India's popular YouTuber Bhuvan Bam wants to keep doing a bit of everything

Comedian, singer, actor Bhuvan Bam, India's most popular YouTuber, wants to keep doing a bit of everything, writes Dhruv Munjal

Bhuvan Bam is not a recalcitrant kind of guy. And he is respectful to the point of making you wonder if he is the same raging internet sensation his band of committed followers make him out to be. There was a time when Bam, 25, used to croon old Hindi songs at a popular Mughlai restaurant in South Delhi. Recent escapades, however, have taken him to the front row of the NBA all-star game — a domain usually restricted to the likes of Drake, Jack Nicholson, Floyd Mayweather Jr and sometimes Barack Obama — and a special appearance at a blockbuster Premier League game between Manchester City and Arsenal at the latter’s Etihad Stadium. But none of the acclaim, or the enhanced visibility that has followed, has dimmed Bam’s ability to conduct himself with extreme politeness — the kind that sees him pull a chair out for you at a restaurant and then keep insisting that you order something until you finally submit.  

Last-minute confusion over the choice of venue for our meeting ensures that I’m late. When I finally enter the Chocolateria San Churro café in Delhi’s Greater Kailash II, Bam is already sampling a chocolate drink. With shoulder-length hair, black sweatshirt, hexagonal glasses and maroon baseball cap, Bam is instantly recognisable. His sartorial hipness is every bit as appealing as his humour. But Bam confesses that he was a late bloomer in the fashion stakes. “For the first 20 years of my life, I almost always wore a checked shirt. My videos still have me in a checked shirt. But when I went to cities such as Seoul and Tokyo I figured what fashion truly was.”

In September last year, Bam’s YouTube channel, BB Ki Vines, became the first in India to garner 10 million followers. In subsequent months, that number has swelled to almost 13 million. Bam’s comedy sketches, usually seven to eight minutes long, show him, his two best friends — Bancho and Sameer — and members of his family dealing with quotidian problems. Only, Bam plays all the characters himself, right from his gullible father to the explosively temperamental Titu Mama to the sex-obsessed Sameer. 

“A lot of what I show is based on what I experience in my own house,” he says. “When I went to the US recently, my mother had given me a dabba (box) of food that I forgot to bring back. When I returned, all she was concerned about was the dabba. It’s the kind of middle-class problem that I try to replicate in my videos. People relate to it.”

While studying history at Delhi University’s Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, comedy was never a part of the plan. In fact, there was no plan at all. “I was living a comfortable life. All I wanted to do was make some easy money.” That quest led him, among other places, to Domino’s to try out as a pizza delivery boy. Much to his chagrin, he was turned away. “Beta, tu pizza kha. Delivery bhool ja (Son, eat pizza if you want. Forget about delivering it),” wasn’t the kind of brusque response he was expecting from the restaurant manager. 

His big “break” arrived through music — he is a trained classical singer — when the bosses at the Moti Mahal Deluxe in Saket decided to take a chance on him. “I became part of a trio and was the lead singer,” he recalls. What worked in Bam’s favour was his stellar knowledge of old Bollywood music; he started reprising songs of stalwarts like Hemant Kumar and Mohammed Rafi. The money was a pittance— Rs 3,000 a month — but the thrill of a pay cheque and a free meal every evening kept him going. Some nights were spectacularly rewarding, though: Bam recalls one time when a delighted Sikh family kept slipping Rs 500 notes down his pocket every five minutes. “I made Rs 15,000 that night. It was unbelievable,” he smiles. It turns out that Bam was quite the lucky charm for the restaurant — the outlet shut down within a month of him leaving.

Around the same time, Bam moved to comedy. It started with a satirical video that he had innocuously put out on his Facebook page. It was a light take on a TV reporter covering the 2014 Kashmir floods asking survivors the most hilariously absurd questions. It went viral and soon BB Ki Vines was born. Music was always his métier but comedy gave the naturally ambitious Bam the opportunity to explore something new. “I’ve always wanted to do everything, be like an Ayushmann Khurrana or a Farhan Akhtar. I’m an entertainer, fit me anywhere and I’ll try to deliver,” he says. Bam’s multifarious desires seem all the more exceptional for someone who wasn’t deemed good enough for college music or theatre societies.

Bam’s comedy tropes are drastically different from the largely English-themed work of early YouTube movers such as AIB and The Viral Fever. In a comedy scene swarming with artistes — both stand-up and the commercial TV kind — Bam’s shtick is unique. His talent lies not so much in his ability to deliver a joke on the spot, but in his writing, where he comes up with colourful characters reciting snappy rhymes. “If you sit with me for long, I may come across as the most boring person ever. But I write well and that does the trick.” Bam often falls back on the influence of some of his comedy idols from the 1990s, the once wildly popular Bollywood triumvirate of Govinda, Kader Khan and Johnny Lever.

Some of the bawdy references and boorish punchlines in his videos may make Bam’s content unsuitable for certain audiences, but he is willing to stick to what he knows best. “My content hasn’t changed one bit in the last four years. When I started out, I made videos for teenagers and the college-going crowd. I have kept doing the same thing because the audience loves it,” he explains.

Bam’s is very much a one-man show: he wakes at 7, shoots for four-five hours straight using nothing but the front camera of his mobile phone, and then gets down to editing. A video mostly takes two weeks to complete. “I don’t even use a tripod or any lighting. I wake early so that I can make use of the sunlight. This lack of sophistication appeals to people. It makes it real,” feels Bam.

In the constant pursuit of fresh material, recent months have seen him launch “Titu Talks”, a spin-off that sees Titu Mama roast celebrities. For Bam, it was when he was able to land Shah Rukh Khan as his first guest — just ahead of the release of Zero — that the enormity of his success sunk in. “The experience of Shah Rukh Sir sitting in front of me was surreal. But that also made me realise how far I’d come,” he recalls.

But what sent the internet into instant meltdown late last month was the slightly bizarre choice of his second guest: American adult film star Johnny Sins. The story goes that Sins last year put out a tweet looking for translators from India. Bam replied as a “fan” and the two struck up a friendship. Later realising that Bam was an internet star in his homeland, Sins agreed to appear on “Titu Talks”. Bam flew to Los Angeles to shoot the episode; having amassed 21 million views in just two weeks, it’s already breaking all sorts of records. “Let’s just say it was a different experience. He said yes immediately and just asked me what he had to do. I still don’t know how I managed to get him on my show,” shrugs Bam.

His parents, for whom he bought a new house after his initial success, are fine with whomever he invites for his shows as long as the audience approves. “They had a problem when I played with that ‘orchestra’ at the restaurant. They’re happier now,” he says. Those days are long gone, of course — Bam recently lent his voice to the latest season of MTV Unplugged. He even appeared in a short film alongside Divya Dutta last year. Bollywood, Bam admits, is the ultimate goal, but till then, he is willing to bide his time — composing, singing, writing, entertaining.