Zarna Garg
has made a name for herself with her own brand of humour, created from her very relatable, real-life experiences. Known as the outspoken representative of the
Indian American woman
, this not-so-successful lawyer, full-time mom of three, New Yorker for three decades, was recently in India for a multi-city tour. In a telephonic conversation, interspersed with hearty laughter, effortless jokes and oh-so-desi references, Zarna told us all about her far-from-ordinary journey, her stage experiences and more.
Excerpts…
You were a lawyer practicing in New York. How did a career in comedy come your way?
I was a stay-at-home mom for many, many years. I was working as a lawyer in the beginning, licensed to practice law in New York. But I found out that I was really bad at it. You know, you don't find out whether you're good at something or bad until after you start doing it, unfortunately. All my clients ended up in jail at one point. You know, I thought to myself, this is not going as well as I thought it should. But what happened is that I was a stay-at-home mom for many years because, in America and specifically in New York, you have no house help. We don't have much family in America. With the reality of raising these three kids, I became a stay-at-home mom for many years. And then when my youngest was in school full-time, I was looking into what are my options to, what can I do to re-enter the workforce? And law was not an option because I was not good at it and I was trying to figure out the right move. And my kids were very insistent that I should try comedy, specifically my daughter was like, you should just become a comedian. And I was like, that's not a thing, you know, because the world that I grew up in, comedy was not a job. Comedy was just a side thing that somebody did. And my kids were very much like, no, no, mom, it can be a profession. And essentially, they all ganged up on me and they dared me.
Did you take that up?
Yes! They were like, is mom too scared to try it? So just to shut them up, I showed up at a comedy club for the first time in my life, just to see what it was about. I had never been to a comedy club until then. My life changed after that one day when I saw what people were doing and I was like, this is a job!? White people do this? Because this was not a world I was exposed to at all. And then when I was at the club, the woman who ran the club said to me, why don't you go up on stage and talk, say, do five minutes? And I said, but five minutes of what? I have nothing to say. And she said, just talk about whatever you think is funny. And I was like, anything? And she goes, yeah, anything. I said, you know what? Let me trash my mother-in-law. I think that's funny. That's easy. I have hours and hours of material. And I went on stage and I started talking about my life and my mother-in-law, my husband, my kids, just random anecdotes and memories of what I think is crazy about them and all. And people were dying. I mean, the audience was just dying of laughter. They couldn't get enough. They didn't want me to stop. And I got off the stage thinking, what is happening? People are interested in what I have to say about my life? And that's how that journey got kicked off.
Who has inspired you to take up comedy? Have you seen The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?
I think she's an amazing inspiration for a woman
stand-up comic
. Of course, there's a lot of American comics that I look to. I have gone back and researched a lot about Joan Rivers and how she did things. And I love her work. In India, I'm a big fan of Aditi Mittal. I think she does really good work. Vir Das, of course, the OG. I am inspired by every comic in India who's doing the comedy. I think it's such a hard place to be to be doing what they're doing. And they take all kinds of risks, deal with all kinds of challenges, and they still dig in their heels, and they do it. And they're so smart. Even the regional language comics, like the Gujarati comics, the Hindi-speaking comics, they are brilliant.
I watch so much of it on YouTube and I'm in awe of the work that I do. Compared to them, my job is very easy, to be honest with you. Because I don't worry about a lot of things that they worry about back there. So, yes, there are individual comics that inspire me, but overall, I'm inspired by the entire comedy community. I think it's freaking phenomenal and they're all badasses. Especially the women. Think about all the risks they take. And they continue to do it. I mean, huge props to them. And I admire them and I'm inspired by them.
When you're making up a joke and there is some kind of a disruption in the audience, does that jar you? Does that distract you completely?
It happens periodically. But here's the thing. I've been a mother for 21 years. If I couldn't live with distractions, I would have killed myself by now. This is one of those things where all the comics can't compete with me. Because I have so much life experience. I'll give you an example. I have done a Kevin Hart's comedy competition called Lyft Comics. This was back in the day during the pandemic. And in that, each of us comics was disguised as a Lyft car driver. We had to drive around New Jersey, pick up passengers, and make them laugh, without informing them that we were comics. We just pretended to be drivers. And I remember walking into that competition and thinking, you're all done. You guys can all go home right now. Because you can't compete with a woman who drove around her kids for 15, 16 years. I listened to their stories. I told them my stories. I dealt with every distraction with finesse. So, I knew I was going to win that before I even sat in the car and predictably, I won it. Because all those guys, they were melting down the first time the light turned red. And then the audience didn't laugh. I'm used to all of that. I'm used to my kids thinking I'm funny. They have opinions and they're not afraid to tell me. Like all kids. They just say what comes to their mind. So, when you're trained with that and then you're trained with a mother-in-law like I have, who is like a Marvel supervillain, you can’t lose.
