When Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu steps on stage at the Neptune Theater in Seattle, where his Netflix special Warn Your Relatives is being filmed, he looks at the packed audience in amazement and says, “We’ve got 800 people here. It’s important that I know that because my father will ask me after the show.” His father it turns out, is always disappointed at how low the number is. “And then I remember that my parents are from India,” Kondabolu explains, going on to imitate his father, “Oh 800 people, were you performing in a single Indian train car?”
Warn Your Relatives , Kondabolu’s first Netfllix special which released on May 8, shows the comedian regaling his audience with narratives about his South Asian heritage, along with sharp, incisive commentary about contemporary issues like racial profiling, terrorism, and mass shootings in America.
Born to Telugu parents in Flushing, the ethnically diverse neighbourhood of Queens, New York, 35-year-old Kondabolu has made his brand of stand-up — unabashed about his Indian roots, and with strong political undertones — mainstream.
Trump and more
The title, Warn Your Relatives , reflects his refusal to tone down his ideology and beliefs. A paraphrase from an earlier joke, it highlights that it is “about a changing country and a changing world, and the adjustments we need to start making,” Kondabolu says, adding, “Because we’re in the Trump era, [people] use words like opposition and revolution, but what does that really mean? I’d like to look at the climate we’re in right now.”
If he had not become a full-time stand-up comedian, he would have continued to work as an immigrant rights organiser, he confides. With a Masters in Human Rights from the London School of Economics, his comedy reflects his activist bent. His 2017 documentary, TheProblem with Apu , speaks about the problematic representation of South Asians in The Simpsons , the animated sitcom featuring Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the wily convenience store owner with a thick Indian accent. With inputs from South Asian entertainers like Kal Penn, Aziz Ansari and Aasif Mandvi, Kondabolu, a fan of The Simpsons himself, discusses the problem of minority representation in mainstream American entertainment. In the aftermath of the documentary, Hank Azaria, the white American actor who voices Apu, stated late last month on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show that he is willing to step aside from the role to allow for more representative inclusion.
- W Kamau Bell has a CNN show called United Shades of America and I love the fact that he’s educating so many people about their own country
- Stewart Lee taught me that comedy has no limit and that even a joke that fails can be useful later
- Aparna Nancherla is so quick, stinging and weird. You’re just not expecting any of those punchlines. She’s going to be extremely influential as a comedian for a long time
- Lindy West speaks her truth, is blunt, fearless and is extremely funny
- Ashok Kondabolu, and I am not just saying it because he’s my brother. But in terms of influences, I’ve become more open and willing to share about my life because of him. He doesn’t hold back
“When you watch television in the West, [South Asians] don’t exist. You see a stark difference,” says Kondabolu. “It’s really strange, especially when contrasted with seeing Bollywood [and Telugu] films where we are seen as being in love, having conflict and with full personalities.”
Battling stereotypes
After years of touring across the country with his stand-up, and with three comedy albums under his belt, Kondabolu joins the ranks of America’s rising South Asian comedians with Netflix appearances, an influential group that includes the likes of Aziz Ansari, Aparna Nancherla, and Hasan Minhaj. When he started out, the first battle he faced was not making the audience laugh, but dealing with their surprise that he was even there. “They were expecting an Indian voice,” says Kondabolu, who, even when portraying his parents on stage, stays away from caricatured Indian accents, labelled ‘patanking’.
Even though TheNew York Times referred to him as ‘one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today’, he does not believe that the nature of his work is political. In fact, he has “always hated being called political, because it separates the things that I’m talking about from everyday things,” he insists.
Not backing down
With light-hearted captions, Kondabolu retweets the hate mail that he continues to receive for his political statements, especially, The Problem with Apu . One woman labelled him ‘a disgrace to his religion,’ while another man claimed that ‘racism exists because of dumb people like you seeing it everywhere’.
“It breaks my heart a little bit, of course,” he says, adding, “What hurt the most was that people hadn’t seen the film and were making judgements based on my appearance and what they had heard.”
Yet, he does not keep things simple. He finds humour in complexity, and has never shied from talking about race, sometimes in ways that might make some members of his audience uncomfortable. “I know things have gotten a little better in this country, because fewer white people walk out of my shows.” When an older man in Seattle asks him where he is from, Kondabolu responds by saying that he is South Asian. When the man says, “I thought you were Indian,” Konbadolu reminds the audience that, “You can’t ask me where I’m from and not know geography,” going on to encourage them to “talk to your white relatives about racism.”
The family podcast
Family plays an important role in Kondabolu’s life and work. Like most comedians, he uses his relationship with his parents as fodder, but there is always an underlying tone of respect which extends to the artiste’s younger brother, Ashok, whom he describes as “brilliant” and a “very unique voice”.
Member of the now defunct rap group Das Racist, Ashok, along with his brother, headlines the newly-launched live-recorded Kondabolu Brothers podcast, produced by Earwolf. “It was as simple as wanting to spend time together,” he tells me about the inspiration for the show. With sections where they discuss how underrated certain things like therapy (for Kondabolu) might be and episodes from their childhood visits to India, the podcast is a free-wheeling tête-à-tête between the two brothers.
Excited to bring his special to 180 countries, Kondabolu is humbled by how his comedy is travelling beyond America. “I don’t think I’ve ever had something so global. It means a lot that it’s playing in South Asia and in India,” he concludes.
