Zarna Garg: Stand-Up Comedian and Screenwriter

Hi everyone, I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who What Where, and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life. Today, I'm speaking with the hysterical and brilliant stand-up comedian, Zarna Garg. After just a few short years within the industry, Zarna has comedic achievements that most could only dream of. If you're part of her 650,000 followers on Instagram, you have a front row seat to her humor, which she performs at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, clocking in about 15 shows a week, and out just last week on Prime Video is her brand new comedy special, Zarna Garg, won in a billion. But, as I mentioned, this has not always been Zarna's life and career. In fact, it's a pretty new piece of her story. After immigrating to the US as a teenager to avoid an arranged marriage, Zarna became a civil litigation attorney. She stepped away from that career path after her third child, struggling to find her place again in the working world. She eventually wrote a screenplay called Rearranged that beat out 11,000 other scripts to win the top comedy feature award at the Austin Film Festival in 2019. From there, her kids were actually the ones to encourage her along this new career path as a performer. But, I'd much prefer for you to hear the rest of the story from Zarna herself, who will no doubt leave you laughing and deeply inspired. Now, on Second Life, it's Zarna Garg. Hi. Hi. Are you ready to do this? Yes, let's do it. I'm so excited. Okay. So, Zarna, on this podcast, we like to start at the beginning. What did you study in school and much more importantly, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up? I went to law school. I'm licensed to practice law in New York City and New York State. And I thought I would be a lawyer. But I found out after I became licensed to practice that I was a really bad lawyer. There's no way you know that while you're still in law school, because law school was a lot of fun. But practicing law was a whole another ball game. I was the worst. I would take my own clients to the judge and be like, your honor, my client has robbed the liquor store. Even the judge was like, Mrs. Dark, do you know you're the defense attorney? Do you know what you're supposed to do? And I was like, I could never keep a poker face. I was like, you and I both know he did it. Stop with the shade. Are we really going to pretend? And I think I had a realization very early in life that I should not practice law. Anyway, it was not an option. All my clients were in jail. So you know, I was like, I should do something else. So you immigrated to the US when you were quite young. Can you talk a little bit about the events in your life that led up to that moment and what that process was like for you? Yeah, I grew up in India. I was a teenager. I was really happy. Like I grew up in affluence in India, you know, relatively speaking. I'm not talking like billionaire. But we had enough. We weren't wanting for anything. And you know, I was just typical Indian teenager, you know, going to school and whatever and watching all the American sitcoms. There were bootleg copies of three's company. I don't know if you know three's come here come and knock on my door. Oh, yes. And growing pains and family ties. I grew up watching all those shows and I read a lot of Archie's comics. So American pop culture was a big part of my life. And I grew up that way. And my mom passed suddenly when I was just about 15 years old, like 14 and change. And I was the youngest of four kids. My dad, the day after she died, he's like, you need to get arranged. Because I think he broke inside himself, to be honest. Like he was not a bad guy. He was just really destroyed. It was a sudden death. And you know, they had had three kids. Three of my siblings were arranged very early in life. So this is the word I came from. It wasn't so unusual to think that a teenager should get arranged. He was coming from a good place. But because I lived a life filled with American culture in India, I was like, but no one gets married at this age. Like no one in Archie's comics is getting married. So I was like, I don't want to do this. And my dad in very Asian Indian dad fashion said, well, you don't really have a choice. If you don't want to live that life, you have to leave this house. And I think he thought he would scare me. And I thought I would turn him. So on a whim, he said, okay, then you can't live here anymore. And I was like, fine, I'll leave. You know, when you're 15 and your dad says you have to get out, you think you're going to have a slumber party for life with your friends. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. I was like, I'm not going to be a little bit of a girl. So you go through the full immigration process. You get to Ohio. What was that process like for you? And then starting school in the States and then eventually going to college and then law school. How are you making all of that work? I feel like the good part about the age that you were is you're still so optimistic and malleable and feel like anything's possible. You don't realize the scope of what you're undertaking. But I'm wondering what that time was like for you. So let's start with how was Ohio? So Ohio was extremely warm and welcoming to me emotionally. My sister is even to this day, part of a fabulous Indian community in Ohio. They all knew the circumstances in which I was moving here. So they were very welcoming. I got admitted to the University of Akron, which is like a small town university in their small town. And the professors and teachers knew that I kind of had come in through difficult circumstances. They were very understanding and accommodating. Ohio itself was cold. It's the first time in my life. I saw so much snow and I saw like that kind of temperatures. And I remember living in fear of black ice. Do you know what black ice is? Like if you've never lived in a cold place in the Midwest, it's this thin layer of ice. And everybody had warned me about it and you couldn't see it. And it was like everywhere I went, I was like, where is it? Where is it? You know, the early years were like be aware of the black ice. And when I moved there, do you know who was in the news in America? Who? Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, God. Who was in Akron, Ohio native. Yes! So I was like between the ice and people eating each other in the house and don't ever go to anybody's house and don't ever walk outside. You know, the things that were front and center on my mind. Oh my goodness. I was like, people have these big beautiful houses in America and then what are they doing in there? Eating each other apparently in that case. Wild. But overall, I have to say my story in America is a story of extreme warmth and love. Like people have embraced me since day one and I've always been very grateful. And if somebody said something that was off center or like a little racist or whatever, honestly, I probably didn't even understand it. Because the thing about racist slurs is that the immigrants don't actually know what they are. So people say things to us sometimes and you know about my bindi over there. I'm like, okay, thank you. And my kids, they point everything out. You know, I was like, oh my God, they said that. I'm like, I don't even know. I thank them. And actually I thank them and they didn't know what to do and then we just kept moving. It just dissolved immediately. Well, in a good way, it didn't have the effect that they were looking for. So it's one way of disarming a racist is to not understand them and wish them a good day. I mean, it's not even racism always. Sometimes it's just ignorance. Like they don't know. People are genuinely curious. Why do you wear a bindi? You know, and I understand that no one here wears it so they are curious. I get it. So what about everything from like finances to language and also you had a whole social world at home and now all of a sudden you are tasked with sort of creating new community. Obviously you had your sister and sort of like the larger community in your city. But how did you go about navigating that? Was that something that was easy for you? Was that something that was challenging at times? I think it was easy for me because I had no place to go back to. If I had been like, oh, I miss India and I miss my life. If I had those moments, I had to get over those moments because it's not like anybody was willing to take me back. Right. And as far as the finances, my sister paid for my college and law school. And the last 20 years have been a story of me trying to pay her back. You know, it's expensive. I didn't know what I was getting into. Like college and school is not this expensive in India. But she was most generous and you know, she was very like you study as much as you want, very, very kind. And it really is great to have rich relatives. I'll tell you that. I wish everybody has relatives who can afford that. I wish my kids had relatives who could pay for their college in hindsight. I think that the social aspect was not as hard as you might imagine because I grew up speaking flu. And English in India, India has a humongous English speaking population. It's taught from day one. The language didn't feel alien to me, but the culture, like in India, if you walked into a class in school or college, when the teacher walks in, you stand up as a sign of respect. So I remember the first time I went to class in Ohio and people were like bringing in their breakfast and their coffee. And I was like, I was in a state of shock. And I stood up because that's what I had been programmed to do. And I like remember looking around being like, why isn't anybody standing up? But people were so nice. I mean, I was scared because I was like the next Jeffrey Dahmer could be in this class. You know, so if anybody said you want to come over, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am going nowhere. I always met people like in public spaces for a long time because I was so scared from that story. Understandably so. So why law school? Like, what was it that made you want to do that? See, the world that I came from, if you were good in science, you became a doctor. If you were kind of good in math, you became an accountant. If you kind of sort of knew how to write, you became a lawyer. No one told me you have to do this. But that's just the word I came from. I mean, in hindsight, it kind of makes sense that if movies are being made, somebody's writing them. You know, but it never occurred to me that I could be one of those people. I was always a strong writer and also always a funny writer, which I'll tell you, I found out in the craziest of ways. When I was practicing law and I would write summons and notices of this, that and the other thing, I would get calls from opposing counsel saying, your notice is the funniest thing I've read today. And I was like, did you read when I said I'm going to sue you? Did you read that? How are you laughing at this? And I'm telling you, there was obviously something about the whole funny thing that was entwined in my writing and how I presented myself since day one, since before day one, because I wasn't trying to be funny ever. But somehow everything I did had like a humorous touch to it. And I remember the first time I got that call, I was like, what is wrong with people? Like, I just threatened him. Did you have a particular aspect of law that interested you? Like, there's so many different types of lawyers out there. There's so many applications of it. I was drawn to litigation, civil litigation, and I worked in civil litigation. So I've worked with trial lawyers who went to court and presented. So there was clearly some theatrical aspect. Like in hindsight, it kind of all makes a little bit of sense. So there was clearly some aspect of like, I'm going to tell you what my word needs to be like or what this needs to be. But at the time, I didn't know. I just thought I was doing something that I thought I would be good at and that I thought I could have fun doing. So how long did you work as a lawyer and how did it change over the years? Like, did you have moments of realizing like, oh, this isn't quite what I expected or, oh, maybe