Saima Raina

Stand-up

After performing at multiple open mics since 27 August 2017, Raina began opening for well-known comedians like Anirban Dasgupta and Abhishek Upmanyu in Pune. As he gained recognition, he moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in stand-up comedy and gave several successful shows in Mumbai and several cities across the nation. In 2019, he participated in Comicstaan 2 due to a suggestion from comedian Aakash Gupta. Later, he became the joint winner of Comicstaan 2 with Gupta, aired on Amazon Prime Video. In 2023, Raina performed at the launch party of American DJ KSHMR's album KARAM, at antiSOCIAL in Mumbai. In 2025, he announced a nationwide tour across India, "Still Alive And Unfiltered", which was touted as a comeback, following the controversy surrounding his show, India's Got Latent. The tour commenced in Bengaluru on 15 August and ended in Delhi on 5 October. In 2026, he became one of the youngest Indian comedians to perform at Madison Square Garden, closing his global leg of the tour. On 7 March 2026, he released his debut comedy special, Still Alive, on YouTube, after almost a year of hiatus from the platform, which became the most viewed stand-up comedy special on YouTube. In June 2026, he announced two collaborations with Netflix India; the first being the second season of his show India's Got Latent, which would be streaming on Netflix as well as YouTube, and the second being a new stand-up special. In August 2026, Raina was felicitated by the Chief…

Raina was born in Jammu city of the erstwhile Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir into a conservative Kashmiri Pandit family from Salia area of Seer Hamdan Anantnag. He grew up in Hyderabad, where he completed his schooling. He enrolled in a print engineering course at Vidhyarthi Griha's College of Engineering and Technology in Pune, Maharashtra, which he said was a waste of time, and started doing open mic events and eventually became a regular in the local comedy scene.