Finally, I did it. I went and saw Russell Peters perform LIVE! :)
Russell Peters has been one of my favourite comedians for a long time now. And so when I heard he was coming to Pune, I immediately decided to be a man, do the right thing, and buy some tickets!.
Christina, Kimi and I bought the "Silver Preferred" seats at ₹ 1750 each, while Teresa and Nitin bought the "Gold" seats at ₹ 3000 each (turns out, they were just a few seats ahead of us, and neither of us could see the stage anyway, as in front of them there were still the "Gold Preferred" section and the "Platinum" section, lolz).
So on the day of the show, I left office early and later Christina and Kimi came over to my house and changed from their office-wear & college-wear to a more appropriate "I'm watching a Russell Peters show" attire.
And then the comedy happened! OMG I'll never ever forget what happened that evening!
According to the program schedule, the show was supposed to start at 8 PM, and the gates to the venue were to be shut by 7:50 PM. We got out from my house at 7 PM. Normally, it would take just 5 minutes by auto or cab to reach the venue from my house as it was in the same locality.
But noooo, that day was the eve of a holiday, the next day being Gandhi Jayanthi. And more than a 1000 people had bought tickets for the show. So the entire North Main road in front of my house was completely packed. Not a single vehicle was moving! I have never seen that much of a traffic jam in Pune in all my 5 years here.
There weren't a single cab or auto to book on Ola and Uber. And none of the running autos were willing to go that side because of the immense traffic jam, even when we offered them 200-300 bucks (normal rate is less than 30 bucks for that distance). We waited in front of my house till 7:30 and finally we said, fuck it, let's walk to the venue.
But since the gates were to be shut at 7:50, we started panicking and decided to run! Lolz, for the first time in my life here in Pune, I actually freaking ran from my house to Royal Palms!!!
Oohhh boy, what a run! :D
And the funniest part was, there were sooo many other people walking on the pavement, and as soon as they saw us running, they too started running! I pointed at them and asked, "Russell Peters?" and they replied with a grin, "Russell Peters!" Lolz, the entire pavement was filled with people on their way to the show.
Somehow it felt good to know that there were a lot of us running late (literally speaking) because of the gigantic traffic jam. We kinda knew that they were not going to close the gates on so many people. Mob mentality FTW. By the way, none of the vehicles that we overtook while running moved at all by the time we reach the venue.
Finally, I was sweating like hell when we reached the venue at around 8:20 PM, 30 minutes after the gates were supposed to be shut, but they were still wide open, with a long queue of people outside.
Some of our friends (Nico and Ruati) were still stuck in the big traffic jam near my house, and we told them to get out of their cab and start running, as they would reach the venue faster.
Even the security check at the venue was lax and they hardly checked us as they were in a hurry to let everybody in.
Yay, almost inside! With Kimi, Christina, Rena and Tluangi.
Inside!
DJ Spinbad was rocking the crowd with his wicked music.
We settled down in our seats immediately. There was also an announcement on the mic that the food and drinks counters were closing in 5 minutes. Christina wanted to drink water and so we walked outside to buy a bottle of water, only to see the hugeeee line at the coupons counter (I mean, why do all these event organizers do this? Why can't we just freaking buy what we want in cash?) And so we walked back inside.
A white guy came on stage, doing the "opening act" for Russell Peters for around 20 minutes. He was funny, but most of his humor were very American centric. He didn't evoke much laughter from the crowd because most of us didn't come there to laugh at jokes made on Americans, we came there to laugh at jokes about us :D
And finally, the man RUSSELL PETERS came on stage!
We laughed right from the very moment he stepped on stage. And what I loved the most was that every single joke was fresh. He didn't repeat any of his old materials (and technically, that's what stand-up comics have to do, because unlike musicians who play the same number at all their concerts, they have to constantly come up with something new when they perform).
Like I mentioned in the beginning, those of us sitting in the "Silver Preferred" and "Gold" section were too far away from the stage, and so we watched him on the giant screens kept at the side. I really pity those people sitting in the middle of "Silver Preferred" and "Gold" (not to mention the backbenchers "Silver") who could neither see the stage nor screen.
Russell Peters made a lot of spontaneous jokes as usual, after talking to those who were sitting in the front row ("Platinum" section). By the way, recording was strictly prohibited during the entire show, and the security kept roaming around to make sure nobody was recording!
Finally, after many many rounds of laughter, the show was over.
What a night to remember indeed.
All of us walked back from the venue to my house again, as there was a large traffic jam created by the people, and there was no chance of finding an empty cab or auto. However, the walk was much more relaxing than earlier when we had to run, lolz.
Back at my house, we had the traditional remembrance pic taken of our time with Russell Peters, after which they all headed back home once the traffic died down and autos were available.
A truly memorable night indeed.