they should tell me something because I feel like also litigation feels very all consuming. So I'm wondering how you started to think about alternative paths. So I actually didn't work in law for too long. It was just about three and a half years because I liked what I was doing. But I couldn't figure out how to make my life work around it. You know, I came from a world where women had kids and there was a big infrastructure. We all had help at home. We had cousins. We had aunts. Until I had my first kid, I didn't realize that I'm all alone. I had moved to New York City and it never occurred to me that, oh my God, who is this kid going to be with all day? Yeah. You know, I mean, there were times when she would start crying, my daughter, my oldest at night, I was like, where's her mother? And I was like, oh, can someone get the baby? Oh, wait, that's me. So what happened is that I kind of reached the realization that if I tried to do everything, I was going to lose my sanity. I had reached a point where I told my husband, I said, I just don't know how to do this and still be a person who's present in their life. In movies, when they show the working moms, it's like Jennifer Garner is in like this spaghetti strap and she's like running in high heels and then she's flipping over a lettuce for dinner. And then the kid is like very neatly just tucked on the side of a pantsuit. That was not my life at all. My life was like snoring noses and endless diapers and big tubs of Costco because I didn't want to go over and over again. So I think I was just like, I cannot do this. These two cannot coexist and one had to go. And I was fine. I was like, I'll stay home. I enjoyed my years of being a homemaker and being home with the kids. Did you think that, well first of all, you have three kids, was the plan to have three and then was the plan to stay home until the youngest one was a certain age or was it just, we'll just see how this goes? The plan was to have two for sure. And then to decide how broke we were or weren't. Because kids are expensive. Very. You know, people ask me, how are your kids? I'm like, they're expensive. Yes. That's the only one thing I know for sure. So what happened after we had two kids is that my husband and I had a real realization. We're both immigrants in America. The only family we have in all of America is my one sister who lives in Ohio. So if we wanted our kids to have like a family and an extended family situation, we would have to create it ourselves. We didn't have cousins. We didn't have a aunt. We didn't have uncle. No grandparents. So the decision at the time was like, okay, if we can afford it, we will have a third, which is where, which is how we're going to be. Where, which is how it felt. But throughout those years, I was really very unhappy with how my life was. I couldn't believe that after all that I gave up and all the struggle that it took to come here, my life had somehow become about music, mommy and me classes and chasing the kids in soccer and football. And, you know, I did all of it because that's what I thought moms did in America. Yeah. The burden on parenting and on being a mom on this country is actually off the trails. I've never seen anything like it. No one in India lives like this. And I remember feeling like, how did this become my life? Like, this is not what I came here for. And my husband was very much like, you are so unhappy. And he was like, I don't care about the fucking football. Like, this might be a big spoiler alert to my kids. But none of them are going to be professional athletes. I feel very comfortable making that prediction. So why are we driving ourselves crazy on the weekends and weekdays and the uniforms and the socks and the... I mean, I got voted the worst soccer mom, snack mom. Because I brought kids almonds and cheesecks and Clementines peeled up. No kid wanted it. They all wanted those little munchkins from Dunkin Donuts. And literally at the end of that year, my son is like, Mom, can you not come to my games anymore? I really thought I went all out and it turns out my son was extremely embarrassed. So as soon as my third one started growing and I knew he's going to be in school full time, I knew something had to change. I was losing my mind. My friends who know me from back then tell me that they felt like I was a caged tiger. Like just frustrated all the time. And I understand why they felt that way. I just read and I can't remember the exact dollar amount, but someone figured out basically, if we paid parents who were staying at home with their children, that basically it's the equivalent in terms of hours work to like a $200,000 a year salary. But no one's making that obviously. But it is so, so much work on so many levels. But okay, so you started thinking, I need something else. You're a caged tiger according to your friends. What did you think? Would you think I'm going to go back to law? Did you think I'm going to start doing something totally different? Like what did you think about at that moment? I mean, I really don't think even today I still have an elementary school kid right now. I don't think I could have fit a legal career because it is all consuming. I live in New York City. There's a lawyer around every corner waiting to take your job and your case. I remember when I got pregnant with my third, the partner that I was reporting into called me into his office, I thought he was calling me to congratulate me. He called me to tell me that the law was a jealous mistress. And he wanted to ask me if I thought I was doing the right thing by having a baby at that time. And I thought that was exactly where he was going. And it didn't matter because I was on the verge of quitting anyway because it wasn't going to work. So when my youngest was in kindergarten, I was like, I am going to do something. I don't know what it is. I'm going to do something. And what happened is that I started looking around me for industries and businesses that I felt like I could bring something specific to. Movies are made in America. The brown people movies are very heavy and sad often. They highlight this other aspect of brown