near Sonapur Signal, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, Mulund West.
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Entry Rs 249 onwards