Original subtitles

[Das] If I could tell you four things about my country,

where I'm from,

what would they be?

We'd probably agree on about three of them,

and we'd probably fundamentally disagree on one of them.

And that's okay.

That one would be just for me.

That's all tonight's show is.

It's three for you, one for me.

Are you ready to begin?

[applause, cheering]

All right, cool.

Now, just to establish the format of the show,

you will notice we have guests with us this evening...

[laughter]

...in their very own special section,

just like at the airport.

Welcome non-Indians.

What I'm trying to say is, I love you guys very deeply

but they pay in dollars, all right?

So, periodically, through the show,

I will take time to explain some references and context

to the non-Indians,

and let's face it, many, many Indians.

Yo,

I did the show in Mumbai recently. I was like, "Who discovered India?"

A girl was like, "Christopher Columbus!"

These explanations are for her as well.

And no judgment, Columbus made the same mistake.

[laughter]

[scattered applause]

It's gonna be a long evening for some of you.

Everybody knows big things about India. We're going to start

with five really small things about India.

If you want to experience our country, you have to taste our country.

Therefore, the first thing you must put in your bloody mouth

is chyawanprash.

Non-Indians, this is, like, an herbal organic paste for good health.

It's like peanut butter if you hate your children.

But this paste is also a mystery.

Over 50 years, nobody knows what is actually in chyawanprash.

To write this joke, I Googled, "What is in chyawanprash?"

Google, the Google,

says gooseberry jam,

ghee, honey,

some herbs and spices.

When even Google is like, "I don't know, man. Stuff."

And yet, you feel healthier when you have eaten chyawanprash.

Like... like, you buddy, if you have a headache,

and I take a knife and I stab you in your spleen,

you don't have a headache anymore.

And that is the core principle behind chyawanprash.

It inflicts upon you a taste so terrible, at the end,

just survival is considered good health.

There is no one word to describe this taste, right?

It tastes like commitment, that's all.

It's the only food I've ever seen where you eat it with your face.

Up here.

And when you do, your leg shakes.

Have you seen children eat chyawanprash?

[groans]

It travels through your body faster than the neurons in your own brain.

It's basically a stroke.

Fifty years of advertising, there is no slogan for chyawanprash.

You know, I think the slogan is just... [gags]

That should be the actual ad: "Chyawanprash...

[gags]

Choke your children the legal way."

The one thing you must put on your face in our country is Fair & Lovely Cream.

Guys, it's racism in a tube, that's basically what it is.

And yet we blame this on colonialism. Why?

The British were never nicer to fairer Indians, were they?

No, only we are.

The British had a very clear policy, man.

They were like, "We are beige.

Anything darker than beige, we oppress,

anything lighter than beige is German and we don't fuck with those guys."

In my industry, Bollywood,

we have 10,000 projects a year for fair heroines.

We have 10 projects every year for dusky heroines.

All of them are art cinema.

Because apparently nothing glamorous ever happens to dusky people in India.

They fall out of their bed into pathos.

And Radhika Apte is in all of those projects.

If we ever make a biopic about Radhika Apte,

Radhika Apte will have to play Radhika Apte in her own goddamn bio.

Even in the south. Any South Indians here? Make some noise, yeah?

-[cheering] -Where you have duskier heroes,

you overcompensate for that shit.

You put them next to the fairest girls in the world.

That's all a South Indian movie is, it's contrast.

You can't find the right setting on your television.

If you look at the poster of a South Indian movie and blur your eyes,

it looks like the symbol for yin and yang, all right?

The first thing you must drink when you come to our country, ladies and gentlemen,

is Old Monk rum. Yeah?

Non-Indians, this is just diplomacy in a bottle.

If we find a foreigner who likes Old Monk, we'll just give them a fucking passport.

That's the rules.

This rum is so strong,

if you begin a story with, "So we were drinking Old Monk..."

you can skip to the end of the story.

We don't need the beginning, we understand. Or the middle.

"So, we were drinking Old Monk, and now my right pupil doesn't work."

"So we were drinking Old Monk,

and the next morning the currency was demonetized, and the economy had crashed.

We didn't know how."

Old Monk was launched in 1954.

It takes seven years to age a batch of Old Monk.

Which means we started making Old Monk in 1947.

Which means the British left and we were like, "Shots! Let's go."

Because you know colonialism had to have a wrap party, right?

The night before they left.

It's probably a pretty cool wrap party.

You know, like, Mountbatten, Jinnah, Nehru, Gandhi, everybody's there.

They had food and hors d'oeuvres.

As usual, nobody was offering Gandhi any food.

"Guys, they are leaving, I can eat now. I'm off duty."

Jinnah showed up. They're like, "Hey, man, what are you drinking?"

"Oh, Bloody Mary?

Need some salt for the glass, though.

Gandhi?"

Gandhi was like, "All right."

And then Nehru showed up and he was like,

"Guys, we're free, we should do shots!"

They're like, "Yeah, here's to freedom!" [slurps]

[groans]

But if I had to pick one for me,

I grew up spending my summers in Patna

in a house with an aangan.

Non-Indians, an aangan is just a random open courtyard in the middle of the house,

where there should have been more fucking house.

Sometimes we would just build a house around a tree

so that tree can die of loneliness.

At tea time, I would run across the aangan, burn my feet,

sit on my grandmother's lap, listen to a long, bullshit story,

waiting for biscuits.

Because he who has the biscuits gets to tell the story.

At the end of the story, my grandmother would pull out a steel tin

and pull out the greatest biscuit in the world...

-[audience] Parle-G! -The Parle-G.

Non-Indians, on behalf of a billion people, can I humbly say,

"Fuck your cookies."

Sorry. Sorry.

You don't even know.

A cookie is just an overweight biscuit with low self-esteem.

That's all that shit is.

Parle-G, yo, is the greatest biscuit in the world...

with tea.

Parle-G with tea, you will not share with anybody.

Parle-G without tea? "Doggy..." [clicks tongue]

It's because of the physics of the biscuit.

When it's dry, it's hard as fuck!

But you dip it in anything...

no spinal cord, no core strength, just falls apart like a dead hamster.

Who...

designed this biscuit where the minute you expose it to liquid, it's gone.

It's like an edible Mumbai road.

