Samson Koletkar, a California-based standup comedian, stood on stage at the San Jose Arena in 2006, for his first real gig and he has realized that this is what he wanted to do in life. “I was not willing to get off the stage,” the computer scientist said. Mumbai-born Koletkar, aka Mahatma Moses, says that he’s the only Indian Jewish standup comedian in the world. “And I have 5,999 potential competitors – that’s the number of Indian Jews. If anyone tries to come up, I’ll take them out,” he jokes.
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Rajiv Satyal, from California, had his biggest audience of 17,000 when he took the stage before the arrival of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was part of a group of Indian-American comedians the State Department sent on a tour of India. “Indian-Americans are the product of the largest, most powerful democracies. I call it “Free Speech Squared”. There’s a sort of outspokenness in our community. We are different from other Asians,” he contends.
Indian-American comedians have flourished over the last 10 years and Hasan Minhaj’s bold and scathing stand-up routine at the April 29 White House Correspondent’s Dinner caps their achievements. “Comedians speak truth to power,” says Koletkar. Minhaj, an equal opportunity critic like most comedians, directed his stinging remarks not just at the presidency, but also at liberals, the media, immigrants, outsourcing, and American society in general. The White House Correspondents Association described Minhaj as “a brilliant comedian.”
Aparna Nancherla, former staff writer for “Late Night With Seth Myers,” has appeared on “Inside Amy Schumer” and hosts the podcast “Blue Woman Group, had put up her snide dig at President Trump tweeting like him in the early hours of the morning May 4 — “trumpcare pre-existing condition: being alive.”
Aziz Ansari has lashed out more than once at Donald Trump, the candidate, and now President, on the issue of Muslim profiling. The standup comedian, actor, author and movie-maker, was born and brought up in South Carolina and from his account, was a couch-slouch with a keen and quirky eye on humanity. He grounds himself in the reality of his Indian-American family in his first sitcom series Master of None. Season two of the same comes on Netflix and its anything but the expected with Ansari traipsing around Italy to gourmandize.
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AAasif Mandvi, a long-time comedian and actor, gained even higher visibility from his appearances on The Daily Show. He recently led the April 26, “All-Star Deportation Jamboree” a tongue-in-cheek references to President Donald Trump’s alleged anti-immigration policy. Mandvi said, “to support The ACLU and IRC (International Rescue Committee), and their crucial efforts to defend the rights of immigrants and refugees.”
Raj Koothrappali, played by Kunal Nayyar, even if a fictional character, is considered the most-watched Indian on American TV in The Big Bang series. The romantic comedy The Mindy Project originally from Massachusetts, Kaling wrote for and acted in the popular series The Office and went on to have her eponymous show.
Other Indian-origin comedians who have made it in America, include Russell Peters, an Indo-Canadian; Sugar Sammy, also an Indo-Canadian, born Samir Khullar, in Quebec, Arj Barker (Arjan Singh) whose website like several others, shows he’s pretty much booked up with performances not just in the U.S. and Canada, but also Australia, Hari Kondabolu, the Brooklyn-based, Queens-raised comic who the New York Times has called “one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today.”
Listed on Comedy Central as a regular, Paul Varghese is a Dallas, TX -based standup, who has reached the semi-finals in the Last Comic Standing 2 competition; Chicago-born Azhar Usman, a stand-up comic who plays on his Indian and Muslim background and did the classic show “Flying While Muslim,” was described as “America’s Funniest Muslim,” and Georgetown University listed him as “one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World.” Usman has opened more than 50 times for rave stand-up Dave Chappelle.
By Premji
