June 9, 2026 • 42 mins
Comedy is often political. In fact, it's been landing comedians in hot water for years. Take the warrant for George Carlin's arrest after those seven memorable words he said on television. In 1973, a year after Carlin's arrest, the US Supreme Court made it much harder to throw performers in jail for their offensive language, but that doesn't mean comedians in plenty of places don't still end up in jail -- or at least with warrants out for their arrest. Vir Das is an Emmy-award winning actor, writer and comedian, and today he sits down with Kal to talk about the politics of comedy, how it's changing, and satire about the government.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh Man, all right, picture the year nineteen seventy two.
That's where we're starting, all right, George Carlin, he stood
in front of a microphone and he said the following
profane words. So if you're listening to this on a
speaker at work, maybe you know, or if the kids
are around. The words were shit, piss, fuck, kunt, cocksucker, motherfucker,
(00:22):
and tits. He received gasps, laughs, and an order for
his arrest. Apparently the seven words he couldn't say on
television he also couldn't say at the Summerfest festival in Milwaukee. Look,
George Carlin wasn't the first comedian to get arrested for
his jokes, and he wouldn't be the last. But in
(00:43):
nineteen seventy three, a year after Carlin's arrest, the US
Supreme Court made it much harder to throw performers in
jail for their offensive language. Which is why I can
say all of those seven words on this podcast right now, right,
I can say them right anyway. In twenty twenty one,
comedian Verdas got up on stage to share a monologue
(01:05):
called two Indias to a sold out Kennedy Center.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Audience in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
When He said that he came from quote in India
where women are worshiped, end quote an India where women
are gang raped. It wasn't a George Carlin moment. There
were no police waiting for him in the wing because
he was on US soil. The thing is Verdas doesn't
live in the US. When his monologue went viral in India,
where he does live, some officials wanted him arrested.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I put it up on my YouTube thinking what could happen,
and my world kind of turned upside down. So that
led to fourteen police complaints in five different states. I
was banned in two states. We were going to be arrested.
All the work went away. Effectively, life came to a
standstill because of this.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
On today's show, International Emmy Award winner actor and comedian Verdas,
we're going to talk about the politics of comedy and
how it's changing, plus how he navigates satire and jokes
that sometimes include governments in a way that doesn't land
him in jail. Also worth noting for the record along
(02:15):
those lines, the Kennedy Center is now called the Trump
Kennedy Center, So you know, take that for what you will.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Here we go again.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Here wee o A again A Hey, I'm cal Penn
and this is Here we Go Again, a show that
takes today's trends and headlines and.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Asks why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Here? Lee O? What's up?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Amen?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Hey man? How are you good? My My name is
viv Das. I'm a comedian from Mumbai and a big
time fan and friend of Cale.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Thanks for being here, Notmicily.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I say this every time I meet you, but you
always show up for Salvasian talent. Every time we're doing
something cool, you kind of come in and show support.
So I appreciate you deeply.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And also what's funny about when you say that is
I have I have younger brown friends in entertainment, ye
who have now explained to me that you know, like
I'm not that much older than like you Hussan, like
you know basically peer group, right, But I'm just old
enough that I didn't know how much beef some brown
artists have with each other, because there's like enough now
(03:42):
that that like, you know, this person doesn't like this
person and this person will never produce with that guy again.
I was like, I don't want to know all that.
I just like that, let's show up for each other crowd.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Because in my day there were only like there were
too few.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I mean, you can still map it out, right, Like
when I lose a role, I'm like, all right, I
lost it to one of these five guys usually. Yeah,
So like my list is it's either him Age for Tail,
Risamed You, Komeil, Kunal Nayer, and Hassan. I think that
(04:17):
that's the the audition pools. I remember there was a
like an in a Retoo movie that I think he
did with with Tom Cruise recently, and there was like
a brown role in there, and everybody's going out for
that ship and I think that went to Raise and.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Then we all read for that.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
We all went for that. Yeah. And there was the
the White LOADUS season four, brown guy rolled and I
think Comeil got that.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We all went for that.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
We all went for that. So so we all on
the we're all on this one list, We're all going
for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, that's really funny.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I mean, this is what I mean though I'm old
enough where like there would be the same seven brown
guys reading for the role and then they would just
like give it to a white dude and like sort
of make him darker. So so that's why I think
my affinity for Okay at least like one of us
got it.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's great, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, yeah, anyway, I'm excited to have you on because
we wanted to do an episode talking about the, for
lack of a better phrase, like the politics around comedy.
Some of this was selfish because I just started doing
stand up a few months ago and it's been really
fun and really weird and fascinating, and you know, started
talking to a bunch of my comedian friends about Obviously
(05:27):
comedians publicly have there were always things where people were like, oh,
you can't say that, or you can say that. And
some of it was language like George Carlin, some of
it was sex, some of it is race, some of
it is about politics or government, and so there was
always this this limit pushing thing. Historically, you know, there's
been It's more like a roller coaster rather than an
evolution in terms of what artists feel like they can
(05:50):
and can't do. And so we just figured, oh, man,
there's like nobody better versed in the ins and outs
of that over the last few years than you. But
before diving into that, that for a lot of our audience,
they obviously know and love you. For the ones who
are less familiar. Can you talk about what made you
get into comedy to begin with?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It was three guys, It was so I was. I
went to college in Gailsburg, Illinois, right, and this is
two thousand and two, and I think two thousand and
two is when like the Comedy Central half hour specials
started to come out. Like if you look at that
lineup of who did the first thirty minute specials on
Comedy Central, it's a pretty legendary, you know, just kind
(06:33):
of lineup, it's massive comics of today, we're doing half
hour specials there. So I remember, like my roommate would
always have it on in the dome and then that
kind of sent me to Colin. So there's a British
comic called Eddie Izzard.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Of course, and prior amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
If you begin with those guys and then you do
Eddie Murphy, you do raw, you do Delirious. And it
was a drama program and in my final year I
wrote this stand up comedy show just just like my
thesis performance, because it was after you know, like four
years of emoting with your shoulders and doing Alexander techniques
(07:15):
and movement and all of that shit, and I was
just like, I want to get on stage and cast
a bunch. So I wrote the show called Brown Men
Can't Hump, which is the worst title in the world,
and booked out like a tiny theater in Knox College
and did like did about eighty five minutes, right, which
is a disservice because you're doing eighty five minutes for
(07:37):
friends and you're telling inside jokes and inside stories. So
it went really well. And then I was in Chicago
and just doing open mics and that's what kind of
got me into it. So yeah, that one show.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I mean, that sounds that sounds amazing. One of the
funnier things that I've seen you do is when you
talk about like also being culturally Nigerian.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah. Yeah, So you grew.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Up in Nigeria, India, you went to college. You didn't
just go to college in America. You went to college
in like the cornfields of Illinois.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Basically, yeah, man, but like real America America, like I've
always been, I think because of that, like a verse
to any content that shits on Middle America, you know
what I mean, Because like I had American host parents
and like I had a host mom who was Pinky Gibbons,
who was the cafeteria lady, and her husband was Jean Gibbons,
(08:26):
who you know, fired guns and probably voted for Trump
and drove Harley's on the weekend. And it was this
nice kind of not racist, but ignorant sure Middle America,
and there was something sweet to that, there was something
very innocent.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I am not a fan of shitting on Middle America.
I think it's too easy to do, and it comes
from on our side, meaning you know, lefties and big cities.
Also comes from a place of fear and insecurity. Also,
I love that, you know, the only pinkies I know
are Indian, So this is the first time I've heard
of a of a non Indian pinky.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah yeah, who also feeds people. So at least that's
the constant, right, They're a pinky. Their job is feeding people, right.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So growing up in all these different places, they were
obviously impactful to you in what ways did they shape
your your perspectives that then led to comedy.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I think with the Nigeria, at least, it was that
you never fully integrate, like there is a privileged difference
between the Indians in Nigeria and Nigerians in Nigeria that
I don't think that gap has ever shortened, right, So
you can very much be in Nigeria in this kind
of gilded cage. You learn to experience a country without
(09:43):
ever really assimilating in that country, right, and then you're
going from that boarding school in India or to Delhi
Public school in India, where you don't survive unless you
assimilate really really quick. Right. So being the Indian Africa
is much easier than being the kid from Africa in India.