Parle-G's not a biscuit, it's a test...

of your own timing and reflexes.

No matter which country we are from,

we have all had that moment where we have...

over-dipped the biscuit.

We must now, quickly,

get the biscuit from the cup to our mouth.

Over 73 years of independence, nobody has figured out

you need to start out with the cup closer to your mouth!

No, we start out with the cup in Pakistan.

We are dipping over there.

The only cup Pakistan will win this year, by the way.

[laughter, applause]

Hatred, hatred!

And the worst feeling in the world

is when the Parle-G falls into the cup of tea.

[audience] Ooh...

And you have to use another Parle-G to scoop out that Parle-G.

That one falls in as well.

Now you're just stuck in an infinite loop, right?

You have to keep going, commit to the process

until you hit incest, basically, right?

Where there's no tea, it's just biscuit penetrating biscuit, again and again.

At the end of it, you turn it over, it's just one big cylindrical biscuit.

You flip that over to the side,

and you slice it,

and that's how you make Marie biscuits, guys. That's the recipe, actually.

If you want to tell the story of our country,

you have to begin with the stories of our country in the year 1,000 BC

with the Vedas.

The Vedas are the original Sanskrit instruction manuals for Hinduism.

There are four main Vedas.

Underneath them are 209 sub-Vedas.

This is how studious Indians are.

Our first book is 213 books.

There is one Bible.

One Quran.

Buddhists just have, like, a tree and a pamphlet, that's it.

Fun fact, if you can read all the Vedas, you are not just a devout Hindu,

but officially a chartered accountant, apparently.

And yet we will not shut up about how these Vedas

have all the wisdom of the world. Have you met these people at parties?

"You know genetics? First in the Vedas."

"Pythagorean maths, first in the Vedas."

"Astronomy, first in the Vedas."

"The recipe for caramel custard, first in the Vedas."

"Bitcoin exchange rates, first in the Vedas."

"Harry was a horcrux? No, he wasn't. Harry was a Veda."

In my life, I have actually met a polyamorous,

atheist, trans man from Noida.

I haven't met one dude who has actually read a Veda.

See, look at your faces.

You're like, "Fuck the Vedas, who's the guy from Noida?

That sounds like a story!"

America had Archie's.

Europe had Tintin.

Asterix and Obelix was set in Gaul.

I don't know where Gaul is, it's somewhere near the bladder. I don't know.

But in India, we had our very own comic, which was...

Tinkle, bitches, that's right, yeah!

No, not Tinkle Bitches, that's a very different comic.

That just sounds like Peter Pan was a pimp.

"Yo, what up? I'm Peter P.

These are my tinkle bitches."

"Hey, P."

"I need some fairy dust, bitches. [sniffs] I can fly, bitches, I can fly!"

Tinkle had three lead characters. There was Suppandi,

stupid common man, also known as a voter.

There was Shikari Shambu, failed hunter.

Just a guy who ran around with a gun, but never actually killed anyone.

Also known as a Delhiite.

Or an American.

And the third...

was a crow named...

Kalia.

Just a crow who flew around the forest

giving people advice they never fucking asked for.

Proving both in literature and in life, crows will not shut the fuck up.

Doesn't matter what you do to a crow.

Seventeen of you could stab a crow,

he will still come back to life in season six.

Yeah, Tinkle gets dark, man. Yeah.

Like, Kalia comes back to life,

and then he hooks up with Suppandi, they have mad sex.

But then you find out Suppandi's his aunt and this is incest.

And then Kalia stabs Suppandi and she dies but everybody wanted them to be together,

even though if they had, this is still incest.

They would have had, like, fire-resistant, mentally challenged babies together.

Some of the old people are like,

"I have not read this issue of Tinkle at all!"

Should I explain?

Fuck it, let's not.

Because neither did the people who made Game of Thrones, so let's move on.

Sometimes when we are mad at the book, that actually works for the book.

I submit to you The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

Have you heard of this book, yes?

He went into hiding for ten years,

it was considered a distortion of the Quran, he got a fatwa.

It was the first time I realized you could be upset at a book...

that wasn't published by the Central Board of Secondary Education.

I didn't know that.

I didn't even know what a fatwa was before The Satanic Verses.

Fatwa just sounds like an Uber driver with a five-star rating.

"Fatwa will be arriving in one minute.

Start hiding."

By the way, a fatwa's not actually a death sentence. You know that, right?

You can have very chilled out fatwas, they're just proclamations.

You could have a fatwa that is like, "Hey guys, Friday is smart casual.

And if you get time, kill Salman Rushdie."

You can have chilled out fatwas.

'Cause Hindus, we don't have a death sentence in our culture. Do we, guys? No!

If we want to target a particular community or person,

we have to design an entire election campaign around that shit.

Hypothetically.

If I could pick a book for me,

it would be the largest selling work of fiction in the history of India.

Yes, it's our national newspaper in English.

I cannot say their name,

because I am told they will sue the ever-loving shit out of me,

but I'm told you can. It's got three words in the title, it is the...

[audience] Times of India!

If you insist.

When I was 27 years old, I did a corporate show for our national newspaper.

They offered me a job on television the next morning.

I'd never been to Bombay, they said I had a week to move here.

I walked from their office on VT station to Marine Drive,

looked out at the skyline of Mumbai, smoked a cigarette,

and never left.

That is a true story.

Which is why it will never be published in our national newspaper.

Our newspaper's like a gigantic, leather dildo, let's be honest.

We know it's not real.

Doesn't even feel very good.

Yet, I can't start my morning without one, yes.

That is not a true story.

Which is why it will probably be published in our national newspaper.

I read this newspaper cover to cover every morning

and then, just to be safe, I read my deodorant.

Just so I can have one actual fact in my mind for the rest of the day.

Like, "Okay, I don't know what's happening in Kashmir,

but polypropylene glycol definitely is flammable."

They have a local supplement here, let's call it the "Wombay" Times.

They actually will sue, guys, okay?

Do you know you can buy the front page of the "Wombay" Times for about 15 lakhs?

Do you know how I know? I've done it twice.

Yeah, I'm not famous, I'm just rich, guys, that's all that shit is.

That's the only reason I'm putting this in my special. It's an experiment.

I want to see if they deny it.

'Cause if they deny it, they'll have to do an article.

