I'm not your typical Indian woman.
This bindi, it's a PR thing.
[audience laughs, cheers]
[announcer] Please welcome
the great Zarna Garg!
[audience cheering]
Namaste, New York City!
Namaste. Thank you so much
for coming out tonight.
It's just so great to be here.
A little about me: Uh, I'm an immigrant.
I'm here to take your jobs.
Watch out, Jerry Seinfeld!
No, for real, for real, I am an immigrant.
I came to America with $9 in my pocket.
Yeah.
$10,000 in the bank.
But nine in the pocket.
I'm not your typical Indian woman.
This bindi, it's a PR thing.
And people ask a lot of questions
about the bindi.
Why do you wear it? Is it a jewel?
Is it painted on?
It's nothing. It's a sticker.
Maybe, it's a statement...
Bindi on, ready to meet the in-laws.
Bindi off, ready for spring break!
And one question
that comes up all the time
is do you have to be married
to wear the bindi?
Not true. But I asked my grandma.
I was like,
why does this question
keep coming up all the time?
And she said to me,
"No, no, no, no.
Just tell them, any woman anywhere
can wear the bindi.
But married women tend to wear it more.
Because when they wake up
the day after the marriage,
they should know where to aim the g*n."
She was kidding! I think.
So, my name is Zarna.
That's not a real name.
You see, my parents messed up,
they misspelled it.
It's as if I got up here and
said my name was Melizabeth.
Because Jarna, with a "J",
means "waterfall" in Hindi.
Zarna, with a "Z", is "she's the youngest,
let the servants name her."
No, no, it's okay, I had servants.
[audience cheers]
And this permanent spelling error from
the people who win every spelling bee.
But I dreamt of coming to America
just like Eddie Murphy.
You know, when you're outside
this country, looking at life in here,
everything looks so much more fun.
Like, people frolicking in hot tubs.
Jacuzzis!
Bubble baths!
I mean, in India, you get
water in a bucket.
There's buckets in America, too,
but they're filled with fried chicken!
A shower doesn't stop here
until you stop it.
People fill gallons of drinkable water
in a bathtub.
And just sit in it.
Because they're sad.
How can you not love this place
and love it here?
[audience cheers]
And I worked so hard to come here.
Any immigrants in the house?
How hard is it, right, to come here?
For everyone, except the Canadians.
No, there's always one Canadian
in the room who's like,
"It wasn't so hard, we just drove in."
Not that guy. But for the rest of us,
the brownies,
really hard to come here.
The VISA, the paperwork,
years of waiting.
And you get here and you find out
that everybody hates everybody.
The Democrats hate the Republicans.
The Republicans hate the Democrats.
Pro-choice, pro-life, pro-g*n,
Macbook Pro.
By the time I got my Green Card,
I was like, I'm not so sure about this.
The only thing everybody seems to agree on
is that everybody hates Ted Cruz.
See, he has a purpose. [laughs]
So, you've heard this expression,
"she's one in a million."
It's meant as a compliment.
Well, I'm one in a billion.
No, really, there's a billion of us.
To us, "one in a million" is so cute.
See, India is 1.4 billion people.
Can you even imagine?
For context, America
is 400 million people.
You have to add a whole billion to that,
and then, ask yourself,
how pro-life you would be.
If Americans had to compete
with 1.4 billion people,
for a parking spot,
every street corner would have
a Planned Parenthood.
But speaking of the Supreme Court,
my favorite...
My favorite judge, Judge Judy.
Yeah, because of her,
I went to law school.
But I found out after I became a lawyer,
you have to be a good lawyer...
...to be appointed a judge.
And I was the worst.
I could never be neutral.
I would take my own client to the judge
and be like, Your Honor,
my client has robbed a liquor store.
Oh, sh*t, no! My client
has not robbed a liquor store.
Even the judge was like, Mrs. Garg,
do you know what a Defense Attorney does?
And I could never keep a poker face.
I would be like, but you and I both know
he did it.
So, I decided, you know what, I'm gonna
stay home, I'm gonna support my husband,
I'm gonna raise my kids. I was
a stay-at-home-mom for 16 years.
Sixteen years of being home with the kids
full time, I learned something.
I'm not that into them.
So, I found the only job that keeps me
out of the house nights and weekends.
I mean, kids aren't even allowed in here.
And I have no idea what's going on
at my house right now.
There could be a meth lab.
But I've been married for 23 years.
See, this is why
I love my American audience.
Because here, if you're not divorced,
you're a hero!
If I say the same thing back home,
I've been married 23 years,
they're like, "So.
You get married, you stay married.
