Comedian Sumukhi Suresh isn’t a Bengalurean but she’s proud to be called one. She believes comics who come from the city have a way of presenting observational comedy like no one else.
“If you look at others who’ve started their comedy career from Bengaluru — Kanan Gill, Biswa Kalyan Rath and Kenny Sebastian — the comedy is observational. The crowd here allows us to do that and we get feedback accordingly,” she explains.
Sumukhi started her standup career in 2015 with Improv and she’s been busy since. “The day I stop being busy is the day I know my comedy career is over,” she says.
A Hindi-speaking Tamil, she rose to fame with her YouTube sketches in ‘Behti Naak’. She worked with Naveen Richard in the mockumentary web series ‘Better Life Foundation’.
Exploring her love for writing and creating comedy, she was seen in the Amazon Prime video show ‘Pushpavalli’, which saw its second season release on Friday.
Women are grey
Sumukhi’s character Pushpavalli moves from Bhopal to Bengaluru to pursue a boy she likes. The character gets so obsessed with him (played by Manish Anand) that she begins stalking him.
“That’s the thing. I know she’s a problematic character but that’s what makes her great. You can still relate to her loneliness and vulnerability. When we were writing the script, we did expect a backlash for portraying such a character but that didn’t stop us. I’m giving you a story because it’s my job to do so, not to take a moral standpoint,” says Sumukhi.
While she agrees stalking is wrong whether it is by men or women, her agenda in ‘Pushpavalli’ was only to tell a story.
“What she does is wrong but she’s not a villain. She’s not black or white, she’s grey, just like most women are. We have so many shades that many don’t understand, which is why you feel a little queasy when you see Pushpavalli,” she says.
“No matter how bad the situation is for the other characters on the show, we wrote the story in such a way that it’s always Pushpavalli who gets hurt at the end. The way the story was told was possible only because Naveen is a fantastic screenplay writer and he did a fabulous job with making the first draft better,” she says.
Confidence queen
Her confidence comes from her improv sessions, which are unplanned and unscripted. In fact, she signed up thinking she was going to act in a play.
“I’ve learnt a lot from improv. That’s why I am able to think on the spot and not show the audience that I am nervous. It sort of comes naturally to me now,” he says.
One of Sumukhi’s most popular characters is as house help Parvathy in a comedy sketch created by comedian Sanjay Manaktala, but she doesn’t want to be remembered for that.
“Man, you know what it is? I had fun playing the character but Parvathy is much older,” she explains. All the same, it is a character she respects.
“I never wanted to portray her only as a house help. She was determined to get what she wanted and get paid for the work she did. She always stood up for her rights,” she says.
What’s coming up?
Sumukhi is currently working on developing three fiction shows and a standup special, and is pitching shows to the international markets.
“I will never get a lead role to play because everyone wants a skinny actor. So I will continue to write my own shows and keep at it till I can,” she says.