And if they do an article saying, "Vir Das never bought the front page,"

historically, that is the first free article

ever published by our national newspaper.

But I submit to you that we do not tell our stories in our books.

We tell our stories in our movies.

So if you're going to watch our movies, young and old,

the first movie you must begin with is a movie by the name of

Amar Akbar Anthony.

Non-Indians, let me take you through the plot of this bad-ass Bollywood movie.

The year was 1977.

Three baby brothers were separated at birth.

Because in the '70s, that's just shit that happened every day.

You could not find one responsible maternity hospital in all of India.

We just treated babies like IKEA products,

we unpacked them and threw away the paper work immediately.

Now, these three brothers, one grew up to be a Muslim,

one grew up to be a Christian, one grew up to be a Hindu,

Muslim fell in love with a Muslim, Christian a Christian, Hindu a Hindu,

because even in fiction, we shall not dilute the race.

It has the greatest cinematic miracle I have ever seen.

So check it out, the mom is blind.

Now, at some point this lady goes to a Sai Baba Temple.

Sai Baba's like a chain-smoking guru.

She prays to his statue...

We're gonna pretend like I didn't say that. Fucking stay with me.

She prays to his statue.

Sai Baba statue's eyes light up with fire,

which floats into the mom's eyes

and that chick can see again.

Why are we wasting our time with Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam?

Sai Baba is doing Lasik surgery on a daily basis.

What a movie, man. Three brothers who look nothing like each other at all.

Nobody ever spoke about it.

Not one brother was like, "Hey, Mom.

How popular were you in college, Mom?

I know you're blind, but could you not recognize Dad's...

Couldn't you give him a password or something?

He comes into the room like, 'Marco!'

You're like, 'Open!' I don't know, a system?

A system?"

My career is over, it's fine.

The next movie you must watch is a movie by the name of Dil Chahta Hai.

This is our first realistic coming-of-age story.

Three boys.

One gets a job in Australia,

one falls in love with an older woman,

one exists.

The reason I like this movie

is it redefined the wedding interruption scene forever.

See, in Bollywood we interrupt weddings,

because who cares about what the girl actually wants.

White people have a clause for this in their weddings, right?

At some point, the priest goes,

"If any man here should object to this union,

let him speak now or..."

-[audience] Forever hold his peace. -"...forever hold his peace."

Now, in India, we can't work with a clause because that requires punctuality.

So, we interrupt the wedding whenever the fuck we feel like it

with the greatest line in cinematic history.

[Das, audience speak Hindi]

Translation: This wedding cannot happen.

Look at the arrogance.

Not, "This wedding should not happen."

Not, "This wedding might not happen."

"This wedding cannot happen."

And nobody ever counters that shit with logic, right?

Nobody's ever like, "Bro, look around.

There's a tent and a bride and a groom and a pandit

and a fire and vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce and a pasta station.

It's happening, bro.

These things do not randomly come together on a Tuesday for no reason."

That's the reason I love this movie, it simplified it so much.

The boy, Aamir, shows up at the girl Preity's wedding.

Aamir is like, "Hi."

And Preity's like, "Hi."

And then her fiance, Ayub, shows up, right?

And Aamir is like, "Uh-uh."

And he stops.

And then they leave.

And the movie's over.

That's... Who the fuck are you? Iron Man? What happened?

I don't...

He was so efficient, just vote for congress, bang the girl, that's it.

Now if that was the elections, Rahul Gandhi would be prime minister now.

Can you imagine if that actually happened?

Like, you went in the booth and you voted for congress,

and then a girl showed up, like, "Come on."

That's an actual acha din.

If you're going to watch our movies, watch The Jungle Book.

Not the bastardized Disney live-action version.

Way before that, we had our own weekly cartoon on television

with the best opening song ever.

[sings in Hindi]

[audience singing along]

[Das singing in Hindi]

Translation...

Big news from the jungle.

The jungle has a new flower

and he has grown inside an underwear.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know what is growing inside your underwear,

but if it resembles horticulture, call a doctor right now.

It's so Indian-- Don't worry. [speaks Hindi]

Don't worry.

We forget that this is an Indian story,

because the panther is British, and the bear is American,

and the snake is a white lady.

Fuck off, where is this diverse jungle with loose immigration policies?

Please tell me.

It's not a jungle, this is a garden at the Google campus.

This is an Indian story, all right?

These are Indian names. Hathi.

Bagheera.

Baloo.

And yet, I've never met one Mowgli.

Not even in Noida.

You? Anybody met a Mowgli?

Mowgli Sinha?

Mowgli Gupta?

Narendra Mowgli? Anybody met a Narendra Mowgli?

Maybe that's who Mowgli grew up to be, huh? Their prime minister.

Just in the forest forcibly hugging animals.

The crocodile's like, "I'm not really crying, man, this is a PR opportunity."

Having gigantic Howdy Mowgli events.

Holding hands with orangutans really hard.

Same orange.

Just standing in the forest like, "Animals!

Tomorrow morning, these trees are invalid!

And meet your new home minister, Shere Khan."

If I have to pick a movie for me,

when I was eight years old, my parents decided to scare the shit out of me

by showing me a movie called Bees Saal Baad.

Have you seen this movie, yeah?

It introduced me to the witch.

Non-Indians, let me explain the witch. These are female demons, right?

Oh, and they've got fucked up hair and long fingernails,

and they come out at night to kill men.

And they have backwards feet. All witches, backwards feet.

I grew up in Delhi, anybody else grew up in Delhi here?

We have actual witches in Delhi, right?

I did not mean to point at you when I said that.

What I mean is... No, I apologize.

It's a general statement. That's not...

[in Hindi] This is a Netflix special. I wouldn't lie about that.

We have... We have actual witches in Delhi, right?

Like, have you heard of the lady in the white sari? Have you heard of that?

Yeah, this is an actual chudail, who comes out in the middle of the night,

in Delhi, in a white sari.

And she asks gentlemen driving alone for a lift.

And if you do not give her a lift, she runs backwards alongside your car.

Making eye contact with you through your own window.

As your car speeds up, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90,

she keeps time on backwards feet.

'Cause that's how much Delhi girls hate rejection, all right?

Look, I'm not trying to be an asshole, okay?

I'm just saying, this woman has been keeping time with cars at top speeds

for 50 years!