And it's this kind of tussle between assimilation and standing out.
(10:09):
And I think at some point I was just like, oh,
I'm not good at either one of these things. And
so maybe the outsider's perspective is just my thing, and
that's still kind of my My thing. Is I'm passing
through town, and here's what I feel about the place
that I'm passing through. It's the outsider perspective, you know? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Did the did the Outsider's perspective lead into Full Volume?
And for people listening too, don't know I had mentioned
this in the intro, but there's new Netflix special it
was called Full Volume can you can you tell me
about it?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
It was I think originally supposed to be like a
bit of a celebratory special, right, and the universe is
a good way of humbling you pretty nicely and medically
and karmically. Right. So the pitch to Netflix was, all right, man,
we're going to do like a stadium in Mumbai, and
then we're going to do like this church called Union
Chapel in London. And it's the follow up special to
(11:04):
a special that won an International Emmy. So everybody's happy
and it's going to be silly and fun and also
does the trick of you know, the special that won
the International Emmy was a bit of a tragic special, right,
and it was a special about oppression and being down
on your luck, right, And everybody loves you when you're
(11:25):
down on your luck. When you succeed and you come back,
that's when you hit dislike, you know what I mean.
So when you're down on your luck, everybody's like, we're
in your corner, man, and then you win an Emmy
and they're like, fuck this guy. I don't like this guy.
So so it's really important to kind of be humble
and silly again and get back to joke jokes. And
(11:46):
then five weeks before the special, I lost my voice
and I got vocal nodules and I was told it's
going to be you know, Adele took four months to
recover with surgery. I had the same thing, and so
I don't We sold out this stadium that sold like
twelve thousand tickets two shows, and I couldn't rehearse. So
(12:09):
it was one of those where I went up and
shot on Netflix special with like one day of rehearsal.
But I was just in my head rewriting the whole thing,
and it became a show about silence. So what we
ended up doing was still doing the church, still doing
the stadium, but then I ducked into the comedy celler,
and the comedy seller became like the the after movie
(12:30):
that cut into the main movie, and so it became
three Cities and two That's cool.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
What was what part of it evolved into silence? Was
it just the necessity of because what you were dealing with?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, I couldn't talk for five weeks and the show
was on the sixth week. And if you spend five
weeks in your head, you will discover what a terrible
person you are, you will confront some shit. And also
you're just so desperate because you're working backwards from this goal,
so you're trying anything. So in five weeks I tried
(13:04):
Ayurveda antibiotics fundits who came and did a really expensive
pooja in my house. Oh wow, myofascial release from like
a German spiritual healer, homeopathy just whatever gets me back
up on stage. And the weirdest thing of it all
was you're terrified right to use your voice. The muscles
(13:25):
of kind of atrophied. You don't know if they're going
to work. And a delivery guy came and dropped off
some Kung pout chicken in my house and just kind
of taking the Kung pout chicken, I was just like,
thank you, buy sub right, And that just came out
without thinking, and it kind of changed the comedic beat
in me for a little bit, where I'm like, oh,
(13:45):
the only way to do this now is to not
think about what I'm saying rather than think about what
I'm saying. And if I just don't think about it,
these vocal codes open right up and I'm able to express,
which is kind of a metaphor for you know, freedom
of speech and all the other things as well. You know,
so that's kind of what made the show.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Then that's a great creative takeaway.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
My other takeaway from this is that you basically followed
every remedy suggestion from an auntie and uncle WhatsApp group
that was like better not try this, get this, follow this,
like here's the do this pooja. No no, no, do the
other poocha. Yeah. Yeah, that's all the things.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
I still don't know which one worked, but I suspect
it was the steroids, right, But if it wasn't, right.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So the medical one is the one that works.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
The medical one. Also the contrast between like Indian medical
and like British medicals, right, Yeah. So I had this
British doctor who was like, oh man, it's gonna be
four months before you can use your voice properly. Right,
And then I went to Adele's speech therapist, right, this
lady called doctor doctor Ruth, who kind of gave me
these voice exercises and she's like, don't worry, I got
(14:55):
Adele back to the Grammys. I'm gonna get you back
just fine, but it's gonna take four months. And then
I came home to Mumbai and an Indian doctor was like, Yo,
I'll get you back on stage in six weeks. You
just got to dig. You's got to take a bunch
of fucking meds, right, the most meds you have ever
taken in your life. And I'm like shure, and she's like,
(15:16):
if the day before you're not feeling good, I'm a
show up with a syringe and I'm literally gonna shoot
your throat and then you'll be able to do the
show the day after. I can't promise you what's going
to happen, but the show will happen. So that's God
bless Indian medical doctors.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
You know absolutely, at what point does your material ever
bump up against people's expectations? And what I really mean
by that is when you think about your voice as
a comedian, what sort of responsibility do you feel that
you have. I'm not saying speak for all comedians because
obviously it's subjective and everybody feels differently, But in your journey,
(15:54):
what have you felt there was maybe a responsibility for it?
Then how did that often bump against what an audience's
expectations might have been.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
It's tough, man, because you know, I think a comedy
special is a snapshot to where you are in life.
It's like this little ad campaign that a comedian puts
out that says, here's who I am right now, please
buy tickets to see me in this phase in my life.
Right If you do too much of one thing, you'll
end up getting captured by your audience, which I think
(16:24):
is very is very dangerous, right because your audience is
also kind of growing up with you. So I think
responsibility number one is to figure out what your audience
wants you to do and kind of not do that
and do the other thing, because otherwise the room will
just get smaller and smaller and you never grow as
an artists. Right. The other thing, And perhaps this is
(16:46):
an India specific thing, but when it comes to freedom,
I don't think you can separate the comedian from the
privilege they are born into. You know, So if you
consider me as a heterosexual, Hindu man, upper middle class,
born into privilege, studied at a really good boarding school,
(17:09):
so I do have a microphone that is less challenged
than comedians who are born with less privileged than I
have been born with. So then I think in terms
of how political your art gets to be, my art
gets to be more political than other comedians. So that's
a responsibility to you know that people expect from you
in India, I think as an artist.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, yeah, that makes it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Do you have any examples of what that privilege? I
mean I get it, you know, being Indian. But yeah,
for people who don't understand, is there an example or
two that you think of, Well.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
You know, we have a comedian called monaw Faruki right
and monav Faruki spent I think during the pandemic three
weeks in jail, you know for a joke that he
didn't do that evening, like a group showed up and said,
we saw video of view and gonna kind of lock
you up before you even do jokes this evening. I
(18:04):
don't know if that's happening to me. Yeah, you know,
with my surname and with my religion, I know that's
happening to Nava. So I think it is my responsibility
to write material about that when it happens, coming from
the privilege that I come from.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, No, that's a great example for folks who don't
know Munover is Muslim, you're Hindu. There's a lot yeah
down there, And to your point, it's a. I remember
reading about this case and I'm like, the brother didn't
even make the joke like I would have. I would
have defended him if he made the joke, but he
also didn't even make the joke.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
The joke yeah, and again came back huge and Touchwood
is doing amazingly in his life and all of that stuff.
But yeah, that wouldn't have happened to a Hindu comic.
There's no chance that would have happened to Hindu Cooma.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
The stuff that did happen to you was jarring to
a lot of us who even understand and that privilege,
and certainly to your fans who don't. Can you talk
about to Indias and the impact of two Indias?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah? Sure. I was in DC and it was the
end of a tour and you know that's when you
start thinking about home and you start thinking about your
country and you're just missing Indian food. And we did
this this store of all the DC monuments and oh no,
it's feeling a little inspired, I suppose in life. And
(19:30):
I ended up writing this piece called the Two Indias Right,
And it was a piece about the duality in my country, right,
and how there's light and there's dark and there's things
were getting right and things were not getting right. And
the intent of the piece was to say all you
will ever see on social media is the darkness. Please
(19:50):
remember where we come from, who we are, what makes
us great? Right. I wrote it at like two pm
and did it at the Kennedy Center. The end of
my show is like a six minute piece. Right. We
didn't even have a camera guy, so we found a
wedding guy on Yelp for four hundred bucks who shocked
at everything, right, And I put it up on my
(20:13):
YouTube thinking what could happen? Right, And we ended up
getting something like eleven million views across platforms, and that
was okay. It was largely positive. And then a news
channel took it and took a few snippets put it
up and my world kind of turned upside down. So
(20:34):
that led to fourteen police complaints in five different states.
