 Can you guys hear me all right? I can. Yeah, good to go. How you doing, man? I'm good, man. What's up? Nothing much. How's COVID treating you over there? It's not so bad, I'm going to be honest, because I got out of Mumbai, I think, like a month and a half ago, and we're in Goa, which is near the beach. So it's actually been kind of nice. I get to get out. And I empathize with people in Mumbai, and I'm like, yes, lockdown is very hard. And all that stuff. Yes, but Goa's not my place. But I'm on the beach. Yeah, quarantining in Goa is a pretty good place to quarantine, I suppose. Yep, yep, yep. We're here in California, so it's not as nice in terms of COVID. But, you know, America. On the bright side, I think your guy knows what he's doing, so I think you'll be OK. Absolutely. But I want to thank you for talking to us. We've been big admirers of yours for, since we started. I think the first thing we ever reacted to of yours was your be stupid speech at the college. And so we were blown away by your intelligence and obviously your comedy, which I think one of your defining characteristics of your comedy. But I know what you just put out, your new special via the Zoom that I watched last night. Hilarious. And it's all going to a COVID related charities, correct? Four different charities. I mean, we kind of wanted to hedge our bets depending on who you like. So we picked like one for kids, one for dogs, one for old people, and one for doctors. In case you like kids, but you hate old people, or you like dogs, you spread it around. That's great. It was, yeah, it's for charity. The whole thing is for charity. And how was it, obviously, because you're used to performing in front of a big crowd. And we actually, we did reactions via Skype for a few months when the first pandemic started. And we know that the reactions you get from each other or the audience is much, much different, obviously, online with a delay and all that kind of stuff. So how was it doing stand up on Zoom? It's like taking a tetanus shot. It's good for you, but you'd rather not do it. I try and find a bright side in everything that I'm doing. So for me, I started out like super cranky. I was like, I don't want to do this. And isn't this virus going to be over tomorrow? And then it starts to dawn on you that this is the new normal three words that I hate. But I think about halfway into it, like I did 45 shows in the last sort of three months for different charities. And every night we'd sell like about 200 tickets or 250 tickets. And we just give that money to a different NGO every night. And then about 10 shows in, I was like, you know, I'm, I mean, and I talked about this in the special as well. I'm now looking into my audience's lives for the first time. That's a trip as an artist, right? Because usually if you come to the arena, you're this dark mass of people and I'm under lights. And it's about me and my life and my swag if you will or whatever. But now it's pretty democratic to just all the boxes on Zoom, right? You know, where, you know, you can see my background. I can see your background. I can see the books on your wall. I can see, you know, your life. So I think in that sense, I am forever changed as an artist because I've, it's a privilege to be given a glimpse into your audience's life. You don't take them for granted anymore. And was it weird doing mostly, because I feel like most of it was improv for this special. Whereas most of the times it feels like your set is pretty polished. So was it different doing mostly just improvise? Yeah, it's giving up control completely. It really is because usually, you know, you're driving and before it goes on Netflix, it's done like 85 performances or it's done a world tour. You've got the economy of words down. You know what hits when. But with this, you're just like, yeah, I just have to make sure I'm in a good frame of mind at 7 p.m. And then the audience is gonna let me know what the show is about. Which is kind of a good, you know, it coincides with this pandemic as well, right? Which is no matter what you do as an artist or as a professional, you're not in charge anymore. There's a scientist in Oxford and somebody else and a policymaker who are gonna decide when you get to do whatever you do again. And you just kind of have to keep yourself in the right frame of mind until that shit happens. Yeah, right. For me, that's been the tough thing here. As somebody who, I've kind of had to like, I'm like a gopher, you know what I mean? I keep going like I've had to like self-produce, self-write, self-create, self-fund. And that's kind of how I've grown, right? So if you do that and not a lot of shit is kind of handed to you, you get used to feeling in control of how your career is gonna flow. So this is me having no control is a lovely existential crisis caught on camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. But it also plays into being a fespey and