Do you know how marriage works?
What do you want? A participation trophy?
I feel very relaxed about the whole
"till death do us part" thing.
Because we believe in reincarnation.
We are like, if you start
with a complete dog this time,
then maybe, next time
you get George Clooney.
But I have no complaints.
I'm married to a really nice man.
We are the perfect Indian couple,
we do math for fun.
We did romantic walks in the park
and discussed interest rates.
The last time we refinanced,
I got pregnant with my third.
[audience cheers, applauds]
And we have three kids.
Only the oldest boy is important.
Right. All the brown boys up front
are nodding, right?
You get that, right? You're like, that's
why we're out on a Wednesday night.
All the oldest ones, here.
What young one is coming out tonight, no.
Read the newspaper.
No, we got lucky. We have two boys.
Woohoo!
One girl, forget about her.
By the way, the whole oldest boy thing
is not just an Indian thing.
Look at the royal family.
That Prince William, he's got it made.
He's going to be king.
But with child, Harry...
...he couldn't even get on
the British Baking Show.
He had to move to California
to get any attention.
But my husband, he's a great guy.
You know, he went to a good college,
has an amazing job.
He's what you here would call "a catch."
I know this because his mother reminds me.
Every day.
And you know, he has a super power.
I shouldn't be so surprised because
back in the day, he was a chess champion.
I know what you're all thinking;
chess champion...
...sexy.
So, his super power is logic.
Ahh. Exactly. What do you do
with logic?
Maybe if you're stuck in an escape room
someday.
But otherwise, what do you do with logic?
You know, it's as if I'm married to
Clark Kent who never becomes Superman.
And if a big bookshelf falls on my head,
do I really need him explaining to me
that I put too much stuff in it?
Or if my checked luggage
is overweight at the airport,
I need him pointing out that
I took too many towels from the hotel?
Nobody needs logic.
And you know, when I first started
doing this joke, he didn't like it.
He's like, "I don't like this joke."
I said, "But why? You are my Superman."
He goes, "How can I be Superman?
They took out all the phone booths.
Where will I change into the costume?"
By the way, what do you call
an escape room in India?
Arranged marriage.
So, my oldest is my daughter.
Uh, she's a Freshman this year
at Stanford University.
Thank you.
So, when she got in,
immediately, I called my mother-in-law.
To flex!
Wouldn't you do that?
Wouldn't you brag about this?
And you know what she said to me,
my mother-in-law?
She said to me,
"How good can the college be
if it's taking so many girls?"
[audience groans]
You see, she's what you here
would call a c**t.
But I can't complain about her too much.
Because without her,
what would I get up here and say?
What would I say?
I would be like, "I'm happy.
I'm fine. I too, have self-esteem."
Let's face it, without her,
I would have no act.
But now my kid is in college and
it's all about making friends.
Making friends... I was like, why?
Make friends when you join
Doctors without Borders.
And she's like, "Mom, be serious.
I have to make some friends."
And I said, okay, I'm gonna give you the
guidelines on who you can be friends with.
You cannot be friends
with any Communications majors.
No Sociology, no Geology.
No Anthropology. What even is that?
Everybody's dead.
No kids who play music,
no kids who do drama.
Recruited athletes,
do I even need to say the words?
And she's like, so
I can't have any friends.
I said, I didn't say that.
Did I say that?
No, right? I said, CompSci is good.
Engineering, Pre-Med...
Basically, all the Indian kids.
And she's like, what if I meet
an Indian kid who's an Art major?
I said, that doesn't exist.
And if you meet that kid,
get his mother's phone number.
We might need to check on her.
She might be about
to jump in front of a train.
So, are we all familiar with the acronyms
STEM in education?
- We all know what it stands for?
- [audience] Yes.
What does it stand for?
[with audience] Science, Technology,
Engineering, Math.
So, have you heard of this controversy
surrounding this acronym?
They want to add Art to it.
Because the artists are feeling excluded.
And they want to make it...
[with audience] STEAM.
What are they trying to do to us?!
Do they realize that if you add Art
to STEM, there will be no steam?
Do they think that the guy
who invented the steam engine
ran a puppet show on the side?
They think they can
just disrupt the world order like that?
How would they like it
if we added a spelling bee to the NFL?
[audience cheers]
But let me tell you about
my 16-year-old son, so handsome.
I can show you a photo afterwards,
if you want.
My 16-year-old son recently
started walking to school with a girl.
So, I follow them.
And my husband's
been so impressed with me.
He's like, our son is walking to school
with a white, blonde girl,
and you don't have a problem with that.