I was banned in two states. We were going to
be arrested. All the work went away, you know. So
I was into movies, I had a bunch of brands.
Everything just kind of disappeared, and it was a two
year kind of I think cancelation is two minor term
(20:56):
for it, you know, what I mean, because I had
to go through a lot of legal processes and I
had to fight all these police complaints. But it was
a lot of death threats, and it was just kind
of going underground for four months and then writing a
show about it. But yeah, effectively life came to a
standstill because of this, and the charges were largely betrayal, sedition, defamation,
you know, et cetera, et cetera. Like I still can't
(21:19):
go back to Madia predation. Apparently I'm still banned in Maia.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
They're still banned for it, just from performing or even
from visiting.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
From performing, But the minister has changed, So I don't
know if it still holds or if it doesn't hold.
I just don't want to. I don't want to find out,
you know what I mean. I don't want to. I
don't want to sell like two thousand tickets in multiprosation
find out oh shit still hold. Yeah, you know, that
would be that would be strange.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So yeah, so that was that, but also well that
ends well. We we wrote a Netflix special about it,
and that kind of brought everything back, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, and that was a tremendous special. So this thing
exploded and and then just kept getting more. So I
remember when that turn happened, when people were like, hey,
they're fucking with.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Veer, Like what for once? This is a love letter,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
So I'm glad obviously that's that, that's all behind. But
did that end up transforming your comedy at all?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Was there fear that stays with you?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Do you have to be excessively thoughtful because there's nothing
worse at killing an artist creativity than having to always
use the other side of the thinking part of your
brain to be like, is this okay?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
This okay? Is this okay? Is this okay?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I think it's done two things right. The strange thing
of it is and what nobody ever talks about, but
which is fun to know is you know, the allegation
is that we were defaming India abroad as a video.
On my YouTube it has six million views, and on
my Instagram it has like nine million views, which, as
(22:49):
as an Indian video goes, is in okay amount of views.
About ninety eight percent of those views come from India,
so it wasn't really watched abroad at all. But it
was shared on WhatsApp as a text about thirty five
to forty five million times, So that's really where it
went viral, just people privately texting it to each other
(23:13):
saying do you feel this way too? Right? What that's
done is it is a little bit of a scarlet
letter in terms of having it like I could go
to a city and any fringe group could decide to
dig that up and go and file another police complaint
and it would make permissions to do a large public
show tough. And that has happened, yeah, you know, in
(23:36):
the two years after it. But then different people started
doing the format over the last few years. So at
some point two years ago, Rahu Gandhi said there are
two Indias in the Lok Sabab in Parliament and I
was like, how fucked at? Like this is what am
(23:58):
I going to do now? Right? Because it then brought
it back up, et cetera, et cetera. And then at
some point in a political speech in Remodi was like,
there are two Indias, Oh wow, and he did a thing.
And then like last year Arnav Goswami, who's kind of
like our Fox News equivalent, you know, really right wing
(24:19):
news anchor, who called me a terrorist on the news
for doing the two Indias piece, did a two Indias piece,
you know what I mean, and it was like, ladies
and gentlemen, there are two Indias and we need to
talk about both of them, et cetera, et cetera. So
I'm like, I think, now I'm finally okay, you know,
because I share the letter with the ruling party and
(24:41):
the opposition and the most mainstream journalists in the country.
But for about a year and a half, I was
looking at the door as much as I was looking
at the audience, just to see who comes through the door,
you know, if I'm being honest.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the US is no stranger to
any of that. Lenny Bruce was arrested a bunch of
times in the nineteen sixties on obscenity charges. George Carlin
nineteen seventy two with the seven words you can never
say on television. I'm sure you followed all the things
that are happening with Colbert and Kimmel, and.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, man, it's not very different from what's happening over here.
It's surprising to see America, which has had this flagship
freedom of speech, leading the charge kind of a movement
almost regressing to what feels like mccafeeism. At some levels,
it's a weird one. You know, it feels like a
(25:38):
Twilight Zone flashback of America that I don't recognize.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, it's jarring. I mean the Colbert stuff too. It
what's really jarring is I have so many friends who
are obviously good people they identify with Oh no, we
should have a fraid of them speech. We're on the left.
They're executives in a lot of these companies, and they
the way that they're enabling what the government is doing
(26:03):
or complying before there's a complaint, so keeping their artists
in line, not greenlighting certain projects, canceling other projects so
as to not piss off. Essentially, what's an audience of
one in Washington, DC? Is the really jarring part. I'm
wondering if that. I know you're not here till January,
but do those changes in American culture and I guess
(26:25):
there's I guess what's happening right now? Does that give
you pause when you come here? Does it change any
material that you do?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
It does I'm gonna be honest in terms of I
do think like at some point, maybe three months ago,
four months ago, I was like, it feels like America
is going through this kind of great white cultural reclamation
of comedy and culture. Who you lost it to, I
(26:56):
don't know, because you were still making all the great
white programs, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I think he was still cooking for people in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Exactly right. But it did feel that way. I remember
going into a couple of clubs and seeing the lineup
change and kind of becoming quintessentially all American, and I
was just like, I think I need to see this
country on the other side of whatever this thing is,
and I recognize it because every other country is going through.
(27:24):
We've got to take our country back. We must take
our country back from who the people who tell great stories,
and who we let in and who built it for us.
I remember the last time, I don't know where I was,
I was somewhere in a theater in America, and I
kind of went into a comedy club that evening and said,
let me go in the night before and test some
(27:45):
shit at like a local. I felt like a Laddin man,
you know what I mean, on the lineup where I
was like, I feel like if I came here three
years ago, it would have been a more diverse lineup.
Like sometimes I wonder if Trevor Noah showed up today
in America, would he have the same career arc as
the year that he showed up.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
You've traveled all over the world, obviously in places like Singapore,
Thailand and Malaysia.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I know them well.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I've shot things in all three countries, and whenever I've
shot there, usually your line producer will remind you of
whatever the local laws are about what.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
You can and can't do.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
But before you perform in a country, do you have
to look up certain lines that you can't cross, Whether
it's like I mean, we would call it free speech uals,
but I know Singapore, for example, there's a constitutional you know,
there's protection, but then a long history of censorship around
certain topics.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
How do you navigate all that?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
I think the promoter will let you know, and especially
the promoter's hiring me, they have context for who I am,
so they make it a point to let me know. Okay, yeah, right,
But there sometimes when you just kind of go ahead
and do it anyway. I was at the Katar Comedy
Festival and I think it was Mars Jobrani moamahr Nhmer
and myself oh wow, right, and and we got the
(29:09):
brief and I kind of got an extra brief because
I'm not from there, right and I have no Arabic heritage,
et cetera. And I was like, really, you know, there's
three thousand people here, will have fun, et cetera, et cetera.
And I did this bit where I pitched them a
new religion called chris Lam, which was just a mix
(29:29):
of ax Christianity and Islam and went through like the
five tenets of Chryslam. Right. Crowd loved it, but there
were like ten shikes in there who look really fucking unhappy. Right.
So at the end of it, I get off stage
and Mars is like you had some balls on you kid, right,
(29:50):
And the promoters like you are not coming to the
after party at all. Like I am putting you in
your hotel and you are flying the fuck out of
the country on the first flight that you can get.
So sometimes you follow and sometimes you don't.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Man, you know, did they actually stick to that You
stayed in your hotel room and you flew out very.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Much stayed in my hotel. If there's one area you
don't want to go to jail, it's the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
That's sure.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, I do not want to wind up in a
jail in Qatar.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
In your most recent special, you talk about an interaction
you had with the Indian government. Can you talk about
the story behind that joke and how you navigated writing it?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
So, I I got accused of copyright infringement. It's really weird.
