Producers' Pick | Comedian Zarna Garg makes fun of her Indian step mother

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Avoid the ads. Listen to your favorite shows ad-free with the Amazon Music app or by visiting Amazon.com slash Brian Kilmeade. That's Amazon.com slash Brian Kilmeade. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Kilmeade. So Indian people love to talk about how much they miss home, but the one thing America does better is everything.

I mean, I dreamt of coming to America just like Eddie Murphy. So I've been married for 21 years. It's a really nice Indian man. We're the perfect Indian couple.

We do math for fun. I've never said I love you to my husband. I mean, it's only been 21 years. It's a rush, but if he said it to me, I would know he's cheating on me with a white woman. Where else would he get this nonsense? We've also never had a candlelight dinner.

I mean, we came to America for the electricity. That's so funny. Zarna Garg is here and that was some of her standup comedy. She just started a short time ago.

Already a huge hit. Zarna, welcome. Thank you. Namaste, Brian. So excited to be here. So first off, I mean, it's amazing how busy you are. You did One Nation.

That was the highlight. Saturday we saw you, but over the weekend, you're booked for the next few weekends and you just started comedy, right? Well, it turns out there's a huge market for trashing your Indian mother in law. So that is true. So who do you work with for your material? Like, are you taking this out of the news or you?

Yeah, I mean, of course life gives you the material. You live in New York City, America, there's constantly something happening. India, you know, Indian politics is very colorful. I start every day with the Indian news.

You do? Yeah, because you were born there. I was born and raised there. So, you know, some things just are a part of you. The Indian newspaper is just a part of my existence. Starts with their news, then the news here. And, you know, life just keeps, something new keeps happening. And you see the separation between the Indian culture, Indian culture.

Not only do you live it, but you read it. For example, what's hot in India right now? Like, what are the top things in India? I mean, you know, India has a very right-wing government. So everything is about religion and religious stuff. Then the last few years, it's made a move in that way. So it's almost reached a comical level, you know, and I'm Hindu.

So I'm not like, I'm, I'm with the majority, but it's, it's gone to extremes and it's comical. So that's, there's something about entertainment that is somehow tied into the news, right? Like there's a, one of the biggest Hindi movies is a, is a Bollywood movie right now is a huge hit. And the woman in the movie is wearing a saffron colored bikini for one of the songs.

And like the whole nation is up in arms that she is wearing the Indian, like Hindu color. You would never, like who would have made that connection? But, you know, life works out, right? So because they created such a human cry, that song that nobody was going to watch now got watched by everybody on earth. Wow. And did you have, what does transfer? What are the, like the stories in India that are resonating here? Are people talking about? I mean, I think like the whole freedom of speech thing transfers all the time because people get in trouble for saying all kinds of things in India. You have cancel culture in India? It's, it's different because it's not here.

It's extremely woke. It's like, you know, it's about offending everybody. Right.

There it's pretty much about offending the one religion, the one majority that's running the country. So it's limited in its scope because you can say anything you want about other people. You could call people fat. You can call women stupid.

You can do all of that. But it's not encouraged. No, it's kind of encouraged.

On International Women's Day, let me announce it is okay to call women fat in the news in India. No, it's, look, the things that will get you canceled here don't even register a blip back there. That's just a fact.

It's a much harsher world to live in. In America, you, we hold ourselves to a much higher standard where we're like, you're, but now it's gotten to another absurd idea. It's like, what can you say? As a comedian, that's what you struggle with.

What are you allowed to say at some point? But do you really worry? It doesn't seem like for watching you do stand up, it doesn't seem like you worry too much about that. You can't because whatever you worry about is not what's going to happen.

They're going to get you, but it's not going to be about what you thought it was going to be. So you know what I mean? So Goldie Hawn, you know Goldie Hawn, right? She blasts cancel culture. He says it's ruining comedy. Yeah. Here's her quote. It's in Variety. He says, I think it's important to stand vigilant on people's behavior and really understand what they're at when they're out of line.