I told him there's nothing to worry about,
it's not like she's gonna
get into a good college.
Ohhh...
Oh, whatever, cancel me.
I don't care.
Besides, the blondes
don't even get that joke.
Now, my daughter called me the other day
and she's like, I just met a boy.
I was like, why?
You were born here,
you don't need a Green Card.
She's like, "Mom, he's really nice."
Nice? Who needs "nice"?
We need rich!
And she's like, "Mom, hear me out.
He's an Engineering major."
I said, "okay, I'm listening."
"He's from Connecticut."
"Fine, go on."
"His mom is the Head of Development
at HBO."
I said, "He's got potential."
So, I have a third kid.
I forget about him sometimes.
I don't know what to say about him,
I don't really know him.
I mean, the nanny says he's perfect.
But in our house,
we don't use the word "nanny."
We call her "Auntie."
Because this way she can sit in for us
at parent/teacher conferences...
...at doctor appointments,
at college graduations.
But speaking of college,
I have to tell you,
I have uncovered
the world's biggest scam.
Did you guys know that in this country,
the parents don't get to decide
what the kid's gonna study?
You all knew this?
I really thought that when my kid goes to
college, I will call the college up.
And I will say, CompSci I, CompSci II, go!
She wants to have some fun,
I understand that.
Give her one class in Chemistry.
It does not work that way.
They're so rude, they'd hang up on me.
So, I had to call my kid and ask her.
I was like, what are you enrolled in?
What are you studying?
Are you guys ready for this?
Ceramics.
Eighty thousand dollars!
To learn how to make clay pots!
Do you know who else makes clay pots?
Villagers in India!
Because they have nothing else to do.
My kid is in Palo Alto,
the epicenter of technology...
...making clay pots.
Why am I being punished, Ganesh?
Do you know how bad something has to be
when the nice, white guy in the audience
is like, "Oh, no!"
And now, I have an update on the situation
and you guys are gonna think
I'm making it up.
I'm not, I'm telling you the truth.
I just found out that she's required
to take a class in Wellness.
So, she's enrolled in Meditation.
Which costs extra.
While she's meditating,
I'm gonna go have a stroke.
I mean, I'm an immigrant parent
in America.
It's hard for me to raise my kids here,
I'll tell you why.
Because here, people like to
do dangerous things just for fun.
Just for the thrill of it.
They like to go sliding down mountains,
fall out of airplanes,
dive into oceans,
just for the thrill of it.
Back home, when I wanted to
experience the thrill, I drank tap water.
Now, my son wants to go bungee jumping.
Could you imagine?
My son? My daughter, whatever.
And I said, "No, you can't go."
And he says, "Why not?
My friend, Scott went."
Scott.
He put a photo on Instagram.
I said, "Scott should go bungee jumping.
Scott has a B in Math.
He has nowhere to go but up.
You want to put a photo on Instagram,
take a picture of your GPA.
And you know the other thing that has
us immigrant parents really confused,
is this modern parenting trend
in America right now.
People trying to be friends
with their kids.
Anybody know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, right?
I know brown people are like, "What?"
No, it's a thing, it's a thing here.
There are parents in this country,
right now, telling their kids,
don't worry about your grades.
Don't worry about your job.
You be happy. If you are happy,
we are happy.
[audience laughing]
"Don't worry, be happy?"
Who's heard that song?
You've heard that song?
That would never be an Indian song.
Our song would be "Don't happy,
be worried!"
And there is so much to worry about.
Let me share a statistic,
because I'm nothing
if I don't have a statistic for you.
Last year, six out of eight spelling bee
champions in America were Indian.
Our community was devastated.
They were like 75%...
...that's a "C."
A "C" is for Chiropractor.
That is not a doctor!
And you know, when I make these jokes,
people ask me, they're like,
how can you be so strict and
old-fashioned, you're a comedian.
Yeah, but my kids don't know I do this.
I leave my house in scrubs.
My LinkedIn profile says Mount Sinai.
Okay, I was kidding about that,
they do know what I do,
and it's all because of Zoom.
The last few years,
I did a lot of shows on Zoom.
How many people here are still
working on Zoom? A little bit, right?
Zoom was good in the beginning, right?
You wore your nice shirt,
you combed your hair, you looked good.
Then, a few months into it,
you took a little bite on the side.
Then, a few more months,
a little drinkie, drinkie.
Now, we're like,
"I'm just gonna take a shower."
Just keep the door open.
[audience cheering]
So, I did a lot of shows
for Indian families, Indian events,
and in those shows,
I would have a lot of Indian Uncles.
Now, in America, we've heard
a lot about Indian aunties.
