Stand up,SAY IT

Though the Texan often draws on his Indian backgroundjoking about his Malayalee surname and the accent of the tech support guy in India who pronounces his name with a drawl more American than his ownVarghese says he is an American who takes a lot from his varied background.

Speaking of which,how about your father being a nuclear physicist from India and your mother a child psychologist from Japan? Dan Nainan,28,a stand-up comic from Bloomington,Indiana,has been answering this question for a long time. I cant tell you how many people come up to me after a show and tell me that they were wondering what race I was when I stepped on stage, he says. Nainan,half Keralite and half Japanese,loves this mixat least from a culinary point of view. Indian and Japanese foodit was paradise. How can you go wrong? I guess you could say life was a bowl of rice. One of my favorite meals was and still is KFCKerala Fish Curry.

As a child,Nainan says,he spoke only Japanese. That was because my mother stayed home to raise me. Of course,I learnt English after I went to school. Unfortunately,my mother didnt speak Malayalam and my father didnt speak Japanese,so we all spoke English. But I would give anything to learn Malayalam, says Nainan,who has also been on Last Comic Standing and Saturday Night Live. He has done a variety of TV commercials and appeared on many radio stations around the US. He is currently playing a small role in M. Night Shyamalans next,The Last Airbender.

Another name that has everyone doubling up in laughter is Hari Kondabolu,who,according to The Seattle Times,is a young man reaching for the hand-scalding torch of confrontational comics. Kondabolu has performed on,Live at Gotham and was featured in the 2007 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival. Kondabolu,whose current hero is British comedian Stewart Lee,says,Ive also been inspired by comics like Lenny Bruce,Paul Mooney,Richard Pryor and Marc Maron. Margaret Cho was my favourite comic when I was in high school.

Kondabolus big hit is his elephant joke,which was aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
I was a Republican when I was seven because the symbol of the Republican Party is an elephant and Im a Hindu,and so,I got confused. Though he is tired of this joke and doesnt tell it anymore,people seem to love it.

There are other things that Kondabolu hopes people will appreciateskillful comedy. He wonders out loud,to a packed house,as to why his name looks like an error in a Word document. How can a spell-check not recognise my name? There have to be five million Indian people named Hari in this world,and most of them must be working for Microsoft! Kondabolu has an astringent style of comedy,so when he asks,Arent Christianity and Islam just sequels to Judaism?,you know he doesnt lean too heavily on his family for material.

Though he calls himself a proud American,like any good south Indian boy,Kondabolu loves eating with his fingers. Its an Indian home but my brother and I are Americans,so there are things we cant connect with our parents. And humour is something that doesnt always translate. We have no idea why Johnny Lever is funny.
But it is also the Johnny Lever-loving uncle and aunties who love the new stand-up comics. As Varghese says,A lot of my desi material is geared towards uncles and aunties. About a third of my income comes from performing at Indian functions where the majority of the crowd is older.

But comedy is serious business and that means a constant search for ideas. If I think of something funny or hear something funny I write it down in my smartphone, says Nainan. Varghese too makes his funny notes. Material for me comes from negative emotions: frustration,worry,sadness,anger. So I write down what frustrates me throughout the day and I tend to find something to work on from that.

So what is it like clutching a microphone,to be judged by sceptical and often hostile strangers? It is great entertaining people,especially if they are open minded. It is difficult with the ones that just stare. Id rather have an audience that boos than stares in silence. I need some kind of reaction to feed off from, says Varghese.

But why should only boys have all the laughs? Vijai Nathan,who grew up in a traditional south Indian household in Maryland in the 1970s,has got the laughs going with her Good Girls Dont,But Indian Girls Do show. Vijai,who gives us a peek into her Tamilian household,says,My dad was an intellectual and an atheist and my mom is very Hindu and very superstitious. She firmly believes in rahukalam and we cant do anything without checking the Hindu calendar for an auspicious time.

Vijai does have her superstitious side too,she wears a ring with six diamonds all the time. She says,Each stone represents someone who is close to me or who I like to think about before I perform.
Vijai was once mistaken for a Red Indian and that incident is now one of her classic jokes: This guy shouts out Whoo hoo! Keep it going for the Cherokee! So I said,Sir,Im not the kind of Indian with bows and arrows. Im the kind with unlimited access to nuclear weaponry.

Like her grandfather Nammakkal Ramalingam Pillai,a poet laureate of Tamil Nadu,Vijai too has a way with words. She worked as a journalist with Newsday and The Baltimore Sun,before she got people cracking up at her jokes. She says,I have fans who are over 80 years old. I dont know if their hearing works,but they still seem to be laughing. For the younger audience,I talk about dating and pop-culture.

But being a woman comes with its demands,says Vijai. I feel pressured to only express one side of myselfthe jovial family-friendly side. If I get too racy,I am a bad Indian girl. But the male comics can get away with it. It is something I struggle with.
While India is not yet on their radar,these comics hope to perform in their parents homeland someday. But for now,they are busy under the spotlight,clutching the microphone and tickling the world pink.