life. But we have a lot of fun too. So I started thinking, how hard can it be to make a movie? I was like, I'm going to learn how to write a movie and then I will call the CEO of Disney who will then make it. Right? Right. And I was like, I'm going to do a film called The Green Play. Literally off of YouTube and a couple of screenwriting classes. And I wrote the story of how I came here and how I met my husband. It was a romcom, again comic because everything I do has a comedic touch to it. And I submitted it to writing competitions. And it ended up winning the top comedy feature award at Austin Film Festival. Dang! Which is the screenwriters festival. And I was like, I'm going to win that award. Holy cow! And what I realized after winning that award is that people don't know me and I don't know them. And I took the award. I went to my hotel room. I ordered in room service because I splurged. And that was it. That was the beginning and the end of my screenwriting career. People were very sweet and congratulatory but no one had anything to say to me and I didn't have anything to say to them. Because I didn't know anybody there. And I literally left and I was by myself and I couldn't get anybody to read the thing even though I had won. So I was like struggling telling my kids. I was like, I don't understand how to put my voice out there. I think I can be funny about this. I had done a lot of research. The reigning champion of romantic comedies was my Big Fat Greek wedding. It still is one of the top that I found particularly offensive. Because how can the Greeks have the biggest wedding movie? We are the wedding people. I was outraged on behalf of all Indians. I took every Greek yogurt container out of my house and I was like, we're done with this shit. Not until I fix this problem. And I was telling my kids, I'm like, I am trying to figure out how to put my voice out there. Because I think when people know what I'm joking about, they're going to like it. And my kids, you know, being kids, my all American kids are like, Mom, you should just do stand up comedy. And I was like, that's not a job. And they're like, no, that is a job. I said, no, I need a job that pays money. And they're like, no, you can make money in comedy. And I was like, what did they know? So my daughter then undertook this whole birthday project where she reached out to people from way back in my life, which you can do now, thanks to Facebook. And she's like, ask them to send notes about, you know, what they thought about me and whatever. And this whole project is actually pretty well known. It's the best of New York Times 2021 essay about how she brought all these notes together to show me that my humor has meant something to people. So I said, okay, okay, okay, you guys are doing all of this. And also they kind of ganged up on me, all my kids. And almost on a dare, they were like, oh, you made us do piano lessons. And like, I'd made them to years of math, cumin that they hated. And they did anyway. So they're like, oh, now you don't want to do something that might be good for you. It truly came from that space. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go to one of these things, whatever this thing is and find out what happens so I can come home and tell my kids I tried it. And I went to an open mic. So how does one even start thinking about being a stand up? What does that even mean? What did that look like for you? So I honestly had never been to a comedy club in my life, not even to watch a show. Indian people, we don't really do that. I know now that our culture associates comedy club with sex humor. Like they don't know what all goes on there. And they associate it with the type of humor that our culture really doesn't understand or connect with. So I had never been, but I was starting to ask people and poke around like, what do you do? And a friend of mine said, why don't you go to an open mic? So I was like, okay, I'll go to an open mic. And the open mic was run by another mom of three kids. I said, I'm here. My kids think I'm funny, but I don't really know what to do. And she said, why don't you go up on stage and talk about whatever you think is funny for five minutes. And I was like, anything? And she's like, yeah, whatever you think is funny. So I went on stage and I did the one thing that my heart has been wanting to do forever, which is trash my mother and no. I just went to town with everything I had ever thought about her and all the crazy bad shit she had said and done to me. And the audience was dying. Wait, but you're a lawyer. Have you written any of this down? Have you thought it through? This is all just off the top of your head slash your lived experience. Just storytelling. Like, just, I'm just going to tell you what I mean, which is which she is. And the audience loved it. And the audience was just dying. They were like, do more, do more. And first of all, I looked around like white people do this. This is a thing in America, like the thought of standing on a stage and making fun of your president or your prime minister is scary in India. It's scary in a lot of parts of the world. You could be thrown in jail for that. I mean, they were just saying anything that came to, they were like cursing at the president and like, it was fine. So it was like so eye opening for me and I got off that stage and I was like, I remember feeling like I think my life just changed. Wow. I can do this. I can do this. I was like, if somebody wants to pay me for this, I can do this. How did you feel in your body at that moment? Was it like a homecoming or an electricity or a calmness? You know, people now have asked me, were you not scared? And I was like, the thing is that I wasn't because everything I was saying and doing felt like I was doing it at home. You know, part of why my kids think I'm funny and their friends think I'm funny is because I'm constantly ranting about something with everybody. I mean, it's inside me and I can't even stop it if I want. It's such a big part of who I am, like being this Indian mom who's full of advice and thinks this is how it should be. That when I got on stage, I was