But I'm concerned about these areas. Suddenly you don't have a, you don't have a job. Suddenly you can't date a woman within the business or you get fired. They're canceling books, classic books that no one can read. I don't like it. There's a mistrust everywhere. So not only is there a cancel culture, but there's a cancel wars now.

Schools are politicized, but for the greater good of our children, no one should be doing that. So is that the buzz before you go on stage with other comedians? Hey, can I say this? You know, who's in my audience today? You know, I should be worried about it. I don't care because I know it's unpredictable. Who, who is the world expert on cancel culture who can guide me anyway? No one knows.

No one knows. And it doesn't Dave Chappelle show you should walk right through the fire anyway. Exactly. And I think I have faith. I, you know, honestly I have faith that my audience understands what I'm trying to say. Right.

And I have to leap with that faith. So are the, how about the American Indian community? When you out there and you just said, I will try to think about what America does better, everything does, does anyone say, Hey, come on, we don't need that. Well, they can say that. And then I'm going to show them, I'm going to show them the lines outside the U S embassy all over India, people begging and pleading to get in. So you, it's not a matter of what I think or they think it's just a matter of fact. We send so many tech workers in America that even the big corporations are like, we may need to limit them.

If we let every engineer from India and no one from anywhere else can come in. Oh, so, so Zarna Garg is here and Zarna, this is another cut from you talking about high school at that great comedy club, Gotham comedy club right here in Manhattan. Cut 47. I have a 13 year old son. My very handsome 13 year old son recently started walking to school with a girl.

Naturally I follow them. And my husband has been so impressed. He's like, she's, he's walking to school with a white blonde girl. And you don't have a problem with that.

I told him there's nothing to worry about. It's not like she's going to get into a great high school. But I can't make fun of the only thing Indian people do.

Well, we take tests baby. Why do you think the Jewish kids sit next to our kids? I'm kidding.

Everybody sits next to the Korean kids. That is fantasy. There you go. You're not worried about anything. I can't, I can't worry about it. I have to, you know, I'm building my comedy career and I have complete faith that people understand why I'm doing it. Number one, I need to trash my mother-in-law.

Get on board people. It's good for your, good for your personal wellbeing. Yes. This is therapy that I get paid for. Right. After paying for years of therapy in America, I was like, I'm going to do this the other way. Right.

Let's go reverse it. Now, how many kids do you have? Three.

So many. I'm Indian. You know, that's our brand. That's your brand. And you like all of them?

No, not equally. Right. Right. One is my favorite. The oldest boy. Come on.

He is your favorite. Yeah. And are they all on board with this?

Mom's away every weekend now. I mean, they, they are on board because I still pay all their bills. You know what I mean? Right. Like my, my apartment and my home is not a democracy and nor do I claim that it is. It's a monarchy and I'm the monarch. Right.

And the monarch, you know what, you can, the monarch can do whatever they want. Yes, exactly. Or, you know, feel free to figure it out.

You know, go try your luck in the big bad world outside. So Mike Birbiglia read an essay of your daughters. So here is, here's the essay, your daughter, this is her kind of pushing you to go do standup. Yeah. Because you're funny.

Well. But she knew you were funny before you got on stage, right? People have used the word funny with my name my whole life. But if you're Indian, that means nothing. Funny doesn't make you a doctor.

What do you mean? Because we don't know what to do with funny. Indian people are not comedic. Like, if you think of all the Indians, you know, they're stressed out all the time. That's how we live.

Right. We don't say, don't worry, be happy. We say, don't happy, be worried.

Here's the essay, cut 48. As she began dreaming of a comedy career, the reality of her current life as a stay at home mom sank in. She began to cry and told me it was too late for her.

I could not bear to watch her struggle between ambition and doubt. Her birthday was coming up. Although I already bought her a present, I realized what I actually wanted to give her was the strength to finally put herself first and take a chance. I placed little notes of encouragement inside the water dispenser. I asked my family and closest friends to do the same. These friends told her other friends and eventually I had grown a network of supporters who emailed me their admiration for my mom. From these emails, I hand wrote 146 notes crediting all of these supporters that also believed in my mom. Some provided me with sentences, others with five paragraph long essays. Yet each note was an iteration of the same sentiment.

