As they wrap up the final leg of their tour in Mumbai, Brown Women Comedy, its producer-writer Daizy Maan, talks about her journey as a stand-up comedian, and dissecting the representation card on stage
Daizy Maan
Comedy is not an easy business. Ask Daizy Maan. For the last two weeks, the Melbourne-based writer-comedian has been travelling across the length of the country. “It has been great. We opened in Mumbai, and it was my first-time doing comedy in the city. It was quite fun discovering the jokes that land, and why they work,” she admits. Maan has been to India before though. Born and raised in Melbourne, amidst a conservative Punjabi family, the journey to become a comedian forms the basis of her show, Brown Women Comedy. With the final leg in Mumbai wrapping up with a show in Khar on January 16, the producer talks us through her journey.
Comedy was not high on the 31-year old’s plans. “I did not start taking comedy seriously till about five years ago. Even then, the first two years were spent producing shows,” she admits. But living in Melbourne, the art was an inevitable part of her experience with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Kru Harale, Supriya Joshi and Devanshi Shah
It was during one of these festival runs in 2022 that Maan realised the absence of diaspora representation at the festival despite Indians being a large minority in Australia. “I went around attending gigs. We realised there were only three Indian women performing solo shows, as shown by a research made by Australian South Asian Centre on the lack of ethnic diversity on stage. It made me wonder if there were others of my ilk,” she laughs. That laid the foundations for the set, Brown Women Comedy.
A pind in Melbourne
The ‘Brown’ in the title was an identifier beyond skin tone. “I grew up in a very Punjabi home in Melbourne. My parents migrated to Australia in the 1990s, but culturally it felt like growing up in a pind [village] in Ludhiana,” the comedienne recalls.
Despite her humour, Maan did not grow up idolising comedians. As the Boroondara Young Citizen of the Year in 2015, a delegate for Australia India Youth Dialogue, one would think Maan was the ideal child. “Comedy was never an obvious aspiration. The huour comes from that gap, from explaining one world to another,” she says.
Finding rebels
As producer, Maan used this idea to apply for funding to the Centre for Australia India Relations (CAIR), that enabled them to bring the show to stage. The show is now supported by the Australian Consulate in India, and Kommune. On Friday, the Australia-based duo of Maan and Kru Harale will join the Indian talents of Supriya Joshi and Devanshi Shah. “We first began in April at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, with a set featuring Niv Prakasam and Ramya Ramapriya. The audience loved the show back home,” Maan shares.
The sight of women cackling to jokes that were taboo in most Asian-Australian households only affirmed her decision to take it on tour. “I was a little hesitant about the title Brown Women Comedy in India. But then, our comedy was never about colour, but about perspective; something in contrast to the mainstream.” she says. Yet, there is a common thread that ties the squad. “You have to look at what it means to be a woman in India. Female comedians here thrive on picking up taboo subjects, and use humour to address them,” she points out. The perfect riposte, she concludes. One has to concur.
ON January 16; 8 pm
AT The Habitat, 1st floor, Hotel Unicontinental, Khar West.
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