like, okay, you know, these guys want to hear and I'm just going to share stories. And I now in bigger venues pretend that I'm having a dinner party and everybody's my friend because that's the only way I'm not going to be freaked out. Otherwise, 10,000 people looking at me could be a little freaky. And I also believe they're all people. I mean, people are people. Everybody wants to hear a funny story or relate in some way. So I was like super calm and it helps that my mother-in-law really is like almost a cunt. Yeah. So I felt like I was talking to my sisters and my friends and my cousins and whatever and I just did it. But when I got off, I knew that something had happened. So that first night smashed, killed it, destroyed. Where did you go from there? What was the next thing? Because, I mean, the trajectory is really fast of going from that to like booking headlining shows at major comedy venues, like overnight. The thing is that no one like me has done it. Actually, in the whole world, there's almost no one like me who's owned that married Indian woman space in comedy. So what happened is that I learned that in New York City, actually in a lot of places, if you want to start in comedy, you start with something called the bringer show. So what the venues do and the clubs do is they tell you, if you bring five people, you can have five minutes on stage. So I was like, okay, you know, let me try how to write a joke properly. Like now actually put an app together and try to bring five people. So I had a hundred followers on Instagram, I think at the time. And I was like, if five of you are free and can stop by, they'll give me five minutes on stage. And 90 people showed up. Stop. Because people were so excited that an Indian woman was going to make fun of her mother and her husband. It had never been done. So people were so excited that like, I showed up at the thing and I was like, who are all you people? Like what? But the excitement was in the air from day one. And my friends who showed up, then kept showing up. And I would tell them, I'm like, I'm doing the same jokes, don't come. And they were like, no, this is so much fun. We're going to have a drink. We're going to eat anyway. We're going to come and eat at your club. So I started producing the amount of love and support that I got from my friends and their friends and the community, Indian or otherwise. I'm still in a state of shock. Like I'm in Buffalo, New York right now. I don't know a single person, but I have a sold out show tonight. Dang. So it started like that. And then one open mic became another open mic became a show. And then I realized that no one's going to really book me. No one is looking for a middle aged Indian mom with an accent. So I started producing my own shows. So go to the clubs and be like, if you can give me the space on an off night, like a Monday night or Tuesday night, I can learn how to develop jokes. I can invite other comics to be part of my world and see if I can get an audience. So I was also very methodical about it. And I knew going in that I had to approach this as a business, not just as an art. It was very important to me that this have a potential to make money because otherwise I couldn't afford to do it. Right. And it's interesting too that you were thinking about the autonomy piece of it, which I can only imagine must be important to you for a number of reasons. Not only that, but also creating community and making sure that other people had opportunity, opening doors for people, building that network. It's really important, especially when the industry to your point doesn't look like you, doesn't sound like you, doesn't feature people like you. And now you have this opportunity that you created for yourself to make sure that that keeps going and the doors open for other folks too. I mean, here's the thing. I've never held it against any industry, not even in screenwriting when I want. I was like, I understood why they had nothing to say to me. They don't know me and I don't know them. So it's like two people from two different planets looking at each other almost. And like, I understand that that might cause some hesitation. And so I was always like, you know what, I'm going to keep building my path. And at some point these worlds will collide. I kind of had faith that at some point this will all start to come together because ultimately people want to laugh and we're going to bring it together. But I didn't waste any time overthinking why I wasn't getting booked and all that. I didn't care. So what about social media? What role was that playing? You said 100 people were following you in the very beginning. You have a huge, highly engaged following now. But I'm curious about if you had a strategy, the way that you were thinking about that as a testing ground, as a marketing arm. I actually wasn't at all because I was busy doing my stand up comedy live in real life in New York City. Then the week after my first headlining show at Caroline's, the city shut down pandemic happened. I was so nervous. I was going to lose my funny that I started doing shows in the park, in the subway and a bus station. I was everywhere. I've had a little mobile speaker and a mic and I'd be like, let me tell you a joke. And I did a lot of shows in Central Park. The first show I did in Central Park was five people showed up and a dog and an ambulance. And then by the time we finished a year and a half later, we had 200 families that showed up for my last show. So I was very committed that I'm not going to let this go. But what happened is my son at the time, my 15 year old son was like, Mom, you need to get on TikTok. Again, I was like, what do you know? And at the time, we all thought TikTok was 14 year old girls twerking. Do you remember that in the beginning? Very. I was like, you want me to go on TikTok and twerk? And he's like, no, you put your jokes up there and people are going to watch your jokes. I think comedians are going to make a move to TikTok. So I was like, there ain't no way he knows what he's talking about. Some girl probably put him up to this. And he took one of my tapes. I had a five minute tape