It is said that talent is inborn and it cannot be taught but this is a controversial issue best to avoid! Every person is different and so too is a talent which is a process and it is an outcome of a continuous effort to learn something. The basic ingredient of the learning process is interest and the deeper the interest more the impact. The story of our protagonist is a mix of interest and hard work. Saidutt Kamat is known for his mimicry of politicians and he imitates them ditto. But all this did not happen overnight but through continuous efforts and practice, he mastered this art.
According to Saidutt, his journey toward imitating the voice of others began when he was just 5 years old. He recollects the Bhatji (Hindu Priest) who used to visit their place for performing the rituals, “I started imitating them without realizing that it is something known as ‘Mimicry’ my relatives would just say in Konkani “Tejji acting Karta” (he is acting out) but the best thing is that my parents never stopped me from doing that and in fact encouraged me to go ahead turn my interest into the talent,” said Saidutt adding, his parents would send him for fancy dress and monologue competitions, “and that is how I started performing on the stage.”
Making the right use of the available resources and opportunities always helps and something similar happened in the case of Saidutt. “When I was in the 4th standard our school organized a farewell program and one of our teachers suggested us to mimic our Headmaster and all the teachers, but nobody was ready to take that task as it seemed risky. That is when I thought to myself, I should definitely take this opportunity since I had the skill of mimicking and was already imitating teachers. I took up the challenge and participated in the program and from here is where it all started,” he said.
When Saidutt did his first mimicry in front of all the teachers and principal he was just 10 years old and there was a long way to go. Initially, nobody took his talent seriously since it was not polished well to match the standard of full-fledged mimicry. What do you expect at that age? “I realized that I have a long way to go hence the criticism of others never discouraged me and I kept polishing my skills. Finally, the day came when I got the chance to nail it down. It was the Teacher’s Day function and I was in the 10th standard. I was told to imitate my teachers and headmaster being the senior-most students of the batch we had planned one program for the teachers, and in that program, all my classmates convinced me to take up the mimicry act to imitate my headmaster and all the teachers and luckily this program turned out to be a really superb one, and this is where the journey actually began which opened doors in my career.”
The mimicry that started at the school with teachers and headmaster went into politicians and slowly, people started recognizing me as a Political Mimicry Artist, since I was imitating almost all the politicians including the Prime Minister of India, without any hiccups. “That is when I decided to take up this as one of my professions,” said Saidutt adding that he thanks Mark Zuckerberg for giving the world a social media platform that helped many to reach their talents across the globe. “Without the help of social media platforms, none of this would be possible. It’s one thing to do mimicry, but being present on social media was also something that helped push my work towards more people.”
Saidutt started making very good use of social media platforms, he started sending the small voice notes mimicking the different personalities, and people started appreciating his work, some also warned him of adverse effects but that did not stop Saidutt from continuing his work. “Somehow these voice notes found their way to Paresh Parab working at Prudent Media on his show, “Just Imagine” where he invited me. I am thankful to my friends who connected me with Paresh Parab, at that time I was in my final year of B.Com,” said Saidutt.
The invite on the show of Paresh Parab opened the doors of opportunity for Saidutt, it was his first appearance on the television and he got a very exposure. “Started getting live shows, I always wanted to be in front of people and make them laugh, that is something I always loved. I started posting lots of videos on social media mimicking the politicians and surprisingly I received a very overwhelming response for the same.”
A journey that started with the imitation of teachers in the school and mimicry of the politicians has landed Saidutt in Mumbai with the new role as a dubbing artist “In the year 2018, I got the opportunity to dub some voices in the Mumbai film industry and this way I would keep traveling to Mumbai for these projects where there were requirements for cartoon series or voice over projects,” said Saidutt adding, back in Goa he tried his luck with several TV channels but could not create the impact due to various reasons. “There was a lot of work like script making, shooting, editing which was not possible from my side, finally the editor told me to create shorts of 2-3 minutes which the channel will air during the news broadcast.”
The shorts received a very good response as it went viral on social media. “I would mimic by keeping the topic to one person a day, and the plan was to go beyond 100 episodes but later due to the pandemic, everything went on the brink of shutting down. The lockdown caused further hardship and during that time, my contract with the TV channel ended. Later on, Saidutt received an offer from another channel to work on the “Faking News” show and did a few episodes but then again, we were hit by the 2nd lockdown.
It was the second lockdown that prompted Saidutt to travel on the path of an entrepreneurial journey. “The pandemic resulted in the complete shutdown of my TV shows and I came back to my live shows. I decided to concentrate on my live shows, and entrepreneurship activities along with my MBA,” he said adding, But somewhere along the way, the people would always convince me to post more videos and put my content online. The social media platforms offered a lot of features to artists who had suffered in the pandemic, and this was when I thought to myself until and unless I put myself out there completely then nobody will notice my work or invite me to work. Immediately the next day, I got the call from Paresh Parab: he was someone I looked up to, he became my inspiration and I wanted to become like him. That is when he recommended my name so that I could take his place and carry forward his legacy, and I accepted happily. On the 5th of December 2021, I started with the “comedy party with Saidutt Kamat” on Prudent Media TV. According to Saidutt, he has struggled a lot to reach where he is today.
Saidutt has a plan of bringing the comedy club concept in Goa and he is already working towards that direction. “There are no actual comedy clubs in Goa but I have connects with comedians from other parts of the country and we have created a comedy club called “comedy basket” which is a national comedy club. I am the co-founder of it, and here the intention is to organize more and more open mic shows here in Goa. My main intention is to give the platform to the people of Goa who are looking for this opportunity.”