And in 50 years, not one person

from the Indian Olympics Association...

has considered this an opportunity?

This is an Olympics I'd love to see.

"Welcome to the 2046 Olympics women's 100 meters finals,

three women in the finals:

from America, Florence Griffith Joyner Jr.,

from China, Xing Wang,

and from India-- Ah! Jesus Christ!

Savitri the witch, all right.

The gun is fired, the women are off, the American in the lead,

the Chinese in second

and the Indian is fucking moonwalking, ladies and gentlemen, she's moonwalking...

I've never... Oh, my God, she's stabbed the Chinese runner

in her chest with her fingernails.

The American now running for country...

and life...

has crossed the finish line, broken in the 100-meters world record

and is still running, ladies and gentlemen, yes.

Both women have left the stadium, the American is in a car,

the Indian is running alongside backwards.

The Indian appears to be screaming something, I believe it's,

Drop me to 'Greater Kailash', please!

So now I believe in chudails.

If we're going to understand our country, we have to understand our beliefs.

-Do you agree? -[audience calling out]

Right? And what we must understand is that they are not true,

but we really fucking believe them.

For instance, all Indians must stand for the national anthem.

I believe it.

But technically, we don't have to.

Probably should. Safety issue.

Because there are other dudes multitasking in the room,

singing while whooping.

[singing]

So, stand for the national anthem, man.

It's pretty chilled out, our national anthem.

Like, a definitive end, it's not too long, right?

You know when it's over. We all just kind of go...

[murmuring]

Nobody died. Okay, sit down.

[laughs]

These guys never know when to sit down.

♪ For the land of the free ♪

♪ And the home of the... ♪

♪ Brave ♪

[holds note]

[continues holding note]

[holds, releases note]

That football player who took a knee,

he wasn't protesting, he was just resting, all right?

We don't have to stand for the national anthem, do you know how I know?

The announcement says "please."

"Please stand for the national anthem."

In standard Indian rules,

if the announcement says "please," we don't do that shit!

"Please wait till your plane has reached the gate before you use your cell phone."

Fuck off!

We are in the air, we see a building we recognize,

we'll start trying to call people, right?

"Please don't piss on the wall."

That's what walls are for!

America should be very grateful they share a border with Mexico, not us.

Because, you know...

if it was us and they build a wall,

they'd have a very different problem on their hands.

"Why do they keep pissing on us?"

You're picturing that now, aren't you?

Sorry.

"Atithi Devo Bhava." This is a big Indian value. Translation?

-[audience, Das] "Guest is God."

I believe it. But technically, having legendary hospitality

has not really worked out for us throughout history.

When you greet every foreigner with, "Namaste, you are God,"

they tend to stick around for a while.

We go too far with the hospitality

with the tikka, the garlands and the welcome drink,

because we don't actually mean that shit.

I mean, we like you guys, we love it when you come to India,

but we just wish we got the same hospitality when we went abroad, right?

Like, maybe a good start is

don't make us submit fingerprints to come to your country.

That's-- I always find that embarrassing.

I have to submit my fingerprint to enter your country.

Which is why when you come to mine,

I take the same fingerprint and put it on your head.

That's not respect, that's revenge, guys.

My biometrics are not just in your system, they're on your face, bitch! On your face!

Just look at our face when we garland you at the hotel.

We look like brides who have been forced into arranged marriages

to avoid honor killings, all right?

But the welcome drink we get excited about, right?

Have you seen a hotel's face when you refuse a welcome drink?

It's like... [gasps]

You look like you punched a baby or some shit like that.

I'm assuming.

Fuck, you guys are damn uncomfortable, man.

Relax, I would never punch a baby, guys.

Unless that baby stole my Parle-G. I'll punch the shit out of that baby.

That baby's going down.

For a nap, relax, guys.

The baby's sleeping.

'Cause I punched him. Twice. That's why.

I wrote that joke at seven o'clock in the morning

on the breakfast table and my wife was like, "What are you giggling at?"

So I told her

and watched her just re-evaluate every life decision she had ever made.

And then I punched our baby. Uh...

I'll stop. I'll move on. I'm done. I'm done. I'm sorry. I apologize.

I can do this for six hours. It's really easy, guys.

It's like punching a baby, actually. That easy.

You guys didn't see that last one coming.

Neither did the baby. Even he was surprised.

Really? "Punching babies, yeah!"

Speaking of punching babies...

Our biggest value: All Indians must respect their elders.

This is our greatest hit. Our "Sweet Child O' Mine."

I believe it.

But, technically, old people are useless and entitled when you give them power.

Have you ever seen an Indian uncle at a restaurant?

"I will have omelette."

"But Uncle, this is a Chinese restaurant."

"Yeah."

"Omelette."

"But we don't do that."

-"Omelette!" -"I guess we're serving breakfast now.

Come on, break some eggs. Make an omelette."

We have the youngest population in the world,

with some of the oldest leadership. That's how they rule us.

"I will have hatred."

"But we're a free country with human rights."

"Yeah."

"Hatred."

-"But we don't do that." -"Hatred!"

"All right, I guess we're serving hatred now, break a masjid, make a mandir."

Hey, look, I get that Indian grandparents, old people, had tough lives. We know this,

because they wouldn't shut the fuck up about how tough their lives were.

We have all heard these stories of walking, yes? Yeah?

"We had to walk 65 kilometers to school one way,

and 145 kilometers the other way."

Why? Was the shape of the Earth shifting while you were in school?

Were tectonic plates moving?

You had to walk to school, and sunlight and books and sanitation...

Why was nobody living near the things you needed to survive?

Who did your civic planning?

Oh, wait.

[audience groans, laughs]

Come on.

This is just revenge for every [tuts] joke we see in American stand-up comedy, right?

And I know you didn't do our civic planning.

It was your granddad, relax, we all know this.

If I had to pick a value for me, I hear this everywhere I go:

Indians don't have a sense of humor.

And that pisses me off.

Because it's true, but you don't say that shit out loud.

So I need to apologize to multiple brands

because the people who are going to boycott me and this special

and have a reaction, they don't read much.

Yeah, I know. React first, read later. You know what I mean?

So they're going to boycott, like, Netflix, Nutflex, Nutriflex, Nutflax...