I got accused of stealing a joke from myself, right,
Uh so. So I wrote two shows about India, right,
and they had two different producers, but I'm the scriptwriter. Right.
In both shows, there were jokes about three similar topics, right,
(30:54):
And one was like an architectural monument, and I think
one was nehrw and one was something else. And when
you want a headline, you file a police complaint against
a controversial artist and you'll get a headline. That's his
fair game, right, And so that's how it's done. And
I had to explain to the Mumbai police how premise
(31:15):
set up, punchline goes, you know, So I take them
through joke structure and the starting of the meeting will
submit to your passport. And that's death for a comedian,
especially one who works as internationally as I do. And
by the end of it. He gave me my passport back.
But that's how young the scene is. We're still there,
(31:37):
you know, And it's ironic because we've had a history
of satire that predates America, predates England, predates everybody. You know.
There's a community called the Beherupiahs who are like your
court jesters, who would come into the king's court and
parody the king to humanize the king a little bit.
And that's thousands of years old, so that we kind
(32:00):
of had comedy, forgot comedy and now getting back to
growing comedy again.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, do you have a sense of the powers that
be who has a sense of humor? Here's what I
mean by this.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
They like, like, you know, the.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Cops themselves are not the policy makers, they're the they're
the enforcers. But what I mean by this is, I
remember when I did my security clearance background check for
my White House job. There were two things. One, you
have to disclose everything about your past. So have you
smoked weed? And under which circumstance? And smoking weed is
(32:36):
not prevent it's not going to prevent you from getting
your security clearance. What they want to know is that
you're not lying about it because if you're lying about it,
then a foreign government can use that information to blackmail
you and all that. So obviously I had to write
about that that. I also had to write that I've
also smoked weed in movies and it wasn't real weed,
but it looks right. It's like fucking ridiculous. And I'm
(33:00):
meet with them and the FBI has like zero recognition
that any of this is funny, and to me it's
hilarious because I'm like, how this is objectively very funny.
And I realized they were being professional later they asked
for you know that you have to give them your
parents naturalization paperwork so they can do a full background
(33:22):
check on them, and I just in an email, without thinking,
I just wrote, let me know if you find any
shit on them, and the FBI agent replied, will do wow.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And I was like no, no, no, no, no no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
That was a joke.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And his response via email when I said I was
just joking, he just goes, I know, we do have
a sense of humor period. I was like, Jesus, this
is rough.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So even the like trying to humanize the guy asking
the crazy questions was trained when you're when you're dealing
with cops or even in the past when you had
to deal with MPs or governments and get that all.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I assume you have a helpful.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Team, but were there degrees of like people who are
sort of quote just doing their jobs versus the people
who are the real culprits who want to restrict speech.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I think what I've learned is people with the power
are not a problem, right. People with no power are
not a problem. People with no power who know power,
those people are the scariest people, right. So it's that
guy who is two degrees of separation away from power,
(34:35):
you know, and wants to get the attention of the leader.
That's the scariest guy in the room. And that's often
the guy that cannot be reasoned with. So it is
oftentimes a fringe group that the main party has no
idea exists, and they're doing this because the main party
has no idea they exist, and so that the main
(34:57):
party will have an idea that they exist. Like I
remember we were doing a show in Bengalu room and
this is two years after the two ends, right, and
this group got in touch with us and said we
file a police complaint and you can't do the show.
And the police were like, it'll be fine, don't worry
about it. You know, we'll handle it. And at some point,
(35:19):
like the shows shows at seven, at about two o'clock,
we get a call saying they have three thousand protesters
on standby in cafes around the city. Right, So now
I'm just picturing like goons, like ordering Marciado's in right
in cafes. And then at some point we had to
(35:40):
have a chat with the police, and the police was like,
we're here and it's our job to come through for you.
But this is a lot of people, and I'd never
want to put a policeman in danger. I'd never want
to put an audience member in danger. And I'm also
smart enough to know that if one of those things
becomes the visual around you show, you're not touring again. Right.
(36:02):
So by about four pm, there were two hundred of
them or three hundred of them, and they were burning
effigies to really good effigies. By the duck killed it
with the with the effort. It's a merch opportunity gone. Yeah,
and and like stamping on my face, you know, posters
on the phone, all that stuff. Yeah, and at some
(36:25):
point of four pm, we were like, we should cancel
this before the first audience member shows up, you know,
because this can turn into three thousand people. Now, keep
in mind, the main party in power has nothing to
do with these guys, doesn't know these guys, so if
you call them up for health, they'd be like, wait,
who you know? And the police is on your side
(36:47):
as well, But it's it's these guys knowing that you
are a gateway to headline.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So it was just a fringe third party.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
It's just a fringe group. Fringe group.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
In your twenty year career, what do you think the
biggest difference is between your intention when you first started
so obviously making eighty minutes of college jokes versus where
you are now, Like, what's the heart of the message
that you wanted to get across now when you end
up writing?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
I think I'm I mean, when I started out, I
was just like, listen to me, please and please have
sex with me, and please give me money. These are
the three motives still, yeah, not from the same person,
but like from three different people. These are your three
different motives to have which stand up you know. I
think a lot of the mountains to be climbed have
been climbed out already, you know. In terms of I've
(37:41):
played Carnegie. Maybe someday I'll play the Garden. I just
did Royal Albert Hall. You know, I've had a Netflix special.
These are done, best case scenario. If I can write
like four things that you remember when I'm gone, that's statement.
That's all I'm really trying to do, you know, Like,
and it's taken this long for me to figure out. Okay,
(38:03):
the Two Indias is one of them. I've got one,
and I got to write another three and not try
and reverse engineer how memorable it is. You know, it's
got to be so pure, and so I never knew
the Two Indias would be anything, right. It was just
from a pure place of heart. So can I recapture
(38:23):
that purity to create something that lives on after I don't?
That's it.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
That's really well said. I'm also laughing at your not
with the same people think because my version of this,
my version of this one I've now been in a
relationship forever. But my version of this when I started
dating was I would really all I'm looking for is
like somebody to watch a basketball game. With somebody to
talk about an economist article that I read, and somebody
(38:54):
to hook up with without having to drive to three
separate people's apartments.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Is that too much to ask for? Can I just
can it just be one person?
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You live in Brooklyn? Right, this is one block in Brooklyn,
you can get all Now.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I was living in la at the time. Now, yes,
in Brooklyn, Yes I can. I can get this, maybe
even in my building, who knows. Yeah, all right, I'll wrap.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
This up with with this question. Is you know you.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Travel all over the world, you perform everywhere. Does it
feel like any country truly supports a purest version of
free speech for a comedian or an artist?
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I used to think maybe it was Australia. It's some
level interesting, you know, because Australians have kind of the
the cruelest that you down the size, you know what
I mean, say, say the worst thing on your mind, humor,
you know, and it's beautiful for that reason. Right, They're
(39:53):
not particularly excited about Indian people depending on what day
of the week you are in Australia, So I begrudge
them that. But I think when in this phase, man, like,
what is it seventy eight percent of the world is
under some sort of authoritarian regime right now, you know,
this rejection of globalism as they call it, et cetera.
So I don't know if it is that anymore. But
(40:16):
what I do know though, is whatever this is, it's
going to lead to the best comedy we've ever seen.
You know. That's where I'm optimistic India, America, Australia, like
we're headed for the best stand up we've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
How you share that optimism through a lot of this
pain comes the best art in the best comedy.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
So vera.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Thanks man. I know we've known.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Each other for a while, but I think the world
of view. I respect the shit out of you. You
are hilarious and I really appreciate you being on.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
I will see you when I'm in New York. Man, Yes,
I look for me.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
That was my guest actor and comedian Vidas. You can
watch his stand up special Full Volume on Netflix and
to see where he's perform arming next, follow him at
vr Das on Instagram. Here we Go Again as a
production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffoo Media in association with
(41:12):
New Metric Media.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Our executive producers.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Are me calpen Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan Is
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino. Tory Smith is our
associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by Matt Gosson,
(41:35):
Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and Meghan Halson.
Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein,
and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie
Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell your
friends write a review. All of this helps. I appreciate
(41:55):
you listening, and until we go again, I'm Calpenn
Oh Man, all right, picture the year nineteen seventy two.
That's where we're starting, all right, George Carlin, he stood
in front of a microphone and he said the following
profane words. So if you're listening to this on a
speaker at work, maybe you know, or if the kids
are around. The words were shit, piss, fuck, kunt, cocksucker, motherfucker,
(00:22):
and tits. He received gasps, laughs, and an order for
his arrest. Apparently the seven words he couldn't say on
television he also couldn't say at the Summerfest festival in Milwaukee. Look,
George Carlin wasn't the first comedian to get arrested for
his jokes, and he wouldn't be the last. But in
(00:43):
nineteen seventy three, a year after Carlin's arrest, the US
Supreme Court made it much harder to throw performers in
jail for their offensive language. Which is why I can
say all of those seven words on this podcast right now, right,
I can say them right anyway. In twenty twenty one,
comedian Verdas got up on stage to share a monologue
(01:05):
called two Indias to a sold out Kennedy Center.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Audience in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
When He said that he came from quote in India
where women are worshiped, end quote an India where women
are gang raped. It wasn't a George Carlin moment. There
were no police waiting for him in the wing because
he was on US soil. The thing is Verdas doesn't
live in the US. When his monologue went viral in India,
where he does live, some officials wanted him arrested.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I put it up on my YouTube thinking what could happen,
and my world kind of turned upside down. So that
led to fourteen police complaints in five different states. I
was banned in two states. We were going to be arrested.
All the work went away. Effectively, life came to a
standstill because of this.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
On today's show, International Emmy Award winner actor and comedian Verdas,
we're going to talk about the politics of comedy and
how it's changing, plus how he navigates satire and jokes
that sometimes include governments in a way that doesn't land
him in jail. Also worth noting for the record along
(02:15):
those lines, the Kennedy Center is now called the Trump
Kennedy Center, So you know, take that for what you will.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Here we go again.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Here wee o A again A Hey, I'm cal Penn
and this is Here we Go Again, a show that
takes today's trends and headlines and.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Asks why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Here? Lee O? What's up?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Amen?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Hey man? How are you good? My My name is
viv Das. I'm a comedian from Mumbai and a big
time fan and friend of Cale.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Thanks for being here, Notmicily.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I say this every time I meet you, but you
always show up for Salvasian talent. Every time we're doing
something cool, you kind of come in and show support.
So I appreciate you deeply.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And also what's funny about when you say that is
I have I have younger brown friends in entertainment, ye
who have now explained to me that you know, like
I'm not that much older than like you Hussan, like
you know basically peer group, right, But I'm just old
enough that I didn't know how much beef some brown
artists have with each other, because there's like enough now
(03:42):
that that like, you know, this person doesn't like this
person and this person will never produce with that guy again.
I was like, I don't want to know all that.
I just like that, let's show up for each other crowd.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Because in my day there were only like there were
too few.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I mean, you can still map it out, right, Like
when I lose a role, I'm like, all right, I
lost it to one of these five guys usually. Yeah,
So like my list is it's either him Age for Tail,
Risamed You, Komeil, Kunal Nayer, and Hassan. I think that
(04:17):
that's the the audition pools. I remember there was a
like an in a Retoo movie that I think he
did with with Tom Cruise recently, and there was like
a brown role in there, and everybody's going out for
that ship and I think that went to Raise and.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Then we all read for that.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
We all went for that. Yeah. And there was the
the White LOADUS season four, brown guy rolled and I
think Comeil got that.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We all went for that.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
We all went for that. So so we all on
the we're all on this one list, We're all going
for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, that's really funny.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I mean, this is what I mean though I'm old
enough where like there would be the same seven brown
guys reading for the role and then they would just
like give it to a white dude and like sort
of make him darker. So so that's why I think
my affinity for Okay at least like one of us
got it.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's great, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, yeah, anyway, I'm excited to have you on because
we wanted to do an episode talking about the, for
lack of a better phrase, like the politics around comedy.
Some of this was selfish because I just started doing
stand up a few months ago and it's been really
fun and really weird and fascinating, and you know, started
talking to a bunch of my comedian friends about Obviously
(05:27):
comedians publicly have there were always things where people were like, oh,
you can't say that, or you can say that. And
some of it was language like George Carlin, some of
it was sex, some of it is race, some of
it is about politics or government, and so there was
always this this limit pushing thing. Historically, you know, there's
been It's more like a roller coaster rather than an
evolution in terms of what artists feel like they can
(05:50):
and can't do. And so we just figured, oh, man,
there's like nobody better versed in the ins and outs
of that over the last few years than you. But
before diving into that, that for a lot of our audience,
they obviously know and love you. For the ones who
are less familiar. Can you talk about what made you
get into comedy to begin with?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It was three guys, It was so I was. I
went to college in Gailsburg, Illinois, right, and this is
two thousand and two, and I think two thousand and
two is when like the Comedy Central half hour specials
started to come out. Like if you look at that
lineup of who did the first thirty minute specials on
Comedy Central, it's a pretty legendary, you know, just kind
(06:33):
of lineup, it's massive comics of today, we're doing half
hour specials there. So I remember, like my roommate would
always have it on in the dome and then that
kind of sent me to Colin. So there's a British
comic called Eddie Izzard.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Of course, and prior amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
If you begin with those guys and then you do
Eddie Murphy, you do raw, you do Delirious. And it
was a drama program and in my final year I
wrote this stand up comedy show just just like my
thesis performance, because it was after you know, like four
years of emoting with your shoulders and doing Alexander techniques
(07:15):
and movement and all of that shit, and I was
just like, I want to get on stage and cast
a bunch. So I wrote the show called Brown Men
Can't Hump, which is the worst title in the world,
and booked out like a tiny theater in Knox College
and did like did about eighty five minutes, right, which
is a disservice because you're doing eighty five minutes for
(07:37):
friends and you're telling inside jokes and inside stories. So
it went really well. And then I was in Chicago
and just doing open mics and that's what kind of
got me into it. So yeah, that one show.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I mean, that sounds that sounds amazing. One of the
funnier things that I've seen you do is when you
talk about like also being culturally Nigerian.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah. Yeah, So you grew.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Up in Nigeria, India, you went to college. You didn't
just go to college in America. You went to college
in like the cornfields of Illinois.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Basically, yeah, man, but like real America America, like I've
always been, I think because of that, like a verse
to any content that shits on Middle America, you know
what I mean, Because like I had American host parents
and like I had a host mom who was Pinky Gibbons,
who was the cafeteria lady, and her husband was Jean Gibbons,
(08:26):
who you know, fired guns and probably voted for Trump
and drove Harley's on the weekend. And it was this
nice kind of not racist, but ignorant sure Middle America,
and there was something sweet to that, there was something
very innocent.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I am not a fan of shitting on Middle America.
I think it's too easy to do, and it comes
from on our side, meaning you know, lefties and big cities.
Also comes from a place of fear and insecurity. Also,
I love that, you know, the only pinkies I know
are Indian, So this is the first time I've heard
of a of a non Indian pinky.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah yeah, who also feeds people. So at least that's
the constant, right, They're a pinky. Their job is feeding people, right.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So growing up in all these different places, they were
obviously impactful to you in what ways did they shape
your your perspectives that then led to comedy.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I think with the Nigeria, at least, it was that
you never fully integrate, like there is a privileged difference
between the Indians in Nigeria and Nigerians in Nigeria that
I don't think that gap has ever shortened, right, So
you can very much be in Nigeria in this kind
of gilded cage. You learn to experience a country without
(09:43):
ever really assimilating in that country, right, and then you're
going from that boarding school in India or to Delhi
Public school in India, where you don't survive unless you
assimilate really really quick. Right. So being the Indian Africa
is much easier than being the kid from Africa in India.
And it's this kind of tussle between assimilation and standing out.
