Shraddha, known better by her nickname Aiyyo Shraddha, considers herself a late bloomer. Growing up in a Mangalorean family living in Mumbai, she kept her head down and focussed on her schooling. Board exams? High marks. Engineering degree? Good grades. High-profile IT job after graduating? Check. Though Shraddha had always wanted to be a performer, the idea of venturing out, doing something that wasn’t expected of her, seemed completely far-fetched.
“When this is your track record, you don’t just turn around and say, ‘I want to be a radio jockey,’” she said in an interview with TNM.
Since switching careers, Shraddha, who now lives in Bengaluru, has inhabited several different avatars as a performer — she was a familiar voice in the mornings on Fever 104 FM as RJ Shraddha for nine years, she’s hosted dance reality shows on Colors Kannada, where she now works as the head of non-fiction programming and she’s played Vasu, the hilarious owner of a women’s PG on Amazon Prime’s Pushpavalli. This year, she’s turned her attention to a new creative outlet.
Since February, she’s been regularly posting sketch comedy videos on Instagram that she writes, acts and shoots in five languages — Tulu, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and English. With over 157,000 followers and growing, Shraddha has posted videos on the stress of online classes for teachers, conversations between resident associations and common complaints from frustrated employees in lockdown.
“It feels nice to get the comic timing right in all these languages,” she said. “I’m really liking my zone.”
When Shraddha decided to pursue a career in radio, she knew she needed to stand out to potential employers. A simple resume and interview wasn’t going to cut it. So, in 2008, she created a flyer for herself, a mic surrounded by catchphrases and a message explaining why she would be the best person for the role.
My resume.
— Aiyyo Shraddha (@AiyyoShraddha) July 14, 2017
Sent Date : 29/02/ 2008.
I am so grateful.
Thank you for tuning in and making my dream come true.
The warmest hug to you! pic.twitter.com/sbTfO38da8
It was a bold move, and it led to a call from Fever 104 FM. “I think Fever just wanted to humour me,” she said. But they liked her enthusiasm and gave her a chance (along with a solid amount of training, Shraddha recalls). That led to a long stint on the station, and more importantly, a place to hone her content creation skills, in editing, structuring, timing and more. “If there is something good about the video content I do, I give all that credit to radio,” she said.
But Shraddha also had an interest in visual comedy. In early 2016, she posted a humorous Facebook video on Karnataka’s Averakaayi Parishe, the annual broad beans festival. To her surprise, the video went viral and caught the attention of Viacom18’s Colors Kannada. The channel brought her in to host a dance reality show, and later to work as a creative director for a range of programs, from comedy shows to game shows to reality competitions and more.
In 2017, Shraddha was back in front of the camera for comedian Sumukhi Suresh’s comedy-drama series Pushpavalli. Shraddha ended up improvising her audition for Sumukhi and director Debbie Rao, and was given the role of Vasu, the feisty, loud-mouth warden for a women’s PG in Bengaluru. And on the sets of the series in Mumbai, she learnt even more about putting together a show. “Pushpavalli gave me the confidence as an actor like nothing else did,” she said.
Shraddha was finally able to express herself as a performer in many more ways than one. “Then the pandemic happened and I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands,” she said.
Shraddha had begun posting videos to Instagram in September last year, but in February, as the country — along with comedy clubs and television shoots — started to lockdown amidst the coronavirus pandemic, she began to focus on creating content for the platform. Her first video was in Tulu, her mother tongue, and the reaction was instantaneous among the community around the world. Her father received the videos as a Whatsapp forward and was thrilled to see his daughter’s new expression of comedy. Her father’s excitement only spurred Shraddha to make more videos. “It was the equivalent of featuring on the merit list for board results,” she recalls.
For her many videos — made in five languages — Shraddha finds inspiration from seemingly mundane corners of her life. Some sketches, particularly the ones in Tulu, are inspired by her family and relatives, so much so that some have recognised themselves or others in her videos. “They are funny without trying to be funny!” she said.
There are Kannada rant sessions over tea, as well as discussions among resident associations, led by the no-nonsense Mrs Kulkarni, on how to hold festival celebrations in the apartment building, and the know-it-all Malathi akka commenting on various renditions of Tulu songs.
“I like to keep my mind open like a trap. I’m going for a walk in the morning… and there are people behind me who are chatting. I’m listening to them! I’m completely shamelessly eavesdropping. And I keep it in my head,” she said. On a Whatsapp group with friends, she found out that bankers did not get any time off during the lockdown. That led to a video on various employee complaints related to the lockdown.
Along with developing characters like Malathi akka and Mrs Kulkarni, Shraddha recently added a new member to her cast — Reena Dalal, “India’s biggest makaan (property) matcher,” a parody on the Netflix hit series Indian Matchmaker. (“Face is very important, Reena. It has to face east.”) And while her other videos have relied on her improvisation skills over several days, this is the first time she’s sat down and scripted a video for Instagram, and she’s planning more in the series.
However, unlike other comedians making similar social media content, Shraddha stays away from commenting on current affairs or politics. She prefers to stick to slice-of-life moments that come from real-life experiences. “You don’t want to say something you only half believe in,” she said.
Being a successful comedian in India is challenging work, but Shraddha has found that the biggest challenge is really herself. She is determined to take her time on each of her videos to create quality content, rather than sticking to a schedule that would force her to churn out substandard work. At the same time, staying focussed and creative is not always the easiest task. “When it’s your passion, it’s so easy to drift away,” she said. “For me, now, to not lose momentum is key.”
And Shraddha still isn’t done with finding new ways to perform. When the pandemic allows comedy clubs to open again, she is looking to try out open mic nights, and perhaps pursue more filming opportunities. “If you’re a performer, there are so many different openings. So many ways of creative expression you can be a part of, and I want to try everything.”