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Monika Shergill, VP, content, Netflix India, says the streamer has moved comedy from a series of individual bets to a long-term programming pillar because of how many different audience needs the genre can serve.
“Comedy
is deeply personal and subjective. What makes one person laugh may not work for another, so our job is to super-serve audiences with a wide range of voices, formats and sensibilities,” Shergill tells Variety.
Netflix India will expand its comedy offering this season with a slate spanning film, scripted series, stand-up specials and unscripted formats, kicking off with the franchise film “Dhamaal 4” and the family comedy “Chumbak.” The lineup also includes Zakir Khan’s stand-up special “Papa Yaar,” “The Great Indian Kapil Show” Season 5, Bhuvan Bam’s “Dhindora” Season 2 and a new stand-up special from Sumukhi Suresh, who joins Netflix with “Hoemonal.” The slate additionally features more episodes of Samay Raina’s “India’s Got Latent,” including a recently released exclusive episode with Varun Dhawan.
“Chumbak” comes from J.D. Majethia and Aatish Kapadia, the makers of “Khichdi” and “Sarabhai vs Sarabhai.” The multi-generational family comedy is set in a Mumbai neighborhood and follows five families whose lives are intertwined by everyday favors, opinions and mishaps. “Papa Yaar” traces how Khan comes to see his father differently over time, moving past the parent-as-authority-figure framing toward a bond built on shared history and mutual understanding.
Shergill points to the streamer’s five specials with Vir Das, including the International Emmy-winning “Landing,” alongside the returning “The Great Indian Kapil Show” and “Single Papa,” which was renewed for a second season, as evidence of that range.
One lesson from the slate so far, Shergill says, is that audiences want both familiarity and discovery at once. “One of the clearest things we’ve learned is that audiences want both comfort and surprise,” she says. She points to “The Great Indian Kapil Show” renewing itself season after season with the same cast, against the eccentric courtroom world of “Maamla Legal Hai,” as two different routes to the same result. “What connects them is emotional recognition,” she says.
Asked what she looks for in a comic voice, Shergill says Netflix weighs three things: “a distinctive point of view, a strong idea and the potential for the creative relationship to grow.” A large following, she adds, “cannot substitute for the idea.” She cites Majethia and Kapadia’s “instinctive understanding of Indian families and communities that shapes ‘Chumbak'” as an example of a voice matched to the right project.
Shergill pushes back on the notion that Indian comedy audiences are splintering into narrower segments. “Audiences aren’t dividing, they’re diversifying their own taste,” she says, noting that the same viewer might watch Kapil Sharma with family and Zakir Khan on their own, depending on mood and company. That fluidity, she says, shapes the range of the slate itself, from the dark comedy “Darlings” to the crime caper “Dhoom Dhaam” to the workplace setting of “Maamla Legal Hai” to “Super Subbu,” which she says wraps a social issue in comic packaging so it lands with viewers.
On why now, Shergill says the timing reflects several factors converging at once rather than a single trigger. “It isn’t one signal; it is the combination of several,” she says, pointing to Bam’s “Dhindora” returning for a second season, Suresh’s “Hoemonal” arriving as a new voice, and Raina’s relationship with Netflix evolving from an appearance on Kapil Sharma’s show to “India’s Got Latent” Season 2 and now an exclusive special in development.
On international reach, Shergill says Indian humor does not need to be diluted to travel abroad. “Indian humor does not have to become less Indian to travel. In fact, specificity can be a strength,” she says. Das’s run of specials, capped by “Landing’s” International Emmy win for comedy in 2023, illustrates that dynamic, according to Shergill, who adds that “global reach is an opportunity that follows the work, not a requirement that shapes it.”
Looking ahead, Shergill says the next phase of growth will come from voices and comic worlds the platform has not yet tapped. “The biggest opportunity is in the voices and comic worlds we haven’t discovered yet,” she says. “The next breakout idea may not look like anything that came before it. Our job is to stay curious enough to find it and ambitious enough to back it.”
“Comedy remains an underserved genre in entertainment, so that combination of continuity and newness is what makes this the moment to invest further,” Shergill says.