Vir Das, Sur Das, Sun Das, Haagen-Dazs, Adidas...

Snapdeal, Snapchat, Amazon...

and Ayushmann Khurrana, it's gonna happen.

Sorry, Ayushmann.

As long as India has had legendary hospitality,

foreigners have always shown up to our shores to find yourselves.

I think that's a beautiful journey,

that you come to India to find yourself.

It really is a very beautiful thing

because Indians, we go abroad and hope nobody finds us at all.

Including our own fucking families.

So, here are some foreigners that really found themselves in India.

You have to begin with the man who discovered India. A man by the name of...

-[audience] Vasco da Gama. -Vasco da Gama, well done.

Portuguese explorer.

Took a Spanish armada, sailed around Africa through Mombasa,

met Columbus, gave him shitty directions, moved on...

landed in Calicut.

Not to be confused with Kolkata.

That's a different discovery of India.

If he met Bengalis first...

Any Bengalis in the audience? Make some noise. Bengalis, yeah?

Yeah, you're Bengalis, you're kind of like the Indian hipsters, no?

Except hipsters choose poverty.

But you know, you're all thinkers, you write poetry.

All the poetry is about how awesome you are.

There's no angst. Bengalis, it's not hip hop.

They never write like, "Fuck the police."

Bengalis write, "If I was police, police would be better.

I'm a police."

If Vasco da Gama-- If he had met Bengalis, he just wouldn't have gone back.

They send another ship, find him 40 kilos overweight,

chain-smoking at two o'clock in the afternoon.

"Are you Vasco da Gama?"

"I used to be.

Now I'm Vasco Brother"

"But the queen wants to see you."

"Tell didi to wait!"

[inhales]

What other foreigners found themselves in India? Oh, Mother Teresa.

[audience murmuring]

All right.

Here's what's going to happen.

I'm gonna do a Mother Teresa joke, guys.

I have to, guys.

I don't want to, but...

she's on the list.

[laughter]

Now, when I do this joke, your entire body's going to seize up.

It's true, you're going to be like, "Fuck this guy!"

And then I need you to just breathe.

All right, just breathe, don't laugh yet, no pressure,

just take the joke home with you, all right?

Sleep on the joke.

Tomorrow morning, you might realize that words have alternate context,

and the joke's actually harmless.

Are you ready?

I'm joking, I don't have a fucking Mother Teresa joke.

You can't, man. It's hard to write a joke about her. She's too nice.

You know, she had, like, the lepers, and the homeless, and the needy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is when it comes to comedy,

Mother Teresa is untouchable.

[audience groans]

Breathe everybody, just breathe. Just breathe.

I'm sorry to lay it on you like that. Just... No pressure.

No pressure, if you're not feeling it, it's fine.

Just sleep on the joke.

Tomorrow morning, you might wake up like, "Oh, fuck, he's good."

Who else found themselves in India?

The East India Company? Those guys stuck around for a while, huh?

Do you know the first thing they traded with India was?

Cinnamon.

That's what led to 200 years of oppression.

The one spice we use least in Indian cooking.

Tell me you did this for garam masala and I'd understand.

Fuck, you want bhindi, you can attack us again, I get it.

Fucking cinnamon?

You ever been at a dining table, somebody's like,

"You have more cinnamon for the tikka?"

"Fuck off!"

Cinnamon.

That's like me colonizing England for sunlight. Are you insane?

Cinnamon.

But the bright side is because we gave you cinnamon

we get to feel part of your process, you know what I mean?

At least now you know that Muslims and Hindus gave you that Christmas spirit.

Cinnamon.

Yeah, that came from us, guys.

Those things Santa Claus was whipping?

They were brown but they weren't reindeer.

[audience groans, laughs]

That wasn't Rudolph, that was Rajeesh.

Did I ruin Christmas for anybody else?

If I had to pick a foreigner for me,

it would be a man by the name of Tom Alter.

Do you guys know Tom Alter? Young kids? Yeah?

He's just the white guy in every Bollywood movie.

Like, what Dev Patel is to them, Tom Alter was to us.

You know, he played every role that a white guy could play in 140 films.

We gave him a Padma Shri, did you know that?

That's one of our highest civilian honors, it's like our knighthood.

He's Padma Shri Tom.

That's like Archduke Jignesh.

But it's still an achievement, you know what I mean?

For a man with a different skin color to cross over into drama

and music and movies and...

He's a white Priyanka Chopra, that's who this guy is, right?

Yo, Priyanka Chopra has cracked the West like no Indian before.

You gotta give it up. I promise you, in 20 years,

Priyanka Chopra will get the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the White House.

It's gonna happen.

She'll be standing there and all the Jonas sisters and the...

The brothers and the...

The Joni will be behind her.

They'll be in the Oval Office and President Putin will invite her up...

[audience] Ohh!

Come on. To bail me out, my grandfather was Padma Shri as well,

and on his 80th birthday,

the government was getting together to celebrate my daada.

And I had to change plans and I couldn't host the event anymore,

and my family was really mad,

so I called Tom Alter in the middle of the night.

And he did it. For free!

I called up my grandparents the next morning.

They were like, "He was amazing, but he was white. He was white!"

See, they grew up in a pre-independence India,

so they couldn't fathom that a white man was working for them.

So they kept trying to impress him while he was working for them.

Tom called me, he's like, "I love your grandparents

and I own your family business now, apparently."

As long as foreigners have shown up to our shores, we've had to defend them.

Here are some of the battles that have defined us.

Number one, World War Two.

Did you know that 1.2 million Indian soldiers fought in World War Two?

Throughout Europe.

That's the easy way to get a Schengen visa.

Must have been confusing for German soldiers, right?

See British soldiers running at them

and there's just one Mumbai guy behind them.

"Hello, Nazi guy."

[in Hindi] Hilter! Hilter! Where is he?

[in Hindi] Bless you!

[in Hindi] This idiot."

Just gathering in their bunkers, [in German accent] "The enemy...

is a master of disguise.

He has the ability to look like us.

We discovered this...

Fair & Lovely Cream."

India paid for World War Two, it led to a famine in Bengal.

When we wrote to Winston Churchill saying, "Hey, could we use the food from Bengal

to feed the people of Bengal, because, you know, it's right there?"

Churchill wrote back saying,

"Well, if the famine is so bad, why hasn't Gandhi died of starvation yet?"

