Veer Das details his legal battles in India, facing seven lawsuits and five police complaints for jokes that triggered death threats and terrorist accusations. He contrasts American industry gatekeepers with Indian state censorship, noting how privilege shields him while others like Munawar Faruqi face imprisonment. Discussing his transition from Bollywood to stand-up after the 2010 film Delhi Belly, Das critiques political hypocrisy and the loss of global respect for the U.S., observing that nations like India now assert their own agency under "Apna Tai Mayaga." Ultimately, he argues that true comedy requires authenticity over reaction, prioritizing genuine connection with his home audience over fleeting fame. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Welcome Comedian Veer Das00:14:15
What's up everybody?
Welcome to Flagrant 2.
We're about to have on international superstar comedian Veer Das on the podcast.
But before we do that, we know on this podcast that Alex has an issue with laughing when he hears an Indian accent.
So Al, Al, you have to promise everybody right now that you're not going to laugh when you just hear him talk.
He's already laughing.
That was the funniest special I ever seen.
Al, hey, lock it up.
Lock it up.
Al, he met my mom, didn't laugh.
Say what?
He met my mom.
He told me about that.
He was fucking dying.
Oh, you want to talk about that?
Yeah, talk about that.
Talk about that.
He was being very disrespectful at your wedding.
How you figure?
Very disrespectful.
How do you figure?
You know, you know, you dress up as a kid.
I told Akash.
I told Akash.
You did?
Yeah.
He told you?
Yeah.
What did he say?
I don't remember.
You remember?
No, you would have remembered.
Do you remember?
What'd you say?
My mom?
Yeah, Jesus.
That's our son.
Baltimore moms.
With my fingy heavy.
Sorry, not sorry.
You know what I mean?
My mom's not a baddie, Al?
My mom not a baddie to you.
I was going to say, I'm not a baddie.
He's like, yes, I did say that.
If you don't say Namaste, you're going to, yeah.
I did do that.
Okay?
You jerk.
Thought you could throw me under the bus.
Namaste.
Oh, we have a guest.
Yes.
We have a guest here.
Hey, welcome.
Welcome to the podcast, Veer.
You've definitely spoken on podcasts before.
You know how to do it.
You can help down the mic.
We can move that to help you.
For those of you guys who don't know, Veer Das is the most famous Indian comic in history.
Oh, no pressure at the start.
We've noticed this often happens with comics.
If we compliment them too much in the beginning, they fall apart.
They're not used to praise.
I just want to say, you look like you're interviewing for a job right now.
There's two Indians over here.
I might be, actually.
But no, so we have to balance how we feel about the guest, oftentimes if they're stand-ups.
All right.
Right.
And what would make them feel most comfortable?
You can move that back as you want.
But obviously, Akash put you on my radar.
He's been talking about you for a while.
We're looking at your stuff.
Very excited to have you here.
Thank you, man.
Yeah.
No, it was a nice reach out.
He said by means like brother.
And if an Indian guy calls you brother, you have to do what he asks you to do.
I know how to manipulate.
All right, fine.
I got a game, you guys.
So you're here reluctantly.
This is very good to know.
Al, you're doing a great job.
Now, Veer, I was watching some of your stuff.
Obviously, I know things about India through my best friend, Akash.
He informs me a lot about this.
And first thing that I'm curious to know is, you hear probably a lot of Americans talking about censorship and freedom of speech, etc.
Is that laughable coming from India and doing comedy in India?
The things we complain that we can't say.
Like when you guys complain about Twitter being mean to you and stuff.
Or just like cancel culture.
Yeah.
Where your cancel culture is like, you could go to jail.
How many lawsuits do you have against you right now?
Seven.
Seven.
Right now, at this moment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's five police complaints in like two lawsuits.
Yeah.
Right.
And these are for jokes.
Not a gang rapes or anything.
This is just jokes to making sure.
Jump ass.
I'm not doing that anymore.
I've moved on.
I've changed.
If I go to jail, maybe.
But we'll see.
No, for now done.
No, it's I mean, the way that I like to look at it is my country is young.
You know, so just in terms of like stand-up, in terms of jokes, in terms of responses to jokes, in terms of political material, we're just young.
Yeah.
So we're learning how to respond to this stuff.
So a lot of the stuff that I do maybe has been done here, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and it's no big deal.
So I look forward to a time when some of the shit that I do is just like no big deal.
This is Passe.
Got you.
Now, because of the censorship, do you feel like you're able to do the jokes that you want to do or are you restricted a little bit?
I always start out doing the jokes that I want to do.
And then the show that comes after, maybe I'll tone it down.
You have to tell it.
And I'm not going to lie.
Like any artist who comes in here with like the sense of like false bravado, like, no, man, I'm fucking absolutely no, because things like that affect more than just you.
Yes.
Like they affect your family who maybe didn't sign up for that, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, so would they come after your family for jokes?
Yeah, I think so.
Like my, I got into trouble like last year a little bit.
And then, you know, you get death threats.
And it's not just you, it's your wife and it's your family and it's a couple of other people as well.
Oh, that's a joke.
I did a video at the Kennedy Center called Indias.
Oh, I watched that.
Yeah.
So that was fun.
It was a fun week in my life.
What were they upset about that?
Just that I was kind of doing stuff abroad and talking about duality in the country.
Yeah.
So I was like the number one trend in the country for a week.
Oh, wow.
I was called a terrorist on the news.
That's a fun conversation with your mom that evening.
So, you know.
Now, did you know this?
So I this is a lighthearted start to the energy.
He's like, oh, shit.
No, we're going to have fun.
Look, we talk about you, Raven.
People will do this a lot.
We'll get it in there.
We'll get it in there.
We have a terrorist on the podcast.
In your city next week.
Did you know that was coming when you did?
Because here's the thing I've noticed.
First of all, watching for India, your most recent Netflix or second most recent Netflix, I realized I'm American.
Because when you were talking about, there's these five things every Indian knows.
I didn't know none of that shit.
And so I see why Indians look at me and they're like, you're not Indian.
Arkash did say that.
He was like, dude, I feel so white right now.
I feel so white.
Like you talked about the thing that every Indian, I've never taken that shit in my life.
Also, you put people in different sections, Arkash was telling me.
Yeah, you had a white section, which I actually did.
Yeah.
Isn't that a good thing?
It's kind of good, right?
It's like fun and everybody gets along.
We made segregation.
Yeah, that's what's happening.
But it was equal.
It was separate, but it was equal.
We just, we put like white people in a row and then we lit them up every time we spoke to them.
So they feel nice.
You deserve the spotlight?
Absolutely.
Wherever you are, you deserve the spotlight.
100%.
It's about us.
Absolutely.
That's why the American embassy in India is technically American land.
Do you guys know that?
Like anywhere you go in the world, the American embassy is a very good thing.
Isn't that every embassy?
No, I don't think so.
I think just the American Embassy is considered American.
I don't think the Portuguese embassy fucking cares.
They just get that guy Snowden out.
No, it's not Snowden.
The other guy.
Assange.
Julian.
Yeah, he's in like the El Salvadorian embassy or something like that, which I feel like.
No, but they just gave him Bitcoiner.
I think they gave him Bitcoin.
Isn't Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador?
Something like that.
Yeah.
Guys, get a little more cultured, dude.
Yeah.
What color would you make the lights for them?
For El Salvadorians?
Yeah.
Bright.
Yeah.
Guys, I'm in so much trouble already.
Let's go, baby.
But so here's one thing I was going to say.
My parents' generation, especially conservative Indians, they don't like Indians talking about any bad stuff in India.
You should always present India in the best light.
I think their feeling is we get enough shit from this guy talking about me raping people all the time.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, so you should only present the good things.
I, writing that, if I'm you, I assume you know hell is coming.
No, I knew that, firstly, it's kind of weird that what I said would happen in the video happened right after the video, right?
So, so that's one, but like I can only explain this in a way the comics understand.
Like, there's a piece of paper in my hand, and the reason it's there is because I wrote it at 7 a.m. and I did it at 7 p.m.
Yeah.
You know, so it's new material.
You know, you're doing it at the Kennedy Center, which is a bad idea, but you know, it's still something new that you just kind of feel and you filmed that shit like you knew it was something.
You had looking at the fucking balcony out there.
Like, you knew this was going to be.
You turn the camera on them.
But guys, you've done enough shit on your own and put it up on YouTube, but you know, you can't predict when something's going to be a conversation.
You just don't know.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
I put something out and it turned into a conversation.
And you kind of have to humbly accept all the feedback that comes your way.
Would I do it differently?
I would wait a little bit more.
Like I'd workshop it a little bit more.
But no, I'm not going to let anybody tell me how to express my love for my country.
That's beautiful.
Yeah.
So it boils down to something as simple as that.
Now, here's one thing.
I don't know if you guys know.
Veer was an actor.
Like, was a comic first, but in Bollywood.
Was a Bollywood actor.
Was in a movie called Deli Belly, which is a big movie in 2010.
Broke the movie.
Is Bollywood crazy or what?
It's the biggest industry in the world.
Yeah, that's why I'm asking.
It's nine films a weekend.
Like nobody makes movies like we do.
This is so for years.
How much does the movie cost?
Cheap.
It's cheap.
But like what I love is like for years, everybody was like, you know, Bollywood movies are too long and they're unrealistic and you have like ridiculous costumes and now every movie is a fucking Marvel movie which is three hours long in unrealistic costumes where somebody's avenging a father's death and jumping off a fucking ceiling.
Like Marvel is just Bollywood.
That's all it is.
Yeah, or maybe vice versa.
Yeah, I think Marvel's been around since like the 40s, right?
Not making it.
Marvel movies, though.
Like Marvel movies are like 10 years old, maybe?
Yeah, Marvel movies.
This iteration of Marvel movies that we're seeing is just Bollywood without the songs.
It's three hours long.
It's all fight scenes that are ridiculous.
Now, in the middle of the day.
Iron Man is Shah Rukhan.
That's all that's going to happen.
But they don't say Shadu Khan got superpowers.
That's just how he operates.
Yeah.
Flipping over 18 movies.
You know what I mean?
So that is different.
But what, to me, to have this...
Stop talking about Marvel right now.
I can't get dulcie.
No, I can't do that.
And you just sitting taking it, bro.
I was trying to be polite.
Nah, come on.
Come on.
Stop acting.
Marvel's copying Bollywood, bro.
Yeah.
Get the fuck out.
I think there's two Indians that actually push back on you now.
Hey, yeah.
I like that.
Two Indians.
That's this special.
That's just a bit of a bad thing.
No, come on, man.
Marvel is copying Bollywood?
Yes.
How so?
It's Bollywood with capes.
That's it.
They all have capes.
I love this, though.
Wait a minute, Al, give some pushback.
You're very familiar with Bollywood.
I haven't seen a single dance routine in a Marvel, so I ain't counting up.
Yeah, we don't do the dancing.
It's Spider-Man 3.
It's maybe because you don't know how.
I'm just putting it out there.
I'm just saying.
Blackhead Puerto Rican.
That's dumb.
He might have a point because that shit was fire.
You guys can dance.
Fine.
Our superheroes don't have time to dance.
We're saving the fucking world.
There's no time to hop around and shit.
Maybe the world wouldn't be in danger if you guys danced more.
Son of a people.
I need to be a sky.
How do we let him hop back to your country?
I will in three weeks when my visa expires.
Wait a minute.
Is that how y'all see our shit?
Because this is American arrogance.
We think, well, I mean, it is called Bollywood.
You're naming it after Hollywood.
Yeah.
We don't like that term so much.
Y'all call that shit Bollywood.
Respect the goats.
I feel like you guys finally caught up to what our movies are about.
Say again.
I feel like you guys finally caught up.
We can't copy off.
Y'all copied us.
Look, what language do your movies they speak?
Like 26 different languages, right?
But majority.
Exactly.
Exactly, dude.
In India, most people go and see a movie.
Like, this is their one thing that they get to do each week, right?
So, like, you got your wife and your kids, and you go out and you see one movie.
Yeah.
And that's like your entertainment for the entire week.
If you show that guy spotlight, he's going to fucking kill himself that week, right?
So it needs to be like escapist and huge and big and cathartic and just an out-of-body experience.
And you guys finally caught up to what that's what movies is supposed to be.
That's why you go to the theater.
You think that we just figured out escapism and film?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, we never escaped before.
