Funny and female: they tackle social taboos while giving serious LOLs

‘Now it is not such a huge eye-opener for people to see that there is a female on stage. That is a very big difference from then and now. In any line-up with multiple comedians there will be a bunch of females,’ says Neeti, who, however, also feels that a part of the audience that’s sexist still refrains from calling her a good comedian. ‘When I’m getting off-stage, inevitably people tell the male artists, ‘‘Hey you were really funny’’, and even if they have genuinely enjoyed my show they will say, ‘‘Hey, you were really bold.’’ Humour is being seen as bold even as it is completely clean humour. Or they will admire me for my confidence. So, even here they are being slightly sexist. But you can’t blame them because the rules have changed so fast, they haven’t caught up with it yet.’