But can we take a minute and talk about
Indian uncles?
Yes?
So, this is how the Zoom would open up.
Take a hundred little windows,
and all these Indian uncles in them
looking at me like this.
As if to say, who is this woman and
why is she talking?
And then, while I was doing my set,
the chat room would be fired up.
You know, the chat room that
we could all read, including me.
"She's not funny."
[audience groans]
"That's not funny."
"Okay, maybe she's a little funny."
Yeah. No, you can imagine
these Indian uncles, right,
walking around with their hands...
...hands behind their back,
belly protruding out,
as if they're all doing hospital rounds.
But really, they're just at a garage sale.
And if you go to dinner with
an Indian uncle and tip 20%,
they lose their minds.
They're like, "Ohh, no one told me
I'm having dinner with Bill Gates."
So, I make fun of Indian guys,
but the truth is, they're great guys.
Good fathers, great husbands,
great providers.
You'll never see them
dunking a basketball.
But they all bought Google
at the right time.
N-No, not my husband. No, my...
My husband bought Dell.
'Cause you know, who needs money?
And the Indian aunties
are not off the hook.
No. Kids here think they have it bad.
They complain about things.
They're like, "Oh, I grew up
in a rough neighborhood."
Greenwich.
"I didn't belong. She was mean to me."
Well, do you know where I grew up?
In India. With Indian people.
I wish I had white police.
I had scary Indian aunties.
This used to be my birthday...
"Come, come, come, Beta."
Pinching cheeks until the blood clots.
"Who is sixteen today?
And fat?
And single?
Happy birthday!"
And it's not like I could say to her,
"Who is 58 today?
And fatter than me?"
But I didn't want to die.
And now that I'm an Indian auntie...
By the way, shout-out
to all my Indian aunties.
[audience cheers]
Out here, online, at home,
because of you guys, I'm here today.
[audience cheers]
So, my aunties will understand this,
right, when we hang out at dinner parties,
the kids all assume
we're talking about them.
We're not talking about them.
We're talking about the one auntie
who wasn't invited.
And the kids here are so delicate.
My 16-year-old son, so handsome...
...he recently asked me, he's like,
"Mom, are you proud of me?"
I was like, "Proud of you.
Why?"
And he goes, "Because I get good grades."
I said, "You get good grades
because we make you study.
We get you tutors.
We feed you almonds.
You should be proud of us.
You're an Indian kid who gets good grades.
That's like a Russian mom being proud
that her kid is a figure skater.
Right now, the best I can give you
is that I'm not embarrassed by you."
And these kids,
they have no street smarts.
Like, you know, they come to me
for help with their homework
and I'm like, I don't know anything,
Google it.
And then, he'll be like, "Mom,
but I have to show the work,
my math teacher wants to see the work."
I'm like, okay, Google "fake work."
And my daughter, little Miss Stanford,
overheard this interaction once,
and she's like, "Mom, how is it
that you went to law school
and you don't know anything?"
I said, I do know something.
You have a right to remain silent.
Use it!
The truth is that my youngest, my third,
is actually the smartest of my three.
I just don't have the heart to break it to
him that by the time he goes to college,
there's gonna be no money left.
I mean, I drop hints. I tell him, I'm
like, you know what's a great university?
DeVry.
And my husband, he thinks
he's a comedian now.
He's like, by the time he goes to college,
we're gonna have no money left.
You know what's a great place to retire?
Flushing.
No, so, I've been married,
you know, a long time,
and people ask me what's the secret
to my long marriage.
We have a secret.
It's that we have an understanding.
If we separate, he has to take the kids.
But I have to keep his mother.
So, what's the point?
And sometimes, we fight. I tell him,
go, go take the kids.
You know, one has a tennis tournament,
one has a chess game at the same time.
Figure that out, Mr. Logic Man.
And one has a peanut allergy.
I'm not telling you which one.
You know, I get asked if I was arranged.
Uh, I wasn't, but my sister was.
And sometimes, I'm jealous.
Because she has
a 15,000 square foot house,
a private plane, true story,
and a dead mother-in-law.
You know, the funny thing
about arranged marriages is
that they almost always seem to work out.
Like my friend, Kanicka,
likes to tell her story,
she's like, you think
your mother-in-law's bad.
So, it turns out that 20 years ago,
when she was getting arranged,
her husband didn't want to marry her.
He didn't like her.
But his mother put her foot down.
And she said, "No, no, no,
you can't back out now.
This match is made.
We rented the elephant."
But in a few years,
if you still don't like the girl,
you can always set her on fire.