No, I mean, never had fantasy.
No, but so far, your escapism has been the news, right?
That's just that's where you get your fiction.
I'm just saying, yes, it is fiction, but I don't feel like it's escapism.
News is like now to be fair, you can't insult American news as true.
Yeah, yeah.
Why?
Is your news fun?
It's it's uh government controls.
I watched one guy's news YouTube, an Indian YouTuber.
He's fucking great.
Did you see TG TGI TGIF?
No, that's different.
TFI Global.
TFI Global Indian YouTuber, and he does it in English and he also does it in Hindi.
And this guy's fucking awesome.
I should have checked it out.
Everything is just China sucks.
And every headline is like Modi emasculates Zhiji Ping on the global stage.
And I'm like, let's fucking go.
It's Indian Alex Jones.
That's the guy I fucking.
I've not seen it.
TFI Global sounds like a hedge fund that steals money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Say something about that.
Did you guys invent hedge funds too?
How are you defensive about hedge funds?
Like, anything American here?
Hedge funds America.
And it's all good.
True.
True.
Yeah.
No, no, hedge funds might be fucking.
Here's what I want to ask you, though.
Why would you leave Bollywood for stand-up?
Is that just like that's what it had to be?
I had a moment where I just kind of fell in love with stand-up again.
Like, just like.
When did you start stand-up?
2006, 2007, really.
But like when we started, there was no like clubs in India, right?
Yeah, they say stand-up started December 09.
Yeah.
So like what we had to do, which is just ridiculous, you had to book out a theater and then you had to go up with like 90 minutes of new material because they paid for an evening, right?
Nepotism in Bollywood Business00:04:17
So you're just like, blah, blah, blah.
Like no dynamics, just fucking yelling for 90 minutes to figure out what's funny and what's not.
And so I kind of just did that for like four years until the scene came around.
And then I think it was two things, right?
One, I just fell in love with stand-up again.
I had like a good moment on stage and I was like, I feel more fulfilled by this than the last six things that I've done.
And then I did a really shitty movie and like nobody wanted to work with me anymore for like three years.
And I was like, I'll just do this stand-up thing again.
So started taking it seriously.
I want to say 2011, 12.
Like that's when I was like, now, real quick question about Bollywood.
I've been told that there's a lot of nepotism in Bollywood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very similar to, I don't know how similar.
I mean, it happens in America, obviously, as well.
But like, is it the only way in is if you're part of the family or if you're close to the family?
Or can the average person get a get away from?
Man, I'm five foot eight, showed up in Bombay with one suitcase.
If I get to be in a movie, anybody gets to be in a film.
Oh, so you didn't have any family that was involved?
Well, I am a five foot eight.
I hate a five foot eight.
I hate your five foot eight.
Let's keep it a bucket.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love you guys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tell me.
All right, let's go tell me how to make my money.
Oh, here you go.
There you go.
Okay, so then so it's possible that the average person could go out there and get a role.
I think so.
Yeah, I mean, it takes longer.
You'd have to audition.
It's definitely a step up.
But yeah, I'm not going to deny that there isn't nepotism.
There's a lot of nepotism.
Every industry.
We just get this one version of Bollywood.
And again, I'm going to get like the most distilled version of it.
So it's just going to be the craziest things that I hear.
But yeah, my understanding was that it was like a family thing.
Not so much.
I mean, there's like talented kids who are coming in from everywhere.
What I always kind of balance that out with is I feel like there's more expectations of fairness in like entertainment industries than any other industry.
Like if a banker like hired his own kid or if somebody else hired his own kid, you'd be like, all right, he's just putting his family into what he does.
But then suddenly, because it's entertainment and everybody kind of feels like they could be a movie star as well and had a shot, you're like, no, everybody should get an equal shot, including myself, like secretly.
See, that's yeah, that's interesting.
Because I always hear nepotism as an NRI, I always hear nepotism.
It's always a family, family, family.
I mean, there's like a big league of Bollywood, which is the A-list, and that is, yeah, you have to be a star kid to be in that.
But then there's 9,000 movies right below that, which are slightly cheaper, but equally entertaining, and you get to be in those.
I just look at like so at the highest level, it is nepotism.
But there is opportunity to potentially rise.
I guess I kind of view it the opposite when it comes to business because like business can be so cutthroat, right?
Yeah.
In America, like if you're working for a bank or if you're working for a hedge fund or something like that, it's like you have to increase the profits of the shareholders.
And oftentimes, the best person to increase the profits of the shareholders is not your son and daughter.
Yeah.
It might be a CEO from India, right?
Who coming and do it.
And the problem with my fucking Knicks is if you literally look at the board for the New York Knicks who haven't won in 50 years, it's everybody's last name is Dolan.
Same with the Dallas Cowboys.
James Dolan.
And I think nepotism is the problem.
Yeah.
You can't tell me that the five people who are best at increasing shareholder profits all just happen to be from the same family.
I know, but there's a big like Indian tradition of putting your kids into the family business.
So I think you have to kind of strike a middle ground between that.
It's just almost like if you have a farm or if you have like that's what we do.
It's in our culture to put our kids into our business.
So I'm not defending nepotism, right?
It's definitely an easier way to get into a movie.
And on Friday, whatever the fuck happens with your movie happens.
Like on Friday, nobody can save you, right?
Whoever your dad is, whoever your mom is, on Friday, if you suck, you suck.
And you're not getting another movie.
So there is that.
But I don't begrudge a father or a mother the desire to put their kid in.
Nepotism is the shit.
I love nepotism.
No, no, I love nepotism.
And I love parents looking out for their kids.
I see like, you know, Will Smith putting his kid in shit and like giving them that opportunity.
Yes.
Anybody in that situation would do the same thing.
Male Cousins and Privilege00:03:53
Yeah.
It's the people who aren't able to be in that situation who oftentimes go, hey, this is unfair.
Yeah, maybe it's unfair, but you might be in that situation.
You would absolutely do it.
You were in a movie with a Bollywood kid, Imran Khan.
And now, you know, you're doing much better than him.
Do you ever want to laugh at that motherfucker?
No.
He's going to be like, hey, you're the nicest guy in Bollywood.
Hey, bum.
What you doing?
Nothing.
But he's like, he's just one of those guys where you can put a camera on him in any angle at any time of day, and he fucking looks good.
You ever meet those people who just the camera loves at all times?
He's just one of those guys.
No, he's up.
Absolutely.
So yeah, he's not acting anymore, but he's directing soon.
That's what I'm saying.
That's what you say when he fails an actor.
But the point is.
He was mean to my friend's friend, so fuck him.
Oh, my God.
He was mean to your friend's friend.
Yeah, fuck him.
What did he do?
He was mean to my friend's friend's friend.
You know what I'm saying?
That's how things work over here.
Choose a side.
Anyway, let me ask you this.
What's going on with comics going to jail in India?
Because I'm here and it seems so fucked up.
Yeah.
For jokes they didn't do.
Yes.
I already went to jail for taxes.
Munawa?
What was happening?
No, man.
They showed up and said he hurt religious sentiments and put him in jail.
And then red tape and bureaucracy kind of kept him in there for a month.
And there's four comics that went to jail.
Manawat Faruqi is a kid's name.
Nalin.
Muslim comic.
They said he made a joke.
He went to jail.
And then the four comics that were with him on that show also went to jail.
Wow.
So like you're in a country where you can go to jail.
And then you, this is what Andrew is kind of alluding to.
And you walk up to this line and you say what you can get away with and then you pull back.
How do you do that?
Is that dangerous?
Or are you just not in jail because you're not Muslim?
I have the most privilege that you can get as a comic in India.
I'm an English-speaking Hindu, upper caste, heterosexual man.
So it doesn't get better than that.
So if I'm not going to talk about stuff, A, you know, who is?
Yeah.
There are many comics who don't have the privilege that I do or can't afford the legal team that I do.
Like I got sued by lawyers for lawyer jokes two years ago.
I went to high court to defend lawyer jokes.
So like Munawa doesn't have it even 5% as easy as I do.
So that's the reality of what it is right now.
But hoping for better days.
I was watching, I forget which bit it was.
It was, oh, it was about the gay stuff there.
You're like, we have 1.2 billion people.
It was like anal and oral is illegal.
And you're like, we have 1.2 billion people.
We need to be advertising this stuff.
It was a great idea.
Can you explain what happened from writing the Bible of sex to being like the Karma Sutra is the Bible of sex, right?
This is like, hey, we figured out sex.
This is the best.
Nothing better than that.
And then now where it's like sexuality is kind of scrutinized, does it even exist in the same way?
Like what happened?
Is that just British influence?
No, I mean, A, what happened was a billion people.
And then it was too much and you had to.
Yeah, we had a lot of people come out of that.
But I don't think we're as sexually repressed as people think we are.
Like, we're actually a very sexual country.
That head nod was creepy.
I shouldn't have done that.
And I realized it as it came out.
I was like, that was wrong.
It was a bad move.
But I find like sometimes Indians here are far more conservative than Indians back home.
I don't know if you've experienced that as well.
Yeah, my parents brought over in India from 1970 that they retired.
But my male cousins, but my male cousins will talk to me about this shit openly.
And I'll be like, yo, you guys are living way crazier than me.
Where are your cousins?
Like, where in India?
Diddy.
Nice.
Mainly.
So, yeah, those kids are crazy.
Tour Dates and Cleveland Shows00:03:07
Man, can I say, like, here's what I loved about your special.
Because it was great.
But what I loved was like, there are five roads that an Indian, what do you call an Indian from here?
Like a second generation American?
Yeah, I call it Mexican.
So a Mexican from here.
Terrorists.
Terrorists and a Mexican.
There are five roads that an Indian comic can go down, and you chose none of them.
Like you chose just five different roads.
It was very cool to see.
I didn't even realize I did that, but thank you.
No, man.
Like you didn't use the accent too much, which I thought was.
Only because I'm not good at it.
If I was good at it, I would be exactly what Russell Peters is.
I would copy his act word for word.
So what I love about Russell Peters, a lot of people don't talk about that.
Guys, infamous tour news.
Cleveland, let's just be honest.
It's not working.
It's not working between us.
I don't really want to go to you.
You don't really want to come to me.
You know, I think this is really a you issue, not a me issue, frankly.
We've saw that every fucking show on this tour for, I don't know, maybe over a year now.
We have one city where there's seats remaining.
It just so happens to be fucking Cleveland.
Like anybody wants to go there in the first place.
LeBron wouldn't even stay and he's from there.
Who the fuck do you think you are taking your sweet ass time to come to my show?
Okay.
All I'm trying to say is I've already agreed to do this show.
So I'm going to be there.
I'm going to do it reluctantly.
I don't give a fuck about you.
And your fat mom missing teeth.
What?
Your mom wears white t-shirts to the bank with mustard on them.
What is this?
Okay.
Your mom wears Crocs unironically.
Okay.
Your mom got an abortion in her neck.
What is this?
Is this a reference?
Your mom, your mom, your mom has a thyroid issue.
Your mom has a thyroid issue and she smells like it.
Your mother smells like a thyroid issue.
Okay, Cleveland, I'm coming.
There's a few tickets left, which is insulting because we know there's nothing better to do.
What are you going to do in Cleveland that day?
Huh?
You're just going to bounce ping pong balls over your mother's swollen neck?
What does that mean?
Huh?
Cleveland, we'll see you soon.
We'll also see Pittsburgh.
Montreal sold out.
New York City, we add his second show.
We'll see you there.
Atlantic City sold out.
Vancouver, we add a second show.
And then that's it.
Those are the last shows for the infamous tour.
We'll see you soon.
Love you, Cleveland.
Guys, I got shows in San Antonio tomorrow.
I wasn't that excited about them, but I have to pretend to be now because what can you do to offset that energy?
So, Friday through Sunday, my Sunday shows are actually in San Antonio, not Toledo.
Thank God.
But 18th through 20th, LOL Comedy Club in San Antonio, April 1st and 2nd, I'm at the Funny Bone in Toledo, Ohio.
April 8th and 9th, the Improv in Tampa.
And of course, the Royal Theater in Toronto.
And this is important, guys.
There are no vax requirements anymore whatsoever.
No vaccine requirement, no negative tests, no dumb shit.
Just come through.
Let's laugh.
Let's have fun.
Tickets for these shows and more at akashsing.com.
Now let's get back to the show.
March is here and the madness has officially begun.
No Vaccine Requirements Now00:14:53
It's time for you to shoot your shot and score big on the non-stop action with my bookie.
Predict winners in each round of the my bookie bracket contest for a chance to win a bitcoin.
Yes, that's right.
A Bitcoin, okay?
A doodle NFT currently valued at over $50,000 and over $100,000 more in cash prizes.
Whether you're filling out multiple brackets, betting the national championship winner, or simply looking for player and game props, my bookie has you covered.
Sign up today with my bookie and use the promo code Flagrant to make your first deposit, earning a free entry into the My Bracket contest.
Selections for the bracket will officially begin on March 13th.
That's March 13th.
They close on March 17th at 12 p.m.
So make sure you get your deposit in now with Flagrant.
That promo code is Flagrant to secure that free entry.
Remember, bet anything, anytime, anywhere with My Bookie.
Now let's get back to the show.
Like what I love about Russell Peters, a lot of people don't talk about that, but like he's done it the best that anyone will ever do.
Yes.
And he's the only comic I've ever seen where whenever he used the Indian accent, the accent was saying something funny.
Yes.
The accent had power over the other person in the act of yeah.
And any other comic that I've seen, like the accent is always the underdog.
And Russell gave that accent power.
So like you got to give that respect where it's due in terms of nobody's done it better.
And this is what I used to say about like comedy.
Like I have actor friends who are brown and think they're on some woke shit.
And they're like, I won't do an audition with an accent.
And I'm like, yo, your parents have that accent.
What's wrong with that?
If the joke is funny without the accent, the accent is just your funny uncle.
We all have that uncle saying wild shit or whatever.
If the jokes are all making fun of the accent or making fun of my culture, then I'm not into it.
Then I'm not going to do it.
What are you saying with that accent?
I mean, sometimes I meet actors from here and they're like, I don't want to play a taxi driver or whatever.
And my response is always like, what taxi driver?
Are they getting into his family?
Does he have something to say?
Like, is it going beyond that?
And also, like, I mean, Bollywood is like the biggest film industry in the world.
Like, for 80 years, the only role we've ever given a white guy is like evil Western oppressor, right?
That's the only role we've got.
Lions just kill the Indian dogs.
So where are we complaining about like, you know, just layers and this stuff.
But I think we're getting beyond that, where it's not just like taxi drivers.
Taxi driver with a family has something to say, has a voice, has all of that stuff.
Yeah.
I hope.
No, I agree with that.
Now, do you ever, do you do accents in your, like, when you're getting an audition, you and I audition for the same show with the Cavalier, the one you got.
And I remember I talked to you, you weren't that nice to me.
No, no, it was fine.
Yo, maybe no one likes you initially.
It might be me.
It might be.
It might be you.
Everybody's a dick when they first meet.
It might be me.
Maybe I expect too much.
You know what I mean?
Maybe expect good manners.
I don't know.
But the point is.
What did he say that was really good?
No, this is good.
I just went up to him and I was like, yo, I'm a big man.
And I'm a big Indian man with green eyes.
We see an Indian man with green eyes.
We're like, there's a white guy trapped inside.
I think I was actually just bitter because I went in there and I was nice to you and you were nice back.
But then I went in there and sometimes you go to an audition and it's very clear they're just doing this as a formality and they know who they want.
And the second I saw you and went in there and they gave me that energy, I was like, I know they want this motherfucker, this son of a bitch.
And then you got the role.
So my gut was right.
They wanted you.
And I was probably just like angry about that.
That show worked out really well.
You really missed out.
You missed living in Prague for six months in minus seven degrees Celsius.
Oh, really?
And then everybody, oh, nobody's watching it?
Okay, fine.
We'll go back into the cold and shoot some more episodes.
Now, when you do an accent or when you do an audition, though, do you try to do the American accent or do you just keep your shit?
I ask them what they want and it makes them uncomfortable.
So I'm like, I have an Indian accent.
Would you like this in an American accent?
And then all of them are like, just you do you, whatever you like.
That means they want the accent, but they don't want to sound racist.
My favorite one was I had a, so Gabriel Iglesias had a sitcom.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And I think so.
So I think they saw my headshot and thought I was Mexican, right?
So I just, so I walked into the thing and there's just like a lot of Mexican guys there.
And so I went in and I was like, I'm from Mumbai.
Would you like me to do it in this accent or the American accent?
And they're like, no, just do you, whatever just comes naturally, do that.
So I did the audition in this accent and they're like, could you do a Mexican accent?
So I've never done a Mexican accent before in my life.
So now I'm just being racist really on yourself.
Hey, man, like just a bad Mexican accent.
Yeah.
And didn't get it, but they thought I was Mexican.
Probably killed in the room, though.
Yeah.
100%.
I want to hear you do the audition in a Mexican accent.
Yeah, like that, I think, is...
I should do all auditions in a Mexican account.
In a Mexican accent.
100%.
I'm still on this Karma Sutra thing.
I don't get it.
Why do we all not use it?
The Karma Sutra?
Yeah.
Have you read it?
I didn't know it had words.
I thought it was pictures.
I didn't know you could actually read it.
I haven't either.
I'm just going to read it.
Yo, it's crazy, right?
Like, there's a book that clearly created 1.2 billion people.
Yeah.
Right?
It is the best fuck positions ever.
They're like impossible.
My dad had a copy.
I'm going to get a G's up.
Stop.
Your dad had a copy.
You better say that.
It's not impossible.
Bro, you are older on your back.
There's back positions.
Look at that one right there.
Look at that.
Reverse goat girl.
Look at that.
There you go.
Cowgirl, bro.
Don't disrespect this.
They say they call like Dolby style the Congress of the Cow.
Oh, really?
I think I could be wrong about that, but I'm definitely sure that's one I think.
It's the Congress of the Cow.
I'm just saying, like, I don't understand how this doesn't have more cultural importance.
It's almost like a punchline now.
This is the book.
You guys figured it out.
Clearly it works.
Yeah.
Let's go.
When are we getting back to this?
Right?
You don't have the energy for none of this.
That's a young man's game, bro.
But I want to be able to, you know, I want to be able to teach the young men.
No, but like, what do you guys do?
Like, what you did with yoga with this shit, right?
Like, have like beer and goats and shit like that.
And then have Kamasutra cooked up.
So you got, you guys have goat yoga there, right?
No.
We don't do that to goat people there.
Mutton meat over there.
Goat meat, you guys have.
Yeah, yeah.
No, goat yoga is fire.
Don't judge it until you turn yoga.
So they put it.
But do yoga, right?
And then there's goats.
You have sex with a goat.
Yeah, you fuck it.
You fuck a goat over there.
You fuck it, dude.
You fuck a goat.
You fuck a goat.
That's y'all.
Eat a goat.
That's what you'll do.
Welcome to Scotland, my boys.
Barbara to eat.
You never see that tagline, right?
Goat yoga.
Fuck a goat.
Fuck a goat.
No, we did goat yoga before, man.
You gotta try it.
This is yoga with goats.
Goats are great.
Nice.
Yeah.
I do no yoga.
Like, I know more white people who do yoga than I do yoga.
Really?
Yeah.
So y'all don't do any of the good shit that y'all made.
Nah, that's a valid, that's a valid thing.
Embrace your culture, bro.
Stop trying to steal our movies.
Don't steal our movies.
Stop trying to steal our tech jobs.
Just do your shit.
Fuck awesome.
What is the other thing?
Goat yoga, apparently.
Goat yoga.
Yeah.
Or just regular yoga if you want.
Pilates, is that from you guys?
No.
Karma Sutra.
Karma Sutra.
That was the fuck awesome thing.
What other stuff?
I mixed that.
I totally heard that.
Nah, there is a thing we do where we'll get.
There's no way you could do karma sutra after eating your food.
That's why you know that shit is cat.
Come on, bro.
Nah, Indian food at the house is different than Indian restaurant food.
Is that right?
Yeah, you've eaten at our house.
It's not, you didn't walk out feeling.
There should be served that doesn't exist in households.
Akash, it's spicy.
Yeah, yeah.
It's the same.
It's better when your mom makes it.
Yeah, yeah.
And even better when your aunt makes it.
Yeah.
But is his aunt hot?
No, this is inside.
This is inside single.
My mostly is the best cook in the family.
My mom knows this.
She just decided.
But for some reason, he told me before I went to go eat with it.
He's like, my mom's good, but my aunt's way better.
And I'm like, why are you giving me this information?
Don't tell me this before I go in here.
How are you judging the food?
To be honest, you know.
But there's like chicken tikka masala.
Like, that's not a thing.
It's an English food.
It's an English food that we just made.
And like every Indian restaurant in the world sells that shit.
It's all English food.
Okay.
Sure.
For now.
Give us 10 years.
So chicken teak is completely different.
No, it's a British.
It's made for British people.
That's why there's like mad cream in it.
Is that General Sal's chicken?
Basically, the general sauce chicken of India is chicken ticket masala.
So what is the real Indian dish?
Sex.
Dal.
That's it.
Rogan Josh.
It is like regional.
Like, that's not, that's Kashmiri food.
So that's like North Indian South.
But like Dal, Bindi.
Bindi is, yeah.
Vegetables.
It's like a good vegetable, like okra, this thing.
And then biryani, I think, is.
Biryani's baby.
When you go, when I would go in India, they would have three meals.
Every meal was the exact same.
It was aloo, which is potatoes, seasoned, cooked, whatever.
Roti, which is the bread.
Yeah.
And dal and chow and rice.
That's it.
That's all I ate every meal.
And a paratha.
You got to have a paratha.
That's just like a stuffed bread thing with like curd and pickle.
We didn't even have that.
Didn't even add that.
At all?
We ate it, but no, I got the same shit three meals a day every day.
How'd that feel?
Yo, dead ass.
I didn't like potatoes.
And then after I ate enough, I was like, I was tripping.
Potatoes are kind of lit.
Yeah.
I didn't like Alu.
I was like, where'd you guys get potatoes from?
Oh, God.
Ireland?
Did we?
I don't think so.
100%.
White people brought potatoes to India.
Before that, you were just eating slop.
Wow.
It's true.
And then it was just like an entire Indus Valley full of slop.
And then white people showed up and they were like, we bring this.
Exactly.
And in return, we want everything else you have.
Give us some jewels.
You get some potatoes.
It seems like a fair trade.
Yeah, that's what happened.
I think that's what happened.
We got to mop up the slop a little bit.
We need some potatoes.
That's what we talked about.
We're cooking.
That's what that bread is for.
I know, but eventually you get tired of all the bread.
Right.
Al, you know this too.
You studied that region.
You studied most of Asia.
What are you talking about?
You told me that.
How is it every time you're just going to this guy for everything Indian?
You're like, listen, it's like your show.
We have a spotlight on the color.
I just want our fans to understand and our supporters to understand what's going on in India, where the food came from, where the culture came from.
It's all you guys.
It's us.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, that's why we're taking all your jobs.
Yes.
And all your brides.
And all your technologies.
Talk about it.
I'm talking about planto.
Talk about it.
Is that criticized?
Like when Indian dudes have like a white wife?
Is that criticized?
It's colonialism.
Yes.
It's celebrated, right?
Yeah.
Oh, really?
What about Indian?
I don't do it.
Go on.
To me, that's whack that it's so celebrated to not marry an Indian girl and marry a white girl or whatever.
And that's part of why I shit on white women so much because it's just like somebody needs to not do that.
Somebody needs to be like, yo, our women are beautiful.
Why are you sitting here celebrating this outside races?
Because you had this complex.
Let's get over that.
Also, do you know, like, a lot of like white girls will meet a brown guy?
Be more Indian than the guy.
Like, in one month, the white girl is like more Indian than anybody in the family.
Have you seen that?
Oh, she knows everything about the culture.
She's like, trying to show respect.
That's annoying.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
I just want to say.
This is just a little bit.
Just a little bit.
It's a little pandery, right?
Hey, a little pandering-ass bitch.
Fuck out of here, dog.
Put that shit somewhere else.
Beat us some fucking Frankfurter or something.
Just be white.
Stupid ass bitch.
Be white.
It's why we met you.
Be white.
Exactly.
Be proud.
Be white.
They're ruining the thing that you like.
Right?
You want to parade around the white girl.
You don't want the bindy and the fucking bindy.
I have a break.
No, they want the body.
No, if you get the white wife.
They want the skin and the white wife.
No, hypothetical supervision.
It's a conversation.
It's a good idea.
The people that do.
The people who, yeah, yeah.
The people who are.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Actually, go back.
Wait, wait, why don't you want the white wife?
Because of fucking feelings all the time.
You have to communicate.
You have to do all of that stuff.
All the communications.
Laid against the wall.
All his feelings.
That seems aggressive, but yeah.
It's too much communication.
Say again.
It's too much communication.
From my end.
From your end.
Yeah, my wife communicates.
I just listen.
That's it.
That's how it is.
Oh, but the white women expect you to talk back.
Absolutely.
Interesting.
Didn't you just get married?
Aren't you learning this stuff as well?
I am learning these things.
But I kind of just vent.
Yeah.
And then she just takes it all in.
And then it's kind of like the Black Panther costume.
Like, eventually it fills up, and then she uses it back against me.
Yeah.
But it doesn't happen in the moment.
It just builds, And then it's just a tower.
Exactly.
It's like Chernobyl.
Yeah.
But like you vent without interruption.
Yeah.
I think you're an Indian woman.
That's why I want the Karma Sutra.
Okay?
Now, are Indian women allowed to date white guys?
Yeah.
And like back home, no problem.
Depending on where you are, Delhi or Bombay and all that bangs.
Would the Indian men be like, yo, what the fuck is going on over here?
Like, haven't you made enough of our people good looking?
I'm like, yo.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
Hey, hey, who am I to complain?
Who am I to complain?
Caleb hit him with a wink.
Yeah, funny Jay Sheti.
That motherfucker is party.
I heard you don't like Jay Shetty.
I just do a joke about him.
Why?
Just because he steals all the stuff?
Who cares?
Does he steal all this stuff?
You know, there's.
Oh, well, yeah, hey, let's talk about B.
I mean, that's the bit.
It's just like he gets respect because we feel like there's a white guy trapped inside.
I'm just trying to get up.
You don't think he's just a fine-ass dude, Jay Shetty?
Nah, that motherfucker's fine.
That motherfucker's fine.
He's fine.
Yeah, I mean, that guy has literally shaved the beard.
His mouth could get worse.
Oh, my God.
Stop it up, bro.
Have you seen a single Instagram of him?
Show me an Instagram video of him.
Similar Cultures Across Africa00:04:27
Because he's all, there are two ways, and there's a right way and a wrong way.
You pick your way.
Bye.
What?
Like, it's very obvious spirituality.
Hold on.
You did it two Indians.
You did a whole two Indians.
I think we got some hate going on.
Why?
Why?
Why are you trying to divide brown men, though?
Say, yeah.
You don't want to put them in little systems, right?
And then we can organize society like that.
He's trying to create a hierarchy.
That's it.
Okay, let's see what he's saying.
Let's go.
Pretty motherfucker.
What is his accent?
He has an accent?
Oh, yeah.
Do I feel amazing after going to the gym?
Yes.
Meditation's been a part of my life for a long time, so it's changed.
I have a healthy relationship.
Where is he from?
There's still days when I don't want to meditate, or I'm too tired or exhausted.
Oh, he's Australian.
Or I'm too bored to go to sleep early.
And so I'd rather think that meditation is more entertained.
He's so sorry.
He's our Trevor Noah, dog.
What does that mean?
Fine as fuck, South African.
I thought he was British.
90% of the reason for my hate.
I thought he's British.
You can't have the accent you were historically oppressed in.
It's wrong.
Oh, shit.
That's fire.
Wait, what?
Okay.
He's English.
He's English.
He sounds Australian.
It didn't.
Look, he's clearly a handsome guy.
You don't think he's a handsome guy?
That's part of the reason he doesn't like him.
Oh, shit.
You don't like handsome guys?
He just don't like handsome guys, you know.
Should I feel insulted right now?
He's not handsome.
He doesn't like handsome guys.
I never said you weren't handsome.
I didn't say that.
I don't know why I hate him.
I just do.
It's not like that.
Because he's gorgeous.
Yeah.
Because he's pretty.
Gorgeous and British.
Gorgeous and British.
No, it's British.
Why do you guys hate the brands?
Yo, what did they ever do?
You know what I mean?
Didn't they put some trains or something?
Hey, British.
You guys love the trains.
You love the trains.
That's your favorite thing.
That was a fair trade.
Did they do anything good?
Did they do anything good?
You could say England is the third India.
You could say there were three Indians.
There's three Indias, dude.
The matter is sub-Judas right now.
So I wouldn't say anything.
No.
Is there anything they did that's good?
Do you ever look at something in India and you're like, well, at least we got that.
There's got to be something.
Nataj Mahal, right?
Like, that was good.
He was a Muslim.
I know, but what I'm saying is maybe it came from some, you know, maybe it came from some people who weren't the nicest, but cricket.
You believe cricket.
They brought cricket over, and now we're the best team that there is.
Well, you lost to Pakistan last time, but it's okay.
It's still the best team.
I'm just saying.
I just want to play.
You know what I'm saying?
We got a Pakistani here.
What's up, man?
Oh, yeah, Korean, Korea, man.
Talking for real, dog.
Listen, this is the West.
In the West, we're all Arabs.
It's fine.
It's true.
Actually, technically, Ver is African.
Oh, yeah.
I grew up in Nigeria.
Until when?
What age to what age?
See, that's like I went to Africa age two to age 16.
I was in boarding school in India.
You're an African.
I thought you moved earlier than that.
I thought you moved when you were in like third grade or some shit like that.
Fifth grade, something.
No, I was two years old when we went to Nigeria.
I thought you came back to India earlier.
So your formative years are Nigerian.
Nigerian.
I went to boarding school in India when I was eight years old.
Do you know any of the cool dances?
No.
Wait, you went to boarding school in India when you were eight.
So you would go to India half the year and then come back to Nigeria for summer or whatever?
Yeah.
So you just still spend most of your time in India.
Yeah, eight months a year.
Yeah.
Eight months a year in India.
My parents were in Africa.
But again, like Indians in Africa tend to be just very kind of insulated as well.
100%.
Like gated communities and only socialize with Indians.
And it's a thing.
Accepted?
Indians in Africa?
Yeah.
Very much so.
Really?
Good relationship.
With everyone.
Cultural similarities?
Yeah.
And I think like Indians and Nigerian people are very similar in that we're very like emotional people.
It's like we're just similar cultures.
Like in terms of values, family values, systems, all of that.
Don't trust them when you're doing business.
It's very similar.
Very similar.
Were you taking down some sisters?
Reincarnation Before Boarding School00:04:10
Oh, my gosh.
I was eight, so no.
But when you were 16, though?
No.
Nothing?
No.
Still no.
But you didn't see and you weren't just like, oh, shit, dude.
No.
You think they started dancing like this because they were looking over the gate to see?
Are there Indians in there?
What's that?
And then you guys were dancing back like.
No, we were just waving with hands to show them the hand.
We're here.
We're here.
We actually are here.
Okay.
So, so no, no chocolate.
No.
Not until college.
I went to college in America.
Oh, and then you took down.
Yeah, I went to Galesburg, Illinois, the mecca of civilization.
Why?
Why?
Why there?
Financial aid.
Like, there's a college called Knox College that gives you like 90% financially, 95% financially.
So it's like 1,200 kids, really diverse.
So yeah, that's where I went to college.
You also went to the Moscow Center for Performing Arts or something like that, right?
No.
No performing arts in Moscow.
I don't ties with Russia at all.
I just want to put that out there.
You see how they do?
You see how they do.
I heard that.
Come on.
That is on your Wikipedia.
I went to...
It's a program.
Yeah, I went to a program in Boston.
Be careful.
But Russians are fucking amazing to study acting with, right?
Because after four years of drama school, where Americans are very feedback-oriented.
They're like, I see what you're doing, but take a different direction, emote with your shoulders, whatever.
That stuff.
Russians are just like bullshit.
Get off stage.
I don't like it.
You insult Chekhov.
Your mother is whore.
It's like very direct feedback.
So after three years of drama school and you spend all this money to learn how to act, the artistic director of the Moscow Arts Theater comes up and he's like, acting is very simple.
Read script.
Believe script.
Then do what the fuck you like.
And he left.
Whoa.
Oh, so he came to your program in Boston.
Yeah, there's a program with the American Repertory Theater and the Moscow Arts Theater.
It's like five months.
And they did each other rap, I think.
Right, not doing that anymore.
Yeah.
And it was method acting, right?
Yeah.
Who were you?
Huh?
Who was I?
During your little as in, they, I mean, it's, it's like meta stuff, but I was apparently like a horse is what they were saying.
Like, you have to embody the psychology of a horse is what they kind of gave you in this thing.
So you pay him for this?
It's actually a full scholarship.
So I was just like, okay, I'll go.
So what would you do as a horse?
Here we go.
What would you do?
Like, you know.
I don't.
You gotta show us.
You gotta show us.
But would you show us?
Like that?
Graze.
You just eat carrots and shit.
Like, yeah.
Really?
No, it's a bunch of Russian people who sit around you and like give you vodka and they're like, we think you remind us of like that's insulting, dog.
I think so.
You need to live as a horse.
That's insulting.
It's like reincarnation before.
Yeah.
Like past life regression.
I used to be a horse.
Maybe they had it.
Maybe you have it in you.
Maybe you were a horse in a past life and they noticed that.
I think so.
Yeah, I think Russians can tell what you were.
Yeah.
They might destroy your future one right now, but they can look into your past.
I think that's the.
They're giving those people a bright future.
Are they?
Are there potatoes involved this time as well?
Is that what's going on?
I don't really know.
I don't think it's like that.
That's what we need.
Almost died right there.
Yeah, dude.
The acting thing is interesting.
It's hard to go back after doing stand-up or no?
It's very hard.
Yeah.
Because it's not real.
I'll do a project sometimes and I'm just like, fuck, if I have to talk about like intermittent fasting and protein shakes for another hour, I'm going to kill myself.
You're talking about with the cast.
With the cast.
It's hard.
It is so the socialization.
And because everybody's having some personal crisis that really nobody gives a fuck about.
And then you come to a comedy club at night and you're just like, oh, damaged people.
Acting Energy and Gamer Sips00:02:52
My people.
And you feel at home.
Yeah, it's so true.
People don't understand like the downtime is it's all downtime.
Yeah.
And it's just like boring downtime with the dumbest people.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know who said it, but she was like, I act for free.
I get paid to wait.
Yeah.
Judy Garland, maybe or somebody said that.
But like, I remember, so I'm still acting, but I remember the moment I knew, I'm like, I need to find something that's fulfilling.
Like, I was on, I was in a movie, and in Bollywood movies, we have like five or six songs, right?
So you rehearse for like eight days for a song.
And I was on a piano on a beach in like white pants with like a Baxter Poise video.
Like a chiffon shirt that was open.
And there were like six airblowers pointed at my shirt, so it was fluttering in the wind.
I hadn't had carbs in like a week.
Yeah.
And I was just waiting for this girl to run towards me.
And they filmed her in slow motion.
So like this lady had to charge like this fucking 10 times a day.
And I'm just like, man, I need to find something else to do with my fucking life.
All right, guys, we're going to take a break for a second because I got to make sure your energy's up.
Okay.
I got to make sure your energy's up and you need that gamer sups to make that happen.
I'm telling you right now, you're playing video games with the homies.
Call of Duty.
All right.
You found a way to like redo the game to make sure we're taking out Russians, right?
You're the fucking ghost of Kiev.
Where the ghost of Kiev stays up all night because he's on that gamer sups, just taking out Russian planes, taking out Russian tanks, taking out Russian whores as well.
Gamer sups got him up all night.
Laser focus.
Gamer sups.
It's probably healthy, isn't it?
It's healthy, dog.
Zero calories, keto-friendly, whatever you want to do.
I took it right for the podcast.
See, so Akash is going to be off the wall.
And you know, another cool thing is if you buy one of the tubs, you're going to get one of these waifu cups.
Yep.
Do you know what the waifus are?
Look at that shit right now.
I got a tittyless waifu.
Still love it.
You dork.
Yeah.
We got the Bitcoin waifu.
The waifus come with badass anime chicks on them front and back.
Oh, here you go.
Thank you.
Mark got a real one.
There you go.
Look at that.
Mark got a straight one.
Cat ears, full set of tits, no nipple prints.
I mean, that's fire, dude.
That's super fire.
Full set of tits, no nip prints.
Nips are soft.
Nips are super soft, but fat tits, fat anime tits.
Maybe reselling on eBay for a couple hundred bucks.
Yo, that's crazy.
But why would you resell it if you already filled it with your cum?
Why would you do that?
Who's going to want to buy your cum-filled waifu?
I'm just saying, if you don't fill it up with cum, You can resell it on either.
Okay?
Anyway, point is, we have a special promo.
Friday, we have buy any tub, get a free waifu cup that you can resell if you want, or you can fill with your calm.
You go to gamersups.com.
That's G-A-M-E-R-S-U-P-P-S.com.
Use the code Flagrant to receive 10% off your order.
Do it right now.
Let's get back to the show.
Full Set of Tits Bit00:09:06
To that question, what was the moment where stand-up you realized was the thing?
You said you fell back in love with it.
Was there a moment when you were like, yo, this is, because I tend to think stand-ups, a stand-up is who you are at the end of the day.
And when you talk about two Indias, it's like, oh, he's a stand-up.
I have to get this out.
What was the moment on stage where you were like, nah, this is who I am?
I'm a stand-up.
I'd come to the States to like take meetings, which is whatever that means, just means give money to Uber.
And I was in LA and I got a spot at the Laugh Factory.
And it was two o'clock in the morning, whatever, one o'clock, like a late show.
And I hadn't done stand-up in like four years.
I just crashed and burned at the box office.
And the guy who runs the laugh factory, Jamie Masada, put me on after Whitney Cummings.
And I did like six minutes.
And I just remember watching her like crush.
Yeah.
Like kill, suck the energy out of the room.
And I went up and I did well.
Yeah.
And I just remember being up there just being like.
Easy follow.
Love you, Wet.
Yeah.
But I just remember like I was between her and Dane Cook.
And what you have to understand is it's impossible to come from where I come from without being a bit of a fanboy.
Yeah.
When you see like Western comics, who you've watched your entire life.
So you're A, intimidated because these are venues that you've seen in documentaries.
So it's bigger to you than it is to anyone who's grown up on the scene.
And then you see people that you've seen in movies and you've seen in documentaries as well, or they're special.
So it's a big deal for you coming from India.
And so I just remember watching her being terrified, going up, doing six minutes, doing really, really well, and coming off stage and just being like, I fucking feel better than I've felt in five years.
And I will take this seriously now.
So then I just kind of started spending time here, started touring the world a little bit more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes you got to change your model for success.
I think we get caught up in like the systems model.
Yeah.
Especially even like we have more opportunities, I guess, here in America for stand-ups.
Now maybe it's changing in India.
But like early on in our career, it's like, okay, I'm going to do some stand-up.
I'm going to get a sitcom and then I'm going to do that sitcom for a while and then I'm going to put out specials with a situation.
And then you start doing some of these things and you're like, wow, I don't really enjoy that.
Like every time I was preparing for a late night set, I'd be like, I'm miserable.
And then I started to go, do I even need to do this?
And none of the people that I look up to have done this.
I don't need to do this.
And then I go, okay, I don't want to do this part of my model for success.
And that's the freedom I think that stand-up kind of provides.
I heard it put really well by somebody else.
They said, success is the amount of time that passes between like you having an idea and somebody believing in that idea.
And most of us spend like our entire lives trying to get that time down to like the minimum amount saying, I want to do this.
And then instantly everybody's like, I want like the biggest Bollywood star is a guy called Amir Khan.
If Amir Khan wakes up tomorrow morning and he's like, I want to do a movie about donkeys that do judo in Peru.
Yeah.
Fucking five donkeys will learn judo.
Like somebody will write a script.
It'll happen in like five months.
That's success.
Yeah.
To me.
Yeah.
And I feel like for stand-ups, because we have like nine ideas in our head every single morning that we've got to put out, like that's the journey.
But like to your point of what you were saying, I think what really changed is everything else became so fake that people started valuing authenticity more than anything else.
I think the internet allowed people to see authenticity.
We didn't know what was fake before because all we had was fake.
You know, you try one type, there's one option for food in your neighborhood.
That's food is good.
And then another restaurant pops up and you realize if that food is good or not, yeah.
And I think that's what the internet did: it like disrupted truth, it disrupted comedy, disrupted absolutely everything.
It's disrupting banking right now.
Like the internet is just a great disruptor.
And for our industry, it allowed us to go do the jokes we wanted to do.
And all of a sudden, people start seeing them.
They're like, oh, I prefer this to what I'm watching on Fridays at Comedy Central.
But even it's a nice artistic sort of trip to change from here are all the gatekeepers between me and an audience.
Here's everything that I have to be to them before I get to be somebody that they decide to the audience.
They're now just kind of going, fuck, there's a living in just being me.
Yeah.
And I get to control this.
Like, that's, I don't think there's a better time for us.
For creatives, no.
Yeah.
No.
I mean, it's just, yeah, this is awesome.
And they'll find a way to clamp down.
Yeah.
I want to ask you one more question.
You're credited as like really moving comedy forward in India.
Like one of the big guys that like helped get it started, right?
Where do you want to see it go?
I where do you where are you trying to push it to and how?
I want to see I just want to see like nine clubs in every city.
I would love to see that.
And not in the big cities, in the small cities.
I'd love to see comedy without consequence.
I'd love to see political comedy, religious comedy, just like, and where it's, it seems like nothing unusual at all.
It just feels like something that happens every day.
I'd love to see more female comics in India.
Like that's something that I'd love to see.
There's not enough right now.
There's like a big sort of yeah, yeah, like working female comics in India, maybe 30, 35.
That's a good amount.
I feel like that's a good amount.
I feel like, you know, 30?
That's a lot.
Yeah, 30.
How many female comics do you have here?
Oh, maybe 20.
Oh, my 20.
I think that's, I think, I think you're being generous.
I think we got between 10 and I think you're being generous.
Who you would consider a comic?
Like, or like who everyone would consider a comic?
Two to four?
Wow.
Two to four.
Is Joan Rivers still alive?
Three.
Three.
Yeah.
So we need to raise the number.
Eddie Izzard, I think, has become now he's a woman.
So then back up to four.
Eddie Izzard is fucking amazing.
He's my top.
He's incredible.
Like, that's that's that's high.
Like Pryor, Carlin, and Eddie Izzard are my top three.
Wow.
This guy still wants to act.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You got to say the right thing, baby.
Really?
That's your top three.
What about Rock?
What about Patrice?
What about Chappelle?
I think it's who you grew up with as well.
So I just wasn't exposed to them when I was growing up.
But like Carlin for just sheer not give a fuckness.
Yeah.
Pryor for vulnerability and putting that into stand-up.
Yeah.
And Eddie Izzard for saying something that he clearly wrote and making you feel like he made up the entire show on that.
Ah, yeah.
So like that's why I like those three guys.
Yeah.
Eddie.
Yeah.
Eddie's great at that.
He can make it feel like the first time.
And but it's all written.
Yeah.
And it's super craft and it's all rehearsed.
Yeah.
But he is like the blend between like a stage play and stand-up comedy.
Yeah.
Like a one-man show and stand-up.
Is that still a thing though?
Like I think the British do it a lot more than we do here.
But I feel like those lines are blending as well, right?
In terms of like what stand-up is.
I feel like that discussion changes every single year.
Yeah.
And you're like, no, this feels like a one-man show or this feels too cinematic or that feels like a TED talk.
It changes.
If it's less jokes, it's one-man show.
And if it's more jokes, it's stand-up.
If you can't be a successful stand-up, you do a one-man show.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Or if there's one theme in it.
But then, like, is the American, like, are Americans opposed to like stand-up shows with narrative or like with story to them?
No, I think that those people are incredibly successful.
Yeah.
I think that like sometimes stand-ups.
I feel like we're all thinking of the same people and not saying it, but anyway.
But who?
Like a Mike Berbiglia or something like that?
No, but that's pure storytelling.
Yeah, he's a storyteller.
Like, I feel like that's joking.
Neil Brennan has joke-heavy one-man show.
Absolutely hilarious.
Okay.
Berbigli is funny.
Berbigli is a storyteller.
He's mastered it.
Right.
So it's like.
But would you call that a one-man show?
Berbigli, I would call one-man show.
But Berbigli could work those jokes out, like parts of those stories out on stage.
Yeah, he was a successful stand-up.
Yeah.
I always wonder that.
Like, do storyteller stand-ups pop into the club?
Yeah, I think they work out the stories there.
And I think that's how they get them good.
Nice.
I mean, that's what I would do.
I would want the expectations of a stand-up crowd if I'm killing with that and then turning to the narrative.
And then you separate yourself a little bit.
I think that that's cool.
I think that's good.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
I do think that there are people who go, I'm a storyteller because they're just not punching up their jokes enough.
They don't want the expectations of stand-up.
Nice.
But I think the elite storytellers and one-man show guys, like the Eddie Izzard guys, no comic is going, oh, yeah, he's not that funny.
He's just being a storyteller.
He is stand-up funny and happens to have this like orchestrated, beautiful piece.
Yeah.
Which I think you could look at like, you know, I don't want to say next level because I love watching a Chris Rock or a Bill Burr or like a Patrice.
Like I like what they do and that's a little bit more my style.
But I appreciate somebody putting together a piece.
Even Aka's like you put together a piece.
There's a string of these jokes that all had a similar theme.
That was the idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you could say you're gay.
You're gay.
Elite Storytellers vs Stand Up00:09:27
You could say that.
I've been trying to say that.
I didn't know that you were one man gay.
Yeah.
But you are.
I've been trying to thank you for finding that.
Finally, I realized that.
And if you and Jay Shetty got together, like that too, bro.
I should be so lucky.
I look at Jay like, why are you settling?
You know what I mean?
Nah, bro.
Yeah, I think you got just as pretty eyes.
I don't know.
He's got better cheekbones.
He got great cheekbones.
His eyes are like icy blue.
Yeah.
He's crazy.
No, he never fucked, man.
Rithik, maybe.
Like, Ritik Rossen is like a big superstar.
He's gorgeous, but he got three thumbs.
Yeah, true.
Three.
I was like, okay, there's another one on this.
He got two thumbs on one hand.
Yeah.
I had a driver.
You ever noticed that?
Why is it you guys that always have like the extra fucking limbs and shit?
I don't know if this is true.
You always say this.
I don't think it's true.
If there's a person that's like born with like another leg, it's Indian.
Why is that?
The Kama Sutra.
That's why you shouldn't make that channel.
Just because we're doing all the funny fucking, right?
So there you go.
That's why stay away.
But is that a sheer numbers thing?
And we just don't hear about it from China because China doesn't like promote it.
Isn't everything with us a sheer numbers thing?
I literally am wondering.
China's got to have some fucking come on.
Some mutants, we just don't know.
Yeah.
What do they do?
I just can't call them mutants.
Uyghurs?
What do you call them?
What do you call them?
Is that what they're putting in the camp?
Are they just finding all the extra limb person?
Yeah, they get more work done.
There you go.
Build the toys.
You have an extra hand.
100%.
Yeah.
You're putting on four wheels at once.
That's crazy.
Meet the building in five minutes.
Yeah.
Can I ask you a serious question, though?
Why is India trying to do side deals for Russian oil right now?
I do not know.
The fuck, yo.
That's the correct answer.
We thought that we were homies, man.
I mean, aren't we homies?
You live pretty far away.
I just want to put a distant home.
Yeah.
We've been sending 10 cents a day or whatever.
You know what I mean?
Like, come on, yo.
I thought that we're best friends.
I thought that we're in this together.
I mean, 10 cents the company in China.
You know what I mean?
Fuck, was that what we've been sending the money to?
We didn't get that shit doing.
They were using the Indian babies to get us to send money to a Chinese company.
Sons of bitches.
I don't know, is the correct answer.
Like, I have no idea.
Is there any pushback to that?
Any scrutiny?
I think there is definitely.
Okay, I don't want to get you in trouble back home.
No, I'm not in enough trouble as it is, right?
No, I mean, like, because I'm curious also about the whole farmer thing.
But can you talk about that without getting in trouble?
Repeal the laws.
And I remember you guys talking about that on the podcast.
So I appreciate that.
But I mean, two days after I put out that piece, and I just kind of went underground for like a week.
And then I came out and they were like, they repealed the farmer laws.
No, not me, but I was just like, I didn't know.
I remember that line, bro.
Huh?
That was a good line.
We brag about being vegetarians, but we shit all over the farm.
Was it?
I mean, somebody legitimately ran over farmers.
But no, but he, like, it was 48 hours later, and like, that was something that made me happy.
You know what I mean?
Like, those laws went away.
It was a big movement.
So, what are we thinking here?
Can you even talk about it, or do you get in trouble?
I don't want you to get in trouble.
I'm already on the cancer.
As far as the farmers go, those laws are gone.
The laws are gone and they won.
Okay, they won.
If there's one community that has like commitment and doesn't back down, it's the Sikhs.
That's all I'll talk about.
You know, like you just, you like, they will hold a grudge, they will stay committed, they will fight.
Yeah, my wife be holding the grudge, right?
His wife converted him.
Yeah, no, she did not.
You are sick.
Okay.
How'd you meet your wife?
She had a fat ass and I followed it.
Yeah, boy.
Most Indian way ever to meet your wife.
Street harassment.
Obviously.
But hang out outside her college.
No, I walked out and saw, and I was like, whoa.
And then I walked to go see what she looked like.
And then her sister turned around and was like, can we get a picture?
And I'll be like, there has to be family involved, right?
But where was this?
Yeah, yeah.
We actually brought you on this podcast because we want to convert you as well.
By putting on this by putting on this kata, you will now go to heaven.
Or nirvana or whatever you call it.
Because the assumption is I wasn't going.
You weren't going to go.
But now, if you on this podcast become sick as oh, let me put it on.
Let's see if it fits.
There you go.
Let's go.
I've played a Sikh man before, like in like two movies.
How much did they make you drink?
A lot.
And there was no makeup.
And I wore a turban and I grew a full beard and I got to eat what the fuck I like, which never happens in a movie.
Really?
Yeah, you can pull it up actually.
And then I played like an old Sikh man as well.
Like I played an 80-year-old Sikh man, which is kind of cool.
Now, did the Sikh community get upset where they'll never actually give a role to a guy with a turban?
I just won't daddy.
Just eat simparata.
That's what I was asking.
Like, does the Sikh community go, why can't we do those?
You see that old guy?
Wow.
And that's me as a Sikh man.
Top left.
Yeah, that middle one, you look like Bin Ladi.
But that left one.
But is there like ever pushback from the community?
Like, does the community go, hey, we want Hindu people playing roles that are for Hindu.
We want Punjabi people playing roles that are for Punjabis.
Like, that exists in America.
Not at all.
No.
So this movie that we did was about the Sikh riots, where a lot of Sikh people lost their lives in 1981.
And we shot it in a place where those riots happened.
And it was kind of magical in that everybody who lives in that locality would just come out and stand on their rooftop and watch the shooting for like nine hours a day.
So you're recreating the worst moment in their history.
81, 84?
81.
It was another one.
1984.
And so you're recreating the worst moment in their entire family's history.
And they're just quietly watching from a rooftop as you recreate murder and fires and violence.
And they couldn't have been nicer and more respectful.
How did they take in the movie?
Was it successful?
Did they appreciate it?
No, it wasn't a successful movie, but it was just, it's one of those things where you'd be shooting and then suddenly food would show up from households.
Oh, really?
And they'd be like, come in and come and have lunch with us.
They were just really, really good.
And like the one thing about the Sikh community that I will say is like they never let anyone go hungry.
Like they're a very respectful, tight community.
So like that was a life-changing experience just shooting there in front of them.
I think he's going to come around.
I think he's going to come around.
Would it be bad for your career if you became trans?
If I became...
No, I don't think so.
The way my career is going, it might be.
It might be just the thing I need.
No.
Oh, what is the group of people?
I get to ask all my Indian questions.
What is the group of people who are like trans, and if you don't give them money, it's like bad luck?
I mean, I'm not sure they're called eunuchs, but I don't know if there's like an official word.
We have a term.
I don't remember what it is, but I don't.
There is a term, though.
Yeah.
And they're considered to be holy.
And, you know, if there's a blessing in your house, you give them money.
Yeah.
We look at it more like a mafia that comes and asks for money and you pay them.
Who are you talking about?
My family.
In Delhi.
My family.
Just, no, that's just what I've heard.
You give them money or it's bad luck.
And it's not out of reverence necessarily.
It's like, yo, are you going to be able to get it?
It's nice to have the monopoly on good luck, though.
Like, that's a good question.
I said no to one on the street.
And then I swear to God, my plane coming back from India that night had turbulence and a guy had to go to the hospital.
Yeah, I think it was aimed at me, these motherfuckers, trying to get me.
And they got some guy in coach.
Whoa.
Lucky your boy was a little bit of a drink.
They didn't know he got upgraded.
Yeah, they didn't know.
Man, they just saw your eyes and they were like, he has dollars.
We're going to go talk to this guy.
Yeah, but that was a real thing.
That night, somebody, there was like a medical emergency.
They had to call for a doctor on the flight.
It was wild.
Because you were like somebody else.
I don't know.
I didn't give a guy 100 rupees.
He gave me bad luck.
And luckily it missed.
I'm like Harry Potter out this bitch.
Yeah.
The boy lived.
My dad was on a flight where somebody died.
And in the weirdest announcement, the pilot came on and he's like, ladies and gentlemen, somebody's died.
But we're closer to our destination than we are to where we left from.
So we're just going to complete the flight if everybody's okay with that.
Wow.
And then everybody just sat in silence around a dead body for like 45 minutes and were happy to get to their destination.
I mean, I would have pretended to be the dead guy.
I was putting glasses on and just laid there, just fell on the guy next to me.
Bro.
45 minutes, though.
You can't turn around.
No, we're not turning around.
But also, like, even if we just went up in the air and they died, finish the flight.
Yeah.
In my opinion.
Like, don't.
Yeah.
We have to get to Sydney.
Like, 11 hours.
It's fine.
Yeah.
Probably not that much.
Yeah.
And they're already stink.
Just jokes, guys.
Do we have a doctor on the flight?
Do we have peodorant or cologne?
Also, yeah, what are the chances?
There's got to be doctors.
Or is this our like a bigoted understanding of like Indians?
Like when you go to India, it's just like America.
In that, like, how do I explain this?
Flight Rules and Medical Emergencies00:02:26
Like, here, I expect greatness of Indians, right?
Doctor, engineer, et cetera.
I'm sure like Americans maybe abroad, you're like, oh, you're here because you're working in some corporation, whatever, right?
Yeah.
So most of the white people there are like British tourists or some shit like that.
But over there, the expectation when you're seeing Indians, you're not like, oh, there's an abundance of engineers, doctors, or educated people.
Well, I mean, there is an abundance of engineers and educators.
Like, we have the youngest working population on the planet right now.
Like, we have the.
I saw you say that.
Yeah.
Like, it's, it's, we are the workforce, or at least the biggest free workforce in democratic workforce in the world right now.
So there's a bunch of engineers and doctors, but like, it's kind of all changing.
Like, you can, if you live in the bigger cities in India, you can be whatever the fuck you like.
And there's money to be made and support to be found.
Like, it's really cool what's happening in my country right now.
Things like comedic stuff aside and like a right-wing government aside.
Yeah, just like what the younger generation is doing in my country right now is fucking breathtaking.
It is.
Sounds like opportunity has hit India.
It feels like you guys in the 60s.
Yeah.
You know, that's what it feels like.
It's happening in my country right now.
My father always talks about like, he was in the army, he got in the army, and he just walked into a local news station and just filled out a res not even a resume, filled out an application to be a reporter.
This is unheard of now.
Now you have to go to Syracuse and then get into reporter school and then hopefully you have some connection and you do an internship.
But there was a time in America where without education, you could just walk in and get these different jobs.
And I wonder if that's kind of what's happening.
I see why black people are so exactly right now.
I'm like, yeah, it was like that.
Why'd you come here then?
Why'd y'all come?
Oh, I should have turned back.
Yeah.
There was already dead people on the ship.
Make your own news station.
They couldn't even apply to vote.
Y'all applied to be newscasters.
Son, once they got the right to vote, everything really went downhill in terms of becoming newscasters in one day.
Yo, there is some sort of connective tissue there, you know?
Is that what you did with your first vote?
Is stop white people from doing what they wanted whenever?
Yeah, kind of.
Kinda, yeah.
I just love it when white people talk to black people about tissue.
Connective Tissue and Voting Rights00:03:01
It's fun.
It happens.
No, but is that happening there?
Like, is that kind of opportunity happening?
Yeah, I think so.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
I'm hugely optimistic about where we're going to be in 15 years as a country.
Like, culturally, I think we're going to be a force in the world.
I do.
I'm sorry if this sounds like sentimental or whatever, but it's, you know, it's something I love.
We like this.
This is good.
Yeah.
I love the idea of opportunity.
I mean, you kind of did that.
You put a podcast on the internet and now people watch it.
You're like a newscaster and you didn't have to go into the studio.
You did a story.
You take that out.
That's your fucking Yankee MAGA hat.
By the way, can I just say as somebody who listens to the show, and I love the podcast, my favorite part is also the way you guys do advertising on this thing because it's like crisis-based advertising.
I've never seen anybody sell harder, right?
So you come on and be like, we're going to take a break because I want to talk to you about your dick.
Your dick is dead.
Your dick is dead right now.
Save your dick.
Your dick is dead.
Your dick's on an airplane and it's passed away.
We still got to land.
I'm just listening.
We're going to be the full Alex Jones when we do the advertising.
Maybe my dick is dead.
He seems very convinced.
We're on Blue Chew right now.
We are all on it.
You guys hard sell, which is fun.
All right, guys, we're going to take a break for a second because boners are important.
They're important to you.
They're important to the women in your life.
Okay.
Your mom likes a hard dick.
Super hard.
Guaranteed your mom had a hard dick minimum once in her life.
You can't even refute that.
Scientifically.
Scientifically speaking.
Irrefutable.
Irrefutable evidence that your mom likes hard dicks.
Well, maybe adopted.
Nah.
Nah, bro.
This person I'm talking to right now is not adopted.
His mom got nutted in, what?
Probably by the death.
Even the adopted person has a mom.
That's true.
Even the adopted person got fucking nutted in.
She might not have wanted to raise that idea because she wanted too much dick.
Yeah.
Anyway, that whole batch of cum that your dad unloaded in your mom's box.
Deserves to come out of the hardest dick possible.
And Blue Chew's going to make that happen, okay?
Blue Chew.
That's the truth.
Same active ingredients inside Viagra Cialis, but this is the truth.
This is the chill.
This is the one that's going to have your mom bending over different.
Oh, can you help me bring the muffins out of the oven?
Because I can't my back.
Why is your back hurt?
You don't want to know.
It got blown out.
That's what happened.
That's what I was alluding to.
But thank you for saying exactly what it was.
Point is, your mom's getting the salt catch.
What?
Your mom is getting the salt catch.
And she deserves to get it.
And so does your girl.
So is your wife.
So is your side chick.
Bluechew.com.
Mainstream Media Back Pain00:03:48
Matter of fact, you're going to get it for free.
You used the promo code Flagrant.
You're going to get it for free.
All you got to do is pay $5 shipping.
Your mom's back is blown fuck out.
Okay.
You want to actually do that?
I think that's the ad.
Bluetooth.com.
Use the promo code Flagrant.
Pay that $5 shipping.
You get that first month for free.
Enjoy.
Let's get back to the show.
Damn, Al, you had a really great point there that we covered up with comedy, but it was an opportunity for everyone, huh?
Damn.
Yeah.
There's two Americans.
And my dad was in Baltimore, too.
He's just the only white guy there.
Like, put him on the news.
What a credit report.
Literally, Oprah was there, like, doing everything she could to get on TV.
And my dad was like, I'm available.
Fuck, it was racism the whole time?
Yeah.
Shit.
Well, how are you guys going to deal with that?
You got to, you know, you be careful with the racers.
My dad might come over there.
Fucking take over the news.
I think you're taking it.
Teaching some of our channels right now.
Is it rough?
The news?
It is because a lot of it is just fed to them by the authorities and all that.
So there's like three news channels that somebody can use.
But you have a billion people.
He hasn't enough propaganda.
And the special where he says there's a newspaper and then he makes fun of the newspaper and he said, I've been told if I mention them by name, I will get sued to oblivion or some shit like that.
I've written my own articles in the newspaper.
Like that's a thing.
Because you paid them, even though you shit on them all the time?
Yeah.
Like you can pay them and write your own article and they'll embellish it a little bit, but you can buy space.
Like we have an entertainment thing called the Bombay Times, which used to be a newspaper and now it says promotional entertainment supplement because they sell by the word.
So technically you can write your own article in the newspaper.
At least they're being honest with that.
Yeah, they're being honest about it.
I think that's our frustration with the news is like, you know, we come out here and we talk about different stories and we talk our shit, but we're saying, hey, we're comedians.
We don't know what the fuck we're talking about.
Yeah.
They're saying this is the news.
This is the truth.
I mean, is there one source that still like is unbiased or works?
Because you seem to have like the CNN, New York Times, Fox News, blah, blah, blah.
Or is it just Fox News?
InfoWars.
Oh, my God.
That is the truth.
No, I don't know.
What do you guys think is the most?
Breaking points?
Yeah, breaking points.
Indian podcast.
Yeah, Sagar and Crystal, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're good.
Yeah, but I think you were probably talking about like mainstream traditional media, right?
What do you think is?
But aren't they the mainstream media now?
Like, isn't that kind of gone?
Well, that's the definition.
We are.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, we're still talking about these legacy media brands as like mainstream media, but this is where the main group of people in America is at least getting their news.
Yeah, I don't think there's an unbiased news source, but I don't think there ever has been, and I don't know if it's even worth pursuing.
I think you just try to get a mixed diet of multiple things that form.
I used to think BBC just because they had accents.
You could trust it.
Nah, that's real.
That's real.
Fuck the BBC.
And I'll tell you why.
And I'm doing a bit about this now, but like after two Indias, they had a headline and I was on the homepage and it said Indian comedian polarizes the nation.
I'm like, do you know how badly you have to fuck up before the British say that you divided at the end of my performance?
People went to the lobby, not Pakistan.
Fuck you.
So, and due respect to the guy who plays speaker food.
So, yeah.
Yo, so the BBC is trash.
Y'all don't fuck with the BBC.
How do you feel about British people in general?
I like them.
You like them?
Yeah.
If we get our jewels back, I'm on board.
What are you guys going to do with those jewels, though?
Put it in the slop?
Oh, my God.
You put them in potatoes because we know you're excited about that shit.
White people are going to show up.
Let's slip them jewels in potatoes.
Fuck The BBC Headlines00:06:55
Don't tempt me, bro.
Potato and jewelry?
No, no.
In all seriousness, like you, let's say you get the jewels back.
Like, then what happens?
Is it more symbolic?
Yeah.
It's more symbolic.
It's not really about the jewels.
Oh, fuck.
No, there's so many jewels.
Yeah, nobody gives a fuck.
The largest amount of undeclared jewelry in the world right now.
What about oil, too?
There's got to be some oil under there, right?
In India, I don't know.
You don't think there were ever dinosaurs in India?
I'm sure there were dinosaurs in India.
Some of them are running it.
Why do you think there were so many dinosaurs in the Middle East?
What do you think that was about?
I don't know.
All I know is all those dinosaurs won't take your president's phone calls right now.
Yo, isn't that fucked up?
That's fucked up, yeah.
I'm about to fuck somebody up.
Are you sure they've like I'm pretty sure they have spoken?
Yeah, they're back channeling, but they're putting out propaganda that they're not answering.
Disrespectful propaganda.
They're being disrespectful.
Incredibly disrespectful.
And what happened?
Do you know what happens?
Like, there's a history of like...
Oh, my God.
Yo, they've been punked for years.
Come on.
There's a history of countries trying to sell oil in other currencies besides the United States dollar.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, Libya tried to do it, and then something happened to Gaddafi.
I'm not exactly sure.
And then Saddam tried to do it with France, and then something happened to Saddam.
I don't know.
I'm just saying.
Well, luckily, he had weapons of mass destruction.
So we could kill two of the ones down there.
Exactly.
We were doing the right thing twice.
But I'm just saying, like, if there was a country that was even thinking about selling the Yuan, you know, and or selling oil in the Yuan with Saudi Arabia, they must have misspoke when they said that.
They're like, we're talking to Xi Jinping, and we're thinking about maybe selling.
If they were thinking about doing that, like, God forbid.
Could it be that your president can't figure out the smartphone?
Could it be that?
Like, I'm just saying, because it's like an iPhone 17 or something.
You're right.
100%.
He could be calling and doesn't know how to do the plus.
When you call it.
Oh, the other plus is tough.
Biden doesn't know how to plus.
Plus is tough.
Okay, here's a question.
And I say this with respect.
The big joke that everybody's talking about is he doesn't know where he is.
He's so old.
Wouldn't you rather that he just didn't know where he was?
Because in my experience, leaders who do know where they are don't work out so well.
So I prefer the guy who doesn't.
I think that they want him there for that reason.
And I think that he's a little bit easier to control.
And I think that in America, we think that the president has this authority.
And I think maybe Trump actually had a little bit more of that than the average person.
But you're a representative of a group of investors that basically control the trajectory of America.
Just like I imagine most developed countries, this is how it works.
And he's representative, but now we know that he's not actually doing anything.
So is it Kamala Harris?
Is like she's running stuff?
No?
No, no, no.
She's not your next president.
I think the idea, whoever the next president is, I think the idea is there's people we don't see that are actually running things and telling the people that we do see what to do.
Which is kind of what we want.
You just want people running stuff, back channel, all of that.
The average person doesn't want to think about all this shit.
They want to complain about politicians and bitch and moan, myself included, right?
Oh, fucking Trump this and buying that and fuck Kamala Harris and fuck Nancy Pelosi.
We do it all the time.
I'm guilty of this more than anybody.
But deep down, low-key, I'm like, I hope some really smart people are dictating the course of American history and future.
Yeah.
Like, I truly deep down, and if you got to listen to all our fucking phone calls, and I know there's people listening right now, oh, Andrew, what a fucking cock.
How could you say this?
You also hope that.
Because you don't want some insane 90-year-old man who clearly does not know where the fuck he is actually making the decisions.
You really want Biden making all the fucking decisions.
But then are you hoping for that to happen with sort of a safe sense of security and that whoever's running this shit, whoever's making these decisions, we're still going to be okay because we're American.
That's what I want.
That's what I want.
But do you believe that?
Like, no matter who it is, you're going to be okay no matter what?
My fear is that I'm losing confidence in the people steering the ship.
Let's assume it's not Biden.
Let's assume it's these other people.
I'm losing confidence in the people steering the ship because it feels at least right now with this conflict that we don't have the same respect globally that we commanded in the past.
And that was maybe we had insane motherfuckers back in the day who were just like, yo, you're going to get invaded.
Yo, you're not doing what we want you to do.
It looks like your people are upset.
Do you genuinely feel like you don't have the same respect globally?
Yeah.
Yeah.
When I hear that Saudi Arabia, of all places, isn't answering the phone, Saudi Arabia, there should be one man with his hand on the phone like this all day, 24 hours a day.
Just waiting to pick up.
If it's a butt dial, America, how can I help you?
Sorry, it was a missed dialogue.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Okay.
I have a question.
I get that the not having to think about it and going to bed safe under the assumption that it's going to be okay if you don't think about it is the promise of America, right?
In a certain sense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So well said.
So I understand that.
And that is literally.
It's going to be okay.
Yeah.
So I think cluelessness or the ability to just breathe is your freedom.
Yes.
Right.
Without having to think about that shit.
Yeah.
Could it possibly also be...
Now, there's like a fashionable way to look at this across the world, which is that America's kind of like the mean girl from high school.
That point you made is really great.
Can you just juxtapose that to what it's like in maybe some other parts of the world and why that is such a luxury?
It is a big luxury.
But explain that to people who like to do that.
Because I think in many countries in the world, not having to think about it or not thinking about it means it will directly impact your life within a week.
Every day you have to think about it.
So sometimes, you know, like when I talk to Western comics or whatever, they're like, why don't you just talk about like light-hearted stuff, et cetera, et cetera?
And I'm like, in comedy, you talk about what's directly in front of you.
And where I live and in many areas in the world, what's directly in front of you is reasonably more tragic than what's directly in front of you in other places because you don't have to think about it that much.
Yeah, you get to talk about your kooky story of going and get coffee or whatever.
So I get that.
Now, the fashionable global view, and I don't hold it, is America, Britain, and Europe are the mean girls from high school.
And now you're pissed off at the reunion that everybody else is kind of doing well and has kind of moved on.
But I don't think you lack respect.
I think that everybody else has more respect now.
I want to submit that humbly.
Talk to me.
You know, in that, you know, I don't think anybody's, you're still the largest economy in the world.
You're still the largest military in the world.
You're still at some level a country with a conscience that drives a moral compass in the world.
Everybody gets that.
But I think, you know, in India, there's a saying called Apna Tai Mayaga, which is that, you know, our time has come.
Like, we're grown up now.
You know, we're 80 fucking years old.
And many other countries, like, we got shit to do now.
You know, we're holding the baby that was given to us.
So, you know, you have to make your own decisions.
We have to make our own decisions.
And maybe we don't have time to come to the phone right now.
Crypto Fraud and Moral Compass00:16:33
I don't like that.
I don't like that one bit.
I don't like that from Saudi Arabia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe that's a better one.
And also, so much of our economic stronghold is oil for dollars.
If you're going to try to do that for the Yuan, if it's going to be oil for Yuan, that makes China that much more formidable.
And I don't, based on what we know here about China, Andrew says this all the time.
You can complain about the American Empire.
It's not been perfect.
But I promise you, when the Chinese Empire comes, you're going to miss hours.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
100%.
Like, specifically with the, you know, with the dollars for oil, like, this is what backs up our dollar.
It's what gives it value.
You know, 80% of oil, at least from Saudi Arabia, is sold in U.S. dollars.
Like, this is what replaced gold, essentially.
And it could really push the yuan to the forefront of global currency if all of a sudden it was backed.
And that would be incredibly detrimental to every money, every bit of fucking... dollars that we have saved up in the bank right now.
Until we all figure out that Vladimir Putin created cryptocurrency just to fuck with us.
And then everything collapses.
Now, is that, do you think?
Is that the I mean, I'm excited about cryptocurrency because like India is the largest crypto market in the world, just by the way.
Like just in terms of we're like decentralized money that we can make without regulation, let's go.
So I think it's got to be a big conspiracy behind it.
I know a lot of like, a lot of it just feels like fraud.
You know, just like, you know, just in terms of all big into crypto.
Some of us have more than others.
Yeah.
I'm a big guy, crypto guy.
How many Bitcoin do you have, if you don't mind though?
Too many to say publicly.
All right, cool.
I like money under the mattress.
I'm kind of.
That's very Indian of you.
Yeah, that's very, very Indian.
I like money under the mattress.
But I don't know.
I feel like everything is like too good to be true.
Something will collapse with crypto soon.
I don't know why.
I just feel like that.
I think you're seeing it right now with NFTs, right?
Having the prices of NFTs come down drastically.
I don't know.
Everybody keeps talking about something called Stoner Cats.
Like that's the big thing.
It's like a new meme stock.
Yeah.
Have you guys like apparently it's worth like $8 million in like 24 hours or something?
Oh, this is an NFT.
Yeah, it's an animated series that's also an NFT.
Ah, yeah.
Chris Rock is in.
I think he voices.
Oh, I think Mila Kooney, I think, did something with this.
That's the big example, right?
Because for us, like artists across the globe, we're thinking about, is there a way we can circumvent censorship?
And is NFT and crypto that way?
You know, it could be very interesting to say, can I put this piece of uncensored content out?
But you never see it on Netflix.
You never see it on Amazon because they wouldn't touch it anyway.
You only catch it on NFT or crypto.
Like that would be kind of cool.
You could put in the metaverse, pay me an NFT or crypto or whatever.
No, that could be kind of cool.
But I just feel like I don't know if it's reliable.
Again, this is an interesting insight into comedy in India versus Comedy in America because we're not that worried about it.
Censorship is almost a tool for us.
Like there's comics who make their career off of, and I think we've done it at times too.
Hey, they're trying to cancel us and that's it.
And I don't, let me just ride that way for as long as that goes.
Oh, you can't cancel me.
But there, it's like, nah, you legit will have shows shut down.
You legit will get thrown in jail.
You legit got to worry about censorship.
Here, it's almost a tool.
I think here it's like pressure to self-censor, right?
Like it's just like enough internet pressure to self-censor yourself next time.
But like we have official channels that it's not, it's not a fair game.
Yeah, that was an actual question I want to ask you also.
You watch, you deal with actual censorship and then you see us censoring our own free speech with people being outraged by speech.
And I mean, like, you can't say that.
Do you look at that as like that's crazy?
Or that's a like you're wasting this gift that you have that is freedom of speech?
Or do you look at it like now you guys are just putting buffers on?
Yes.
I look at it like it's crazy.
It's crazy, right?
And that I would give a lot for the kind of freedom that you guys have.
And I wouldn't let other people's opinion of me make me censor myself.
I think the censorship thing here is, do you want to do stuff with the industry or not?
If you don't want to do stuff with the industry, you don't have to worry about censorship.
It's like, do you want to make millions of dollars for a special?
Then you have to worry about it.
So it's really censorship for money.
That's our issue.
Right?
You know, if you want to put your stuff out on YouTube, YouTube's really not going to censor you.
And like if you put maybe a small disclaimer, matter of fact, there's like rules for YouTube that show like if it's a joke, it's okay to break certain standards that they have.
Yeah.
Because they understand that like satire is important.
So like you, there are platforms where you could put your shit out and you're going to be fine.
But if you want to make millions of dollars, then maybe you're going to have to switch some stuff up.
So it's more like a function of greed in a lot of ways.
I think so.
But isn't it also like because you guys have always been like outside of the system and now you are the system, right?
So you put your stuff on YouTube.
You kind of do your stuff yourself on Patreon.
Like I don't think you get to know anymore what's going to drive people up the wall.
And I think having to think about it will drive an artist crazy.
I think that that will shut down artistic evolution like instantly if you even start thinking about that.
Because at least I come from a country that's so large where there's so many things you could get upset about.
Like if you sat down to actually second guess yourself, you would go fucking insane.
Yeah.
And also those are the things you want to write about.
Right.
That's the fun stuff.
So I don't even think that's possible here anymore because there's so many varying opinions on like any piece of comedy.
But what I do like is, you know, there used to be the, I did my jokes, you like them, you like them.
You didn't like them.
Fuck you.
I'm going home.
I'm on to the next city.
That doesn't exist anymore.
Right.
So now it's a conversation.
And if you're going to take their money, you have to honor the conversation a little bit.
So if you bought a ticket to come see my show, if you paid money online to watch my shit, I have to honor your end of the conversation to a certain limit.
Does that make sense?
But starting to think about what's going to upset you will shut me down.
I'll never grow as an artist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have to create a vacuum.
Like, this is how you feel.
And then put it out.
But yeah, they should be allowed to react to your work.
It's not like you're not allowed to react.
You're allowed freedom of speech as well.
Yeah.
Speak on what you saw.
Sure, that's fine.
I got some great advice from somebody when, like, I was trying to write about everything that happened.
And they were like, content can become controversy, but controversy should never become your content.
Like, then you're doing a disservice to yourself as an artist.
So like, if the, because the big thing is now, what will I put out next?
Post this whole debacle, right?
I'm thinking about, for me, I mean, but if it suddenly seems like a reaction video or a response video to everything that you went through, I feel like you're not growing and you're stuck in a moment in time as an artist.
So to have like non-reactive comedy is the challenge.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Did you feel that way about Chappelle?
I mean, I saw your podcast on Chappelle and I agree with you in that he ended it 15 seconds earlier.
Yeah.
So like that was just, you know how it's like Jennifer Lawrence, I think that's her name.
She falls a lot.
Right.
And sometimes she'll do interviews and she'll be like, oh, I fall.
Everybody knows that I fall.
And I'm like, no, nobody knows that you fall.
Yeah, you're bringing it.
Like there's an entire world that doesn't know that you fall.
So if you fall, tell me that you fall and we can have this conversation.
That's the only thing I felt about Chappelle's thing where I was like, he assumed that everybody knew what he was going through.
Yeah, when there's a gigantic world out there.
We're just like, yo, that guy's hilarious.
I want to see him and be funny.
So that's my only piece of feedback is if this was my first time watching your special, I just didn't know about all of this stuff.
And you're my idol.
And take me someplace new.
And if you're taking me there, explain why.
Yeah.
That was it.
Yeah, that's an interesting take.
Because he deals with so many people who don't know what's going on here.
You know what I mean?
Like, he knows so many people who don't know Chappelle.
To us, it's insane that you wouldn't know Chappelle.
But you're in a country with 1.3 billion people.
Who don't know?
Yeah.
And 1.25 billion of them don't know Chappelle.
And that leaves 500 million.
That's all Chappelle.
But, you know, there's like, I think that's a great.
And also, I mean, it's A, some of us don't know.
And B, sometimes it's a good defense as well.
Like, I was at the cellar two nights ago, and so I'm kind of enjoying that, right?
Just getting to be in a comedy club, hang out with other comics, and get tags and get feedback.
I don't get to do that a lot.
And I was sitting next to this lady, and she was like, I saw you said it was funny, etc.
And I was like, so what do you do?
And she was like, I'm on Saturday Night Live.
And I just didn't know.
So I'm like, I'm just going to go with this because I'm from India.
I'm like, oh, what is Saturday Night Live?
And I made her explain to me what Saturday Night Live was.
And I just went full Indian dad.
I was like, wow, they must work you really hard.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a lot of improv.
That sounds scary.
Just knowing what it is.
But we don't get that over there.
So sometimes it's a good defense as well, just to be like, we don't know.
To plead ignorance.
Yeah.
To be the fish out of water.
Yeah.
It's like the Borat thing, right?
Yeah.
It's like Borat could literally do anything he wants.
And then you're just like, oh, he's not from here.
And also, he comes from like a pre-woke era.
You know what I mean?
Like, he was dressed like 1981.
You know what I mean?
And I think that was very smartly, like intentionally done.
Yes.
Where you're like, you have to feel like this guy traveled not just from Kazakhstan or whatever, but from the past.
From the past.
Like he has to come in from a pre-woke era of the world.
And then you buy that shit.
I was.
Did you see Borat 2?
No.
I tried.
I tried.
I was that lady, Maria Bakalova.
Yeah.
It's like super talented.
I got to work with her and she's that.
She got nominated for an Oscar for that.
She got nominated for an Oscar while we were on set.
It was kind of a cool moment to witness.
They gave her a call and they're like, you nominate for an Oscar.
It's nice.
Is it important to you to be famous here in America?
It's not important to me to be famous.
Respect.
In America?
Period.
Yeah.
In general.
Or successful.
I think.
Let me rephrase it.
You know, there's certain people like they want to make it in America.
Yeah.
And I'm not from anywhere else.
So I don't have this feeling like, and I'm also maybe from the biggest, you know, stand-up hub in the world.
But like, it's not important to me to like be the biggest in England.
It's not important to be the big.
If people there love my stuff, that's great.
But like, I want my sex success to be at home.
But I often think that there are people from other countries that like making America validates them in a way.
Like, oh, you went and made it here.
Do you feel that way?
And is that important to you?
No.
So nobody does fame better than India.
I just want to put that out there.
Like, fame in India is very good.
And I think earlier on.
Why is that?
It's just like if you're into all the trappings of fame, which is entourages and people pampering you and flying, whatever.
And just everybody, just whatever you yell, it shows up.
Sandwich.
Sandwich shows up.
If you want that, like nobody does fame better than India.
Stardom in India is fantastic at all levels.
I don't know as much as you, obviously, but have you seen David Letterman when he interviews Shaadu Khan, who's probably the biggest Indian actor maybe ever?
But he goes outside to his house every day and just says hello to, I don't know, thousands of people just waiting to say hello to him in the morning.
Not privately.
He gets a wave from the balcony.
He gives away, and they're all like, oh my God, we saw him every day.
That's his day.
So, I mean, like, whoever you're most fit, Kardashians, I don't know who your most famous person is.
Yeah.
It gets 10 times better than India.
And I think if you're fortunate in God's been kind to find some level of being known early on, you get to lose yourself for five years in that and just be an asshole.
Everybody's entitled to that, right?
To have your big entourage and personal people, just five assistants with green drinks or whatever the two cell phones, whatever your thing is, you get to do that.
And then if you're lucky, you figure out that it's in your way.
Yeah.
And you get to reject it.
Yeah.
So I think I'm.
Luckily, the box office rejected you too.
But I'm saying, at some point, I was like, what am I going to write stand-up about?
Yeah.
If I keep doing this shit.
So now I kind of respect you guys for that reason.
My next two films, I'm producing.
My next two series, I'm producing.
You know, my next special, I'll direct.
It's just kind of like, I'm not going to wait for this market to know how to use me.
I'm just going to bet on myself.
Thoughtful guy, man.
4India impressed me so much.
The way you had everything set up, even drinking out of...
So if you guys, you know, we're always drinking out of water bottles.
Veer is drinking out of a jai cup that you get like from the street vendor.
Like it's everything was done very thoughtfully.
And I really respect that.
Thank you.
So I'm excited to see what you put forward because I loved 4 Indian the way you did it.
I was like, man, this guy thinks through every degree.
It reminds me of how you think through every single aspect of what you're doing.
He thought through every aspect of what he was doing.
I like that.
I like that, though.
So to answer your point, no, my goal right now is to scare the fuck out of myself.
Like just to put myself in atmospheres that I don't know how to exist in.
And America is one of them.
I just want to get good.
That's it.
I just want to get good.
Yeah.
That's good.
I like that.
I just feel like sometimes there are people who think that if they make it in America, it validates them.
And it's like, I get that if you come from a place where stand-up doesn't exist or you can't even make a living doing it.
But I don't know.
And maybe I'm spoiled, but for me, it's like, it means a lot to me that the people that I'm talking about, the people who I'm representing and the lives that I'm speaking to embrace me.
You know, that to me means a lot more than, you know, I'm the biggest comic in England.
Okay, that's cool.
That's cherry on top.
But if I was the biggest comic in England, but like nobody at home fuck with me, to me, that wouldn't be successful.
I mean, look, it's tough enough to crack one country, right?
Yeah.
To get people, but I just think you need enough people who like what you do to come and see you everywhere in the world.
Luckily, there's a lot of fucking Indians everywhere you go in the world.
So, you know, touchboard, ticket sales are okay.
But I do know that if I work hard, I can offer something different.
Yeah.
In that sometimes when Indian accents or Indian voices come over to America, it tends to be a lot of the big buildings and it's all amazing and it's so different back home, et cetera, et cetera.
But I think maybe to see an Indian accent be like, no, I'm going to take you back home.
Yeah.
And I'm going to show you some new shit.
Chappelle, you take me to Ohio and I don't know anything about Ohio.
Let me take you to the suburbs in Mumbai and show you some shit.
Now you go on a journey with me.
Yeah.
That's fire.
I'd like to be that guy if I work hard.
Yeah.
That's fire.
Well, shit, man.
Thank you so much for coming, man.
Big thank you, man.
I really appreciate you, man.
And tell the people where they can find you if you're doing shows.
Yeah.
Instagram, YouTube, all these different things.
I'm at Virdas on Instagram.
I'm at the Virdas on Twitter, not because I'm arrogant, because Virdas was taken.
V-H-R-D-A-S.
V-I-R-D-A-S.
Virdas.in is the website.
And I'll soon be in Houston and Los Angeles.
Those are the two shows that need to push.
So please come and see me.
I want you guys to go check out Veer.
And I also want to commend Alex Media because before this podcast started, well, you did an amazing job.
So Al just finds the Indian accent hilarious.
And we had a conversation where like, Al, you can't just laugh when he's talking about serious shit just because it sounds hilarious.
I was biting my lip a couple times.
I saw a couple times.
Isn't it the same as like if you hear somebody speaking like crazy like uh Ebonyx, you're like, ha ha ha, I can't believe you speak English like that way.
No, no, all right.
I tried to come off less raises, but anyway, you did a great job.
That's what I want to say.
Anyway, man, thank you so much, Ver.
And if you go check out Vir and support Veer and keep doing your thing and let us know how we can help in any way.