Cancer survivors use humour to break stigma at ‘Comedy in Chaos’ event in Delhi

Former cancer patients used humour, storytelling and performances at the ‘Comedy in Chaos’ event in Delhi to normalise conversations around cancer, challenge stigma and share personal experiences, urging society to treat people with cancer as ordinary individuals rather than heroes or victims

New Delhi: From bearing with people’s unsolicited advice to dealing with the incessant hairfall, a bunch of women in their “tryst with cancer” refused to let the disease define them and chose to find comedy in the everyday struggles of surviving the Big C.

While Rohini Khuller took pride in being “bald and beautiful” when her doctor failed to recognise her without the hair, Nandita Thakur accepted being christened “Baldilocks” at her tequila party to mark the “chemo kickoff”.

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Meanwhile, Ujala Makhija channeled her creativity and turned an artist, drawing a new pair of eyebrows each morning. The lecture room at India International Centre Annexe on Saturday buzzed with the excitement and abrupt laughter of a college reunion as long-unseen faces broke into broad smiles and cancer-related puns flowed freely.

Khuller, along with a group of 10 “tryst with cancer” people — who would rather not be recognised as survivors, fighters, or warriors – put together “Comedy in Chaos”, a show intended to use humour to normalise conversations about cancer and reduce stigma associated with it.

The nearly two hours of an unconventional gathering of former cancer patients and oncologists saw talk shows, skit, stand-up comedy, and a live music band, all of which was eagerly received by the audiences who were all too familiar with the medical lingo, the absurdity of the ailment, and the collective experience of survival humour.

The idea for the evening, Khuller said, was borne out of a conversation she had with her oncologist some three years ago. “She said, ‘I wish we had more cancer warriors like you’. I immediately stopped her and said, ‘Don’t call me that. I am not a warrior, did I have a weapon? All you doctors had all the weapons possible, all I did was lie back’. And I won’t complete the statement,” Khuller said with a dramatic pause, letting a rapturous audience take in the hint.

“Then we started talking about how important it was to try and normalise cancer and somehow that word got me somewhere and I said, ‘I really want to do something to remove this fear, let’s encourage conversations that are normal,'” she added.

The evening opened with Thakur, Makhija and Jenus Pannu Kohli sharing their experiences when they first got to know about their diagnosis.

For Kohli, it was akin to entering the marriage market where finding a perfect doctor is more difficult than finding a perfect partner. “There is no matrimonial website for doctors,” she feigned disappointment.

While Makhija found a “loyal companion” in constipation, Thakur remembered dreading the mornings when it would be difficult to get out of the bed.

“People tell you to do yoga, there’d be some aunty doing kickboxing on YouTube. Here I was struggling to put my feet on the floor. It was not morning routine, it was morning recovery,” she said.

The women, however, found support in their partners and family members. Kohli, who struggled with her hairfall, was entertained by her brother’s ramp walk, wearing an assorted collection of wigs.

She recalled the one occasion when her brother, who has a thinning hairline, accompanied her to a chemotherapy session and was mistaken for the patient himself.

“The nurse had almost put a cannula in his arm when I came out of the washroom. She looked between the two of us and turned white upon realising her confusion,” Kohli said.

The evening, “a celebration of resilience, empathy”, moved ahead with a 10-minute skit “Mannu Punjabi” by Manisha Kapur, Poonam Kamdar, Ujala Makhija, and Nidhi. The play had Kapur as Mannu Punjabi go through the different phases of her cancer journey, from diagnosis to remission, in a funny take on the otherwise physically and mentally challenging process.

By the end of the evening, the “tryst with cancer” people shared the “takeaways” from the long and tedious journey of surviving cancer.
For Shruti Dhruva, the ailment brought her special treatment, extra discount, and the opportunities to jump queues, while Astha Funda found a cure to corporate culture in her cancer.

“My boss, who would always be after my life for work, started saying, ‘You take it easy. Do this whenever you are comfortable’. I think cancer cures corporate culture,” she said to a room in splits.

In her parting words to the audience and her wellwishers, Khuller said, “treat us like normal people, nothing else. Think more Dua Lipa and less Pankaj Udhaas”.