Mallika Dua on women comedians: People think being goofy and funny are undesirable traits in women

There's no one like Mallika Dua, is there? The woman is just great at what she does, and of course, that's comedy. It doesn't matter what character she's playing, be it makeup Didi, Gifty, Smiley or Kanchan, she pulls off every character with perfection and can switch between them in the blink of an eye. Now Mallika is all set to appear in the upcoming season of ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge’, where she will be mentoring a set of aspiring comedians.

Talking about the project with a leading entertainment media portal, the comedian stated, “Two things need to be constant in every project I take up. If it's related to comedy, it has to be hilarious and I should be a significant part of it. Significant is not limited to length. It is limited to impact. I used to watch its first season which had Raju Srivastava, Naveen Prabhakar and all used to be there. We used to laugh so much. And it has given us so many of our bigger comedians today. And the best thing was someone from the internet has been called to do something on TV. So, for me this is the highest stage so far.”

When speaking about playing a Punjabi aunty, Mallika stated, “Punjabi means 50 things. There are Punjabis in Delhi, Mumbai, Pakistan, London, Canada, and they are all different from each other. So, to say that, is like saying ‘Indian accent’. I mainly focus on people I have observed, because I want my portrayals to be authentic. I’ve spent 27-28 years in Delhi. So obviously that’s what I’ve picked up and imbibed most easily.”

When asked if she thought comedy is a difficult terrain for Indian women since there's hardly any representation from their side, she said, “It’s not that they are not talented. To a large extent, it’s not that the men in the industry are making it hard for them. The problem is larger. For years now, it’s been seen that if you are goofy, if you are funny, you aren’t desirable, like those are not the traits which make women desirable. When you ask a girl what you see in a man, she’ll say ‘sense of humour’. But when you ask a guy, he will never say that he sees sense of humour in a woman. So that is also in people’s psyche somewhere. Secondly, to convince your parents. There are people who have to convince their parents to even work, leave aside comedy, how will it give them money. They don’t think this is a lucrative option.”

Mallika also spoke about forming a connection with her audience, “It wasn’t hard because that’s the way I am. I’ve never been bothered about pandering to the audience. Like I care about making something nice and new for them and I like it when people laugh, but that’s not my only motivation. I also have to stay true to who I am.”

“I come from few years in advertising. What I saw there was, nothing killed good ideas than assuming and second guessing that our audience won’t understand this, or they know this. That’s when you get stuck there. Eventually, nothing new and nice happens. So, I don’t get into such things like what will the audience like. I do what I like and if I like, it’ll automatically be very infectious. People do enjoy it," she concluded.

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