(10:09):
And I think at some point I was just like, oh,
I'm not good at either one of these things. And
so maybe the outsider's perspective is just my thing, and
that's still kind of my My thing. Is I'm passing
through town, and here's what I feel about the place
that I'm passing through. It's the outsider perspective, you know? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Did the did the Outsider's perspective lead into Full Volume?
And for people listening too, don't know I had mentioned
this in the intro, but there's new Netflix special it
was called Full Volume can you can you tell me
about it?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
It was I think originally supposed to be like a
bit of a celebratory special, right, and the universe is
a good way of humbling you pretty nicely and medically
and karmically. Right. So the pitch to Netflix was, all right, man,
we're going to do like a stadium in Mumbai, and
then we're going to do like this church called Union
Chapel in London. And it's the follow up special to
(11:04):
a special that won an International Emmy. So everybody's happy
and it's going to be silly and fun and also
does the trick of you know, the special that won
the International Emmy was a bit of a tragic special, right,
and it was a special about oppression and being down
on your luck, right, And everybody loves you when you're
(11:25):
down on your luck. When you succeed and you come back,
that's when you hit dislike, you know what I mean.
So when you're down on your luck, everybody's like, we're
in your corner, man, and then you win an Emmy
and they're like, fuck this guy. I don't like this guy.
So so it's really important to kind of be humble
and silly again and get back to joke jokes. And
(11:46):
then five weeks before the special, I lost my voice
and I got vocal nodules and I was told it's
going to be you know, Adele took four months to
recover with surgery. I had the same thing, and so
I don't We sold out this stadium that sold like
twelve thousand tickets two shows, and I couldn't rehearse. So
(12:09):
it was one of those where I went up and
shot on Netflix special with like one day of rehearsal.
But I was just in my head rewriting the whole thing,
and it became a show about silence. So what we
ended up doing was still doing the church, still doing
the stadium, but then I ducked into the comedy celler,
and the comedy seller became like the the after movie
(12:30):
that cut into the main movie, and so it became
three Cities and two That's cool.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
What was what part of it evolved into silence? Was
it just the necessity of because what you were dealing with?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, I couldn't talk for five weeks and the show
was on the sixth week. And if you spend five
weeks in your head, you will discover what a terrible
person you are, you will confront some shit. And also
you're just so desperate because you're working backwards from this goal,
so you're trying anything. So in five weeks I tried
(13:04):
Ayurveda antibiotics fundits who came and did a really expensive
pooja in my house. Oh wow, myofascial release from like
a German spiritual healer, homeopathy just whatever gets me back
up on stage. And the weirdest thing of it all
was you're terrified right to use your voice. The muscles
(13:25):
of kind of atrophied. You don't know if they're going
to work. And a delivery guy came and dropped off
some Kung pout chicken in my house and just kind
of taking the Kung pout chicken, I was just like,
thank you, buy sub right, And that just came out
without thinking, and it kind of changed the comedic beat
in me for a little bit, where I'm like, oh,
(13:45):
the only way to do this now is to not
think about what I'm saying rather than think about what
I'm saying. And if I just don't think about it,
these vocal codes open right up and I'm able to express,
which is kind of a metaphor for you know, freedom
of speech and all the other things as well. You know,
so that's kind of what made the show.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Then that's a great creative takeaway.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
My other takeaway from this is that you basically followed
every remedy suggestion from an auntie and uncle WhatsApp group
that was like better not try this, get this, follow this,
like here's the do this pooja. No no, no, do the
other poocha. Yeah. Yeah, that's all the things.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
I still don't know which one worked, but I suspect
it was the steroids, right, But if it wasn't, right.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So the medical one is the one that works.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
The medical one. Also the contrast between like Indian medical
and like British medicals, right, Yeah. So I had this
British doctor who was like, oh man, it's gonna be
four months before you can use your voice properly. Right,
And then I went to Adele's speech therapist, right, this
lady called doctor doctor Ruth, who kind of gave me
these voice exercises and she's like, don't worry, I got
(14:55):
Adele back to the Grammys. I'm gonna get you back
just fine, but it's gonna take four months. And then
I came home to Mumbai and an Indian doctor was like, Yo,
I'll get you back on stage in six weeks. You
just got to dig. You's got to take a bunch
of fucking meds, right, the most meds you have ever
taken in your life. And I'm like shure, and she's like,
(15:16):
if the day before you're not feeling good, I'm a
show up with a syringe and I'm literally gonna shoot
your throat and then you'll be able to do the
show the day after. I can't promise you what's going
to happen, but the show will happen. So that's God
bless Indian medical doctors.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
You know absolutely, at what point does your material ever
bump up against people's expectations? And what I really mean
by that is when you think about your voice as
a comedian, what sort of responsibility do you feel that
you have. I'm not saying speak for all comedians because
obviously it's subjective and everybody feels differently, But in your journey,
(15:54):
what have you felt there was maybe a responsibility for it?
Then how did that often bump against what an audience's
expectations might have been.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
It's tough, man, because you know, I think a comedy
special is a snapshot to where you are in life.
It's like this little ad campaign that a comedian puts
out that says, here's who I am right now, please
buy tickets to see me in this phase in my life.
Right If you do too much of one thing, you'll
end up getting captured by your audience, which I think
(16:24):
is very is very dangerous, right because your audience is
also kind of growing up with you. So I think
responsibility number one is to figure out what your audience
wants you to do and kind of not do that
and do the other thing, because otherwise the room will
just get smaller and smaller and you never grow as
an artists. Right. The other thing, And perhaps this is
(16:46):
an India specific thing, but when it comes to freedom,
I don't think you can separate the comedian from the
privilege they are born into. You know, So if you
consider me as a heterosexual, Hindu man, upper middle class,
born into privilege, studied at a really good boarding school,
(17:09):
so I do have a microphone that is less challenged
than comedians who are born with less privileged than I
have been born with. So then I think in terms
of how political your art gets to be, my art
gets to be more political than other comedians. So that's
a responsibility to you know that people expect from you
in India, I think as an artist.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, yeah, that makes it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Do you have any examples of what that privilege? I
mean I get it, you know, being Indian. But yeah,
for people who don't understand, is there an example or
two that you think of, Well.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
You know, we have a comedian called monaw Faruki right
and monav Faruki spent I think during the pandemic three
weeks in jail, you know for a joke that he
didn't do that evening, like a group showed up and said,
we saw video of view and gonna kind of lock
you up before you even do jokes this evening. I
(18:04):
don't know if that's happening to me. Yeah, you know,
with my surname and with my religion, I know that's
happening to Nava. So I think it is my responsibility
to write material about that when it happens, coming from
the privilege that I come from.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, No, that's a great example for folks who don't
know Munover is Muslim, you're Hindu. There's a lot yeah
down there, And to your point, it's a. I remember
reading about this case and I'm like, the brother didn't
even make the joke like I would have. I would
have defended him if he made the joke, but he
also didn't even make the joke.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
The joke yeah, and again came back huge and Touchwood
is doing amazingly in his life and all of that stuff.
But yeah, that wouldn't have happened to a Hindu comic.
There's no chance that would have happened to Hindu Cooma.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
The stuff that did happen to you was jarring to
a lot of us who even understand and that privilege,
and certainly to your fans who don't. Can you talk
about to Indias and the impact of two Indias?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah? Sure. I was in DC and it was the
end of a tour and you know that's when you
start thinking about home and you start thinking about your
country and you're just missing Indian food. And we did
this this store of all the DC monuments and oh no,
it's feeling a little inspired, I suppose in life. And
(19:30):
I ended up writing this piece called the Two Indias Right,
And it was a piece about the duality in my country, right,
and how there's light and there's dark and there's things
were getting right and things were not getting right. And
the intent of the piece was to say all you
will ever see on social media is the darkness. Please
(19:50):
remember where we come from, who we are, what makes
us great? Right. I wrote it at like two pm
and did it at the Kennedy Center. The end of
my show is like a six minute piece. Right. We
didn't even have a camera guy, so we found a
wedding guy on Yelp for four hundred bucks who shocked
at everything, right, And I put it up on my
(20:13):
YouTube thinking what could happen? Right, And we ended up
getting something like eleven million views across platforms, and that
was okay. It was largely positive. And then a news
channel took it and took a few snippets put it
up and my world kind of turned upside down. So
(20:34):
that led to fourteen police complaints in five different states.