[audience groans]
Oh, relax.
They learned to love each other.
It even became an inside joke.
You know, they argue, like all couples.
And he says, "Shall I get the matches?"
And she says, "First,
you'll have to find the kitchen."
So, I met my husband online 25 years ago.
[audience hoots]
Yeah, not the way you guys meet today.
Like, nobody asked you "up."
Nobody asked what are your hobbies
and passions.
Like, if he has a job,
there should be no passions.
Back then, there were only two genders
to choose from.
And if somebody asked
what's my orientation
I said my apartment faces south.
One time, somebody asked me
if I was bi-curious.
I said, what are you buying?
I'm curious.
We were so naive. We acted as if there was
a matchmaker even though there wasn't.
Like, he asked me if I could cook.
I said, can you show me your tax returns?
He said, can you bring some dowry?
I said, can I interest you in
some Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons?
So, in a way, we arranged ourselves,
and that didn't go over well back home.
His mom was pissed off,
my dad was upset.
So, you know, match made in heaven.
Neither side of the family
spoke to the other side for a long time.
We refer to that as the honeymoon period.
And the thing is, I don't know
what's better, being arranged,
falling in love, meeting online.
But I do know
that Americans are too obsessed
with romance.
On this one thing,
the bar is set so high...
...and education so low.
Like, happily ever after, absolutely!
Calculus...
...you did your best.
Enough of the fairy tales and
the happily ever after.
We don't even want that.
We don't want happily ever after.
We just want a 1600 on the SAT.
And an eyebrow threading lady
who won't quit on us.
[audience cheers]
The aunties love that, right?
That's a real crisis.
Somebody fix it.
Somebody watching this, fix this.
See, we didn't grow up hearing things
like "sweet dreams."
We grew up hearing,
"make money in your dreams."
And I got curious. I was like,
is this just an Indian thing?
So, one time, I asked a Chinese mom.
I said, "Chinese mom...
...do you say sweet dreams to your kids?"
And she looked at me and she said,
"What is a dream?"
See, us immigrants, we're all the same.
We're practical people.
We're so practical that my daughter
once asked me, she's like,
"Mom, do Indian people
even love each other?"
She's like, I never see you guys
hold hands, or kissing.
Do you even, you know?
You know.
So, I told her, I said well, you are here.
And why do you think we pay for
so many tennis lessons?
Have you ever seen us at a match?
And Indian people only wrote
the ultimate book on sex.
To which she responded,
"We wrote Fifty Shades of Gray?"
No, we're practical people. We've
never even had a candlelight dinner.
Why would we? We came to America
for the electricity.
But I love it here now. Everything Indian
is hot right now in America.
Have you guys realized that?
Like Ayurveda, turmeric,
living with your parents.
[audience cheers]
Here, people bend over backwards to
accommodate me.
Sometimes, I have to tell them, relax,
don't offer me chai tea.
You don't know what it is.
And putting a tea bag in apple cider
is not chai tea.
Besides, we came here so we could order
from a list of
nine luke-warm coffee drinks.
They're always the same.
But don't invite me to meditate.
I'm already going broke on meditation.
And I have to tell them sometimes.
I'm like, what do you think will happen
when you go to India?
You think you're gonna get ice cubes?
You think you're gonna get ranch dressing?
You think you're gonna get a toilet seat?
Where do you think you are,
the Ritz Carlton?
You think you're gonna get bike lanes?
Bike lanes? They don't have car lanes.
See, New Yorkers think they're so tough.
I tell them, go to Calcutta for one day.
New York will feel like
a fun little village.
And you know, whoever said "it takes
a village" has never been to a village.
I remember when I watched a brown comic
for the first time.
You know, one of these
Indian-American kids born and raised here.
And they were complaining about their
overbearing, difficult to please parents.
I realized, I was like, "Oh,
I'm who they're talking about."
You know, we have a nickname
for these kids.
We call them A, B, C, Ds.
What does it stand for?
"American Born Confused Daisies."
What it should stand for is "Always
Bitching and Complaining Dumb-dumbs."
'Cause, God, they whine about everything.
It's like, "Oh, our parents made us
go to medical school."
Yeah, we don't want you
working for T-Mobile.
"We weren't allowed to go to summer camp."
Yeah, and you weren't molested.
"We're not allowed to marry who we want."
No, you can't marry that waitress
with the neck tattoo.
And you didn't even agree to go on
one date with my friend's daughter,
Priya Kapadia.
And these kids, they think
we don't know anything.
We're so old-fashioned.
They have a nickname for us.
They call us FOBs.
Which stands for
"Fresh Off the Boat."
