If Dr BR Ambedkar taught us to question the rigid structures we inherit, Blue Material, an all-Dalit, queer-affirmative collective, asks what happens when those questions enter the world of comedy. Bringing caste, identity, lived experience and trauma to the stage, the collective will begin its first-ever recording tour in Mumbai on August 16, travelling to Goa, Pune, Delhi and Bengaluru through September. Before the collective gets busy, we caught up with comedians Ankur Tangade, Ravi Gaikwad and Sumit Kumar for a preview.

Humour can heal

For Tangade, comedy is rooted in experiences that have shaped her understanding of caste and identity. Growing up in Beed, Maharashtra, in a family of activists, the queer-Dalit comedian says she was initially too young to recognise the implications behind seemingly ordinary questions about her caste. “A lot of times, people would ask me my surname. My mother would do the same, in a positive way, to make the guests feel comfortable. I was too naive to understand that it always had a hidden agenda of casteism,” she says.