I was banned in two states. We were going to
be arrested. All the work went away, you know. So
I was into movies, I had a bunch of brands.
Everything just kind of disappeared, and it was a two
year kind of I think cancelation is two minor term
(20:56):
for it, you know, what I mean, because I had
to go through a lot of legal processes and I
had to fight all these police complaints. But it was
a lot of death threats, and it was just kind
of going underground for four months and then writing a
show about it. But yeah, effectively life came to a
standstill because of this, and the charges were largely betrayal, sedition, defamation,
you know, et cetera, et cetera. Like I still can't
(21:19):
go back to Madia predation. Apparently I'm still banned in Maia.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
They're still banned for it, just from performing or even
from visiting.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
From performing, But the minister has changed, So I don't
know if it still holds or if it doesn't hold.
I just don't want to. I don't want to find out,
you know what I mean. I don't want to. I
don't want to sell like two thousand tickets in multiprosation
find out oh shit still hold. Yeah, you know, that
would be that would be strange.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So yeah, so that was that, but also well that
ends well. We we wrote a Netflix special about it,
and that kind of brought everything back, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, and that was a tremendous special. So this thing
exploded and and then just kept getting more. So I
remember when that turn happened, when people were like, hey,
they're fucking with.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Veer, Like what for once? This is a love letter,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
So I'm glad obviously that's that, that's all behind. But
did that end up transforming your comedy at all?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Was there fear that stays with you?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Do you have to be excessively thoughtful because there's nothing
worse at killing an artist creativity than having to always
use the other side of the thinking part of your
brain to be like, is this okay?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
This okay? Is this okay? Is this okay?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I think it's done two things right. The strange thing
of it is and what nobody ever talks about, but
which is fun to know is you know, the allegation
is that we were defaming India abroad as a video.
On my YouTube it has six million views, and on
my Instagram it has like nine million views, which, as
(22:49):
as an Indian video goes, is in okay amount of views.
About ninety eight percent of those views come from India,
so it wasn't really watched abroad at all. But it
was shared on WhatsApp as a text about thirty five
to forty five million times, So that's really where it
went viral, just people privately texting it to each other
(23:13):
saying do you feel this way too? Right? What that's
done is it is a little bit of a scarlet
letter in terms of having it like I could go
to a city and any fringe group could decide to
dig that up and go and file another police complaint
and it would make permissions to do a large public
show tough. And that has happened, yeah, you know, in
(23:36):
the two years after it. But then different people started
doing the format over the last few years. So at
some point two years ago, Rahu Gandhi said there are
two Indias in the Lok Sabab in Parliament and I
was like, how fucked at? Like this is what am
(23:58):
I going to do now? Right? Because it then brought
it back up, et cetera, et cetera. And then at
some point in a political speech in Remodi was like,
there are two Indias, Oh wow, and he did a thing.
And then like last year Arnav Goswami, who's kind of
like our Fox News equivalent, you know, really right wing
(24:19):
news anchor, who called me a terrorist on the news
for doing the two Indias piece, did a two Indias piece,
you know what I mean, and it was like, ladies
and gentlemen, there are two Indias and we need to
talk about both of them, et cetera, et cetera. So
I'm like, I think, now I'm finally okay, you know,
because I share the letter with the ruling party and
(24:41):
the opposition and the most mainstream journalists in the country.
But for about a year and a half, I was
looking at the door as much as I was looking
at the audience, just to see who comes through the door,
you know, if I'm being honest.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the US is no stranger to
any of that. Lenny Bruce was arrested a bunch of
times in the nineteen sixties on obscenity charges. George Carlin
nineteen seventy two with the seven words you can never
say on television. I'm sure you followed all the things
that are happening with Colbert and Kimmel, and.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, man, it's not very different from what's happening over here.
It's surprising to see America, which has had this flagship
freedom of speech, leading the charge kind of a movement
almost regressing to what feels like mccafeeism. At some levels,
it's a weird one. You know, it feels like a
(25:38):
Twilight Zone flashback of America that I don't recognize.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, it's jarring. I mean the Colbert stuff too. It
what's really jarring is I have so many friends who
are obviously good people they identify with Oh no, we
should have a fraid of them speech. We're on the left.
They're executives in a lot of these companies, and they
the way that they're enabling what the government is doing
(26:03):
or complying before there's a complaint, so keeping their artists
in line, not greenlighting certain projects, canceling other projects so
as to not piss off. Essentially, what's an audience of
one in Washington, DC? Is the really jarring part. I'm
wondering if that. I know you're not here till January,
but do those changes in American culture and I guess
(26:25):
there's I guess what's happening right now? Does that give
you pause when you come here? Does it change any
material that you do?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
It does I'm gonna be honest in terms of I
do think like at some point, maybe three months ago,
four months ago, I was like, it feels like America
is going through this kind of great white cultural reclamation
of comedy and culture. Who you lost it to, I
(26:56):
don't know, because you were still making all the great
white programs, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I think he was still cooking for people in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Exactly right. But it did feel that way. I remember
going into a couple of clubs and seeing the lineup
change and kind of becoming quintessentially all American, and I
was just like, I think I need to see this
country on the other side of whatever this thing is,
and I recognize it because every other country is going through.
(27:24):
We've got to take our country back. We must take
our country back from who the people who tell great stories,
and who we let in and who built it for us.
I remember the last time, I don't know where I was,
I was somewhere in a theater in America, and I
kind of went into a comedy club that evening and said,
let me go in the night before and test some
(27:45):
shit at like a local. I felt like a Laddin man,
you know what I mean, on the lineup where I
was like, I feel like if I came here three
years ago, it would have been a more diverse lineup.
Like sometimes I wonder if Trevor Noah showed up today
in America, would he have the same career arc as
the year that he showed up.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
You've traveled all over the world, obviously in places like Singapore,
Thailand and Malaysia.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I know them well.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I've shot things in all three countries, and whenever I've
shot there, usually your line producer will remind you of
whatever the local laws are about what.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
You can and can't do.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
But before you perform in a country, do you have
to look up certain lines that you can't cross, Whether
it's like I mean, we would call it free speech uals,
but I know Singapore, for example, there's a constitutional you know,
there's protection, but then a long history of censorship around
certain topics.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
How do you navigate all that?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
I think the promoter will let you know, and especially
the promoter's hiring me, they have context for who I am,
so they make it a point to let me know. Okay, yeah, right,
But there sometimes when you just kind of go ahead
and do it anyway. I was at the Katar Comedy
Festival and I think it was Mars Jobrani moamahr Nhmer
and myself oh wow, right, and and we got the
(29:09):
brief and I kind of got an extra brief because
I'm not from there, right and I have no Arabic heritage,
et cetera. And I was like, really, you know, there's
three thousand people here, will have fun, et cetera, et cetera.
And I did this bit where I pitched them a
new religion called chris Lam, which was just a mix
(29:29):
of ax Christianity and Islam and went through like the
five tenets of Chryslam. Right. Crowd loved it, but there
were like ten shikes in there who look really fucking unhappy. Right.
So at the end of it, I get off stage
and Mars is like you had some balls on you kid, right,
(29:50):
And the promoters like you are not coming to the
after party at all. Like I am putting you in
your hotel and you are flying the fuck out of
the country on the first flight that you can get.
So sometimes you follow and sometimes you don't.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Man, you know, did they actually stick to that You
stayed in your hotel room and you flew out very.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Much stayed in my hotel. If there's one area you
don't want to go to jail, it's the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
That's sure.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, I do not want to wind up in a
jail in Qatar.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
In your most recent special, you talk about an interaction
you had with the Indian government. Can you talk about
the story behind that joke and how you navigated writing it?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
So, I I got accused of copyright infringement. It's really weird.
I got accused of stealing a joke from myself, right,
Uh so. So I wrote two shows about India, right,
and they had two different producers, but I'm the scriptwriter. Right.