and he cut it up and he uploaded it on TikTok. And all my jokes went viral. But one of my jokes went viral like overnight, millions of views. And even then I was like, maybe TikTok is one of those places where everything starts at a million. You know, some countries where like loaf of bread is one million, whatever. You thought there was inflation? Yeah, I was like, this can't be real. And then my son is like, Mom, I don't have 20 views. You have a million right now in one night. And the joke that he put up that went all over the world was the one about me never having said, I love you to my husband, which is true. I would never say that even to this day. I really thought I was the only one who had never said it. And I love the guy. Like it's not like there is any lack of love there. It's just not how we express ourselves. But if you live in America and in this pop culture, you think everybody is always holding hands and making out and like looking each other in the eyes and what. And like that was so not us. That joke overnight resonated so broadly across cultures, across countries. People from all over, we've never said it either. We would never say it. That it really made me realize that I had a way to connect with millions of people just sitting on my couch at home. And I started taking social media so seriously after that. Again, I was extremely methodical. Every person I spoke to, I responded to. Like when I say spoke to, if they put a comment, I commented back. I learned very early in my social media journey that you don't get a thousand followers. You get one follower at a time, a thousand times. So I took each interaction to heart and I'd really started building that world. And I actually really believe in it. Like I take my social media fans and following very seriously. Like that relationship is very important to me. So then that opened up a whole world of digital creation that, you know, I would do a live and my kid would walk by and say, is that your daughter? And people were so curious. And that opened that whole kind of forms up. So what does your day to day look like now? And how do you think about the financial piece of it, the future piece of it, and really where you want to go? Do you have a strategy or should I just ask your manager slash teenage kid, right? You should ask my kids. They seem to have all the strategies. They've given you some good ideas. I'm not going to lie. I learned one thing not to discount what the kids say. I will say that like I was very, what do you know? And now I'm like, what did you say? Now I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, what are you watching? I'm very clued into what they're doing. So I think the strategy is pretty traditional for stand up comedy. I foresee myself continuing with creating the next hour and the next. We just filmed one hour, which is coming out, but the next hour and the next hour because I love what I do. And I feel like unintentionally I've been put in this position where I'm the voice of hundreds of millions of women that are not represented right now. And I actually feel a certain responsibility to not stop. Do you know what I mean? Like the visual of an Indian woman holding a mic and being critical of things and having an opinion is so jarring that it's never been done, especially not an Indian clothing. And now I feel like I can't be the one that stops this. This needs to go on. And of course, there are all kinds of parallel projects that are all now being developed. I have a movie thing in the works. I know studio executives who have passed around my videos as an example of how one of the people of how one woman sitting at home practically created a sitcom with her family. So now it looks like it will all evolve into a TV thing or a movie thing or whatever. Meanwhile, I love how you're like, yeah, I just shot an hour. Can we go back and rewind because that's a comedy special and that is a huge deal. How did that work? How did that feel? How long did it take you to put together that material? What was it like shooting? Had you been on the road for a long time before you shot it to hone it or does it not work like that at all? I don't know. I've never done that. So I was just working as a working comic and doing really well at the Comedy Cellar. And I think the Comedy Cellar is frequented by industry people all the time. And so I think somebody informed the production company that I ended up working with. And they reached out to me and they're like, when you're ready with an hour, we would love to do something with you. I was like, no, no, no, if you want to do it, we're going to do it. Let's get ready now because I'm all about seize the moment. Yeah. Because God knows they may not respond to my email six months from now. You know, like I know how these things go. So then they were like, do you have an hour? At that point, I had about 45 minutes. So we agreed to shoot six months down the road. I said, let's make the deal now. Let's pick a time and I will put everything I have into creating this remaining 15 minutes. And once that agreement was made, I was like a manic, mad beast. I was traveling everywhere. I told my agents, I'm like, anything you can get me anywhere one night, middle of America, the coast, small club, big club, let's just do it because I need to work this muscle so badly. And I just got on it. I just didn't spend any time overthinking whether I should do it. And I mean, now that it's coming out, I got to tell you, I'm really intimidated. This is the aftermath of not thinking something through too much is that you really don't think about what it means when something is streaming worldwide in like 250 countries. You can't think about that. Right? Like I would have frozen and been paralyzed had I thought about it. So once I decided to do it, I was very methodical about it. And actually within two days of me signing with the producer, Amazon had already expressed, we had a lot of interest in buying it. Wow. I knew that, okay, there's something here because they haven't even seen me. Like none of these execs have seen what I do, but word had started to spread that there was this