The Outsider, page 24
The day we filmed I think we all knew it was special. It was the culmination of all the confusion I had felt in the last year. How displaced I was. How hurt I was. How ashamed I was. And what it meant to love your country even when it didn’t love you back.
Because Netflix did no publicity for the special, my American publicist, Pam, went into hyper mode, taking it to American outlets. Around this time my immigration attorney was calling constantly about the green card, asking if I had made up my mind about whether to apply. And then Pam lands what she calls “a big fish.” A Very Important American Magazine (which I shall not name) asked to do a ten-thousand-word profile of me. This magazine is extremely highbrow and literary, so the idea of getting a massive profile had my managers in America practically throwing a parade in my honor. What a thing, to go from feeling like a complete failure to feeling like this American magazine wanted to hear all about me—in ten thousand words. I responded by saying, “I’m not sure,” and everyone just kind of flips out, saying: “YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? THIS IS THE ____ ________! THEY DON’T DO PROFILES ON JUST ANYONE!!!” So I decided to get on the phone with the magazine.
Now keep in mind, I’d gone on a few podcasts where people were asking about the threats and the police and the drama and how scared I was, and I was like, “Can we just talk about the jokes?”
When I got on the phone with the reporter, they did not want to talk about the jokes.
“Can I talk to the police?”
“Was your wife afraid?”
“Can I see the investigation papers?”
“Will your lawyer talk to me?”
“How powerful is this politician?”
“Will you be arrested anytime in the near future?”
“Can we be with you on release day in case you go to jail?”
To which I wanted to respond, “Yeah, but what did you think of the jokes? The lights? The sand?”
I think the final straw for me was interview number three, where the reporter was asking me about democracy and censorship. It just felt like my story was being fetishized and stolen from me. I didn’t want to be another brown person being turned into a commodity. I distinctly remember thinking, “You want to write about what happened to me across the world, so you and your readers can feel better about where you live?”
There is something Conan O’Brien pointed out to me when I went on his podcast, and it didn’t fully hit me until he said it out loud. He said, “What I love about this special is this: When celebrities have a horrible experience, some people go cry on Oprah or the equivalent, and you just write jokes.”
Conan got it. So would my team if I told them I was not doing the Big Important Profile… right?
If you think calling your family and telling them your country thinks you’re a terrorist is hard, try calling an American agent and telling them you want to pull out of a profile with the Very Important American Magazine. They tried their best to convince me to do it, but it just felt wrong to me. So I pulled out.
About four months later, they did the Big Important Story about another brown entertainer. They fact-checked his comedy routine and turned his own narrative of his own experience into something they used to make their readers feel virtuous. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet. I would love to be embraced by America, but it has to be me telling my story. I don’t want some cheapened version of what I’m about or how I’ve lived or who I am.
Controversy is a short-term currency that helps you sell short-term tickets, but it doesn’t help you fall asleep at night. I struggled with PTSD for a long time after the controversy. When I did shows, I was looking at the door every three seconds expecting someone to storm in, a mob to come rushing on to the stage. I finally told my therapist that if I didn’t find a way to enjoy comedy again, they’d win. It took a while, but I finally started to enjoy it again. I stopped looking at the door.
Here’s something I also know. I am an English comedian in India. Now don’t get me wrong, we have one of the largest English-speaking audiences in the world. We actually have as large an English audience as America right now. But there is a competitive ceiling in India for an English comedian. If you do comedy in Hindi, my lord, the world is your oyster. That gives way to TV, movies, writing, and an audience of close to a billion. But if you do comedy in English and you want to know if you’re really good, you have to break that ceiling. It’s not a financial ceiling, you can make a great living for the rest of your life as long as you can maintain relevance. It’s an artistic ceiling. There aren’t enough of us yet for you to truly know if you are undeniable. There is an entire world you can compete with. The only way to get good at tennis is to go to where the good tennis is.