[audience gasps]

Yeah.

To which I'm sure Gandhi ji wanted to reply,

"Because I'm not an overweight bitch like you!"

Yo, Gandhi ji was fit as hell, all right?

That dude was on keto for a very long time.

Gandhi ji did 17 hunger strikes. Seventeen.

That's intermittent eating.

Have you... Have you seen all the videos of Gandhi ji walking? He's just...

[huffs]

Everybody behind him is like, "Oh, you bitch."

For salt?

Say what you will about being oppressed, you get to sit down quite a bit.

What are we protesting? Colonialism or body fat?

The Battle of Panipat. This began the Mughal Empire in India.

Non-Indians, Panipat is like a small town about 90 kilometers outside of Delhi.

Two men were in this battle.

Ibrahim Lodi, owned all of North India.

Babur, an invading Mongol, who descended from Genghis Khan.

Now, Babur had only 10,000 men,

Ibrahim Lodi had 40,000 men, plus elephants,

because North Indians must have loud, obnoxious vehicles throughout history.

[audience laughing]

On the back of every elephant, "Rocky Loves Mommy."

If the tail was up. If the tail was down, it was "Ricky Loves Mommy."

Because the... Right?

[audience groans]

So stupid.

What Babur did was he fired trumpets and cannons up into the air,

the elephants panicked, ran over their own troops

and they lost the battle. That's what began the Mughal Empire.

Just loud music and gunfire on the outskirts of Delhi.

It's the first farmhouse party, guys. That's what that shit was.

No, Delhiites, there are shootings in Delhi every week, right?

But they're safe because Bhangra music.

That's what America needs to do, just play Bhangra music everywhere.

Because Bhangra changes the direction of a shooting.

You go from... [imitates gunfire]

To... [imitates Bhangra beat]

Safe.

So, you choose, you can have zero shootings but also zero eagles.

Kargil, 1999, India and Pakistan went to war.

It was a weird year.

The Pakistani forces crossed the Line of Control dressed as Indian insurgents.

It took us three days to confirm it was them,

because forget white people, even we can't fucking tell the difference.

Eventually we got them on a trick question.

Two soldiers were like, "Hey man, where are you from?"

"Around."

"What's in chyawanprash?"

Our prime minister Vajpayee called up Nawaz Sharif in the middle of the night

and said, "You have violated the Line of Control, we are now at war."

He replied, "My army must have done it without my knowledge,

I didn't order anything."

To which Atal said, "You can't say 'I didn't order anything,' this is a war.

I don't work for Zomato, motherfucker."

And now everybody's so angry about this whole Kashmir thing.

Even Indians are so angry.

Like, "We took Kashmir back!"

"From who?" "Ourselves!"

Do you ever walk into your own kitchen like, "This is my spoon!

"Taking this spoon back...

from myself!

I will lock this spoon in a drawer and cut off access to this spoon

to prove my kitchen is functional."

[laughing, cheering]

I don't know what to do about Kashmir, I'm not a wise man.

I feel like sometimes, like, one day in the middle of the night,

we should just go and give Kashmir to Nepal.

Because then everybody's unhappy.

Including Nepal.

Be like, "You're number one Hindu, no?"

[in Sanskrit] "Guest is God."

If I could pick a battle for me...

In the year 2005, I lived in Chicago

and my roommate was a homosexual man from Amritsar, Punjab.

And I was in Chicago to learn how to do stand-up comedy,

and he was there to learn how to be gay openly.

Because those were two things neither one of us could do here at home.

And look how much the world has changed now for the better.

It's 2019, we both live in Mumbai,

I get to do stand-up four days a week and he gets to be gay,

I'm assuming more than four days a week.

I don't think their club shuts down on Mondays.

But, the point is, when I did my first Netflix special,

you know, homosexuality was against the law

and, since then, we won a battle for the LGBTQ community.

Section 377 was defeated.

We decriminalized homosexuality in this country.

That's an amazing thing.

It is, because Indian uncles

were holding out for a while on that one, right?

Uncles were not having that shit.

"Well, if we legalize it, they will come for us next."

They're gays, not zombies.

They don't have to spread.

If a gay dude bites you, you don't become fabulous overnight.

They wouldn't do that. They eat healthy from what I hear.

Here's the thing. Indian men, you're not afraid of being hit on by a gay man.

You're just afraid you might like it.

'Cause look, it took my roommate 20 years to figure out that he was gay,

so maybe there's some shit uncle hasn't figured out yet.

Maybe five years later, you'll see uncle in a restaurant.

"I will have cocklet."

"But Uncle, you don't do that."

"Yeah."

I'm saying it's not real until people put our shaadi where our mouth is.

We gotta have gay marriage in this country, are you with me, yeah?

[cheering]

There are gonna be some roadblocks, some confused pandits...

sitting around the bonfire with two grooms, like,

"I don't know, man. Which direction do you want to go in?

It's my first time."

We could outlaw the baraat, that's a juvenile ritual.

Non-Indians, I'll explain, the baraat

is where we make the brides' family wait for one hour.

We put the groom on a horse and we dance around the groom.

For no reason.

What is the messaging of it?

♪ Look at this boy ♪

♪ Tonight, this boy will have sex ♪

♪ Not on the horse, he will get off ♪

♪ He will use his nunu tonight With that girl ♪

♪ They will have sex ♪

Her whole family just stands there, like...

"The sex is going to be a lot shorter than this performance, I promise you."

So, I'd love to see a lesbian Hindu wedding.

No dancing. Firm handshake. Five minutes, done.

Or just a two-boy wedding, which is no wedding, all dancing.

The priest has to work his shit into the dance.

Just make it like a conga line...

Swaha!

Swaha!

Be a good day.

It's not always been good days in our history, has it?

You ready?

I can skip it.

Our history books have.

[audience] Ohh!

Can we find sparkles of light in our dark days?

Are you ready?

Sure?

Nirbhaya.

The horrific gang rape of a girl in Delhi,

young people took to the streets in protest

to clash with the police for three days.

Can we learn anything from Nirbhaya?

I humbly submit to you this.

Under-25s, I'll talk to you guys specifically now.

When you get truly pissed off, oh, man, that is a thing of beauty.

It really is.

