What Daniel Fernandes's Shadows Is All About
Shadows: A Revelatory Special
I walked into Terna Auditorium on Sunday
Night expecting a special set by a comedian I had seen perform live on a
previous occasion and had seen videos of on YouTube. Daniel
Fernandes went above and beyond that. At the outset he cautions the
audience, that his self admittedly social commentary centred style of
humour that has gained an instant association with him would not be a
feature tonight.
His piece is a reflective one, touching upon self-doubt, his
journey of self-discovery, his moment of truth and his foray into
comedy. He discusses at length the various paradigms and notions of
success that pervade society without sounding preachy. And how while
non-conformity can be a lonely place, it isn’t the worst.
Fernandes’ takes on the mantle of a voice in our head and
says everything that naturally occurs to us but social conditioning prevents us
from expressing vocally.
Through an anecdotal and a canonical sense of humour, he
narrates his evolving lens on law and order, politics and the economy
while taking us through a drunken night in his neighbourhood and other
colourful tales nestled in awkward corners of his memory.
Whilst being his opinionated self, Daniel doesn’t
take himself too seriously and expects the same from his audience. This
was made evident as well when a three-and-a-half-year-old girl merrily
browsed on her mother’s smartphone in the front row as he simply marvelled
at how kids today are spoilt for choice today.
Before you know it, Daniel opens up his closet of dark
passengers that co-exist in his stream of consciousness. He doesn’t shy
away from exposing the demons in his head, introducing us to an absurd banter
between his mind and him, and the constant conflict of interest that
exists among the two. Flaunting his vulnerability unabashedly he goes as
far as to give you a first-hand account of what it was like at his lowest ebb.
Additionally, he chronicles the gravity of being diagnosed with and the
subsequent label of a mental illness. Needless to say, the audience is
catapulted into the vivid vision of the substantial struggle that an
individual goes through in accommodating and living with this knowledge.
While in this day and
age public personalities talking topics that are gaining traction
socially and personally is a mainstay globally, however it being India
done in the same capacity at a stand-up gig is a
rare sighting.
Fernandes’s genius lies in making people laugh
about the inanest things and in the process breaking an invisible wall of
prejudice that surrounds issues that are somewhat taboo in society at
large and not experienced by most wherein he uses his medium as
a catalyst to effectively ease the discomfort and ambivalence that blurs our
vision and limits our understanding of murky matters as
such. Something, other artists, especially his
contemporaries should take cue from.
Daniel has flittingly navigated through the
grainy, dank and bizarre, and as the show comes to an end instead of
letting the weight of his subject matter bring him down, he soars as he
bids farewell on a note of eclectic optimism.
Calm down sashi tharoor ! Jk .... a very well worded article. I hope Daniel puts up his special for people who weren't able to be physically present at the shows. I would happily pay for an amazon prime video.
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