What it should stand for is
"Full Of Benjamins."
[audience cheers]
Because guess who's gonna
subsidize the ceramics?
And we don't know anything,
we don't know anything.
It's just a complete coincidence
that every CEO in the world right now
is Indian.
Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Starbucks.
And some white guys in there, too,
but I forget their names.
But it's just a complete coincidence.
You think those CEOs
chose their own majors?
You think those CEOs
spent their summers swinging on a tire?
You think their parents ever said to them,
"Don't worry, be happy"?
And what do these kids want us
to say to them? "Go be a DJ."
Be a YouTuber.
UPS is always hiring philosophers.
Start practicing now,
"What can brown do for you?"
But there is one aspect of
American parenting that I really respect.
It's how they handle their gay kids.
Like, our community is lagging behind.
We have a lot of catching up to do.
You know, my cousin's son just came out.
And that family was not supportive at all.
They were like, not in our household,
not in this family.
And I called my cousin up. I said,
you cannot talk to your son like this.
You're gonna lose him.
[audience cheering]
And my husband was so impressed with me.
He's like, your cousin's son is gay and
you don't have a problem with that.
I told him, it's not my kid,
what do I care?
So, guess who st*lks me on TikTok?
My mother-in-law.
No, she really does, and I tell her,
can you not stalk me, please?
She's like, I'm not stalking you.
I go, you're only following one account.
At least follow Priyanka Chopra,
Patel Brothers, something.
And you know, I go live on TikTok,
guess who comes on right after me.
I'm like, "Can you get off?
I'm going live to talk sh*t about you."
[audience cheers]
This is just her. You know, my
mother-in-law, she lives in India,
but she comes to America
for three months at a time.
It's like she has her own season.
"Winter is coming..."
And when she's coming, she'll ask me,
what can I bring for you.
And I tell her, pack a g*n.
Bring some cocaine.
Throw some mangos in the bag.
I give her such great ideas
and yet she breezes past security.
And she doesn't speak much English,
so she gets nervous to fill out
that immigration paper, that you
have to fill to enter the country.
I tell her, I'm like, don't worry
about the immigration paper.
Just check "yes" on everything.
"Are you a communist?" Yes!
"Are you a t*rror1st?" Yes!
"Are you bringing fruits and vegetables?"
Yes!
Do you think
she's on a criminal watchlist?
No. She gets a wheelchair and
a priority pass.
The agent at the gate says,
thank you so much for coming.
Welcome to America.
I know "Welcome to America." Where are
the "Go back to your country" people
when I need them?
[audience cheers]
So, I'm Hindu, you guys.
Any Hindus in the house?
[audience cheers]
Hi, homies! My people.
So, I'm a reasonable, moderate Hindu.
You have to specify that
in the world we live in right now.
It's just not my fault that it's
the best religion out there.
[audience cheering]
Right? The other religions seem so angry
and organized.
Like Christianity;
"Confess before you die, or else."
Judaism; "You took an elevator
on a Friday night?"
No chicken soup for you.
Buddhism; so much chanting.
Even the Dalai Lama is like,
I heard you yesterday.
Islam; I'm not gonna go there.
Not gonna go there.
The Hindus are like, eh...
...do the best you can.
That's why we have reincarnation.
Carpe diem, or not.
So, I'm what I like to call Hindu Light.
I mean, we celebrate Diwali,
but I do take-out.
Why am I gonna cook for three days?
My mother-in-law's not here to spy on me.
My little one, my little son,
goes to Hindu Sunday school.
But I drop him and I go get mimosas
with my friends.
So, I'm Hindu Light,
but my brother who lives back home,
he's a believer.
He goes to the temple every day in Mumbai.
And every day, he FaceTimes me
from the temple.
And he points the phone at Ganesh.
And he says, quick, ask
what you want from God today.
How sweet, right?
My brother, he's thinking about me.
And I'm a good person.
I ask for nice things.
Like, cure cancer, end hunger,
world peace.
But every day?
Some days I get selfish.
Some days, I'm like,
how about an air fryer?
Or a comedy special.
[audience cheers]
No, I've been blessed.
I have so many blessings.
I've been blessed. And recently,
I got some great news in my family.
You guys want to hear it?
It's gonna make you so happy.
My 16-year-old son, so handsome...
He is now five foot eight and
one quarter inches tall!
This is amazing! The average Indian man
is five foot, five inches.
America made my son taller!
Usually, it makes people fatter.
My husband and I are both short people.
We used to pray to God
that our son should be tall.
But there is no Hindu God of height.
Nineteen thousand Hindu Gods.
