Raajeev Aggerwhil
By Raajeev Aggerwhil
One of the most difficult challenges in any career is failure – and more specifically, the why of failure. Why was success denied to me? While it can often be a far more productive trait to blame oneself, it’s not always the correct choice – especially since it so often automatically assumes that the failure was within your control. As a standup comedian, I’ve faced failure many times and, surprisingly, one of the lowest moments of my comedy career was not at a comedy club.
Failing in a comedy club? Sure, that’s happened to me plenty of times… as any number of painfully silent audience members can attest to! But the worst? It was at a wedding reception in Denmark for my wife’s cousin, who had decided to marry a Danish guy. I joked with my wife that her cousin had trouble finding an Indian guy in the San Francisco Bay Area because of the small pool size!
My wife’s uncle’s family is close to us, so we went to Denmark to attend the weddings. Yes, they had two weddings. First a Christian wedding at a church followed by a reception dinner. Then they had a Hindu wedding at a hotel followed by another reception. I thought it was a fantastic idea. Two weddings and two receptions, but I still only need to buy one gift. As any bania will tell you, we love a good “2-for-1” deal!
This was an international wedding; many of my wife’s relatives from India, the US and London made it to Denmark. Unfortunately for me, the thousands of miles of distance still weren’t enough to keep them from hearing about my career as a comic. They kept asking if I was going to do stand-up. I told them that, much like the US Military, I follow a strict policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”: If the host doesn’t ask, I don’t tell jokes! Believe me, it was in everyone’s best interests; if the bride thought I was trying to steal her spotlight, she’d make that military drill sergeant look downright sweet!
I do have to take a moment to mention, the vegetarian food at the reception dinner was terrible. Some people don’t know what to do with vegetables. All they know is “kill, cut, and barbecue” – and none of those apply if the food didn’t start its life walking.
They served half-cooked full cauliflower – like it was a steak and then covered it with brown barbecue sauce. It was horrible! Serving bland cauliflower with brown barbecue sauce was a bit weird. I don’t know if they were making a statement about racial integrity or just lacked creativity.
I guess they thought we’d be too in awe of the location to notice we couldn’t consume any of the food inside it; the wedding reception on the first night was held at a historic 300-year-old castle. I was not impressed. I would have preferred a proper desi aloo gobhi with dal makhani at a beaten-up Dhaba than bland cauliflower served in a castle.
Finally, it happened; enough people asked about me performing that I had to broach the subject. “Look,” I told the uncle, “Lot of guests have been asking me to perform. If you can fit me in the agenda, I’ll be happy to do a short routine. If not, don’t worry. It’s no big deal.” A few minutes later he gave me a thumbs up sign and said I could go on.
I started with some impromptu jokes that I was happy to be in Denmark because growing up in India, I had read so much about Danish cows and their enormous productivity! So, the first thing I did was to drink milk, eat cheese and make a special trip to a family dairy farm to see cows in action. I drew the line at making fun of any Danish people, although I might have been a bit too cautious; in comedy these days, making fun of white people is considered fair game.
I didn’t want to make fun of Danish people because in comedy, the rule is that you make fun of what belongs to you or what you belong to. I could make fun of India, Indians, Hindus, my family, my marriage and my kids – but I had more experience eating Danish pastries than with Danish people, so they were off limits. Keeping this in mind, I instead started out with a story I’ve told many times about my son in Boston. I mentioned about my disappointment when my son didn’t use the coupon for a $1 bus ticket… but as soon as I reached the part of the story where I told him to “be cheap; you are Indian for God’s sake,” many rich Indians visiting from India started heckling. Ok, no cheap Indian jokes.
Now to be clear, I have dealt with hecklers in the past – but in this case, even the bride’s mother supported them and started acting like a ringleader. In a normal comedy venue, I would know how to handle this, but this was not a comedy club, and it was not about me. It was about bride and groom so there is no getting back at the hecklers, and certainly not after the bride’s mom. I was taken aback. I was nervous.
I changed course and told an intellectual joke, a pi joke where I surprised my youngest son by reciting pi ’til 200 digits and when he asked me to repeat, I told him it may sound different because of different digits. Even though it is a bit of an intellectual joke, surprisingly it got a great laugh.
Then I started telling my Indian doctor joke which always does well. “I don’t like Indian doctors, especially Hindus, because they believe in reincarnation.” However, the Indian side of the relatives cut me off as soon as I stated the premise, “I don’t like Indian doctors… especially Hindus.” They started yelling, “No, Indian doctors’ jokes. No Indian jokes.” The ringleader, my wife’s aunt, also supported them. It was confusing and frustrating; this woman was seriously disrupting my act. She was making me feel like everything I was saying was idiocy and I don’t get that kind of irritation from an Indian woman without being married to her!
I was clear before I got on the stage that the event was not about me. Going after the host or any other rowdy guests at the party didn’t make sense. This was not a comedy club. I looked around the room. In the front were another of my wife’s uncle and aunt who live in the Los Angeles area. They are older, wiser and I respect them a lot. I could see the sadness and disappointment in their faces. They gave a signal the way, as a director would – “Cut.” I accepted my defeat, handed over the microphone and got off the podium. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, stinging me with the feeling of failure… and bits of painfully undercooked cauliflower.
After five minutes, my son texted me. We stepped out of the room to talk. He asked me if I was OK and then he offered me these comforting words. He said, “Look these people have no creativity or appreciation of culture. You don’t need to get validation from them. Just ignore them and move on.” It was tough because I felt I was insulted as an artist, as a wedding guest and finally as the eldest son-in-law of my wife’s extended family. It was a humiliating experience, but I tried to compose my grace as best I could.
I did take some small comfort in knowing that the rest of the program deteriorated quickly after me, regardless of anything I did on stage. It quickly became apparent that this wedding had the same amount of detailed accurate planning as a drunken frat party: throw alcohol at the problem and hope everything else works itself out. There was no agenda. The bride’s mother, who had no public speaking skills, said a few words about her daughter… and that was it.
Since there was no other entertainment program, they resorted to the decades old tradition followed by many Indian men – their only outlet of any kind of creativity. Yes, it is the hackneyed tradition of singing Bollywood songs… which, if the crowd had actually been all Indian, would have been mildly amusing — but this was an international crowd; half these guests were from other countries! The closest thing to Bollywood these people had ever seen was white people singing a musical number for Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars! You are singing Bollywood songs in Hindi without music – not even karaoke music. You might as well have just gathered all the non-Indian people together in a single group and called this activity “Who’s Uncomfortable Ignoring the Music and Who’s Trying to Dance but Just Looks Accidentally Racist?”
I know this sounds like I’m taking joy from the failure – like a comic who just bombed on the stage taking solace at another comic’s misery of bombing; but it’s quite different. I’m taking joy in the growth that allows me to realize this scenario was not my fault. It can be painful in a moment of embarrassment and crushing defeat to look outside of ourselves and try to find a learning experience in the rubble of the disaster, but it makes us stronger for the future.
It is not weakness to admit that sometimes our failures are not a sign of our own ineptitude, but to instead remember that we rely on each other to build great moments… and sometimes those moments do not materialize when the people we rely on do not set us up for success in the first place. Work, life, and everything in between is always a team event, even when it’s one person alone in the spotlight. Don’t use others as an excuse to avoid growth, but also don’t sacrifice your own self-confidence to forgive others for their own lack of planning either. And most important of all… always, always remember to cook the cauliflower.
Raajeev Aggerwhil is a Los Angeles-based comedian. Follow him on Instagram @raajeevcomedy or @IndianComedyCouple. To see his videos on YouTube: youtube.com/c/raajeevcomedy.
