[Audience Clapping]
Thank you so much.
It is great to be here.
As you probably guessed,
I'm originally from Ohio.
[Audience Laughing]
I was born in Cincinnati.
Well, I'm Hindu,
so I was reborn
in Cincinnati.
if I work
really hard in this life,
I think for my next one
I can get reborn
in Cleveland.
[Audience Laughing]
I told that to a friend.
He goes, “Oh, well,
“then you'll be one of those
“Cleveland Indians.
[Audience Laughing]
“Or a Cleveland Brown.”
[Audience Laughing]
I was like,
Don't be so cavalier.
[Audience Laughing]
What would make sense
actually is if
I'm reborn in
Columbus, Ohio,
because after all,
Christopher Columbus
was looking for us.
[Audience Laughing]
You know that's
why we're all here, right?
He got lost
on his way to India,
and he ended up
in America. That's true.
What's crazy is
if Columbus landed on
either coast
of the United States today,
New Jersey or Silicon Valley,
he would find real Indians
[Audience Laughing]
They were just
500 years too early.
[Audience Laughing]
I actually,
growing up in Ohio, did not
experience much racism,
and I can't believe that
people are still racist.
That is so gay.
I can say that.
I can say that,
because I'm homophobic.
No.
Though, I can say that actually
because I have
a gay brother.
That is true.
I have a gay brother.
I was a big moment
when he came out
of the closet.
Well, we're Indians
so he came out of
the cupboard.
[Audience Laughing]
[Audience Clapping]
[Audience Laughing]
Gay or straight,
dating in Ohio as a brown
kid was not easy.
Alright.
I'm not saying White girls
did not call my house
in high school.
They did, but it was
so I could help them
with homework.
[Audience Laughing]
My dad would be all excited.
“Hey, Rajeev, Mandy
“is on the phone.
“Isn't Mandy the captain
“of the cheerleading squad?”
Like. Relax, Dad.
Mandy’s failing Algebra.
[Audience Laughing]
You know, maybe every now
and then,
some White guy
might say to me,
“Hey, go back to India.”
And so I did.
I did a comedy tour.
It was really good advice.
[Audience Laughing]
Eight shows, eight cities.
That guy should be my agent.
That was really good.
[Audience Laughing]
The thing is,
the reality is that
if you want to make
Indians laugh,
all you really have to do
is make fun of the British,
[Audience Laughing]
which I am totally down
to do because I am Indian
and I am American.
So my people were
colonized twice.
[Audience Laughing]
And I often wonder that
I'm like,
How did the British,
at the time,
conquer 90%
of the countries
in the world?
How they do it?
It's the voice.
You say anything in that
voice and it sounds right.
[Audience Laughing]
It's true.
If I say to you right now
2 and 2 is 5,
you're like, “No, it's not.”
But if I go, 2 and 2 is 5, love,
you got to think about it.
[Audience Laughing]
They're smart.
The British are smart,
but they're not that smart.
After all, they used
to send their criminals
to Australia.
That is true.
Australia was the penal colony
for Britain.
But if you've
been to Australia,
you already know this,
it is a way better place
than England.
[Audience Laughing]
It’s warmer, it's larger,
cooler animals.
I think if they were really
that smart,
they would have gone
to Australia
and left the criminals
in England.
[Audience Laughing]
I, myself,
am quite liberal
on immigration.
I'm here.
[Audience Laughing]
But it's not like I don't get
the conservative argument.
I understand it.
I totally get it.
You know, like
amnesty for illegals
or if you
get here illegally,
should you have all the rights?
I'm not sure about that.
That’d be like, Sir,
if I broke into your house.
I know I should not
have done that,
but now that I'm here,
can I have my own room?
[Audience Laughing]
I get it.
I get the argument.
I understand it.
Thing is Cincinnati is very,
very conservative.
It's a conservative city.
In fact, they built
a creation museum.
But that's the problem,
they built it.
[Audience Laughing]
Would have been
a lot more convincing
had it just appeared.
[Audience Laughing]
I think the
craziest question
I would get is,
do you guys have cars
over there in India?
Oh, yeah, right, right.
Yeah. I've got—No.
They have nuclear weapons,
but no one knows how
to operate a Honda.
[Audience Laughing]
They skipped combustion
and went straight to fission,
baby.
And when India
finally attacks a country,
they're dropping
their warhead
from an elephant.
[Audience Laughing]
I don't blame people
for not knowing.
I don't. You know why?
Because where do most of us
get our information
about other countries?
Hollywood, TV
shows and movies. Right.
That's the thing.
And for the most part,
a lot of the movies
show India as very poor.
Not fair.
It's on the come up now.
It's not all that poor,
but it's okay.
I understand that
because look how
things have changed.
The Chinese get
Crazy Rich Asians.
[Audience Laughing]
We're stuck with
Slumdog Millionaire.
[Audience Laughing]
That's okay, though,
because it'd be like
if Indians got
all their information
about Americans
by watching one movie,
and that's Joe Dirt.
[Audience Laughing]
So what's India like?
Well, there's a lot of dirt.
There’s a lot of dirt.
India is like,
if you take all three
Back to the Future movies
and jam them
into one TikTok.
[Audience Laughing]
Because you’re kind of
in the future
and the past
and the Wild West
at the same time.
[Audience Laughing]
You will see next year's model
of electric Range Rover
trying to avoid hitting
stray cows.
[Audience Laughing]
Way that it goes.
Some stereotypes are true,
meaning all
stereotypes are true.
A lot of them aren’t,
a lot of them are.
We like to save money.
There's no doubt
that Indians
love to save money.
In fact,
Mahatma Gandhi was the one
who led India
to independence
from the British.
He was walking around
saying
“India should be free.”
He was just talking
about the price.
[Audience Laughing]
India reminds me a lot
of the Middle East.
I got booked to perform
at a gig in Kuwait
and I had to do 70 minutes
for 1200 people.
Okay.
I had three comedians
opening for me
and I was nervous.
So I went in the few days
early and thought,
You know what?
I'll go in, I'll learn
a little bit
about the country,
work that into the act.
And these three comedians,
I think,
are going to take me to
a beautiful mosque
or the Kuwait Towers.
They take me to a mall,
a shopping mall, not a guy
named Amal.
[Audience Laughing]
There are a lot of those over
there, a lot of Amals.
[Audience Laughing]
At the mall,
we saw a snack bar,
not a snack bar.
Their friend was
named Asnakbar.
[Audience Laughing]
And it was a beautiful mall.
They had Gucci,
Fendi, Prada, Chanel,
great brands,
but I don't think
they realized
they were not going
to impress an American
with a shopping mall
because we invented
shopping malls.
So next year,
these same three comics
are coming
to the United States
for the very first time.
I'm going to take them
to Death Valley.
[Audience Laughing]
[Audience Clapping]
I feel like it's the only way
to get back at them.
[Audience Laughing]
They take off
from the Middle East, fly
20 hours, land at LAX,
and I'm driving them
right to the desert.
[Audience Laughing]
Like, we have heat.
We have sand.
Welcome to America.
[Audience Laughing]