Indian woman doing something. So then that also gave me the courage. You know, sometimes when you don't have the courage, you have to borrow other people's courage. Yeah. I was like, if he believes and he believes and she believes and she believes, then I should believe. And that's how that happened. Tell me a little bit about the process of coming up with that additional 15 minutes. How do you know when something is good enough to be part of the hour? I was very deliberate about what I want to talk about. What is it that I want to say? Because now my words are a statement that I'm making, even though it's a joke. What are the things I want to talk about? And there is a serious side to me. You know, I have an opinion on gun control and abortion and everything. So the last 15 minutes became about in addition to my husband and my kids and the mother and all that, which is the bedrock of what I do. What else do I want to say? You know, and I was trying to reflect on the feedback that I get from my audience. A lot of people in my audience told me that when they came to my shows, they felt like they visited India, that they felt like they took a quick trip or they never knew this, but now they know. So I started thinking, what can I bring to this bit? That's a bit of an education for India and America, but comes from a place of love. And then those elements ended up becoming the final 15. You know, what is the big statement I want to make? And that's how that happened. And whether something is good enough to keep in a special or not, for me, is very clear. It has to resonate broadly with everybody. A lot of comics like to make jokes that are very inside jokes that they love, but the audience may or may not get. I'm not that. I'm all about pleasing my audience. I'm all about you're taking very valuable time out of your life to watch what I'm doing. And I'm going to stick specifically to what I think you're here to get. So it was very clear, like if the joke was not resonating in one or two clubs, it was out. Like I'll give you an example. I tried so hard to make my father in law character in the joke. No one cares about the father in law. My father in law is such a hilarious personality. And I wrote so many fun bits about him. But somehow when you utter the words mother in law, people crack up and the father in law gets the most step it like almost like no reaction. I don't know why. It's interesting though that level of ruthless self editing that has to be a part of the process and the fact that you have such a clear strategy around it too. It's like, is the serving the audience? No, it goes. Yeah. You know, as they say in storytelling and screenwriting, you have to kill your darlings. This is a piece of advice that I give to all creators and content creators. If anybody ever asked me, you have to be very clear. Are you creating this thing for you or are you creating it as a business project? Because you know, a lot of social media is like humble bragging and I did this and I did that and I'm not opposed to it. I'm not even judging it. I'm just saying, is this serving your audience or are you just doing it as a brag sheet for yourself? And I operate with complete clarity with that because I'm here as an entertainer, as a comic to serve my audience. And I take every minute of their time and of their money very seriously. I've been a consumer my whole life. I'm a mother. I pay money. I know you and I know we have to hire a sitter like this. A hundred things involved before I can go out and have a good time. Oh, yeah. Do you know what I mean? So I take it very seriously and like if I have something personal to say, I save it for my personal life. It's not to be involved with this. So I make father in law jokes in the family. What's up, chat? I always got to have an outlet for these things, right? So one of the things that I like to talk about on this podcast is how the skills that we are honing early in our careers, early in our lives often have these direct or indirect, but very powerful implications into our second lives, into the next thing that we do. So I'm wondering if you can tell me about any of the skills or lessons that you learned, either in law or being a stay at home mom that directly inform your day to day now. So the year and a half that my dad had thrown me out of the house and I was couch surfing before I got to my sister in Ohio, it took almost a year and a half of going from home to home, friend to family to whoever was willing to take me. Those years, the one thing that got me in everybody's door was that I was funny. People always were okay with having me join their Diwali dinner, which is the equivalent of say Thanksgiving or join their celebrations because they were like, you know what, bring her along. She's funny because I had no legs to be standing there. I wasn't related to, I couldn't afford any of that. I was really on my own, but in hindsight, those years of being like a guest and a drifter, those years were the foundation of my comedy. I know that now because everywhere I went, I was so stressed out that I could get thrown out anytime or that I would never be invited back, that I was constantly observing and trying to make people relax and have a good time. And of course, I didn't know I was doing that and that was not my intention. But today looking back, I think this is why I'm not stressed about whether I will make somebody laugh in a club because I've lived through this in much higher stakes already. Well, what they say, trauma plus time equals comedy. Yes, absolutely. And like somebody stopped the trauma with my mother-in-law. I think I've had enough. I think we have enough for 10 comedy specials. So another thing that I like to talk about is mistakes because everyone makes them in their career. We are pointing out social media. Social media, like it's this highlight reel and everything's perfect and my children never throw up on me and it's just perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. And that's a lie as we know. So I'm hoping that you can tell me about a mistake that you've made at any point in your career and something that you learned from