Kanan Gill: The Humour Out Of Space

Few can lay claim to a comedy career as eclectic as Kanan Gill. For many, a review of seminal 1990s Bollywood filth served as an introduction to his oeuvre, which he created alongside Biswa Kalyan Rath, and uploaded onto the American video sharing platform known as YouTube. Gill and Rath’s brand of humour inhabited a space which was relatively unheard of in Indian comedy circles. Of particular appeal was the dry delivery, which would stand in contrast to the absurd scenes being recounted. It is this interplay between matter-of-fact bluntness and unchecked insanity that has existed throughout Gill’s career, and in few instances is this more apparent than his 2024 science fiction novel, Acts of God.

 In a video from 2015, Gill and Rath apply the phenomenon of NRI nostalgia to the characters of the space opera, Interstellar. They imagine a disaffected Matthew McConaughey who, having finally ascended into a higher dimension at the end of the film, remarks, “3D kitna mast tha” (3D was so much fun!) and “hum rehthe yahan hai, lekin hamare dil three dimensions me hai” (we may be staying here, but our soul remains in the third dimension) in the face of inconceivable cosmic entities. In a standup comedy special, Gill imagines a man born and trapped within the internet, who is solely responsible for all instances of Indian men utilising comment sections as a means of direct communication. Such moments, beyond demonstrating a propensity towards observational and anecdotal comedy, exemplify how said approaches might work within a science fiction setting. When viewed as such, Acts of God is uncanny, not only as a work of science fiction comedy, but also as a rare instance where a comedic style is perfectly translated into the written word.

 The novel, which begins with a series of seemingly unconnected fragments, punctuated by outright rebellions against the form, converges towards a clear narrative, following a set of characters which simultaneously function as satirical explorations of high concept science fiction archetypes. A scientist bent on playing God, a melodramatic AI which exhibits a lack of technical skill, and an all powerful one party state with absolutely no secrets. Throughout the novel, however, the reader is constantly made aware of the fact that they are essentially interacting with an extension of Gill’s repertoire, printed, yet somehow performative. For this reason alone, Acts of God stands entirely unique in its field.

To witness Kanan Gill’s inimitable sense of humour, be sure to swing by JLF North Carolina, from the 27th to 28th of September, and JLF Seattle, from the 20th to the 22nd of September.