Weird choice. I can stay and maybe plateau, or I can leave and my craft can rise along with my loneliness. Or I hope this world changes into a small enough digital space where I can do both? A truly global life? Die on a plane? Live in limbo before I head to it?
My friend and fellow comedian Zarna once frantically messaged me, “I know your heart is in India, but you need to bend your heart into submission and take the huge step that your art deserves. You are the only Indian positioned to reach those heights.”
I do not agree with her second statement. But she got my heart right. It was torn.
To give you context, I started writing this chapter a year ago. I just finished it, twelve months later, with absolutely zero internal movement on the decision.
I’ve always admired people who can get up and go. Because leaving for a foreign shore means leaving their loved ones and their roots behind. For me it’s more than that. I’ve left those behind at least six times in my life. For me it’s leaving my perspective behind.
I look at Indians settled abroad, and they seem entirely out of touch with a country that is undeniably claiming its power in the future. We’re on the precipice of unchallenged global greatness. With a perspective everyone will want to hear. If we get there, when we do, I don’t want to be caught doing jokes about Gavin Newsom, emotional support animals, and rapper beefs.
Maybe I’ll leave one day, maybe I’ll find just the right balance. Or, at the peak of my career, with enough money, maybe I’ll just fuck right off. And then one day, social media accounts gone, take my money and start a café in a tiny village in France where no one knows who I am. Shivani says I would go insane in three months, start a Hamateur night at the café, launch a French Weirdass, and build a comedy scene in the village.
Honestly, it doesn’t sound half-bad.
For now, I’m still pushing it out another five months, another year. And when people ask where I am, where I belong, I just say I’m not anywhere. I’m everywhere.
I’m figuring it out.
A SHORT DOSE OF GROUNDING
Sometimes when I have writer’s block, I like to go watch something. I was at a hotel near Lincoln Center in New York City feeling blocked while working on this book. So I called the concierge and asked him to get me tickets to the next jazz concert I could see. He booked me something at 8:00 p.m. An hour-long performance.
I sat down at this jazz club they have called Dizzy’s, and a woman joins me at the table. She’s American and about fifty-five. She says, “Which one’s yours?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which kid is yours?”
Then thirty high school teenagers with acne come onto the stage. The concierge had booked me a high school jazz recital.
I say, “Uh… I’m just here to watch.” Which is the WRONG fucking thing to say to a parent. I now realize that everyone in this club is a parent eagerly filming one member of the band on their phone, beaming with pride, except for a random bearded brown man with an Indian accent who just “showed up.”
I now have to explain to this American lady that I’m not some shady creep who randomly shows up to watch other people’s children play jazz. Eventually I wish her and her daughter luck with jazz school in Los Angeles, for which the kid auditions in two weeks. Also, why the fuck would the Lincoln Center ticket something like that, as if it’s a regular jazz show? Which, by the way… was terrible! Only one of those kids had talent.
Take it from me, I was in Bad Attitude.
CHAPTER TWELVE B.W.D.
Lucy. Stupid. Watson. If you want to truly get to know me, you have to know Watson. I realize writing an entire chapter devoted to a dog might seem unusual, but this dog is (and was) the best part of me. If there was one being on earth around whom I felt totally, completely, and utterly myself, this damn dog was it. Caring for him, and losing him, is the toughest thing I’ve ever gone through.
So, yup, here’s a chapter about a dog. Specifically, a British bulldog aptly named Dr. Watson.
As I write this, I’m at home in India, in a room decorated as if it’s England circa 1840. It’s a little weird to have British influences, since it’s a culture I’m supposed to hate (colonialism, remember). But in my more egotistical moments, I fancy myself a Sherlock. And every Sherlock needs a Watson. I don’t know why I gravitated toward the stories. As much as this sounds like a clichéd montage from a 1980s movie, I hid in the library through a lot of my boarding school bullying. I picked up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes collection there, and he quickly became my favorite fictional character. He was superintelligent, bad with people, more obsessed with what was in his brain than with the world around him. Something about that world drew me in, this foggy, chilly England where people wore overcoats, where principled thieves thrived in the shadows. There were lots of pipe smoke and messy parlors. I think those books were the reason I brought a British bulldog into humid Mumbai, a city dominated by muggy monsoons, insane heat, and tiny apartments.
