What If You’re Capable of More Than You Think?

A quiet writer steps onto the stage, armed with rejection letters and a trembling voice, only to discover the strange joy of making people laugh.

Performing for the first time at The Habitat, Khar, Mumbai – May 2019

How do you measure what you do with your life? How do you find out what you are capable of?

In school, I loved writing essays, short stories, and arguments for debates, but I almost always handed over the microphone to someone else. Jafir, a friend with a voice like conviction, would go on stage while I remained the quiet writer behind the scenes.

The first time I spoke in front of an audience was years later, in Mumbai. I was out of college, working, and terrified. But I did it. My hands were shaking, but I left the stage feeling like I had just discovered a small superpower. That I could do poetry. That I could be heard.

But comedy? That felt like a world away.

Stand-up requires presence, wit, timing, wordplay, a kind of courage that makes vulnerability look easy. I never thought I could do it… until I did.

In early April, I performed a forty-five-minute stand-up set in front of about seventy young people at a fundraiser in Leipzig. What made me even more nervous was the audience, they were young, idealist, uni students, quite conscious and aware of the world (and German :)

That educated crowd terrified me.

So, like young Mark Critch (a character in the sitcom - Son of a Critch who aspired to be a comedian), I decided to be myself (easier said than done).

I told stories about my never-ending job applications, daily rejection emails, and interview conversations (like where do you see yourself in five years, can't believe they still ask this question).

People laughed. They actually laughed!

There is something oddly liberating about being able to laugh at your own rejections. It takes an excruciating emotional toll to get to a place where a “no” does not pierce your core. I have not mastered it, but sometimes, I can shrug at it now. Sometimes, even smile.

I do not know what I am measuring this by. But perhaps the point is not the measure. Perhaps it is the trying. The standing up. The writing. The risk of failing. And the surprising joy when someone laughs with you.

PS: these photos are from 19 May 2019, from my first show at The Habitat Mumbai. Sadly, there aren't any photos from the April show :(