“Funny desi aunty” Zarna Garg has a lot to look forward to with a new comedy special and movie out soon. But in her new memoir, she also looks back at her beginnings right here, in Mumbai
A still from the film, A Nice Indian Boy, which premieres in India soon. Pic courtesy/A Nice Indian Boy
If the hit web series The Marvelous Mrs Maisel was about an Indian woman, it might look a little like Zarna Garg’s life. But, only on the surface. There’s the same trajectory of a stay-at-home wife hitting a real low point in life, a major identity crisis, until she finally finds her true calling with an impromptu stand-up performance at an open mic night in a basement in New York City. And, then goes on to become a world-famous comedian.
Like Mrs Maisel, Garg grew up in an affluent but orthodox family that didn’t quite know what to make of her outspoken nature or, at times, brash humour. Except, Garg grew up not in NYC, but right here in Mumbai, as the youngest child of an export merchant. In the US, her motormouth and fiercely independent streak would have been celebrated as “American teen spirit”; here, it became the reason why she was kicked out of her home at just 14.
Zarna Garg
There’s nothing funny about a 14-year-old being disowned by her father because she refuses to be traded off in an arranged marriage weeks after her mother’s death. Or, how she went from a comfortable SoBo life in a 5,000-square-foot Nepean Sea Road apartment to being homeless for close to two years, until she moved to the US. It’s not the most obvious material for comedy. And yet, as we read her new memoir, This American Woman, Garg’s matter-of-fact comedic voice forces chuckles out of us even as we sob over her many misfortunes (emotional and financial abuse by her father, suffering through the often dehumanising arranged marriage market, losing all of her family’s savings during the pandemic).
“We really tried to write it in an entertaining and, hopefully, funny way. Even though it’s a real story with ups and downs, I hope the book makes people smile and laugh,” she tells us over a video call from her NYC home. How does she make comedic gold out of all the lemons life has thrown at her? “A lot of comedy comes from dark places,” she says, “Stand-up comedy as an art form was developed in concentration camps when people had nothing. If you think of what comics do, these jokes are developed in the middle of the night by people who have literally nothing and are hanging on to their last hope.”
With her husband, Shalabh Garg, who has been her greatest champion. Pic courtesy/This American Woman
Garg takes gentle and yet incisive potshots at the patriarchal culture she grew up fighting, from not being allowed to read the newspaper to refusing to give up her right to choose her own life path and partner. “I remember running to read the newspapers — including mid-day — and folding it back perfectly so my father wouldn’t find out. I was obsessed with learning. Even today, if my flight is delayed, I’ll look up how to fly a plane,” quips Garg, who didn’t even consider marriage until she had earned her law degree at 22 — a spinster by traditional Gujarati standards at the time.
When she was ready for marriage, she took matters into her own hands, publishing a hilarious ad; “something along the lines of ‘I’m short and I’m fat and I’m bossy’,” and then asking interested suitors to send her their tax returns and medical records. Unlikely as it seems, that’s how she met her husband and biggest champion — Shalabh Garg. Despite her ambition, marriage and motherhood eventually took over Garg’s life. She tried her hand at many businesses (disposable toothbrushes, vegetarian chilli [stew] and even a matchmaking service), but they all failed.
“When my third kid started school full-time, I was feeling lost, thinking, what do I want to do with my life, this can’t be it,” says the comedian, “My daughter Zoya was the one who said, ‘Mom, people love hearing your stories, you should try stand-up’. And that’s how I ended up going on stage the first time at 44, just to shut my kids up.” It’s hard to believe there was no one doing Indian mother-in-law jokes until Garg arrived on the scene. “There’s a universal audience for that,” chuckles the comedian from New York City best known for her “funny brown mom/aunty” persona.
From calling her mother-in-law the C-word, to quipping that the way to make American great again is to get black and brown folks out of prison and put all the mothers-in-law there, her humour is on the very edge of relatable and provocative. There are plenty of people yelling their displeasure in the comments section on her Instagram, particularly when she cracks jokes about family. During one show, she had joked that her husband can’t wait for her to be on TV, because he finally gets to put her on mute. “People said, ‘Oh my God, that’s so mean’. It’s a joke. Every married man has had a moment where they’ve thought, ‘I wish she’d be quiet’.”
Never one to hold back, she recently revealed on her podcast, The Zarna Garg Family Podcast, that she’d used weight loss medication. She got hundreds of DMs, some lauding her for her openness, others trolling her. “The fact that it made headlines in India was hilarious — I have to write a joke about that,” she says, “If there is medication out there that can help me live a healthier life, I would be stupid not to take it. There are guys out there taking Viagra all day long, I don’t ask them why they take it.”
At her shows, “Indian uncles come with such hostile energy. You just know that their wives or daughters or somebody dragged them in,” she says. “But after five minutes, even they can’t help laughing and relaxing. I think it’s a matter of keeping an open mind.”
India — eager fans and grudging uncles alike — will get to see a whole lot more of Garg in the coming weeks. On July 18, her new special, Practical People Win, will start streaming on JioHotstar, while on July 25, she’ll be here in the city taping her podcast live. She’s also looking forward to the Indian premiere of a new movie she’s starred in, A Nice Indian Boy. “There’s a lot more coming,” says the prolific entertainer, who’s already moved on to her next project with Mindy Kaling.
Indian heart, American dream
On the creative concept behind her book’s cover, Garg says, “I will die an Indian woman; that’s who I am. But there’s something very American about my life; this could only have happened in the US. I kind of fell into America, I wasn’t the immigrant who was looking to leave India. And I wanted to honour both these truths of my life.”
On the “brown auntie” look
When it came to picking her signature look, Zarna Garg didn’t have to look too far. “I just decided to embrace who I really am — a simple, grounded, Indian mother who is obsessed with her kids’ education, and focused on living a very boring life,” she quips. “I love kurtas, and have always worn bindis. Although Photoshop filters sometimes read my bindi as a mole and automatically erase it.”
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