And not one for the thing
every Indian person needs.
What good is it having all these extra
arms if you can't reach anything anywhere?
[audience cheers]
But speaking of extra arms and
where to put them; yoga.
Yoga is a thing now, right?
Any yogis in the house?
- [audience cheers]
- Yeah?
Yoga is a white people thing now.
We've, we've lost yoga to the West,
it's fine.
Like yoga used to be this boring,
passive activity
that people did in their pajamas.
The hardest pose used to be
Tadasana and Savasana.
Standing up and laying down.
Basically, if you were alive,
you were doing yoga.
And then, the Americans got involved
and it became a blood sport.
I live in New York City. I see
all these women with their yoga mats
and their two hundred dollar yoga pants
with holes in them.
And they're always rushing, rushing,
rushing to get to yoga class.
If you're rushing to get to yoga class,
you're doing it wrong.
[audience cheers]
And if you kick a homeless man's
change cup,
on the way to yoga, yoga can't help you.
You need therapy. Or,
at the very least, a drink.
But since there's so many yogis
in the room,
we're gonna do a quick pop quiz. Okay?
What's the name of this pose, right here?
[audience] Warrior.
Warrior, Warrior 2? Calm down,
Type A, calm down.
So, I just want to know,
what w*r are you fighting?
Like, North Korea
is loading up the missiles.
We've got this guy.
Okay, pop quiz two. What is the name
of that sweaty yoga?
Hot yoga, Bikram, right?
People love that.
The people who do that yoga,
they're hardcore.
Like, if you bump into Becky
who just came out of hot yoga,
she's so excited.
She's like, Oh, my God!
I just love that hot, sweaty yoga!
And she always wants to know,
do Indian people do hot yoga in India?
It is hot in India.
And people do yoga.
But we don't roll the furnace
into the room and blow it on our bodies.
That is not hot yoga, that is white yoga.
[audience cheering]
Okay, pop quiz three.
What do they say at the end of
every yoga class in America?
- [audience] Namaste.
- Namaste, right?
Wrong!
Namaste is "hello."
Somehow, it became "goodbye."
If you go walk into a store in India,
when you walk in they say namaste,
not when you leave.
They're gonna say a lot of things
when you leave.
If you leave without buying something,
they're gonna say [speaking Hindi].
Which means, "look who
took a sh*t and left."
But they're not gonna say namaste.
But speaking of sh*t things; g*ns.
g*n are a problem in America, right?
I get asked if g*ns are legal in India.
Yeah, they're legal,
but they're not really dangerous.
But the whole country has 15 b*ll*ts.
Which the police has to share.
I mean, there's something to be said
for living in an impoverished nation.
Who can think of a mass sh**ting when
the house is floating away in the monsoon?
And here, you always find out that
the people who commit these atrocities,
they were a loner. They were lonely,
they were alone.
But what Indian is ever alone?
Twelve people share one hut.
We still don't know how we got to
a billion people.
Then you find out that the sh**t
had mental health issues.
Mental health? There's
no mental health back home.
We still have cholera.
I remember when my husband got his
first big job in America.
It came with mental health days.
We were so excited.
Even he tried to game the system.
He's like, if I don't need three days
to cry, can I get overtime?
Another big issue in America; abortion.
That's a big one, right? Big issue.
I get asked, is abortion legal in India.
Legal? They have coupons.
Buy one, get one.
Fifty percent off if it's a girl.
Ohh, I crossed the line with that.
Okay, all right.
I made that one up, fine.
Although, I will tell you,
when I was pregnant, my own mother-in-law
said to me, and this is a true story,
she said to me, "In our family
we only get boys.
I don't know how it happens."
I was like, I have a few guesses.
[man] Oh-ho-ho-ho!
[audience laughs]
Takes a minute.
See, one time, a comedian asked me
how I got here.
I said, I took the six train.
But I'm gonna tell you guys
how I got here.
So, when I was 15-years-old,
I was this close to getting arranged.
And it wasn't to George Clooney.
My sister, who lived here in America put
everything on the line to bring me here.
My brothers back home defied my father
and helped me escape.
Leaving them behind is the hardest thing
I ever did in my life.
In Hindi, there's a saying;
[speaking Hindi]
Which means, "Fell from the sky,
but stuck in a date."
A date, a sweet piece of fruit.
So, this is my sweet destiny.
To be a loudmouth American woman!
[audience cheering]
Who gets paid!
And you know, like all immigrants,
I'm still torn.
My heart still beats for India.
But I love my Whirlpool washer and dryer.
I still start every day
with the Indian newspaper.
