Log on to an online ticketing platform. Click on the section with comedy shows. Take a look at the artistes on offer. And you'll find that most of them are individuals performing roughly one-hour shows. Or, the event is an open-mic one where established comedians test the waters with new material one by one, and recent entrants try and make their presence felt. That's just how the industry — and stand-up comedy in India is now a bona fide one for sure — works these days. But, that wasn't the case when the movement was still in its nascent phase.

Sure, the whole ecosystem was created at the turn of this decade when people like Papa CJ and Vir Das packed their international stand-up experience in a bag and took a flight back home. But it wasn't until roughly 2014 that the winds of change truly started blowing. And the ones who were fanning it were collectives like All India Bakchod (AIB), East India Comedy (EIC) and Schitzengiggles (SnG). These groups were started by some of the earliest movers in the scene, such as Karan Talwar, Sorabh Pant and Rohan Joshi. They whiffed an opportunity in the air and got a bunch of like-minded people to work as a group, giving stand-up comedy in the country wind in its sails.