Comedian Nirmal Pillai discusses India tour, South Side Samurai, merging personal narrative, digital craft and live-stage satire

The name came from a photo shoot where I had long hair — it looked funny and cool, so I called it South Side Samurai. The show delves deeper, exploring themes of identity and personal growth. Growing up a Malayali in Chennai and Bengaluru, I never felt a sense of belonging. It touches on how we adopt foreign cultures — how we’re drawn to being either Westernised or Easternised. My mom even called me Naruto (a young ninja from a manga series) for a while — because I asked her to. I think that’s the easiest answer.

I have worked on this one hour show for two years. Now that it’s almost ready, I’m ready to go on a tour. For two years, I did bits and pieces of this special in different places. I did a lot of trial shows in Bengaluru. Coming from a video background, stand-up was an uphill challenge — but I figured it out. There’s a big screen in the background featuring a lot of interactive content, including satirical songs. I’m happy with it at the end of it. And now, because I know that it’s a good solid hour, I was like, ‘OK, let me do a tour with it.’

The audience shouldn’t expect a straightforward stand-up piece. It’s a bit of everything. I think the best way to put it is like one of my YouTube videos, but live. There’s little crowd work; it’s all structured, personal and reflects my thoughts from over two years. I’m proud of it. I just want people to come, have fun. The rest — I’ll take care of.

The biggest challenge was learning to sound like myself on stage. When you start, you tend to imitate others or put on a voice. I had to unlearn that and find my honest voice. Also, writing for the stage is different — punchlines must hit harder and you act them out. So that was the main challenge. I had another challenge where I was like, ‘Okay, this is looking too much like regular stand-up. And I always like doing something different — that’s uniquely me. So, then I started integrating all the other elements into it, which I’m not going to talk about it because it’s a spoiler. But there’s a lot of digital stuff in the show. Once that came about, I was happy and then felt like, ‘Okay, this is a show that feels like me.’

I’m not nervous about it, but I’m very excited to perform in Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai, because Chennai and Bengaluru are home and always show me love. One show is almost sold out two months in advance, so, I’m opening another. Mumbai’s venue, Veda Kunba Theatre, is quite lovely, so I’m excited to work there as well.

It’s mostly solo. But I do have a member who’s creatively involved, another who’s operationally involved. Shweta Sekar, my manager, handles logistics, bookings and gives constant creative feedback. She’s been a big confidence boost. The other very important guy, Prakhar Pachpor, is the one who handles the digital elements — he designed all assets and controls live cues from the back. We’ve built great chemistry over the years. But other than that, it’s primarily my thoughts, I haven’t had anybody write jokes for this. It’s only me.

That they’re proud to be an egg puff. And for understanding this, they should come to the show.

Mostly this one. Yeah, other stuff is on the back burner, but I think I’ll talk about that when I’m ready to. But this is what I want to talk about right now. This is special.