Nothing scares those politicians more than you doing that.

God, I wish you would do it more often.

'Cause there's nothing those politicians can do to you. You are untouchable.

Different context.

What'll they take from you?

They shut down your porn, your ozone, your right to information,

what do they take? If they shut down TikTok, you'll survive!

And those of you that don't, shouldn't.

You are leaving us in a better world.

That riot, you remember? It was a thing of beauty, man.

The Delhi police petrified, calling politicians.

"Sir, the young people are very angry, sir."

"But, have you tried tear gas?"

"Yes, sir.

But the thing is, they were crying before the riot, sir, so...

that just made them angrier, sir."

"What about rubber bullets? You know, the ones that don't kill people?"

"There are bullets that don't kill people?

Sir, I wouldn't say that out loud in Delhi, you might start a hobby."

"Well, what about water cannons?"

"Yes, sir. We've been hitting them for 12 hours, sir.

But they have a lot of stamina, sir.

They go to these music festivals and train, sir.

Every time we threaten them,

'Stop, or I'll fire my gun!' They reply..."

♪ All we need is somebody To lean on, lean on ♪

I don't..."

Jallianwala Bagh, probably our most horrific tragedy before independence.

Multiple Sikhs had gathered in a garden

to peacefully celebrate the festival of Baisakhi.

Reginald Dyer and his men opened fire on them for upwards of four minutes.

Horrible tragedy.

Can we learn anything from Jallianwala Bagh?

I think that time has a beautiful sense of humor.

The Dyer family was court-martialed.

They then moved up north in India, where they started a brewery.

When India got independence, they were forced to sell that brewery

to a man by the name of Mohan, who started a company called Mohan Meakin.

That very Dyer Brewery now manufacturers Old Monk rum.

-[audience] Ohh! [applauds] -Yeah!

So the family that is responsible for our most horrific tragedy,

their land supplies happiness to millions of Indians.

It's crazy. That taste that you taste when you are drinking Old Monk,

that is not 42% alcohol, that is 99% justice.

I promise you, that's what that is.

And 1% vanilla essence.

It's mostly vanilla essence, guys.

But you can't create a good applause out of vanilla essence.

I've never said vanilla essence and people just started clapping.

Vanilla essence. Fuck you, don't you dare do it.

-[applause] -Don't you dare. No! No! Fuck you!

I don't need... No, I don't need sympathy claps, all right?

I earn my claps.

I'm a patient man. Vanilla essence will have its time.

Twenty years from now, scientists will have a press conference.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we found the cure for AIDS.

And we found it in...

The Vedas, guys, you should have read that shit."

The Ram mandir.

Non-Indians, this is a really fun story. Let me take you through it.

So, in Ayodhya is the birthplace of Ram.

And then Babur built a mosque over the birthplace of Ram

and everybody got mad and Hindus broke down the mosque.

They were gonna build a temple there. They will build a Ram BHK...

That is the whole message of this...

It is the first time I've ever seen people tear down a place of worship

to create another place of worship.

Makes no sense to me.

It's like saying, "We'll attack the Taj." "Why?"

"We want to build a Marriott." Are you insane?

Look, forget Hinduism and Islam, let's talk about India's real religion:

Property.

Do you know what the square footage of the Ram mandir is? It's 2.7 acres.

In 2.7 acres, you could have a mandir,

like, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, anything.

You could have the new gods! You could have the Ambani office,

the Adani office, the KVN office...

Whoever the politicians worship.

Unless you're talking about the actual birth space of Ram,

the physical birth space, in which case, how big was Ram?

Fuck it.

Because Ram.

So, you can't be so angry.

You can't be like... [angrily] "Mandir vahin banega!"

You have to be like... [gently] "Mandir vahin banega."

Uh, if I had to pick a tragedy for me, it would probably be our tragedy.

26/11, right?

We all lost somebody.

I did.

I lost a friend who was like a... a mother figure,

mentor figure to me. She helped me start my career.

I really respected her and I... I never got to say thank you.

On the day of the 26/11 terror attacks, I produced my first comedy pilot.

So, I had my first crew of people, actors, and a spot boy all working for me.

And when I found out that my friend had died,

she was gunned down in the Taj...

I'm ashamed to say I felt extreme hatred. It just bubbled up inside of me.

And the spot boy knocked on my door. His name was Babu.

And he's like, "Sir, the shot is ready."

And I said, "Babu, there's a terror attack happening outside."

And he was like, "Yeah, so?

It's Mumbai, let's get to work."

I said, "I just lost my life savings."

He was like, "Cool.

I don't have any life savings.

But both of us need to eat tomorrow, so let's get to work."

So, as Mumbai burned,

me and Babu and this crew of actors

shot stand-up comedy and sketches together and laughed all night long.

I've worked with Babu every year for a decade now.

I didn't know this then, but I know this now.

His full name is Kabir Mohammed Hussain.

That is a pretty Muslim name, guys.

That's like three different Muslim dudes in the same time.

That's like you made Amar Akbar Anthony without Amar and Anthony.

But think about the messaging of that.

On the night that my friend was gunned down

in the name of what terrorists call Islam,

and real Muslims know has nothing to do with Islam whatsoever,

me and Kabir Muhammad Husseini

laughed together all night long because both of us were broke

and needed to eat tomorrow.

And that's why they'll never win.

And that's why you can't fuck with Mumbai:

because we are too fucked to begin with.

[applause, cheering]

We are pre-fucked!

We don't have time for tragedy, we've got to get up and go, right?

You blow up a building,

we will sell Bombay sandwiches outside that building the next day.

You shoot at Cafe Leopold,

we will shoot selfies the next morning at Cafe Leopold.

You shut down our trains, our roads,

our Tiffin, our Dabba arrives on time the next day in Mumbai. On time.

You want to stop this city? You can't stop lunch in Mumbai, all right?

The purpose of terrorism is to propagate permanent hatred.

In Mumbai, there is no time for permanent hatred. Only dhanda, right?

This is Mumbai hatred:

"Fuck you, Hindus. You Hindus should die."

"Fuck you, Muslims. You Muslims should die."

Train, train, train, train, train.

And then we hug each other and go to work like this.

We exchange breath and bodily fluids for an hour.

The only thing dividing us is our underwear.