We had dogs growing up, and for years I knew that one day I’d get a British bulldog and name him Dr. Watson. I also wanted to get a bloodhound and call it Toby, but I had no clue that highbred dogs are always five seconds away from death in Mumbai, no matter their age. The weather isn’t conducive to their health. It’s not cool and rainy like in Britain, it’s hot as hell, and when it rains, it monsoons. But as you can probably tell by now, I’m a person who, if I decide to do something, I’ll go all in. I’ll buy all the tech, gather all the equipment, and then I’ll probably suck at it, but I’m still going to try it, damn it. I’m that guy. Before I entered the minimalism phase of my life, I had fifteen guitars, even though my playing is not great. I had about nine sound cards for making music, and I never figured out how to operate the things. And don’t get me started on martial arts equipment. I could probably get my ass beat by a thirteen-year-old, so no amount of equipment could save me.
Turns out not a lot of people in India had the same British bulldog obsession that I did. Lovers of these dogs form a very tight-knit community, and they all give you the same advice: Make sure your first dog is not a British bulldog. They are not for beginners. They are very tough to care for and require seasoned dog owners. But since when does Sherlock listen to the community?
In this case, though, the community had a point.
Have you met a bulldog? Let’s break this down: They have toxic shit and toxic farts. When I say “toxic,” I am not exaggerating in any way whatsoever. Consider the average human shit, then expose that to nuclear radiation, then put it in an oven full of masalas and gasoline, and that is what fresh British bulldog shit smells like. The average bulldog fart is released about twenty times a day, precariously and precisely in the direction of your nose. They love farting in your face. There is no graceful way to say it. Watson would do this thing where he would stick his bum into your armpit when you were sleeping, as if your chest was this little cave where he felt secure. Anyone who has had a dog knows that there is no better feeling than this. It’s like a safety and love that you physically imprint on each other as your breathing syncs and you both fall asleep. Then, just as you’re fading away, the fucker farts in your face and singes your nostril hair off. But you just keep cuddling with them.
Then there’s the face. That iconic squishy Churchill face. You can never tell if they are angry or happy. The face comes with wrinkles that need to be maintained, wrinkles that smell almost as much as the anus that could create crop circles with a single gust. You have to clean these damn things thrice a day because they are covered in drool. Because bulldogs want to eat everything, and they eat it with their entire face, you also have to clean their eyeballs. Your entire house, every single piece of furniture, every piece of clothing you have ever loved, is covered in this toxic drool that physically—yes, I mean physically—burns when it touches your skin. Oh, and the loud snores? Having a British bulldog is like living with a malfunctioning motorcycle. And then there are the grunts. Grunts mean I love you, I hate this, I refuse, let’s go. They don’t bark, they grunt. Kind of like the grunts made by old uncles wearing joggers in Mumbai parks, making their way around the track. British bulldogs don’t really lick to show affection, they just kind of shove their face into your face and grunt in your ear or your eyeball and melt away every single problem you’ve ever had.
It’s hard to explain that sound. It sounds like home. All I can tell you is I still hear it when I’m asleep sometimes. I hear Watson grunting in my ear, and I wake up, and look at a photo of him that I take everywhere I go in the world. This photo has been on four world tours; it’s been in the background of every single Netflix special I’ve ever done. I’ll usually wake up after hearing a grunt and see the photo right by my bed. Four years since he passed, and it’s like he’s still here. That sound is as familiar to me as an AC compressor kicking in at Baba’s house, the sound of a Lagos beach, the sound of a mic check in any venue in the world, one of the songs my band plays at a festival, Shivani’s gentle “Viiiiir” from another room, the buzz of a film set. Sounds that, when you close your eyes, you instantly know where you are and your body drums up all the emotions that you’re supposed to feel in that place. I hear a grunt, and it resets me, reminds me to be someone simpler, someone more joyful. It reminds me that I am not alone.
