LADY OF LAUGHS | ADITI MITTAL, STAND-

UP COMEDIAN

When she’s not Dr. Lutchuke, the 55-year-old sexologist psychoanalysing comedians, she is a Punjabi actress named Dolly Khurana. And when she’s neither of these, she’s making jokes about how Salman Khan’s dance moves can be compared to a cockroach that’s been flipped over on its backback, struggling to get on its feet. But all the while, she’s Aditi Mittal, one of the only female English stand-up comics in the country. That’s one distinction she feels is useless to highlight because she says there are more and more women stepping up to the stage. “Even nurses and secretaries were men at one point. It takes time. It’s a brand new field and it’s been only three years,” Mittal, who was also one of the invitees at the BBC 100 Women Conference in London in 2013, says. Although the ratio of men to women comics is skewed towards former, it has its advantages and disadvantages. “Sometimes the organisers refuse to opt for women because they say it’ll cost extra to get us our own rooms. But sometimes they want to put women in the line-up for fresh perspective,” she says. Apart from the organisers, Mittal says the audiences react pretty much the same way towards male and female comics. An avid reader presently devouring short stories by Saadat Hasan Manto, the 27-year-old also enjoys watching films and writing. By the looks of it, she isn’t letting the world go without a good laugh.