having an acting background as well, this little proverbial, okay, I wasn't expecting this, but I'm just gonna use it. I gotta make the most with what I've got. And I'm interested to know, I mean, we've done obviously some research on you. We've really enjoyed you for a long time now and you were one of the first comedians, not just for us, but we recognize you're the first Indian comedian to have a Netflix special. There's a lot of people in America. So what got you interested in book? You started out as an actor, didn't you? Yeah, yeah. I was in an acting program in Knox College, which is Galesburg, Illinois, the mecca of civilization as we know it. Cornfield, college cornfield. And it was this very like method acting program where you sat in a circle and cried all day and talked about your feelings. And they said shit like, emote with your shoulders and stuff like that. And you know, it was just, you know, you're through that. And I just done like, I think some, I done war and peace, right? And I just done a shitload of check off in Shakespeare. And I was like, I was a Richard Pryor fan and I was a George Carlin fan and I was like an Eddie Murphy fan and Chappelle's show was on TV when I was in college, right? So then I just kind of said, I printed a poster out for a show and that's what I always do. Like I'll print the poster first and I'll book the arena first and I'll announce the date first and then I'll start writing jokes just so that I now know I have to do it. Yeah, give yourself a deadline. That's my thing, right? So I printed out a poster for like in the computer lab for a show called Brown Man Can't Hump. I just took a white man kind of jump. And I booked like the college auditorium and I just put up like a hundred posters everywhere and I gave myself like four months and then I just kind of wrote a set in four months, which was, you know, it is a stupid thing to do in retrospect, like you usually go up as a comedian, you go up and you do five minutes for like 10 people or 15 people. The first time I ever did stand up, I did 90 minutes for 800 people. Hold, did you just say 90? Shit. Yeah. Right. So. And how did it go? It went really well. So here's the problem with that, right? You kind of, it's your friends and it's a lot of inside jokes and you're taking your time and they've seen you on stage before. So you get off that stage just going, I'm the shit. I'm amazing at this. Like I'm, I'm killing this. Cut to your dishwasher in Chicago like two months later because you graduated and you're getting boot off stage, you know, at an open mic and you're not, you're not making two and a half minutes. Right. You know, because none of your friends are in the audience. So that's when you discover that the life of the party isn't really a comedian. It's just an artist is a comedian. Dang. That is crazy. So you, you've actually obviously performed for both Americans and Indians alike. What's the differences and who gets offended easier? Who do you think? Here's how I put it, here's how I put it, right? Americans are easier four-play shorter sex and Indians are tougher four-play longer sex. Cut to your dishwasher. You know, like Americans, the first five minutes is like, yeah, amazing. That's great. But then they have a shorter attention span. So like you can't do like a 90 minutes set for Americans. I think like 45 minutes is the longest Americans want to watch a comedian live 45 to an hour. Now Indians, it takes like 10 minutes or 15 minutes to really fucking get them in there. But if you have them, they're good for like 95 minutes. Like in the U.S. if I'm doing the improv or if I'm doing like, you know, the beacon or whatever you do, like I'll do an opening act which is like 10 minutes. And then I'll go up and I'll do 65, 70 and that's your evening, right? Right. In India, I'll do no opening act. I'll go up and do 45 minutes. Then we'll take an interval. There's an interval? You go take a piss. Yeah, you go have a drink. You take a piss, get something to eat, come back 20 minutes later and then I'll do another 45 to an hour. Wow. Because Indians just have a stamina. Yeah. I didn't know there was intervals also in the stand up. That's crazy. Guys, we watch Bollywood movies. We actually do that. Exactly. That's what this is. Yeah. Wow. So conceptually, obviously you write everything for yourself. But also conceptually the Netflix specials were the concepts, because all three of those are so unique and they're extremely interesting. I love all three concepts you had for those specials. Were those yours or a collaboration? No, they were mine, I mean, but they're also, I mean, I'm coming from like a comedy fanboy space, right, where like the last thing I like is when a comedian does too many specials and then he's not interesting anymore, you know, because he hasn't given enough time for shit to happen in his life. Yeah. Like I feel like really only Chappelle can keep