Here’s how Watson and his grunts came into our lives.
When Shivani and I moved in together in 2009, we went to the mountains for a few weeks so I could write History of India. We stayed in a guesthouse that had a dog, so we got a taste of what it might be like to live with a dog full-time. Soon I thought, “Okay, maybe we should get that dog.” This practice dog was so easy! But what we didn’t figure into the decision was the fact that we’d been spending time with a fully trained adult dog, which is nothing like living with a puppy. Ignorance is bliss, and it also led us to Watson.
I spent six months researching where to find English bulldogs in India. I found a few places, and then I went off to shoot a movie. While I was gone, Shivani began the search for some bulldog puppies. Most were cute, but there was one that caught her attention. He looked malnourished and disheveled. He was the runt, and she fell in love with him. In India there are agents that sell dogs, and multiple agents can “represent” one puppy. Three different agents had shown her photos of this one sad little puppy, so he kept showing up to her throughout the day.
She went and met the puppy, and as soon as she held him, she knew. He was THE ONE. When I spoke to her, and she sent me a photo of this malnourished dog, I said… no. Yep. Smart move. Have you ever told a girl you love that you don’t want the puppy she wants? There is no corner of Russia colder than the look I got when I saw her face in Mumbai—a look that said, What kind of monster does such a thing?
When I got back home, I took one look at her face and booked a flight to Bengaluru to get the dog. He was about five weeks old and still looked like shit. I took him to the vet to make sure he was healthy, and when it was time to bring him home, I was told that you couldn’t fly with a bulldog. This was before there were twenty-five emotional support animals on every flight, so I was screwed. I don’t typically take advantage of the perks of fame, but I made some calls and was able to carry Watson onto the plane and hold him in my lap. I booked the very last row of economy on Air India. Thank god for Air India. I boarded with this bulldog in my arms. He was only slightly bigger than my palm. It was like walking on with something the size of one of those cylindrical Bluetooth speakers, but one that only grunts.
I took my seat and laid Watson against my belly. He looked up at me and gently fell asleep, as if he had found something he had been searching for forever, even though he’d only been on the planet for five weeks. Like two Lego pieces that click, we just fit. If there’s a moment in which you imprint upon a child or a child imprints upon you, ours happened on that plane ride. I’d done some research and read that if you mimic the mother’s breathing, a puppy will fall asleep. So there I was, holding this small round ball on my lap, doing rapid breathing to mimic a dog. I looked like a yoga guru having an anxiety attack. Instead of the puppy passing out, I passed out.
When I woke up mid-flight, Watson wasn’t moving. He was fast asleep and a little too still. I gave him a gentle shake, but nothing. I gave him a heavier shake. Still nothing. I was getting worried, so I started violently shaking him, which made it look like I was choking a puppy in the middle of an Air India flight. I distinctly remember the lady across from me looking at me like I was some puppy murderer who chose venues at thirty thousand feet to slay his victims. The dog still did not wake up. And at thirty thousand feet in the air, I started to cry. God only knows why, because I’d just met this little rat earlier that day. I distinctly remember thinking, “He looked at me like he trusted me and like he was gonna be okay. But now he’s not okay.”
In the middle of my panic, the in-flight meal showed up. I took a piece of chicken tikka and held it near his nose, and guess what? The fucking dog woke up. Like nothing had ever happened, this fucker smelled the tikka and opened his eyes. This British bulldog was Punjabi. This experience set the tone of our entire relationship. Watson was near death for his entire life, but when food came along, he was fully alive.
