‘An Indian walks into a bar…’: Stand-up comedy with an Indian twist
Sun Dec 19, 2:42 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - The subject matter isn’t your usual stand-up comedy fare – arranged marriages, the dangers of wearing a sari on a roller coaster and the chances of a gay Hindu being accepted as an Al-Qaeda recruit.
But then again, there aren’t many Indian comedians working the US stand-up circuit.
“This is a new idea that we’re putting out there, especially for Indian audiences who still aren’t really used to the stand-up concept,” said Piyush Pandya, organiser of a five-city national tour labelled the “Gurus of Comedy.”
Pandya estimated the number of ethnic Indians making a living from stand-up in the United States at “half a dozen at most,” most of them struggling in the relative obscurity of small clubs.
“I thought it would be cool to see them all together in one format,” he said of the current tour.
In New York, an overwhelmingly Indian crowd seemed both amused and bemused by the four acts on show, which included Vidur Kapur, a gay comic who spoke of his ambition to launch a perfume brand called “Monsoon Daddy” and the problem of embodying two minorities for the price of one.
“Indians say, ‘He’s gay.’ Gays say, ‘He’s Indian.’ The rest of America says, ‘He’s a terrorist.’”
That joke drew wry chuckles, while some of the riffs on early arranged marriage, domineering mothers and the harsh treatment of daughters-in-law sometimes elicited shocked gasps rather than laughs.
“My mother says, ‘I’ll find you a nice Indian girl. What’s the harm? If you don’t like her, I’ll set her on fire,’” Kapur quipped, drawing a nervous response from the crowd.
The audience had a similar reaction to Los Angeles-based comic Anand Chulani’s take on being set up with a prospective bride: “I’m really nervous to meet the girl, because she’s still a fetus.”
While a large number of African-Americans and a smaller, but still sizable, group of Hispanics have beaten well-trodden paths to comedy stardom, South Asian stand-ups are still very much pioneers in their community.
“I had always wanted to see an Indian comic on stage – not even just an Indian comic, but a comic who represented what I went through,” said Paul Varghese, who made a breakthrough this year by reaching the semi-finals of the NBC talent show “Last Comic Standing.”
Varghese, 27, caught the stand-up bug three years ago, after seeing top Latino comedian George Lopez.
“I couldn’t relate to him completely, but it was the closest thing I had,” he recalled. “At that point, I decided that if I can’t find a comic that represents me, I might just as well be that comic.”
Varghese, who lives in Dallas, cut his teeth performing before small Texas club audiences or, as he put it, “a lot of drunk people who have never seen an Indian in their life.”
Varghese’s set in New York was an eclectic mix that included a smug phone call from an Indian cow to a bovine counterpart in Texas, crowing about his sacred status.
The absence of Indian role models in the US entertainment industry also figured strongly, from television – “We need a talk show host. Give me a Chopra Winfrey” – to a wry dig at the latest Hollywood offering by “Sixth Sense” director M. Night Shyamalan.
“How can you make a movie called ‘The Village’ and not put an Indian in it?” he said.
Varghese and Chulani both acknowledged that their choice of profession met with some initial resistance from their parents, whose own immigrant experiences placed a high priority on steady employment.
Generational differences provided substantial material for all the “Gurus of Comedy” acts, but they also took time out to skewer the cultural provincialism of Americans.
“Oh … my … God. You’re from India? I have this friend in China. Do you know him?” Chulani said in a California “valley girl” drawl, while Varghese schooled the audience on ways to take advantage of their bosses’ ignorance of the pantheon of Indian religious deities.
“Just call in and say, ‘Yeah, listen, I can’t make it in to work tomorrow. You know Mowgli from the Jungle Book? Well, it’s his birthday.’”
Varghese, a Christian, said he generally steers clear of religious topics, which do not always go down well with Indian audiences.
“When I first told that joke, I said, ‘… You know that blue guy with the four arms? It’s his birthday,’” Varghese recalled. “Well, I got booed, because people thought I was making fun of Hindu culture.”
Audiences for the “Gurus” tour have been predominantly Indian and the comics have tweaked their material accordingly, but they are keenly aware of the importance of maintaining a broad appeal.
“If you make it too Indian, you’re distancing yourself from the mainstream crowd, which is the one we need to connect with,” Chulani said. “Because that’s how you get legitimacy.”