After spending much of the last year in North America taking some time off from the stage and attending to personal commitments, Manjeet Sarkar is returning home with a new standup show. The comedian kicks off the 22-show India tour for his latest special Meanwhile with a five-show run in Bengaluru beginning on 1 August, before travelling to Hyderabad, Pune, Thane, Mumbai, Goa, Gurugram, Delhi, Noida, Chennai and Kolkata over the next four months. But unlike his previous specials, Sarkar isn’t thinking about recording or releasing this one anytime soon. Instead, he wants the show to evolve on stage, taking it across clubs in India before eventually touring it internationally.

“I don’t want to release any special or any long-form video,” Sarkar tells DeadAnt. “I’m going to keep touring until I’m satisfied with the final product. I don’t want to release this until I hate performing this material.”

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That decision stems partly from the lessons he learnt after releasing his previous special Democrazy. While clips from the special found an audience on Instagram, Sarkar admits he had placed enormous expectations on the hour’s reception on YouTube.

“I wanted to prove that I don’t just do thought-provoking or political jokes,” he says. “I can also do comedy that has jokes in every other line. I wanted to prove to my peers that if I wanted to do that, I could.”

When the special didn’t perform the way he’d hoped, Sarkar stepped back. He spent months in North America before returning to Life Offline—a show that explored his struggles with depression and his relationship with the internet. Looking back now, however, he says he realised something wasn’t sitting right.

“I realised I was faking that I’d bounced back from depression. To be honest, I hadn’t. I was like a machine.”

Instead of shelving the material, Sarkar went back to it. The time away also helped him untangle something else: his relationship with standup itself. For a while, he says, the internet had begun dictating how he thought about comedy. Chasing views and engagement left him feeling like he was creating for the algorithm rather than for himself.

“It felt like I was working for Instagram,” he laughs. “Eventually I realised I can only take myself seriously on stage. On the internet, I’ll just have fun.”

That shift changed the way he approached Meanwhile. Nearly forty minutes of the new show comes from Life Offline, but instead of trying to make a point or prove something, Sarkar says he’s simply following the ideas that genuinely interest him—from internet culture and individuality to politics, mental health and stories from his own life.

Audiences expecting another hour centred entirely on politics, however, might be surprised.

“It’s a whole different type of show than how people know me,” he says. “It’s more personal and observational. Politics will be there because if I’m talking about groups of people, it naturally comes in. But I’m calmer now and I think that reflects on stage.”

Sarkar is also approaching this tour differently. Since he doesn’t rely on crowd work clips to promote his shows, he’s planning to document each stop in a different way. Alongside performances, he hopes to film documentary-style videos exploring the food, history and culture of every city he visits, ending each episode with footage from that night’s show. He’s also considering bringing a local comedian on stage at every stop for a conversation around topical issues that can live online.

For now though, the priority is simply getting Meanwhile in front of as many audiences as possible. After wrapping up the India leg in Bengaluru at the end of November, Sarkar hopes to continue refining the hour before eventually taking it overseas.

“I’ve realised I’m not dying of hunger anymore,” he says. “I’ve got enough money to live a decent, privileged life. All I want to do is keep doing comedy the way I wanted to initially—just for the love of it.”

You can get your tickets for Meanwhile here.