Chennai hosts Saikiran’s sharp, clean comedy hour

What if the safest jokes are the sharpest ones? This weekend, Saikiran brings a show that he proudly calls Pure Veg Jokes and means it. No swearing. No innuendo. No onion, no garlic. Just over an hour of storytelling drawn from childhood, siblings, awkward family dynamics, and the peculiar anxieties of growing up in India.

Saikiran brings clean, sharp comedy to Chennai

For the comedian, the show may have toured for years, but it refuses to sit still. “The show has changed, but the essence has remained the same,” he says. As Gen Z fills more seats, he’s noticed something fascinating. “They don’t understand details like why we had to give a security deposit to get a cool drink bottle or go to a photo studio to get a photograph taken.”

And yet, he insists, the emotional core hasn’t aged. “The larger part of the show about growing up and siblings remains relatable across generations.”

There’s something radical about that, the idea that comedy can be clean without being bland and nostalgic without being stuck. The label itself, he explains, was never an artistic choice. “‘Clean comedy’ began in the US for TV, corporates, and colleges. Here also it is just to help audiences.” He’s quick to correct a common assumption: “Many people in India confuse clean comedy with kids-friendly comedy, which it usually is not.” Because if anything, Pure Veg Jokes is about the things we don’t say at home.

“If someone walks out thinking about something other than laughter,” he says, “I’d want it to be that every family is the same yet different… and no matter how serious our family disagreements seem, with sufficient time and distance looking back, it may make us laugh.”

When does an observation become a joke? He says, “When the audience laughs.” Until then, he says, “it just remains a thought. A joke is a clap between the comic and the audience.” The audience, he adds, doesn’t even realise they’re part of that equation.

In 2026, though, that relationship has a third presence in the room: the algorithm. “Both the comics and the audience are being shaped by the algorithm,” he says. “So are we really making what we want to make or what the algorithm will show to more audience?” It’s a disarming question, especially in a time when virality often precedes craft.

Is clean comedy harder to write than edgy comedy? “That’s a misconception,” he says. If a clean joke fails, “you just have a bad joke.” But if an edgy joke misfires, “it will be a stinker.” The real difficulty, he suggests, lies in delivery, in walking the tightrope between risk and respect.

He admits there are jokes he has had to let go. Not because they weren’t funny, but because the world changed too quickly. “An observation you were making a few months back no longer works as things have changed.”

₹799 onwards. On March 1. 5 pm onwards. At Music Academy Mini Hall, TTK Road.

Email: shivani@newindianexpress.com
X: @ShivaniIllakiya

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels