'To make a joke, you have to first heal'

Comedienne Radhika Vaz talks to Tishani about the terror of performing, where she gets her best jokes from and why comedy transcends gender.

February 04, 2017 04:55 pm | Updated March 31, 2017 05:30 pm IST

Radhika Vaz is an Indian comedian and writer who worked as an advertising executive before becoming an improvisational stand-up comic. | Special Arrangement

Radhika Vaz is an Indian comedian and writer who worked as an advertising executive before becoming an improvisational stand-up comic. | Special Arrangement

This is a blog post from

Radhika Vaz is a comedian and the author of Unladylike : A Memoir (Aleph).

 

"Radhika Vaz's 'Unladylike' is a memoir that spans four decades of the author’s life. From stories about a childhood spent wishing she could change everything about her life (including her parents), to her chronically delayed puberty, and the self-esteem issues that accompany a flat chest, Vaz doesn’t pull any punches." | Goodreads  

 

 

Is there a different level of terror in terms of going on stage when you’re doing improvisation or a regular stand-up show? Are they two different things?

 

I think it can be nerve-wracking both ways. Anything new is always more scary, so now I've been doing my own act for six years so it’s hard for me to remember how it was to do improv. I find both of them to be equally adrenalin-pumping. I like to think of pre-show nervousness and panic as excitement and enthusiasm just to psych myself up. You know, I tell all performers that this excitement needs to go somewhere and it manifests itself as nervousness so don’t give in to that, but I definitely remember I’d gotten so used to improv, where you’re with a troupe, you’re with other people, you know they've got your back. So if you screw up it’s okay because they won’t, so it’s still a good show for the audience. When you’re alone, it’s all on you, man. I remember the first solo show I did. I was standing backstage in the dark and I just freaked out. I was like, what am I doing? Who does this? Why am I doing this? And then I just went on stage and forgot the lines but kept going and I realised it’s a different version of the same thing I’m doing.

It seems like such an unlikely thing to do — to become a stand-up comic. Was there a sense of recognition for you, that I love this, and this is what I want to do?

So, here’s the funny thing. I always feel that with me personally — and maybe with a lot of other people as well — every time I get comfortable about what I’m doing, I want to change it. I've experienced that throughout my life, and it’s the same with stand-up. Now, it’s like, what else? I’m looking ahead to see, but I will say one thing, I think that I wanted to get into this performance line probably around the year I moved to New York, around 2000. I didn't really know what I would do. At one point I got into writing. I really wanted to write sketches for other performers. But then the way things went, I morphed into a stand-up comedian. I didn't really have much control, it was just the way things were happening for me, and I had to grab on to it. I guess in 2008 is when I said, I can do this. I don’t know exactly what, but I want to be with these people, I don’t want to go back to a corporate job, and that was the motivation that kept me going. I started teaching improv in India, and I kept going back and forth, and I started to get a sense — you know, Vir (Das) was performing then, and Papa CJ, people were doing stuff that was comedy in English, and I started to feel that there was something up, people were changing, and then between 2009-2010 I wanted to perform in India. It was like a culmination — the writing of the sketches, the feeling of coming to India, of wanting to perform here and create material for this audience, it’s what made me create “Unladylike” in 2010. From the first minute I set foot in an improv class I had a feeling that I think I’m in trouble…..in a great way. It’s like falling in love with someone where you know it’s going to be a hard relationship but now you’re in love, what are you going to do?

 

I’m curious about your inspirations, your fodder. Where do you get your material from?

 

Let’s just say, when I’m in a conversation I pay attention. I have really funny friends. I’m rarely the funniest person in the room, which is really important for me. It’s like being the smartest person in the room, I mean, who wants to be that? That means everyone is stupider than you and actually you are the stupidest person in the room for hanging out with them. So, for me, I always feel that my friends are the ones who call me out on my shit. My family and friends — they’re the ones who are going to tell me if I’m actually good or bad, and that’s why they need to be better than me — smarter, funnier, and I think they are. I definitely get a lot of my comedy from them. I’ll steal my friends’ lines, and sometimes even give them credit during the show. So yeah, I get a lot of inspiration from the people I’m lucky enough to interact with and what they do. I’m very driven in certain areas, like I’m not going to look at cricket scores and see something funny. That’s not my thing. But I am going to pick up on the fact that the government is right now saying that abortion should be given to single women also, and I’m like, really? I didn't even know that our government separated women on the basis of single and married? That’s deplorable. So I’m going to pick up on that. And it’s not a joke for me right now, right now it’s in my consciousness and it’s probably going to spark something because usually when something bothers me that much it finally comes out as a joke. So, things in the news, what people are talking about, it may be serious, but it’s got my interest now, and the only way I know how to communicate that is by trying to make people laugh about it.

 

Do you think that there’s a different attitude to gender when it comes to humour? That people are more surprised by a funny woman than they are by a funny man?

 

So, here’s the thing. By a stroke of luck, I've been surrounded by people who are not terribly surprised by the fact that a woman can be funny. But it’s interesting, I do notice it’s not that people are surprised that women are funny. I think the problem is deeper. I think people give women permission to be funny about very specific things. I think for a woman to be talking about sexual stuff, or talking about deep personal things, it’s still very 'Oh my God!' I’ll tell you something. I say a lot of shit in my shows about my husband and also my dad, okay? And the reason I do that is because they’re two men I can actually say whatever I want to say about. It’s not even that. I know there are lots of stereotypes about married people that are true, and I also know that there are lots of stereotypes about older guys that are true, and just to show the stereotype I sometimes say things about my situation specifically so people will relate to it more. But in truth, I’m actually talking about everyone’s husbands and everyone’s dads that behave in a ridiculous fashion, and it’s pretty funny how some smart people actually get it... And so when people laugh, they’re not laughing at my husband — they don’t know the guy, they’re laughing at their own husbands, and their own lives. That’s the whole point. Sometimes people don’t get that.

But I also think that people don’t remember if you’re a man or a woman once you make them laugh. They may prejudge you. But once you make them laugh ­— then you see, when you’re laughing, you don’t care who’s making you laugh. You don’t think a man is making me laugh, or a woman. It’s a natural reaction. It’s a very deep thing.

When I wrote my novel, The Pleasure Seekers , a sweet old aunty came up to me and said, ‘I so liked your book but why did you have to make Bean so promiscuous?’ Have you had that a lot? I mean, are people confusing the I of your creations with the you of you?

You know, one of the first rules of writing I learned is that the more specific you are the more general it becomes. I mean, you can’t please everyone. There’s always going to be that one person who says, "Oh, why is she so promiscuous" or whatever. I just feel like it doesn't have to be from your experiences, it can be from something you’ve heard or observed. The only time I've written fiction is when I've written sketch characters, but obviously, as a writer and performer I get a feeling of it somewhere from someone else or from myself. I write a web series called Shugs & Fats , it’s about these two hijabi women, and it won a Gotham Award, and it’s obviously fictional because I’m not a hijabi woman, and neither is Nadia, my writing partner, although she is Muslim. And we’re writing about a bunch of things that we feel, but these are the characters, and I have definitely felt that I've put so much of myself and my own personal experience into it, but it just comes out a different way because I’m putting it in the eyes of a completely different person. I think you’re right, people are always mixing up the two, but I really don’t care, and neither should you. The moment you start caring, you start holding yourself back. I've been through that too. I've wanted to say so much about topics in the past, and held back, and now I say it. I think when you’re writing about personal things, you have to heal first, because, you know, a lot of comedy is tragedy, it’s the shit that happens to you that you've then spun into a comedic yarn, but I think you have to deal with it first.

 

So you’re saying that that right to offend is kind of integral to doing what you do?

 

I don’t think you should go into it with the intention to upset people, but if you do and they are just upset for no reason other than their own personal journey then that’s different. Like if I have somebody come to me at the end of the show — you know, I remember making mother-in-law jokes once, and this woman came to me and said, ‘Don’t say that because you’re perpetuating a stereotype,’ and I say, ‘You know, I know, but it’s a pretty good one and it’s funny.’ It’s a comedy show. I’m making jokes. Some of it is true, unfortunately, which is why I can joke about it, and some of it will be pushing the envelope a little bit, but you don’t know my mother-in-law, you don’t know my story — you don’t like it, you don’t have to listen. So, it’s my story. It’s my comedy show. You write your own comedy show and say nice things about your mother-in-law. I’m sure people will laugh…. (l aughs ).

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