HYDERABAD: A crowd of 1,600 roared in laughter at Shilpa Kala Vedika as Atul Khatri, Varun Thakur, Rahul Subrahmaniam, Anirban Dasgupta and Sorabh Pant relayed each other onto the stage for a standup comedy marathon titled Ruckus 3.0. Organised by Sightsavers India, who work towards eradication of and awareness towards blindness, this charity event had a full house of a turnout. Despite the rain, the audience shuffled into the auditorium on Saturday evening for a comedy rollercoaster. Anirban Dasgupta opened the show and was his usual cool self casually doling out jokes all of which landed incredibly.
Rahul Subrahmaniam was next with his set made out of observations from his own life and got the audience to cheer and crack up almost after every pause. Next up was Sorabh Pant who is known for his theatrics which worked wonders on the crowd. A few risque jokes targeting political leaders too were received well in the hall as the audience “ooh”ed and”aah”ed. A short break got the audience all freshened up and fed with snacks all set to greet one of the oldest comedians in India, Atul Khatri. Pretty self-aware, Khatri made quite a few jokes about his age, his Sindhi heritage and the stereotypes around it and of course sneaked in a few wife jokes in. “These are all jokes,” he reassured a few first row audiences who looked alarmed too! Khatri was also a surprise package as he hurled obscenities and made adult jokes all to the delight of the audience who knew exactly what they were getting into. After Khatri’s successful run ended with hoots and applauses, he tapped in Varun Thakur to take over the stage. Varun caught the pulse of the room as he started off with a few jokes he came up with relevant to Hyderabad and his experiences here. His alter ego Vicky Malhotra, a rich spoilt brat, too made an appearance. The show ended with the artists getting a standing ovation by the packed auditorium.