banging them out like at a consistently, you know, home run level. Yeah, right. Anybody else, you get too many specials and the guy's not, you know, you're overexposing yourself. So it was a clear journey, right? Which is a broad understanding was a guy trying to cross over. And a guy trying to say, hey, West, here I am. And then losing it was a pure, I'm here. We're doing this, you know, I'm here now, I've arrived, arrived in a, not like I've made it kind of a sense, arrived as in a, I'm being able to do something larger now. And then, you know, for India was just to say, I haven't forgot where I've come from, you know, and I miss home. So, you know, that's kind of the way I see it. But for India, the last one was really, I don't think of it as a comedy special, you know, it was more like theater is somewhere in there. It was very theatrical, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so it was something else. Yeah, well, that was, we just watched that one this weekend as well for India. And we had seen the previous set from it, the Parle G little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, you said in it that if you can find a foreigner who likes Old Monk, that's this guy right here. That's you guys? Oh yeah, that's Old Monk. Oh yeah. But yeah, we really, really enjoyed that. There's some jokes in there where that were just amazing. Include, I like offensive humor. And so the one that you kept building up to the Mother Teresa, I'm not gonna exactly say what it was, but it was so hilarious. But do you ever write a joke specifically to offend? Yeah, I mean, look, we're also tricksters, right? So, you know why I do the Mother Teresa joke? I do the Mother Teresa joke because the terrorism material is coming in six minutes. That's why you write that joke. It's a trick, right? Mom, dad, I'm pregnant. What, you're pregnant? No, but I crashed the car. You know, that's exactly what you're doing as a comic. So sometimes you're writing it just to push the line a little bit so that you can breathe over here. Yeah, so for me, there was like a big section about like the Janya Wala Bagh massacre and like the Nirbhaya gang rape and 2611, the terror attack. And I was like, you know, you can't go from fucking lighthearted jokes into that. People will just lose their mind, you know, if you segue from one end to the other. So you kind of need to push them out a little bit so it doesn't feel that far out. Yeah, and shock is a good way to do that. Well, and one of our favorite things about you, and I say this to everybody who may not know who you are or even those who do, you know, you mentioned a moment ago the comics that inspired you, Carlin, Pryor, Murphy. And you have this very unique trait and I'm wanting to know if it's just a mate in who you are or if you were conscious about this with your standup. The trait you have is the capacity, you can be just as antagonistic as say a George Carlin who's just gonna punch you in the face with truth. But you do it in such a way that you're really likable. You say things in a way that might offend somebody, but at the same time, they might like you as you're offending them. Do you get that feedback and is that intentional? I think that's low self-esteem, guys. I think that's just, I'm eager to please and love me. I'm eager to please and love me. No, I don't know, guys. I'll be honest, you know, I'm 13 years in, you know, I'm not gonna be this comedian next year. Like Chris Rock, whoever you like, these guys are 25 Bill Byrd, they're 25, 30 years in, so these guys know who they are. The Carlin I was a fan of or the Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy was just a flash in the pan, right? Wait, he was so early for his time and et cetera. But Chappelle is an assassin right now because he knows who he is. I'm still figuring this shit out. I do think for me, here's how I put it, right? The more you do this, maybe you don't get funnier. And that's certainly true for a lot of professions, right? But maybe you get, you access your conscience a little bit easier. So maybe just more of you falls onto the page, you know? When you're young, you're like, I'm feeling this, I'm feeling this about my country, I'm feeling this about my nation, I'm feeling this about my life, or about love, or I feel insecure, but you're like, no, I have to fucking kill at the opening. I'm sorry, can I cast on this thing, or can I not cast on it? Fuck yeah. So, you know, so you have to be like, I have to fucking murder this open mic, or I have to do this, and there's bravado there, right? But I think as you get older, you lose some of that bravado, and you lean into some of your weakness, you know? And who you are falls onto the page a little bit more. So I think that's what I feel better about it, at least. I'm like, okay, this is more me. And, you know, with foreign, or with this special, especially, I'm just kind of letting myself be on camera a