Daizy Maan always wanted to see more comedians who looked like her — a brown woman who describes herself as wild and free. But in Australia, the landscape is pretty homogeneous (and beige). She decided to put together a lineup of brown female comedians living in Australia — women with Indian, Pakistani and South Asian backgrounds to see what would happen.
The result is Australia’s first and largest comedy show featuring only South Asian female comedians — so far, its sold out shows in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.
This week at the Manning bar in Sydney, the lineup included actor Monica Kumar, comedian Kru Harale, 2022 Raw Comedy finalist Guneet Kaur, podcaster Kripa Krithivasan and director and writer, Chanika Desilva.
No topic was off-limits, as the comedians delighted crowds in a night of ‘trauma-bonding’ and intersectionality probing. Maan provided the necessary cackle of warmup jokes to set the tone of the evening, shedding light on the experience of having a superstitious Indian grandmother.
Among her several hilarious routines, a memorable bit recalled her grandmother’s special ability to assess the power dynamics of a woman’s future marriage by looking at the length of her toes.
Maan is the Co-founder of the Australian South Asian Centre, a membership based community for South Asian women in Australia who are progressive creatives, founders and leaders. She is also the producer of the Brown Women Comedy show, which is touring the country at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Adelaide Fringe and Sydney Comedy Festival. Maan said that today, there are more women in the comedy scene than ever.
“The excuse that “there aren’t any” can no longer be used when a line-up features all white men,” she said, though admits that “showing up to an open mic and being the only woman” can still be “a little lonely.”
The comedians proved that loneliness can be turned into good material, riffing on a wide range of topics, including being boxed in by HR Karens as “CALD” (culturally and linguistically diverse), turning 30 (it’s a huge deal), getting ads for egg freezing from Monash IVF (apparently, Melbournian women over 25 are inundated with this) and the insensitive things brown relatives can say about your weight.
These stories come from a lifetime of living in a female brown body — and it’s something Kripa Krithivasan wanted to address in her comedy.
“No one’s ever going to tell you that being a woman is easy, let alone being a woman in comedy,” she told Women’s Agenda.
“We write about our experiences, and the truth is, our experiences aren’t the mainstream. So, not only are we expected to be funny, but not knowing who you’re going to make uncomfortable with your jokes, then learning to accept that not everyone’s going to love you – it’s a journey. Now try adding a layer of melanin to that – getting on all-white lineups, making jokes palatable for new crowds, unlearning and confronting the trauma of our identities, it’s a lot.”
Guneet Kaur, the producer of Sydney’s only women’s comedy night, Yeah The Girls comedy, had a few of the evening’s best bits, detailing the intricacies of being in an interracial relationships as an Indian, bi-sexual, who is dating another bi-sexual person. Her casual, on-stage energy and natural comedic air made me feel the way one ought to feel as an audience at a stand-up comedy show — like I was in the hands someone who knew what they were doing.
She wasn’t the only one to share the trials and tribulations of having conservative parents — Krithivasan had some hilarious bits too — she believes it is cathartic to turn her daily observations and deep-rooted traumas into humour.
“Making people laugh, realising that so many people relate, it’s validating and liberating for our identities,” she said.
For fellow comedian Chanika Desilva, comedy is a place where she can tell her stories and truly be seen for the artist she is.
“It has given me the freedom to play, create, query and learn more about myself as a human being and artist,” she said. “It has given me the confidence to write, have a voice and know that my voice matters and we have audiences craving to be represented on stage and screen.”
For Desilva, the most difficult thing is not having a space where she can truly find her audiences.
“Sometimes I find broader audiences are afraid to laugh at our trauma,” she said. “That is why I am humbled and excited about Brown Women Comedy, who have created a safe space for us to tell our unique stories. People know what they’re coming for and aren’t afraid to come on the journey with us.”
According to Desilva, Australia’s comedy scene (and other entertainment spaces) are not welcoming.
“The Australian entertainment industries have a history of recycling the same people, and stories, and has always prompted scarcity thinking, that has pitted women against women and POCs against POCs to fight for more tokenistic places on stage and screen,” she explained. “New POC faces are often put under a microscope and made to jump through hoops to prove themselves worthy of a place within the insular Australian Comedy/ Entertainment Industry.”
Desilva hopes that more people will see themselves represented on all platforms, helping all POCs and nonbinary people find their own voices and communities.
“We all deserve to be heard and belong,” she said. “I am now so excited to run into many more brown women from the entertainment industry telling their stories on stage and taking to comedy over the last two years.”
Krithivasan shares similar aspirations for the comedy scene — “I want to see more openly queer brown comics take up space,” she said. “I want to see more non-binary comics take up space, and more shows going around for brown people in Western Sydney so that we can reawaken our sleepy city — I too love being in bed by 9pm.”
Tickets are still available for one show in Sydney — 5:15pm on Saturday May 11. Book your tickets here. If you are an emerging South Asian female comedian, or know of one, share the news about a special workshop in Melbourne next month. Find out more about how to apply here.