5 Indian women who will help you laugh away your blues

My research for this article required me to go on a quest of sorts. I scoured social media, blogs, and YouTube. Let’s just say, I came out on the other side gleefully grateful for everything – Bollywood for passing off hogwash as cinema, Taher Shah and Rakhi Sawant for simply being born, the odd-even rule, the bizarro sanskaar society imposes on us – everything! I found women who feed off the largest travesties of our time and belch out pure genius. Between horse-like snorts and my attempts to not choke on laughter-induced hysteria, I present to you five women who I feel are the funniest people you would have come across in cyberspace in a long time:

1. Imaan Sheikh
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“Super adventure fun. Not Really,” says the banner on her blog. There couldn’t have been a more blatantly deceptive sign. That blog has the potential to lift your spirits even when you realise British Royalty came to India but forgot yo’ Kohinoor….again. There is only one thing that is funnier than memes and gifs on the internet, right now. ENTIRE MEME COMICS! She makes them. She has a blog full of them.

She keeps a poker face while saying things that will have you laughing till your innards are ready to fly out of your mouth. Her lack of amusement at the dumpyards of unintelligible fiction that constitute quite a chunk of Indian cinema, is contagious. Her knack for parading our cultural absurdities on the internet but naked until we choke on our logic, are infallible. This Pakistani Blogger grew up on Indian references, and is now in a “long-distance relationship with Buzzfeed India”.

2. Aditi Mittal:

I don’t know what gets me more – her Dr Lutchuke, the Marathi Sexologist who pries like it is one of the inalienable birthrights our freedom fighters fought to grant us, or Dolly Khurana, a quintessential Chandigarh Bollywood “straglar” who divides her time equally between “threading eyebrows and knuckles”, and threading Bollywood films. While both her characters’ careers seem like she picked them out in a lucky draw (the orchestrated follies of which make her channel and gigs a riot), her real-life career as a result, seems like destiny! Apart from the two YouTube channels that she runs, she can now be spotted keeping audiences across the country in splits at her stand-up gigs.

3. Rega Jha:

When a French man puts on a Zebra costume, gets high as the winning kite on Makar Sankranti, and dances to Romanian blockbusters in a video that goes viral, or when the odd-even formula makes a comeback to caress the fragile tempers of Dilli-ites, I pull up Rega’s profile on Twitter or Facebook, Godspeed, to marvel and guffaw in equal parts at how she makes an already ridiculous thing about 40 times more entertaining with her observations and comments. With the same speed, I seek out her articles on Buzzfeed India, where she is the editor, when I need eloquence and a voice of reason when a woman gets trolled for confessing to being sexually harassed, or when a pregnant model walks down the runway at the country’s leading sass-fest in a win-moment. Rega’s take, in most cases, is what you need to decide which side of history you are going to find yourself on.

4. Videomama 

There’s something about her that shouts, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” yet, you find yourself drawn to that mischievous vibe, and before you know it, you’re rolling on the floor guffawing and thinking, “Oh no she didn’t!” She goes by the alias Videomama on her YouTube channel “Videodaddy” that conducts social experiments. You may have barely recovered from one video of her asking unsuspecting society-waali-aunties where she can buy condoms, when the next one of her squatting alongside men on the road to take that glorious leak just like them will have you giving her that flying salute again. The streets are a much funnier place for a wild Videomama is on the loose.

5. Bakchod Begum:

If you are wondering what her humour consists of, the biggest clue is in the name. She proves that Bakchodi isn’t just a habit, a mood, or something you can shake off – it is who you are. It is who she is. Fairly new to the Internet, her peg is being a begum because she was born that way – and being badass while she is at it… because, why not? She’s created a Facebook page full of memes with the rants and musings of a self-confessed drama-queen that have the hypnotic, supernatural ability of making every woman go “me af.” BRB, dying of laughter. Thank you, Internet!