You are hilarious, full of life and ready to take on the stage. On the day of her birthday, my mom unwrapped my oddly shaped present and saw the water dispenser I bought her. She was not surprised that she had hinted at it for many years, but then as she kept unwrapping, she saw that inside the dispenser, there were these little notes that filled the whole thing. As she kept picking out and reading the notes, I could tell she was starting to believe what they said. She started to weep with her hands full of notes.

She could not believe the support was real and that everyone knew she had a special gift and believed in her. Within two months, my mom performed her first set in a New York comedy club. Within a year, my mom booked a monthly headlining show at the nation's premier comedy club.

I'm not sure what happened to the water dispenser, but I've read the notes with my mom countless times. They are framed and lined the walls of her new office space that she rented with the profits she made from working as a professional comedian. For many parents, their children's careers are their greatest accomplishment, but for me, my mom's is mine. That's pretty cool. That's great. So you were on his podcast? Yes.

And then he read that essay. That's right. How many years ago was that? Oh, last year.

That was last year? Yeah. That's almost impossible what you pulled off already. I mean, people wait 10 years to be a headliner and what you've done, that's incredible. I mean, I don't really think about it. It just happened.

It's organic. I'm telling you, there is a market for like making Indian jokes that no one knew existed. Did you feel, what was the hardest thing you had to do from the person with the sense of humor to the stand-up comic to deliver?

What was the hardest part of it? You know, I would say the hardest part is learning the structure of actual joke telling. So I'm now, I know, a classic stand-up comedian.

It's jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes. So learning to structurally write material in a way that it's delivered like a machine gun rapid fire, telling my story in a succinct way like that, it's an education. And I'm still learning.

Every week I take classes, I do lessons, because my audience comes in and I want to deliver the real tightest punch that I can. But things have worked out. Honestly, this is America. This is where it can happen.

It's a meritocracy in comedy. It would not have happened in India. I tell you right now, I tell everybody, this can only happen for me in America.

I've lived in Switzerland, I've lived in Sweden, I've lived in India, of course, most of my life when I was growing up. It would not happen anywhere else, only in this country. So why do you think that is? Because in this country, if you're good, people value that above a lot of other things that would have, like in India, it would have been, who do I know?

And I know nobody. It's, you know, also, I think it's interesting, but you have to perform. So you could have, you know, you could have generations of stand-up comedy.

As soon as you go on stage, you got two or three times, it'll be like, well, Zarna doesn't have it. Yeah. But it is, it is a meritocracy. Comedy is it? It's the most immediate assessment of, like, which is why it's hard.

Like, you've got to be able to take the heat. But because I've been doing this my whole life, even though not on a stage and I didn't know what comedy as a career was, when I first did my open mic, I was like, why do you have to do that? When I first did my open mic, I was like, white people do this? This is a job?

I've been robbed of millions. I've been doing this my whole life. My whole life, somebody gave me a mic and said, you say something. So, you know, but I treat every show like a big extended dinner party. In my mind, that's how I work. They're over at your house and you feel as though you got to keep the jokes rolling. Exactly.

And, and why not? You know, and you know, my mother-in-law's done everything to try to stop me, just so you know that. Like, you know, in America, there's this whole, like, where did coronavirus originate? Was it the lab?

Was it the bat? I'm telling you right now, it was my mother-in-law's kitchen. It happened there. It happened there and it got out of hand.

Right. And what is her, and right now, when you told, do you remember telling her that you're doing stand-up? Do you remember her reaction? Was she one of your supporters? Or would that blow it if she... Well, she couldn't speak a word of English until last year. And then this year she just texted me. She's like, I have an agent. She has an agent. Because she now thinks she's such a big part of my act that I'm gonna need her.

That is so funny. Hey, all right. We have a few more minutes with Zarna. Garg, by the way, this is where you could see her. March 10th and 11th, the Detroit House of Comedy. West Side Comedy Club, March 16th and 22nd. Is that right here in New York? Yeah. Okay. Governor's in Levittown.