little bit, which is nice. Yeah, it was a very vulnerable set at many times during the Zoom special. And another one of your, I think, your great traits is the fact that you're willing to be very vulnerable on stage, especially now, I think it's really important. I mean, how much of a douchebag would I come off as, if I did a stand-up special in the lockdown, and I was like, hey, everything's amazing, I'm feeling it, this is all, you know? You'd be like, fuck this guy, I'm never watching anything, because I didn't even think it would happen. Like, here's how this Zoom special happened, right? I was, it takes nine minutes to 10 minutes to warm up a Zoom crowd, because of how delayed it is and all of that. And I was just like, hey guys, what do you want to do when the lockdown is over? What are you thinking about? Just crowd work, warm up stuff. And I kind of underestimated how vulnerable people were in early March, and how scared we had, but early March feels like 10 years ago, doesn't it? Yeah, 100 years, yeah. Because we had zero information, we're just like, what is people dying? We have to shut down, it was just that. So the first guy was just like, I miss my wife and I miss my kids and I want to cry every day. And I was like, oh fuck, this is not about work anymore. You know, now we have to have this conversation. So when this started becoming a special, I was like, if I don't participate, and if I ask them to put themselves out there, really put themselves out there, and I don't do that myself, I'm gonna come off as just a disingenuous asshole. So I need to take part. I mean, that works for some comedians. Ricky Gervais, he's a famous asshole, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Ricky isn't doing like a vulnerable lockdown. That's not true, he's not. And I have a feeling his lockdowns way easier than mine. Yeah, 100%. This is like some Hampton greens in the UK, and in red wine, you know. And he would joke about that, it's so funny. But I did want to, because all your heroes in terms of comedy heroes that I've heard about, obviously, and we know, but in terms of Indian stand-up, I know it's relatively new in India. So what's the history of like, not obviously give me a lecture or anything, but stand-up comedy India, or who are the big legends that we need to know about, or are there any besides yourself? So here's what you need to know about Indian stand-up, right? English is very new. If you're doing English stand-up, it's very, very new. If you're looking for Hindi stand-up, the world is your oyster. And that's 3,000 years old. Gotcha. There's this community called the Bairupiyas, and Bairupiyas were like wandering jesters. And the tradition of entering a king's palace and speaking truth to power and making fun of the king in front of his court, that's like an Indian tradition. Like we kind of came up with that many, many years ago. And so we used to do it through poetry. So in India, we have something called Hasekavis, which are sort of comedic poets that do satire about politics and leadership in the world you live in. So that's our original sort of form of stand-up, you know, because the core emotion is the same. But now there's guys like, there's so many Hindi comics that are just amazing, right? And I think there's a good, I wanna say like 100 or 150, like professional English comics as well. We're in a good place, man. If we can just stop getting arrested and settlement and all of that stuff, that would be nice. That'd be nice. That would be nice. Yeah, we've recently been introduced. We've been seeing a lot more stand-up comics. And they're in Hindi and we have some beautiful people who are part of our family that sub those. And they've been magnificent in contextualizing some things for us. And so we are starting to touch into that. If you were, your history of being both a thespian and an actor, Robin Williams had that exact same background. And a question was posed to Robin. I wanna pose to you. Okay, push comes to shove. You have to make a decision for the rest of your life. You could do work as an actor or you could do work in stand-up. Do you have a preference between one or the other? Can I give you a really long answer? And then I'll answer. Absolutely. Is that okay? Absolutely. So here's why like a healthy balance of both. Stand-up is humble. It's democratic. It's instant, but it's solitary. Stand-up is a very lonely profession, you know? And that's why you see a lot of big comics and get kind of fucked up because they're just out there by themselves, you know, 52 weeks in a year. