Comedian Kenny Sebastian roots for the underdog in new Netflix special

‘Most Interesting Person in the Room’ sees Kenny Sebastian taking digs at lazy indie music and personifying footwear

A groan of cringe escapes Kenny Sebastian, on call from Mumbai. “Don’t put all these ideas into my head!” It is his response to a simple question of whether he will ever grow his hair long again. After all, we are in a state of lockdown.

As a fresh ‘paavam’ faced Bangalore boy, joining the comedy scene, his guitar and shoulder-length hair made him stand apart, back in 2014. “For two years, every day, my mother would ask me to cut my hair,” he says. Now 29, the Chai Time comedian is out with his latest Netflix special, The Most Interesting Person in The Room.

The one thing that unites us all, he says, is failed expectations. Whether it is a gag about an (ugly) ostrich that not only cannot fly, but also cannot be the fastest on land, or about a chappal with dreams of being fancy footwear.

With this standup, the theme he wanted to explore was that of the underdog, juxtaposing it with others in positions of power. “If I do a standup, I have to be the funniest person in the room. But my problem is that the room keeps getting bigger. So I have always sympathised with things that are not the status quo, I have always been partial to the underdogs.”

The everyday humour

Indeed, Kenny’s funniest material emerges not when he is playing #relatable, talking about short guy and tall girl problems — that can get boring real quick. Instead, it is when he bizarrely gives human attributes to everything from footwear to harmoniums. He has been developing this style for quite some time now. In one of his Chai Time segments, he personified his phone’s thoughts about his relationship: flirting to break-up, and also does one-second impressions of household objects on his Instagram.

“I was a pretty quiet kid, who would spend most of my time on my computer, learning how to edit, or with my guitar. So of course, I had an active imagination. It’s a lot of fun personifying objects. Even when I am with my friends, on the streets, I will give voice to the dogs, or if somebody is throwing his phone around, I will give the phone a voice,” he says.

For much of his childhood in Bengaluru, his family would make sure he was acquainted with his Kerala roots. “I would play with cows, guinea pigs, chicken, dogs and cats… I find a lot of joy in Nature, and that's part of the reason why I make a lot of animal personification jokes,” he says.

He even had a pet dog, Chip, whom his family adopted when he was 10. “He passed away when I was in my first year of college, and I was devastated.” However, Chip has made a return to his life in the form of a comic. Ken and Chip, that he posts regularly now on Instagram.

He ends the special with a commentary on how lazy Indian indie music is getting. He mockingly strums acoustic single chord notes with soft vocals, that sound suspiciously like Prateek Kuhad (to this writer, at least). Without naming anyone, he says, “It’s just about musicians who think they are creating art, but it’s really just substandard music. I have made fun of theatre artistes too in my sketches. Listen, I have been to art college, and even there I found it very funny when people take themselves very seriously. The same way, you are allowed to make fun of my comedy routines too.”

Alternative comedy — musical comedy for Kenny — was something that he gave a platform to in Amazon Prime’s Comicstaan as well, where he tried to share the form’s structure with young up and comers. “It took us years to figure out how to brand ourselves, and create content accordingly. Now people are more willing to experiment with different kinds of comedy,” he says, adding, “I am so jealous, I wish I was 19 again.” Don’t we all.