Indian Comedians You Should Actually Be Watching (If Pranit More Is the Standard, We’re in Trouble)

because not every laugh means it’s a good joke

We’ve all watched at least one stand-up clip with a suspicious number of likes and zero actual jokes. Like people are laughing, the comments are losing it, and you’re just sitting there wondering if you missed something. You didn’t. Lately, a lot of Indian stand-up feels either painfully over-relatable or aggressively mid with good lighting. Same three topics, same delivery, slightly different outfit.

Take Pranit More. His jokes are built on objectification and commodification of women, wrapped in “just a joke, bro.” Take that ₹370 biryani clip—an audience member implied he deserved something for paying on a date, and Pranit laughed along instead of shutting it down. He later admitted he “got carried away.” But if your instinct as a comedian is to amplify a regressive take for a cheap laugh, you’re not reading the room—you’re surrendering to the worst person in it. If that’s the standard, we’re in trouble.

So as someone who spends a very reasonable amount of time watching stand-up instead of doing anything productive, I thought I’d put together a list of comedians who are actually doing something with the format. People who write, who breathe, who trust their audience to think for a second before laughing. This is also to say—I’m not the final authority on comedy. If you don’t agree, that’s fine. Humour is subjective. Some people enjoy recycled relationship jokes and men screaming into microphones. That’s between you and your conscience.

To begin with,

1. Urooj Ashfaq

   

   One thing I love about Urooj is that she never plays it safe. You'll watch her set and genuinely have no idea where the next punchline is coming from—which is rare in a scene where everyone follows the same rhythm. I remember watching Oh No! and feeling like I was watching someone figure it out in real time. It's unhinged, it's controlled, and somehow it works. She makes awkwardness feel like a superpower.
   

2. Azeem Banatwalla

   

   Azeem is the reason I stopped clicking off sets that don't have a punchline in the first ten seconds. His delivery is so calm you almost miss the joke—and then it hits you three seconds late because your brain just caught up. I watched Cometh the Hour and realised halfway through that I hadn't looked at my phone once, which for someone with my attention span is genuinely rare. He doesn't shout. He doesn't perform. He just writes really, really well and trusts you to keep up.
   

3. Anshu Mor

   

   Anshu Mor takes forever to get to the punchline, and I mean that as the highest compliment. I watched his four part series called first love expecting quick hits and got long, winding stories instead. He has this warmth that makes you forget he’s performing. You’re not watching a set; you’re just hanging out with a funny guy who happens to be on stage.
   

4. Sharon Verma

   

   I don’t remember when I first watched Sharon Verma, but it has always felt natural watching her sets. I finally got to see her live earlier this year, and honestly? She was even better in person. She’s the kind of comedian who doesn’t dress up her observations to make herself look better—she’ll tell you the embarrassing truth, and you’ll laugh because it’s her, but also because it’s definitely you.
   

5. Pranav Sharma

   

   One thing I absolutely adore about Pranav’s sets is that there is always a deeper meaning, a lesson— waiting for you at the end. One of my favourite sets of his include ‘INSECURITY’ and a small set up about a trip to Rishikesh, and rafting with his friends. He'll give you the laughs, and the tears to shed along with them.
   

6. Jeeya Sethi

   

   I found Jeeya Sethi the way most of us find comedians now—scrolling through Instagram reels at 1 AM, half-asleep, not expecting much. She has this way of taking the most mundane things, like a WhatsApp forward from your aunt or the existential dread of a Monday morning, and making them feel almost surreal. She doesn’t over-explain her jokes, which I love. She trusts that you’ve been through the same stupid stuff and that you’ll get it.
   

7. Anurag Singh

   

   Anurag Singh and I share the same hometown—Banaras. So his jokes about the city, the chaos, the people, hit way too close to home for me. But even if you’re not from Banaras, you’ll still love his work. He’s funny, he’s sharp, and he doesn’t over-explain. He’ll make you laugh, and then halfway through, you’ll realize he’s actually made a really good point. His comedy doesn’t need you to be from his city to just work.

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Look, I’m not saying these are the only good comedians out there. There are plenty of others—some still writing their first hour in a cramped Delhi basement. But I am saying these are the ones who actually made me stop scrolling. And that’s not a high bar, but apparently, it is. They’re not chasing virality. They’re not recycling the same three observations about Indian parents and dating apps. They’re just writing, thinking, trusting that there’s an audience out there that wants more than a 30-second dopamine hit.

So go watch them. Or don’t. But if you keep giving views to men who think objectification is a punchline and that laughing along with a misogynistic crowd-work quip is “just comedy,” don’t be surprised when that’s all we get. Because the algorithm doesn’t care about taste—it cares about engagement. But you get to care about taste. You get to choose who you give your time to. And trust me—these people are worth it.