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't do like airport hotel, airport hotel for 52 weeks a year. Sometimes it's nice to collaborate. And sometimes it's nice to sponge from people because you're not gonna evolve as an artist unless you sponge, right? And until you absorb human life stories, you're not gonna grow. Your paradigm of thought then becomes airport hotel is my car nice, is my suite nice. And nobody wants to hear from that guy, right? But at the same time, I couldn't hang out with actors and talk about protein shakes and push-ups for the entire year because that's, you know, I just can't do that. I like my insecure brethren. So I don't know if I could choose. Like the best way I'll describe it to you is I did a show, I think it was two years ago called Whiskey Caballel, right? And it was an ABC show, right? And we shot the show in Prague. So I was just living in Prague for four months. And there is, or at least I thought there was zero stand-up in Prague, right? And this is, you know, it's a big American network production, which, and these things are large, right? So there's, you have a 300-person crew, you know, Lauren and Scott, a big A-list like American TV people, you know, it was a big deal. And it was a big opportunity for me, but, you know, you're kind of hanging out with actors all day long for like four months. And then somebody's like, there's an open mic that happens. And I found this youth hostel called the Check-In. Literally the Check-In, right? Nice, yeah. So on a Tuesday night, that does 30 people stand up, right, just for 30 people in this basement of a youth hostel. And I just kind of went in there and I was like, oh, ugly, insecure people, like I miss my guy. I'm home, man, I'm home. So then I would do like 13-hour shoots at Whiskey Cavalier, but I was just, I would run to the Check-In every single night. And just what's cool about that, like I have to give, I have to shout out to the comics there because, you know, it's early there. It's early days in Prague for stand-up, right? So it's a lot of like, what is up with dead babies? Like, you know, a lot of that. And there was, you know, there's maybe 30 comics, and a lot of them are like American expats, et cetera. And I went in and I was like, can I do seven minutes or eight minutes? And they're like, you're the Netflix special guy, right? And I'm like, yeah, they're like, yeah, come on. So then I did seven minutes. And the next time I came back, they're like, hey, man, could you do 12? And I was like, what do you mean? And they're like, could you please do 12? We just want to watch you do 12, right? And so over the course of three months that I did this, these local comics started to give up their stage time. Oh, dang. On a Tuesday night. So that they could watch me develop a set. Oh, that's beautiful. Right? Because they were like, you know, he's, I see this with no arrogance, but he's a pro, right? And we want to watch how a set is developed. And so because of them, I wrote an hour and a half of material in three months, right? And then these guys who are local comics would, one of them would open for me, but the rest of them would do security. They would sell tickets. They would work the bar. And then, you know, we were ending up the night at like 95 people, 150 people in this tiny basement jam packed. And I'm hoping, God bless, that's still a room now. You know, that's a room where, but like, I was just amazed. They were like, it is more important to see you write new jokes than it is for me to write new jokes. And I don't think LA comics, Mumbai comics, Delhi comics, New York comics, nobody's doing that shit to you. No. Anywhere. No, they were back when the comedy store was born. That crew was doing it that way. But yeah, not today. Yeah. That's awesome. That's crazy. That's an awesome story. We watched one of your, when COVID started happening and you started doing more online stuff, we saw your Shakespeare rant. Your love for Shakespeare. We're both big fans of Shakespeare, Rick, especially so. He was a theater teacher. He was my theater teacher. He actually did your challenge as well. So he's expecting a prize from you. Oh, nice. I apologize. I will talk to Black Dog Whiskey and make sure that happens. All right. Anyway, but where did your love for Shakespeare come from doing your stuff at the college? Or where did the love for Shakespeare come in? Yeah. So fun fact about me. I was gonna just, I just wanted to be a drama professor. That was my big thing. Like I had a mentor. His name was Ivan Davidson at Knox College. And I was like, you know, this is the life here. Eight months a year. An office that is, you know, floor-to-ceiling books. You read all day. You get off by three PM and then you do rehearsals at night. You travel and take sabbaticals. That's a pretty good life. You'll never be rich, but you'll see the world and you'll learn. So that was my big thing. And then when I graduated from Knox, I did this short program in Boston. And then after that, I got accepted to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, which is in Montgomery, Alabama, where there is one other brown person, I know, because we met in the parking lot and hugged each other without context, right? Yep. And then I dropped out because I met a girl and wanted to go back to India. But yeah, I was gonna teach Shakespeare. That was my thing. I would have done the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, done an MFA and then just been a drama professor. That was my career. Well, and I think something else people may not know is the fact that they know your name. They know you as standup. They know that you wear many hats. You're an actor, you're a writer, you're a musician. I don't think a lot of people are aware of weird ass comedy and your consultancy. