shamik chakrabarti

Shamik Chakrabarti is a stand-up comedian and screenwriter based in Bengaluru, known for his sharp comic writing and a steady, observational style that finds the absurd in situations most people would walk straight past. Before comedy, Shamik trained and worked as an electrical engineer — a background he’s spoken about candidly, having grown up in a family of engineers before deciding the stage was where he actually wanted to be.

His interest in stand-up deepened while pursuing a master’s degree in the United States, where regular nights at live comedy shows pulled him further from engineering and closer to writing his own material. Early influences like Russell Peters and George Carlin shaped a comedic instinct that leans into specific, almost forensic observation — taking one small, real incident and stretching it out until the audience can’t believe how far it went.

Shamik’s breakout moment came on Comicstaan, the Amazon Prime Video series that’s served as a launchpad for much of India’s current English-comedy generation. His writing and stage presence on the show built him a following that followed him onto the club and festival circuit nationwide. In 2026, he released his debut hour-long special, Despite Appearances, built around one outsized misunderstanding and the chain of consequences that followed — a structure that plays directly to Shamik’s strength as a writer who can take a single bad decision and mine an entire hour out of it. He’s also appeared on The Nation Wants to Guess with Gursimran Khamba, adding to a growing list of screen credits alongside his stand-up work.

What sets Shamik apart on a lineup is the precision of his writing — every bit feels engineered (no pun intended) with a clear setup, escalation, and payoff, delivered with the calm of someone who already knows exactly where the joke is going before the audience does.

Shamik has built a real following in Kochi, with multiple sold-out runs at Spotlight Socials — including back-to-back sellout shows of Despite Appearances itself. He’s also performed at the Kochi Comedy Festival, Kerala’s first and most established stand-up comedy festival, putting him among a select group of comedians who’ve played both the city’s intimate club circuit and its biggest comedy stage.