KARACHI: The stand-up comedy scene in Karachi is thriving these days with lots of stand-up comedians breaking new grounds with this form of comedy.

Gone are the days when vulgarity and obscenity was part of Karachi’s comedians who are now well-educated individuals who target the audience as per the location — this side of the bridge versus that side of the bridge.

Friday Funnies with JD began on Friday at Thotspot, where leading stand-up comedians collaborated with Malik Junaid and had the audience in stitches with their renditions of real-life situations.

The show began with Sana Khan Niazi telling the audience about the many rishtay wali aunties who ask her the same question repeatedly so that she can answer as per their expectations, not as per the truth.

She clarified that besides being Niazi, she doesn’t have anything in common with a politician with the same name — may be having good looks was the common factor.

Her ‘Aunts with Agendas’ and ‘How Karachi will end up in East Pakistan’ acts were well received by the audience.

While switching participants, the host Osama Sami showed his skills as a comedian and they were as impressive as that of Malik Junaid who is known as JD in the stand-up circle, for unknown reasons. JD started his act with criticising ‘Tinder’ for the dating app couldn’t find his partner within Pakistan. He also questioned the idea of saying ‘Qubool Hai’ thrice when one gets married because those who say Yes the first time always say it again in quick succession — never ever has anyone said No on the third try.

The final participant of the day Tabish Hashmi was introduced as someone who wasn’t Umar Sharif — neither he had Umar (youth) on his side nor he was Sharif (decent).

He introduced the audience to his teachers who were present there and blamed them for not teaching them the right subjects that would have helped the students in practical life.

He claimed to have been a victim of Biology because instead of being taught the human anatomy, they were given the frog as a subject. There were jokes regarding Urdu words in Science because, in his opinion, Science isn’t meant to be studied in Urdu.

The audience laughed like never before when they heard the Atheist jokes whereas his Govinda act regarding his friend Qazi Farhan came out as the ideal way to conclude a happy session.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2017