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, man. What it is, is it's 17 people and I talk to them and they pretend like I make sense. I think that's basically what the company is doing, right? It's like, I think I'm paying 17 people to make sure I don't go insane. Like that's basically what the job is. Where they all kind of sit in meetings and go, yeah. And then I leave the room and they're like, this guy's fucking insane. I'm gonna find new jobs. That's what happened with this, right? With this special. I was like, okay, we're gonna put out a special and I want to be inclusive. So I want everybody to be able to donate. And not everybody has a Netflix membership or an Amazon membership or, you know, so let's make this open to everyone. And they're like, cool, so YouTube. And I was like, no. And we're gonna make our own website release thing. And they were like, yeah. And then they went out to the other room and they're like, he wants to launch a mini Netflix. He's fucking insane. This man has gone crazy, but touch what it's worth so far. No, we were making three shows for different platforms. We're gonna make a movie next year. We produced two of my Netflix specials. Awesome. We do all of my world tours. So we're like a 17% comedy company. That's what we do. And we started out just kind of handling my stuff, but now three shows, I'm not in any of them. I'm just kind of creative director on them. And I get to show run them a little bit. So yeah, cool. That's awesome. Off topic, you're a Potterhead, correct? Yes. Yeah. First of all, what house are you in? I wanna say, okay, I would be a Gryffindor for swag, but I'd be a Hufflepuff because I like the underdogs. You know what I mean? So that's- Have you taken the test? No, I haven't taken the test. Oh my God. No, I actually think you're a Slytherin, honestly. I think you're a Slytherin. That's cause he's Slytherin. Yeah, I'm a Slytherin. So I'm a Hufflepuff. Anyways, we saw one of your, I know you've read them all and we saw your video that you did the trivia with and everything. Who is the most annoying character in Harry Potter? Just a random question I wanted to give you. I would say it is- It's Harry Potter. Fucking, what's his name? Harry Potter. Percy. Oh yeah, Percy's name. Especially in the books. And then, you know, because just blah, just has nothing to contribute to plot, wisdom, nothing. And then, I want to say, was his name Parvati Patil or Padma Patil, the Indian girl in Harry Potter? But yeah, her last name was Patel, yeah. Patel, yeah. So just because, how the fuck are you so Indian and you don't teach this boy anything? You know what I mean? You're smarter than any- How are you smarter than everybody in this movie, in this book and that never shows up? That's funny. That's funny. Anyways, that's good. But back to relevant stuff, that's not just me. Is there, you were kind of saying about your mother Teresa's joke. Is there anything that you actually can't joke about, you think? As a comedian, what's your take on that? Here's my take. How about I'll do the joke and you let me know? You know, how about that? Yeah, how about that? I feel like that's a fair system. Yeah. Because I do feel like, you know, 13 years in, my audience is broad enough where I'm catching different opinions, right? It's different if you're like, you know, if you're like cute boy comedian or if you're like angry, right wing comedian or if you're like, you're a comedian, you know, dude like alpha male comedian, et cetera. Then you often catch like one paradigm of thought and their moral compass. But I feel like I'm broad enough where I can crack a joke and I can have like full disclosure with my audience and they're like, no, not cool. And I'm like, okay, I'm still gonna do it but I'll rewrite it a little bit or I'll figure it out, you know? Yeah. But yeah, there's nothing I wouldn't try. You know, it would be, I mean, in an ideal universe, you want, like comedians say shit, like you should punch up at all times, right? People who have more power than you do. Right. But who the fuck gets to decide who has more power than you do? That's such a relative thing. Like intersectionality is such a, like I once did a bit on feminism. I think maybe the first Netflix special or the second Netflix special. And I was, I was just like, okay, I can't mansplain feminism, right? And I can't wax eloquent about it either. So I ended