Stand up comedy in India

After the last blog, it was great to see the feedbacks of many people who share similar thoughts and that something like that needed to be spoken about in today’s world. 

Today’s article is about one of my favourites “stand up comedy”. There cannot be a single person who would not like to watch stand up comedy. However, the craze of stand up in India has started recently and I so wish that it grows to a level wherein we get to have amazing stand up shows in almost every town/city of India. 

After a very hectic day, no matter how bad your day has been or if you’re upset about something , sit down and start watching stand up comedy, laugh your heart out to few of the jokes and trust me, it’ll actually feel good.

There have been comedians before who have shaped the comedy of India initially like Raju Shrivastava,  Ahsaan Qureshi, etc. The first time I’d seen Raju Shrivastava was in “The great Indian laughter challenge” when I was a kid. I’d found him so funny and me and my dad used to watch the show just because of the amazing jokes and eventually got hooked on to stand up comedy. Back then, no one used to take this profession seriously as it was not a conventional profession like doctors, engineers, teachers, etc which every other parent expected their children to become. But these people were shaping stand up comedy in India back then. 

Being a 90s kid, all of us would’ve heard at least one or two shows of Russel Peters (Indian origin comedian) in our early teenage life and actually loved the way he used to speak targeting the audience. It took a long time but yeah, today’s stand up comedy in India is far far better in every aspect possible considering the fact that there are comedians having content in every stand up genre possible.

Today’s stand up comedy in India is set by few people who I like to think desire the entire credit, the people who started the initiative of Comicstaan and a few other people who had made their careers by themselves solely on talent. I believe a lot of people will agree to this fact. To mention few of the names: 

1. Biswa Kalyan Rath: One of the best. I’ve seen him LIVE in Mysore and you surely can’t stop laughing. Self made comedian with a background of engineering from IIT Kharagpur. It takes a lot to leave everything behind and start a career in stand up especially when you’ve completed engineering from the best institute of India. 
2. Abish Matthew: Started his own show “Son of Abish ” which is fun to watch and a good “timepass”.
3. Kanan Gill: Biswa and Kanan started “ Pretentious movie reviews” together on YouTube back in 2014 which got them the spotlight and they took it to heights of insanity in each of their comedy careers from that.
4. Kunal Kamra: If you want to listen to political jokes, there’s no one better than this guy right here. However, if you’re not open minded and unbiased towards politics, he isn’t the guy for you. But there’s no doubt about a single fact spoken by this guy and he’s as logical as anyone can get. I’ve seen him LIVE in Bangalore.
5. Abhishek Upmanyu: Amazing comedian. Doesn’t have any specials anywhere (only YouTube videos) but would love to see him on stage LIVE.
6. Anubhav Singh Bassi: Amazing story teller. You’ll get hooked up to his stores.
7. Vir Das: A salute to this guy for learning to do stand up professionally . His way of explanation is very different from everyone. I’d seen a video of a speech that he had given at Knox college (worth the watch). 
8. Zakir Khan: For all the Sakth laundes out there, you’re probably wondering why I hadn’t mentioned him yet. You always save the best for the last. I’ve seen him LIVE in Mysore as well and the way he expresses comedy, simply amazing!!! I haven’t seen anyone do comedy so slowly and also keep the audience engaged to the maximum possible extent.

These are just a few of the top people who I usually watch. There are multiple stand up comedians who’ve come up into limelight recently and are doing actually good. Few of the names being Akash Gupta, Devesh Dixit, Varun Grover, etc.

For people who aren’t a fan, I would request you to take out some time from your busy schedule and actually LAUGH OUT LOUD rather than just sending LOL texts to people. Many shows are informative as well. Here are 10 must watch stand up shows:

1. Mast Aadmi: Biswa. Available on prime video
2. Sushi: Biswa. Available on prime video
3. Losing it: Vir Das. Available on Netflix 
4. For India: Vir Das. Available on Netflix 
5. 10 on 10: Vir Das. One episode released in every one week to 10 days on YouTube.
6. Haq se single: Zakir Khan. Available on prime video
7. When I met a Delhi girl: Zakir Khan. Available on YouTube 
8. The big bhang story: Divesh Dixit. Available on YouTube 
9. Cheating: Anubhav Singh bassi. Available on YouTube 
10. Hostel: Anubhav Singh bassi. Available on YouTube 

To conclude, I suggest everyone should make time for stand up comedy and if you think you’re capable enough to make stand up comedy as a career, please don’t step back under peer pressure. Pursue the same and make yourself stand out of the crowd. 

This blog was a little informative but it’s always good to talk about things which make you happy. Do leave your suggestions in comments if you liked it or if you want suggestions of more stand up shows. Even suggestions for blog topics would be taken into consideration for my next blog. I was thinking of continuing the story of my Europe trip back in 2015 (3 blogs already available); do let me know if you wish to know more about the trip.