it. Where to begin? Where to begin? Actually, call my mother-in-law. She'll give you the whole list. She has a rap sheet. So before I found comedy and screenwriting, I tried to do various other small businesses. I was like, oh, I should be a matchmaker. I like making matches. I was a matchmaker for a minute. I should do something in the personal hygiene space. I spend so much time taking care of my kids' hygiene. So many things I tried and failed at. Literally like flat on my face. My friends mocked me mercilessly. Oh, here she comes with another idea. But here's the thing about making mistakes. And sometimes people are paralyzed by the thought of making a mistake. What I learned is that for the most part, people are so consumed with their own lives that you can make a mistake and fail over and over. No one really cares. No, it's giving score, except for your mother-in-law. And I'm trying to aggravate her. So this is fine. It's all working. Every time I messed up, I knew she was aggravated and I was like, okay, it serves some purpose. At least we got that. So I've made a lot of mistakes. The hiring of the first team that I had. I didn't really know what I was doing. And somebody offered to manage me. And I was like, okay, they were all good people. But in hindsight, I should have thought it through more. Because it's a real relationship. When somebody is managing you as an agent or a manager, that's a real thing. I just didn't know. I was like, yeah, sure, you want to do what you're going to do together. And then so many things came out of it that we had to unravel and fix because it was a mistake. But I just won't take mistakes seriously. You can't. If you're building something, they are part of the journey. That's just what it is. Rejection and mistake is just part of the journey. So a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are in their first lives. They want to do something else, but they're scared. What advice would you give someone who wants to make a big pivot, but just hasn't figured out quite how to get there yet. So a couple of pieces, one that I have heard of often is that they just don't know what to do. Sometimes they're like, I want to do something. I want to, but I don't know what. So my suggestion for that is that you should reflect on your life and see what you're already doing besides your job. You might have a fixation for organization. You may love to cook. You're probably doing several things that can be monetized right now. And the world that we live in right now, you can have a side hustle and a gig where you try things and the way to pivot that has worked for me, even though most people will tell you that comics don't make money. It's a very hard business to monetize. But if you go in with your eyes wide open and say, I will only do things that lead to money in this space and that I will only spend my time engaging in revenue producing parts of this, then you will be surprised with how much clarity like we are living in a world right now that if you have a hyper niche, you like to make something very small and very specific, you can find the buyer for that. And you can say that I do this and I do this really well and therefore you must pay me if you want it. So I say to everybody. First of all, if you have fears and fears of being judged, let me just tell you, people who like to judge are probably judging you right now when you're not doing it. It's already happening. It's already happening. People who like to judge, judge everything. I think if you don't take that chance, you're failing yourself by default. And why should you do that? No one cares. Take serious fail. I do understand the money part because I'm very sensitive to that. I'm a mom, I have a kid in college and college expensive in America. I have another kid going to college. So I came in extremely like I will only do things that lead to money and I stuck to it and I think I did okay. Love it. Okay. So my last question, my favorite question, which is if you could go back in time and speak with your younger self and give your younger self some advice, career or otherwise, what would you say? I spent many years as a young woman being told that I was loud and I was saying inappropriate things and the comics brain is broken. Like we say and think inappropriate things. It's a fact. Like I remember when I was young and an uncle of mine had died who we had all met the night before at a wedding and people were very devastated. We just met him and I just blurted out at the funeral. I was like, but at least he ate well last night. Probably shouldn't have said it. But I spent a long time many years of my life apologizing for my voice and my thoughts and who I was. And it turns out that all of those things are who I am today in my business. And maybe I wasn't meant to whisper. Maybe I was meant to roar, you know, and we're all meant for different things. Nobody knows what you are meant for and nobody has a right to comment on it. Maybe I wasn't meant to whisper. Maybe I was meant to roar. I love it. I love it. Zarna, thank you so much for your time. This has been such a pleasure. I mean, like in addition to my face hurting from smiling so much, this has just been a true delight. Thank you for your time. It is so generous of you. I have enjoyed every minute of speaking with you. I'm so glad we could do this. No, I am so grateful. Thank you. You have this amazing platform and I appreciate that you brought you on. Thank you. That was Stand Up Comedian and Screenwriter Zarna Garth. For more inspiring interviews with women like Zarna, head on over to secondlifepod.com where we have so many more for you to peruse. If you like today's show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to rate and review us. We love seeing you spread the word on social and now you can tag us in your posts. We are at Second Life Pod on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show. So send in your request to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on Instagram. I'm at Hilary Kerr. The show is at Second Life Pod. Our DMs are always open. I'm Hilary Kerr and you've been listening to Second Life. ♪♪♪♪