That's right by my house. That'll be St. Patrick's Day, the 17th and 18th. You have no plans those days? Well, I'm working. That's the plan.

But that's why. Because I could never, as an Irish guy, I could never work St. Patrick's Day. Well, you come to my show and you have a good time. Bring your whole family.

That's where I could do it. It would be a brand new tradition. Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club over in San Antonio, the 24th and 26th. The Stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey, April 6th to 8th.

And then the Dania Improv in Florida? Yes. Okay.

April 14th to 15th. This is a busy schedule. Yes. You're going to have a lot of miles at the end of this. Yes. I have a lot of kids. A lot of builds to do. I understand. And they're very pricey.

More was on her in a moment. Hey, Prime members, top Fox shows like the Brian Kilmeade Show, the 5, Fox News Rundown, hundreds of others are available ad-free with your Prime membership. To listen, download the Amazon Music app or visit amazon.com slash Brian Kilmeade. With Amazon Music, you can access the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts.

Avoid the ads. Listen to your favorite shows ad-free with the Amazon Music app or by visiting amazon.com slash Brian Kilmeade. That's amazon.com slash Brian Kilmeade. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmeade.

Like, well, what's this called? Meghan Markle. Seemed like a nice lady. Just complaining. I was like, didn't she hit the light skin lottery and still going on complaining, acting all dumb like she don't know nothing.

Going on Oprah. I didn't know. I had no idea how racist they were. What the **** is she talking about?

She didn't know. It's the royal family. They're the original racists. Cause she's complaining. I'm like, what the **** is she talking about? They're so racist. They want us to know how brown the baby's going to be. I'm like, that's not racist.

Cause even black people want to know how brown the baby's going to be. So that obviously is Chris Rock from his live special on Netflix, where at the end of the show, he addressed the whole slap with Will Smith, the gym boy with me right now. Another star, Zona Garg, who, by the way, I made a critical mistake. On May 5th and 7th, if you were going to call her or knock on her door, she would not be home. She is going to be on stage in Phoenix, right? Yes. Is that the 6th, 5th, 6th, and 7th? Yes, that's right. So yeah, 5th, 6th.

So I forgot the one date along with the other 7 that you're going to be doing basically every weekend. What'd you think of the special? I don't know if you've watched it, but it was a, it was a news event too. Oh, absolutely. And I think it, listen, only he can pull off a live special like that.

It's very difficult to do it. Most of us who film specials do two, three takes, and we edit the best parts. What he pulled off really, really difficult. He had the eyes of the whole world on him. And I think he, I think he did a phenomenal job. I think he said whatever he wanted to say.

And I love how he did it. Right. The ultimate revenge is money. Absolutely. A lot of money. A lot of money.

It's like, it could not be more all American to me. I mean, right away, you think he's going to sit down with Oprah or he's going to sit down with Diane Sawyer is like, why would I give them ratings? No, I'm going to wait.

And the longer he waited, the biggest story was for you. You're doing a streaming special. You don't know what platform yet, but what do you have the venue set? It's Oh yeah. I mean, we already shot it. Oh, you shot it. It's shot.

It's edited. I know the platform, but they're going to make the actual announcement. It's going to be very special. They're very excited about it.

My special is going to be called one in a billion and it's great coming in two months. All right. So funny. We, I was talking to one stand up. He's got a problem.

Netflix didn't like some of his content. So he said, I'm just gonna do it myself. Yeah. And he made more money doing it himself. And that's the key.

And your kid's got to go to college. So it's all about Zarna getting money. Zarna, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Starting February 27th, Fox news podcast presents the true crime minute, the latest updates on solved and unsolved murders, America's most wanted killers, missing persons, and celebrity crime trials. I'm Laura Ingle. Join me starting February 27th, as we keep you updated on the top true crime stories of the day with new updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday hosted by Fox news correspondent, Laura Ingle subscribe and listen now at Fox news, podcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The true crime minute every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, get the latest updates on your smart speaker or favorite podcast player. Listen to the show and free on Fox news podcast. Plus on Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.