Mid-Day Anniversary Special: Aditi Mittal recalls ending every gig in Bandra with chana in rain

To keep up in a conversation with stand-up comic Aditi Mittal requires energy and a vocal strength that is beyond this writer’s ability. “I once hoped to be in a television serial. One season, and I would have been set for life,” came the quip, followed by garrulous laughter. Reminiscing is the vibe we are going for as we walked down St John the Baptist Road, past the Mount Mary steps and off Café Morii to the remains of what was Café Goa by the Den. This is where Mittal’s journey on the stage began.

“Right here is where the stage would have been,” she said, excitedly. Follow her finger, one saw an overgrown shrub surrounded by weeds, and barred by a corroded metal gate. The narrow rectangular box was once the hotspot for every performance artiste in the city from Vir Das and Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi to Rohini Ramnathan, and of course, Mittal. “The venue was just a small seating space outside the cafe, without a roof. It was later covered with plastic, and then a proper roof,” the comic recalled.

For Mittal, the journey began with homecoming. “I had just returned from the United States, having completed my graduation. I was hoping to do something creative, and different,” the Bandra resident shared.

It was in that period that she came across the gigs hosted by The Bombay Elektrik Projekt. Founded in the early 2010s, they would host weekly gigs across the suburbs of Bandra and Juhu. “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge had broken the mould, but it was television. The audience were familiar with the genre, but no one knew what to expect on such nights, least of all the comics,” the 37-year-old shared.

Today, the café space looks like any other abandoned building in Bandra. It is home to a polite stray who wandered into our photo shoot, even stealing the limelight. “Do not edit her out. She is a star,” Mittal warned. She points to a damp wall with peeling plaster on the first floor that once housed Vir Das’s office in the building. “He used to do ‘Ham’-ateur Nights at Blue Frog back then. Remember that venue?” she asked.

Does she remember her first gig? “Of course, I do. I had prepared a set built around my dad’s Punjabiness, and how he’d tell a story about Goldilocks and the three ‘beers’,” she revealed. Why three beers? “Because that is all she could handle,” she laughed. Not everyone laughed, and not all the time. “There were times we bombed so hard that I could hear the silence. And we were not exactly swimming in money then. So, every gig would end with us all hanging out at Bandstand with chana, or bhutta in the rain,” the comic recalled fondly. The gang eats better than chana and bhutta these days, she admitted. But is there anything she misses from those days, we ask. “If there was one thing, I’d say it was the freedom to fail. I long for that now,” she said, as we wrap up.

2010
The year Mittal performed her first gig