Also, because I need the material.
And there's some things I'll just
never get used to in this country.
Like here, people love to say "I love you"
all the time and to everybody.
Like, I love you in the morning,
I love you in the evening.
Going to school, I love you,
came home from work, I love you.
Empty the dishwasher...
I really love you.
So much love. I hate it.
I've never said I love you
to my husband.
No, it's okay. It's only been 23 years,
what's the rush?
But if he said it to me,
I'd know he's cheating on me.
With a white woman.
Where else would he learn this nonsense?
And you know, we don't use words
like "sweetheart,"
"honey pie," "love chunks."
Like, not even on my death bed
would I use those words.
On my death bed, I'm gonna be screaming
"find a job that matches your 401k."
But I do have a confession to make.
I have said I love you one time,
and meant it.
To an Amazon customer service
representative.
Right, you guys...
And my daughter overheard me.
She's like, "Mom, you just said
I love you to Amazon.
I said, so?
And she goes, "You've never said
I love you to me."
I said, "We don't have
that kind of relationship.
You never help me find a package."
See, there's a lot of love in America,
a lot of love,
but a little bit of hate, too.
A little bit of racism is
a part of living here.
You know, so, I recently posted a flyer
about a show I was doing.
And somebody commented,
"That's gonna be a smelly show."
Right? So, my followers got all upset.
They're like, "You can say that,
take that back."
And this guy didn't back down,
he doubled down.
He said, "You can't smell it
'cause you're all Indian."
[audience groans]
See, because of guys like him,
we wear so much deodorant,
we're all gonna get Alzheimer's.
And I'm just gonna address this
once and for all.
It is true, we cook with spices.
It's because we have this thing
we like to use called taste buds.
[audience cheering]
Who here likes butter chicken?
[audience cheers]
How good is it, right? It's so good,
the British made it their national dish.
In fact, that's how we got
the British to leave India,
we gave them the recipe.
And we smell? Let's talk about
the food people cook here.
My neighbor makes salmon every night.
To me, it smells like
a rotten can of cat food.
And let's talk about
the beloved hot dog carts.
Every time I walk by one,
it smells like 50 fat men
farted in a sauna.
But the thing about racism is
that we're not as bothered by it
as people might expect.
Because we come from one of
the most r*cist countries on Earth.
We have a color chart back home...
...to determine how light or dark
our skin is.
Like, I'm a Winter Wheat.
As long as I stay indoors.
If I go out, I'm a Tiramisu.
So, you guys remember that scandal
that happened with Meghan Markle,
and somebody in the royal family
asked how dark the baby was gonna be.
You remember that?
Somebody, the Queen.
When that scandal happened,
nobody in India could understand
what the problem was.
They were like, every Indian mother-in-law
has asked this question.
Thank God, my daughter, when she was born,
she was a Cappuccino Foam.
But coming back to the mean Instagram guy,
this guy just kept at it
with my followers, and then he posted,
"Holla to Allah."
So, I was like, first of all,
I'm Hindu.
So, he's not a Jeopardy champion.
Second of all, being Hindu,
I'm not even allowed to k*ll a fly.
Which is the only reason he's still alive.
And then, I almost blocked him.
But then, I realized,
I'm gonna lose all this engagement.
So, you know what I did?
I took screen sh*ts of all his comments
and I posted them on Twitter.
And I tagged Salman Rushdie,
Mindy Kaling,
and the Jonas Brothers.
[audience cheers]
By the time their fans were done with him,
I had 12,000 new followers.
[audience cheering]
Goodnight, guys!
[cheering continues]
Do you guys want to meet the people
I've been talking about for an hour?
[audience cheers]
So, my youngest, the sweetest,
the smartest boy in our family
DeVry University graduate,
Class of 2034.
Please welcome my little one, Vir Garg.
[audience cheers]
My older son, also known as
The Important One,
16-year-old, so handsome.
You know, the one who
launched my TikTok channel for me.
Please welcome Brij!
[audience cheers]
My firstborn, STEM major,
Ceramics minor,
the one who saw this comedy career for me
long before I did...
Give it up for my daughter, Zoya!
[audience cheers]
And Mr. Logic Man, himself,
the man with enough patience
to put up with this,
You know, he takes such brutal...
Oh, my God.
People, people are mean to me,
I don't care.
But like, he takes, he, like you can't...
"Oh, you let your wife do this."
He's the biggest like of my life.
My best friend, Shalabh.
[audience cheers]
Thank you, guys!
This has been amazing!
[cheering continues]
Zarna Garg: One in a Billion (2023)
Moderator: Maskath3