Papa Yaar: How Zakir Khan turns the father-son relationship into a two-hour laugh riot

Most of these artistic explorations dwell on the intense, often gut-wrenching aspect of that emotional cord. But a two-hour stand-up act — replete with pop-culture references and sprinkled with moments that most of us millennials would instantly relate to? That’s exactly what Zakir Khan has achieved in his latest stand-up special, Papa Yaar, which he recently performed to four consecutive packed shows at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. Khan will soon take the show to Kolkata, Bhopal, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, and Mangalore.

The writing on the wall

Zakir has taken the emotionally charged theme of the father–son relationship and turned it into a laugh riot. One might naturally be sceptical about the execution — after all, can an entire two-hour set on such a complex subject really have enough material? Especially when “dad jokes,” as social media often proves, are often painfully unfunny. But what’s undeniable is that Zakir Khan is the biggest name in Hindi stand-up comedy today.

His mercurial yet steady rise to superstardom is the stuff that Bollywood dreams are made of: from writing for the All India Bakchod (AIB) collective and releasing multiple specials, to headlining his own prime-time show, Aapka Apna Zakir, that replaced Kapil Sharma’s on Sony LIV, and eventually performing at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The writing is on the wall: Zakir Khan has arrived, and how.

Also read: How Zakir Khan took Hindi stand-up comedy from Indore to Madison Square Garden

Traffic choked all roads leading to the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium over the weekend, as an estimated 20,000 people from Delhi and neighbouring areas converged to watch the star comic perform live. In true Delhi fashion, the show started about half an hour late, opening with a set by comedian Tanmay Bhat.

Even an hour into the performance, people kept pouring in. “Aaiye, aaiye, yehi toh hai ramp walk (Come on in, come on in — this is the ramp walk!),” quipped Khan, spotting a late-coming couple making their way to the super VIP seats. The scale, the vibe, and the sheer energy of Khan’s show were on a level usually reserved for A-list rock stars. Whole families jostled through long queues, tight security checks, and cramped seating, just to catch a glimpse of the comic live in action.

Come for the laughter

Khan’s show is also distinctly different from that of his contemporaries. While comics like Varun Grover and Vir Das strictly prohibit video recording or even phone access inside venues, Khan openly revels in the visibility and virality it brings; in fact, he thrives on it. The scale of his shows, complete with multiple food stalls and a gamut of sponsors, is typically reserved for top-tier rock concerts, a spectacle that defines the Zakir Khan experience. His mix of everyday observation and lived experiences as a small-town boy from Indore has made him the poster child of relatable comedy.

Whether he’s taking a dig at the ‘sacrifices’ all parents claim to have made, or joking about how the price of a pair of roller skates mysteriously kept rising — from Rs 9,000 at the start of school to Rs 17,000 by graduation — every millennial in the audience has lived that truth. Khan sets up the show’s premise early: the hard, Teflon-like exterior of most fathers — impatient, terse, and emotionally guarded. He even turns to the dads in the crowd, who make up a sizable section of the audience.

“Sir, show ke end mein aapki jai-jaikaar ho jayegi. Aapko bhi lagega ki main kitna badhiya banda hoon. Par beech ke do ghante bhaari rahenge. Ekdum se uthkar beech mein papagiri dikhana mat—‘kya ho raha hai yahan pe sab?’ Aapka ghar nahin hai yeh. Baithiye… (Sir, by the end of the show, you’ll be getting all the applause. You’ll also feel like, ‘Wow, I’m such a great guy.’ But the next two hours are going to be tough. Don’t suddenly get up midway and start showing your papagiri — like, ‘What’s going on here?’ This isn’t your home. Please, stay seated),” joked Khan, to roaring laughter.

Gendered division of emotion

Khan’s relationship with his father — and, by extension, his family — forms the emotional core of the act. As the eldest of three brothers, most of his stories stem from his childhood mischief in Indore, where his father works as a music teacher in a girls’ school. Through the microcosm of his own household, Khan taps into the universality of the father–son and mother–son bond. “Kissi ke bhi papa, kissi ko bhi pel sakte hain (Anyone’s dad can berate anyone),” he joked, contrasting it with how mothers operate: “Sab ki mummy sab ko khaana khila sakti hain. (Mothers, no matter whose, can feed just about anyone).”

Also read: How Vir Das punches in the face of power in Emmy Award-winning show, ‘Landing’

While unpacking the emotional distance and hardened exterior of most fathers, Khan also explores the toll it takes on them, effectively humanising the fathers. “Yeh bas jata nahin pate… yeh bahar se sakht, andar se narm, par hamare waale ka toh andar waala gayab hai (They just can’t express it… they’re tough on the outside, soft inside — but in my dad’s case, the inside part seems to be missing),” he said softly. Just when the sentiment begins to land, when the audience feels a lump in their throat, he snaps the mood with a sudden punchline, pulling laughter from the brink of tenderness. “Yeh tathastu nahin hai…” he zinged, invoking his previous special about emotional healing, before adding, “Rone nahin dunga. (I won’t let you cry).”

The act concluded with Khan recalling how he and his father repaired their strained relationship as he found success, evolving it to a point where they could, perhaps one day, be friends. His shows often trace the familiar arc of a feel-good Bollywood film — all’s well that ends well. But that neatly wrapped resolution also reveals what’s missing from his comedy: the messy, unresolved spaces that real emotion sometimes occupies.

While Khan brilliantly detailed the how and the what — making us laugh as he laid bare the emotional drought in the father–son dynamic and the burden placed on mothers to anchor the family emotionally — he stopped short of exploring the why. Why are our fathers so emotionally stunted? Why must our mothers shoulder the emotional labour for every man around them? If he were to probe deeper into the systemic roots of this gendered division of feeling — where fathers are defined solely as providers and mothers as caretakers — his already resonant act could become truly genre-defining, leaving a far more profound and lasting intellectual impact. Until then, let the laughs roll.