In both shows, there were jokes about three similar topics, right,
(30:54):
And one was like an architectural monument, and I think
one was nehrw and one was something else. And when
you want a headline, you file a police complaint against
a controversial artist and you'll get a headline. That's his
fair game, right, And so that's how it's done. And
I had to explain to the Mumbai police how premise
(31:15):
set up, punchline goes, you know, So I take them
through joke structure and the starting of the meeting will
submit to your passport. And that's death for a comedian,
especially one who works as internationally as I do. And
by the end of it. He gave me my passport back.
But that's how young the scene is. We're still there,
(31:37):
you know, And it's ironic because we've had a history
of satire that predates America, predates England, predates everybody. You know.
There's a community called the Beherupiahs who are like your
court jesters, who would come into the king's court and
parody the king to humanize the king a little bit.
And that's thousands of years old, so that we kind
(32:00):
of had comedy, forgot comedy and now getting back to
growing comedy again.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, do you have a sense of the powers that
be who has a sense of humor? Here's what I
mean by this.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
They like, like, you know, the.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Cops themselves are not the policy makers, they're the they're
the enforcers. But what I mean by this is, I
remember when I did my security clearance background check for
my White House job. There were two things. One, you
have to disclose everything about your past. So have you
smoked weed? And under which circumstance? And smoking weed is
(32:36):
not prevent it's not going to prevent you from getting
your security clearance. What they want to know is that
you're not lying about it because if you're lying about it,
then a foreign government can use that information to blackmail
you and all that. So obviously I had to write
about that that. I also had to write that I've
also smoked weed in movies and it wasn't real weed,
but it looks right. It's like fucking ridiculous. And I'm
(33:00):
meet with them and the FBI has like zero recognition
that any of this is funny, and to me it's
hilarious because I'm like, how this is objectively very funny.
And I realized they were being professional later they asked
for you know that you have to give them your
parents naturalization paperwork so they can do a full background
(33:22):
check on them, and I just in an email, without thinking,
I just wrote, let me know if you find any
shit on them, and the FBI agent replied, will do wow.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And I was like no, no, no, no, no no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
That was a joke.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And his response via email when I said I was
just joking, he just goes, I know, we do have
a sense of humor period. I was like, Jesus, this
is rough.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So even the like trying to humanize the guy asking
the crazy questions was trained when you're when you're dealing
with cops or even in the past when you had
to deal with MPs or governments and get that all.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I assume you have a helpful.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Team, but were there degrees of like people who are
sort of quote just doing their jobs versus the people
who are the real culprits who want to restrict speech.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I think what I've learned is people with the power
are not a problem, right. People with no power are
not a problem. People with no power who know power,
those people are the scariest people, right. So it's that
guy who is two degrees of separation away from power,
(34:35):
you know, and wants to get the attention of the leader.
That's the scariest guy in the room. And that's often
the guy that cannot be reasoned with. So it is
oftentimes a fringe group that the main party has no
idea exists, and they're doing this because the main party
has no idea they exist, and so that the main
(34:57):
party will have an idea that they exist. Like I
remember we were doing a show in Bengalu room and
this is two years after the two ends, right, and
this group got in touch with us and said we
file a police complaint and you can't do the show.
And the police were like, it'll be fine, don't worry
about it. You know, we'll handle it. And at some point,
(35:19):
like the shows shows at seven, at about two o'clock,
we get a call saying they have three thousand protesters
on standby in cafes around the city. Right, So now
I'm just picturing like goons, like ordering Marciado's in right
in cafes. And then at some point we had to
(35:40):
have a chat with the police, and the police was like,
we're here and it's our job to come through for you.
But this is a lot of people, and I'd never
want to put a policeman in danger. I'd never want
to put an audience member in danger. And I'm also
smart enough to know that if one of those things
becomes the visual around you show, you're not touring again. Right.
(36:02):
So by about four pm, there were two hundred of
them or three hundred of them, and they were burning
effigies to really good effigies. By the duck killed it
with the with the effort. It's a merch opportunity gone. Yeah,
and and like stamping on my face, you know, posters
on the phone, all that stuff. Yeah, and at some
(36:25):
point of four pm, we were like, we should cancel
this before the first audience member shows up, you know,
because this can turn into three thousand people. Now, keep
in mind, the main party in power has nothing to
do with these guys, doesn't know these guys, so if
you call them up for health, they'd be like, wait,
who you know? And the police is on your side
(36:47):
as well, But it's it's these guys knowing that you
are a gateway to headline.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So it was just a fringe third party.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
It's just a fringe group. Fringe group.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
In your twenty year career, what do you think the
biggest difference is between your intention when you first started
so obviously making eighty minutes of college jokes versus where
you are now, Like, what's the heart of the message
that you wanted to get across now when you end
up writing?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
I think I'm I mean, when I started out, I
was just like, listen to me, please and please have
sex with me, and please give me money. These are
the three motives still, yeah, not from the same person,
but like from three different people. These are your three
different motives to have which stand up you know. I
think a lot of the mountains to be climbed have
been climbed out already, you know. In terms of I've
(37:41):
played Carnegie. Maybe someday I'll play the Garden. I just
did Royal Albert Hall. You know, I've had a Netflix special.
These are done, best case scenario. If I can write
like four things that you remember when I'm gone, that's statement.
That's all I'm really trying to do, you know, Like,
and it's taken this long for me to figure out. Okay,
(38:03):
the Two Indias is one of them. I've got one,
and I got to write another three and not try
and reverse engineer how memorable it is. You know, it's
got to be so pure, and so I never knew
the Two Indias would be anything, right. It was just
from a pure place of heart. So can I recapture
(38:23):
that purity to create something that lives on after I don't?
That's it.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
That's really well said. I'm also laughing at your not
with the same people think because my version of this,
my version of this one I've now been in a
relationship forever. But my version of this when I started
dating was I would really all I'm looking for is
like somebody to watch a basketball game. With somebody to
talk about an economist article that I read, and somebody
(38:54):
to hook up with without having to drive to three
separate people's apartments.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Is that too much to ask for? Can I just
can it just be one person?
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You live in Brooklyn? Right, this is one block in Brooklyn,
you can get all Now.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I was living in la at the time. Now, yes,
in Brooklyn, Yes I can. I can get this, maybe
even in my building, who knows. Yeah, all right, I'll wrap.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
This up with with this question. Is you know you.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Travel all over the world, you perform everywhere. Does it
feel like any country truly supports a purest version of
free speech for a comedian or an artist?
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I used to think maybe it was Australia. It's some
level interesting, you know, because Australians have kind of the
the cruelest that you down the size, you know what
I mean, say, say the worst thing on your mind, humor,
you know, and it's beautiful for that reason. Right, They're
(39:53):
not particularly excited about Indian people depending on what day
of the week you are in Australia, So I begrudge
them that. But I think when in this phase, man, like,
what is it seventy eight percent of the world is
under some sort of authoritarian regime right now, you know,
this rejection of globalism as they call it, et cetera.
So I don't know if it is that anymore. But
(40:16):
what I do know though, is whatever this is, it's
going to lead to the best comedy we've ever seen.
You know. That's where I'm optimistic India, America, Australia, like
we're headed for the best stand up we've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
How you share that optimism through a lot of this
pain comes the best art in the best comedy.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
So vera.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Thanks man. I know we've known.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Each other for a while, but I think the world
of view. I respect the shit out of you. You
are hilarious and I really appreciate you being on.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
I will see you when I'm in New York. Man, Yes,
I look for me.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
That was my guest actor and comedian Vidas. You can
watch his stand up special Full Volume on Netflix and
to see where he's perform arming next, follow him at
vr Das on Instagram. Here we Go Again as a
production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffoo Media in association with
(41:12):
New Metric Media.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Our executive producers.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Are me calpen Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan Is
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino. Tory Smith is our
associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by Matt Gosson,
(41:35):
Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and Meghan Halson.
Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein,
and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie
Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell your
friends write a review. All of this helps. I appreciate
(41:55):
you listening, and until we go again, I'm Calpenn
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