Their comedy podcast The Internet Said So (TISS) has been dissecting Bollywood’s biggest hits, flops, and strangest trends for years. Now, comedians Varun Thakur, Aadar Malik and Kautuk Srivastava have taken that obsession to the stage. Their new live show, Bollywood Postmortem, arrives in Hyderabad on June 7 at district150 by QUORUM, promising a hilarious yet surprisingly detailed deep dive into the state of Hindi cinema.
Presented by Funnybuzzness by Buzz Kya Entertainment, founded by Sakshi Atree and known for running one of the country’s longest-running comedy IPs, the show combines research, nostalgia, and sharp humour to examine Bollywood’s evolution over the past decade. Ahead of the Hyderabad performance, the trio speaks to CE about their research process, Bollywood’s changing landscape, Salman Khan, and why Hindi cinema remains comedy gold.
Excerpts
What is Bollywood Postmortem?
Varun Thakur: Bollywood has been one of the most popular topics on our podcast for nearly six years. Our audience loves to hear us talk about films, and that’s where the idea for this show began. As we started digging deeper, we found something fascinating. Looking at Bollywood’s performance over the last decade, only a small percentage of films have actually succeeded. For an industry that produces hundreds of movies every year, that’s quite a statistic. It made us wonder: what exactly has changed? The show is our attempt to investigate that question. It’s a deep dive into Bollywood’s successes, failures, trends, and contradictions.
Aadar Malik: All three of us are huge Bollywood fans. Between us, we’re actors, writers, and musicians, so we’re closely connected to the creative process. What fascinated us was how dramatically Bollywood changed after the pandemic. The way films are made, marketed, and consumed today is very different from what it was even a decade ago. In many ways, the show is like a research document. We’re trying to understand what went wrong, what changed, and what Bollywood’s future might look like.
Kautuk Srivastava: Think of it as a PhD thesis for which we’re getting no doctorate!
How extensive was the research process?
Varun: If you look at us now, you’ll realise the research has taken a physical toll. Kautuk has lost his hair, my hair has turned grey, and Aadar’s beard has gone white! Jokes aside, we felt the only way to properly analyse Bollywood was to watch everything ourselves. We didn’t want surface-level observations. We wanted to understand specific scenes, filmmaking choices, marketing strategies, and industry trends.
Aadar: We’ve easily watched over 50 films for this project. Beyond that, we’ve gone through actor and director interviews, promotional campaigns, trailers, articles, and even Reddit discussions. We’ve explored every possible source that could help us understand the industry’s evolution. The best part is that it never felt like work because we genuinely love movies.
Does the show focus on a particular era of Bollywood?
Kautuk: The primary focus is the period from 2015 onwards. We wanted to understand how Bollywood transformed over the last decade. Films from the ’90s and early 2000s are already deeply embedded in our memories because they were such a huge part of our childhood. The more recent period is where we noticed the biggest shifts in storytelling, marketing, and audience behaviour.
Why does Bollywood make such great comedy material?
Varun: Comedy works best when people instantly understand the reference. Bollywood is one of the few things almost every Indian has an opinion on. You may not remember your geography lessons, but you’ll definitely remember a Shah Rukh Khan film. That shared cultural understanding makes Bollywood a goldmine for comedy.
Aadar: Bollywood is also a reflection of society. Changes in culture eventually show up on screen. If you compare the heroes, villains, romances, and storytelling styles of the ’90s with those of today, you’ll see enormous differences. What’s particularly interesting is that Bollywood itself seems to be trying to rediscover its identity. There are countless theories about what’s working and what isn’t, and most of them are wrong. That’s where the comedy comes from.
One aspect of Bollywood that surprised you during your research?
Aadar: The music. I spent a lot of time revisiting Bollywood’s biggest songs from the last decade, and what stood out was how dependent the industry has become on nostalgia. A huge number of successful songs are remixes or recreations of older hits. It often feels like Bollywood is so afraid of taking creative risks that it keeps returning to familiar material. The music industry reflects that larger trend very clearly.
With every film now aiming to be ‘pan-India’, do you see Bollywood Postmortem becoming a pan-India show as well?
Varun: The show is primarily about Bollywood because that’s what we know best. But cinema today is far more interconnected than it used to be. Bollywood actors work in southern industries, southern stars appear in Bollywood films, and audiences watch everything. So while Bollywood remains the focus, we do occasionally touch upon larger industry trends.
Kautuk: Eventually we’ll just bring a local comedian from every city and slowly turn it into a pan-India project!
Which Bollywood actor or filmmaker gives you the most material for comedy?
Aadar: Rather than focusing on individuals, we look at larger patterns. Sequels, cinematic universes, franchise films, marketing strategies — those are the things that interest us. Of course, the YRF Spy Universe and various cop universes provide plenty of material. And yes, there is definitely a section on nepotism. We know people are expecting it.
What’s your ultimate Bollywood guilty pleasure?
Kautuk: For me, it’s the 1920 horror franchise. The films are terrifying, but often for reasons the filmmakers probably didn’t intend.
Varun: Bollywood comedies are the only films that regularly bring tears to my eyes — and not always for the right reasons.
Aadar: One thing all three of us agree on is Salman Khan’s big-budget films. Salman is basically the unofficial fourth member of our group. In fact, we’re doing a deep dive into Sikandar during the show. That film somehow manages to represent almost every trend we’ve been discussing about modern Bollywood.
What’s next?
Varun: We’re currently touring six cities across India.
Aadar: After that, we’ll be taking the show internationally, with performances planned in Amsterdam and London, followed by a North American tour later this year.