up talking to, I'm like, okay, let me talk to feminists. All right, so let me sit down and talk to feminists. And I spoke to 10 and none of them said the same thing, literally. It was 10 different versions of feminism. And so then eventually the bit had to become, I don't know how to be a feminist, but I'm trying. And that's what the bit ended up becoming. But I just kind of trust my audience in that sense, you know? Like I was able to get 10 different things from 10 different audience members. Yeah. Which is obviously why you test the things. You said you do like 80 presentations and not just to hone in what you need to do for time and making sure you know it and it's under your skin. But you're getting feedback from your audience before you put that up on a Netflix special. Yeah, I mean, like I'll do this thing where, like for India, for instance, we took over a comedy club called the Kaku Club in India. And I think I did like 35 nights at this club, right? Which, I mean, the nice thing is it's like five minutes away from my house. So I could just walk in and do a thing. But those were like two hour shows where literally one hour is just talking to audience members saying, come on now. You know, this 80 of us be real. Tell me what you think. Let's have a conversation. And then that leads to something, you know? Yeah. So it doesn't cost as much. Your phones have taken away. You kind of become part of this experience where we just talk a little bit. Yeah. And for India, it was really brilliant. I thought how you kind of, every single time you did a joke that probably white people wouldn't understand, you kind of spotlighted them. And I thought it was genius. Do you ever write jokes with the intent that it's universally gonna be understood? Like... No, I don't feel like we live in that world anymore. Like, you know, the old adage that Americans don't know anything about the world, that's fucking gone, you know? You guys know more than you ever have. And I think, by the way, post this pandemic, you guys really need to keep an eye out on what's happening in the rest of the world. You know, just in terms of, you know, I think the big lesson for America in this pandemic is that you don't exist alone on the planet. And that it's gonna take the Oxford vaccine and the China friendship. And, you know, it's all gonna have to come together to do this. So, you know, I think that's... So, here's what's weird. My first Netflix special, I felt it was a little pandering. You know, it was a little, hey, breakfast cereal, gun control, these are things you like, right? I'm gonna now talk about them. The more I kind of trapped, and that special enabled me to go on a world tour. So, when that special came out and it kind of exploded, I got to go to like 25 countries across the world. And that's when I kind of realized you need to be authentic and you need to have an originally Indian story. And like people in Norway and people in Alabama wanna hear not about airline food and not about gun control, but take me somewhere I haven't been before. And then you're interesting, right? Yes. And I think that was, that's probably my favorite thing about your most recent one, the four India and the way that you had that segment of the folks and you lit them up and then you projected the images on the back wall. It was for us who are in love with Indian artistry. I felt like that is the most brilliant way for you, the most noticeable Indian standup comic to be bridging this gap the way we love to see it seen. You were celebrating your heritage and explaining it in a way that didn't bring it down in any way so that it became this universal connection. It was a beautiful blending of both in that special. I think so, because also, we either get like fetishized as Indians, like it's, man, why is it either crazy rich Asians or slumdog millionaires? Right, right. You know, are there two versions of, you know, where's like, I've never seen a character from Bombay or from Delhi, drink, smoke, have sex and fuck up, you know? It's either they have nothing and they traveled somewhere with one suitcase, everybody only has one fucking suitcase. Every Indian person, you know, we have nine suitcases at all times. Like, check this out. Have you seen Indian matchmaking on Netflix? No, we've heard about it. We've purposefully waited to see if we'd watch it together on the channel. So here's why that show is so talked about. It's cringy and it's a lot of us skeletons coming out of the closet, but it's real Indian people who were successful and who are driven and who are flawed, you know what I mean? And who have prejudice and who have preferences. We're not just eager to please happy to be here or fucking shooting each other. You know, we're just, there's a normal to Indian on that show, which is fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I've heard a lot about it. Well, I wanna thank you so much for talking to us, man. I wanna end it off on a rapid fire kind of thing. Stupid questions. Just answer to best of your ability. Coffee or chai? In a normal world, chai in a pandemic coffee. That's the best way I can put that. Gotcha. Favorite alcoholic beverage if you drink alcohol. I don't know if you do. Cider. I love cider. Like a cider beer? Yeah, like an apple cider or a peach cider. I'm a girl completely without that. That's why. I'm absolutely a giddy lady when it comes to alcohol. I do not touch hard alcohol, so it's like beer cider wine. Gotcha. Gotcha. Favorite Hollywood film? Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks. Dang, nice. Good choice. Yeah. Gotta love Mel Brooks, love Mel Brooks. Still holds up. Black and white, but still holds up. Yes, it does. Gene Wilder, it's amazing. Favorite Indian film, any region? There's a recent one. But it's called Zindagi na Milit Dubara, which is set in Spain, Zoya Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar, and Ritik and stuff. It's just, oh, you know, it's one of those movies that I was like, oh, I wish I was in that movie, you know? Yeah, we watched that film and I can't pronounce Indian names with shit, so I just call it the Deborah movie because that's all I could, that's what I thought it was. That's as good as I could have done. Everybody asks, what's the Deborah movie? Yeah. Favorite comedian. Man, three. Can I say three? Because they died? Absolutely. Colin, Fulfillirlessness, George Colin. Chappelle for his ability to articulate the times that you live in. You kind of feel like, let's just take 2019 and give it to Chappelle and he'll do something with it. Right, right. And I like that. And Richard Pryor for taking your pain and turning into comedy. You know, just being completely authentic to your life story. Yeah, absolutely. So those three, for that reason. Favorite Shakespeare. Titus Indronicus. That's interesting. That's like his Pulp Fiction, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's his Shakespeare which is angry that week. So I like that. Favorite Hollywood actor? Christopher Walken. Oh, nice. Because he was just like, fuck it. This is how I feel. You know what I mean? And I love that about him. Like, you know, if the line is, all right, we can do this easy or we can do this really easy. He's just be like, we can do this easy. Or we can do this really easy. And everybody's like, you know. And he's like, this is me. And a favorite Indian actor besides yourself? That'd be funny if you said yourself. I want to say for now, Nawaz, I like Nawaz. I like everybody Nawaz does. Yes. And Vidya Balan. I love Vidya Balan. Yeah, we do too. And your favorite book? This is a tough one. It's a tie. It's a three-way tie. Can I say that? Yeah, of course. Tuesdays with Maury. I like that. It by Stephen King. You know, nice. I like that. And then there's a book by Heyman Sunim, which is called The Things You Can See When You Slow Down. And that's, you know, because I haven't slowed down in a decade. Yeah. So that's one of my favorite books. Cool. Well, thank you so much for doing that. I want to encourage everybody watching to go watch Vir Das Your Special. The link is in the description below. Go check it out. Give to those charities and support Vir Das. I want to thank you for coming on. We, it was a pleasure talking to you. It's always a pleasure watching your set. We think you're one of the most hilarious people alive and one of the smartest, hilarious people alive as well. So. I just want to thank you for the support and also thank you for getting me more YouTube views than I could ever have. So thank you for that. My YouTube is useless. Don't think I don't know that and don't think I don't appreciate that. I very much do realize that many people have discovered my content because of your reaction. So I appreciate that deeply. Thank you. Truly our pleasure. We've enjoyed you and really believe in which you're the best of success because not only is what Corbin said true, but we're so passionate about what we talked about earlier, getting rid of these differentiations and bridging the gap of artistry between all of the countries in India and Hollywood and Bollywood. And you're perfectly positioned right now and we're rooting for you to continue doing what you do with your artistry because you have your hand in both worlds and we want to see them succeed in both places and bridge that gap. So thank you for doing what you do. Hey, listen guys, when I get canceled in three years, I'm counting on the two of you, all right? That's basically what we're doing. We'll be here. Always welcome for you. We're all getting canceled and what happens to, let's just be there for each other whenever we individually get canceled. 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much, man. All the best. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Stay safe, guys, all right? You too. Thanks. Have a good one, man.