We're not divided by the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

We are divided by Lux Cozi, all right? That is Mumbai.

That's Mumbai.

[cheering continues]

Guys, sometimes I feel like I've over-intellectualized this show.

I don't know, man,

maybe the reason we travel this country is just to look at shit.

That's why we go abroad right? See pigeon, palace...

Those two things are always together, I don't know why.

So, here's some shit that everybody needs to look at in India.

Number one, the Buland Darwaza, built by Akbar the Great.

Have you heard of it, yeah?

Go see it because of how random it is.

It's a giant door in the middle of nowhere.

Why would you put a door in the middle of nowhere?

[laughter]

Built by Akbar the Great.

I want to be there for this conversation with the architect.

"Rashid, my head architect, come here, come here.

I want you to build me a giant door to nowhere."

"No house, Akbar?

A door to what?"

[clicks tongue] "Ah.

The other side of the door."

"What are we going to call it?"

Buland Darwaza. Translation: Giant door.

"Ashwagandha?"

And that's how Akbar the Great rolled.

He built a giant door and he called it "giant door."

Then he built a fort in Agra and he called it...

[Das, audience] "Agra Fort."

Then, he made a tomb for Humayun and he called it...

[Das, audience] "Humayun's Tomb."

How was this man not called Akbar the Literal? I don't understand.

If you're in India, go see the Taj Mahal. Have you seen it, guys, yeah?

Beautiful symbol of love.

But FYI, his third wife.

How did the first two feel?

My wife finds a photo of an ex-girlfriend, we have to go on vacation for six days.

How did he have this conversation?

"Rashid, family architect, come here.

Rashid, I need a tomb for my wife."

"Which one, sir?"

"The dead one, man. Which one do you think?"

"What is this on either side?"

"Those are two mini-tombs...

because if you build this for her,

you're going to have to kill the other two, I promise you."

"Rashid, stick your arms out."

You know that shit, yeah?

Shah Jahan cut off the arms of half the people who built the Taj Mahal.

That's the world's first NDA, non-compete agreement.

"Hi, welcome to Taj construction.

We're gonna need you to sign an NDA before we get started."

"Okay, do you have a pen?" "We're doing footprints, actually."

Non-Indians, if you're coming to my country,

please go and see the Bhakra Nangal Dam, all right?

It is Asia's highest dam.

I beg you to go and see it because we haven't.

And somebody should.

It's a very good dam, guys. Please go see it.

Because they cram that shit down our throats in schools for no reason.

It was a chapter.

Do you remember that shit? It was a full chapter.

"Bhakra Nangal Dam is the highest dam in Asia.

The cubic centimeter of the dam... I hope terrorists blow up this dam...

Children are suffering enough with the whole chyawanprash situation."

What is Bhakra Nangal?

It just sounds like a position in the Kama Sutra.

Bhakra Nangal.

When you're naked and feed each other Gujarati snacks.

Sorry, non-Indians, I can't explain that one.

That one's just for us.

There are men here tonight,

they're looking at their wives like, "Tonight."

Fafda Nangal.

You can't expect kids to be excited about a dam. I'm sorry, man.

We're not going to get emotionally invested in a dam.

I was 12 years old

the year the prime minister of India was assassinated.

We were in school, they rang the bell in the middle of lunch in school

and said, "The prime minister has just been assassinated,

you now have a school holiday." And we clapped, all right?

We weren't going to care about a dam.

If I had to pick a monument for me,

it's just this beautiful monument with culture and heritage.

Antilia, guys.

Antilia is the most expensive home on Earth.

It is a billion-dollar skyscraper belonging to the Ambani family.

Non-Indians, the Ambani family is the richest family in India.

They own our gas, our electricity, our telecom, us and soon you.

Have you seen the big... They just... Check it out when you go.

I performed at Antilia for the Ambanis.

It made my heart happy and proud to see such an amazing home for an Indian.

It did.

I always do my Ambani jokes at the end of the special, guys.

Because if I do them up top,

in five minutes the Ambanis will just buy Netflix.

They have that kind of money.

Black Mirror will have a gold border around it.

Stranger Things will be in Gujarati and shit.

Eleven will become [in Hindi] Six.

Have you seen Antilia? Sometimes you miss it, it's such a subtle structure.

This family is so rich, they own us, literally.

I feel like every time they have a baby,

they should just come out to the balcony...

We'll all gather at the bottom.

[hums intro to "The Circle of Life"]

♪ Ambani ♪

See Mukesh on the balcony. "Everything that the light touches is ours, Akash."

I'm going to end by talking about some good days.

The day AR Rahman won two Oscars.

That was a pretty good day, huh?

Because of how chilled out he was.

The Americans were so-- "I want to thank my mom and my dad..."

And he was just like, "God is great, thank you so much.

Two cappuccinos." He's so chill.

He tried a joke, do you remember that shit? It didn't work.

He was like, "When I was coming here, I was nervous and terrified.

The last time was at my wedding." And nobody laughed.

And I was just, like, "Oh, fuck."

This is not two-time Academy Award winner AR Rahman.

This is first-time open mic-er AR Rahman.

The day we put a man on the moon.

I know it hasn't happened yet, but I wanna show ISRO some support

and say we believe in them and it will happen for us soon.

I mean, our greatest achievement--

"We will not get there first, but we will get there cheapest."

Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. He was like, "One small step for man..."

Fuck that. Our guy will land and be like, "How much? How much, huh?

One small check for man."

The night we got independence, never forget that night.

You know, Jawaharlal Nehru made that beautiful speech.

We said goodbye to the British, in a British accent.

Nehru had that nice British accent.

Do you know why? 'Cause his ruler... His nanny was British.

Yeah, his ruler was his nanny.

That's a fucked up version of Mary Poppins you never see.

♪ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ♪

♪ If you want independence We'll oppress you with our forces ♪

♪ Draining your economy And natural resources ♪

♪ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ♪

[hums]

The speech was called "The Tryst with Destiny."

"At the stroke of the midnight hour,

while the rest of the world sleeps,

India shall awaken to light and freedom."

Everybody around then was mesmerized.

They were just like...

"Bro...

At the stroke of the midnight hour in India...

it's 2:00 p.m. in San Francisco.

It's evening in London."

"So?"

"So the rest of the world is not really sleeping.

Should we tell him? This feels like an important moment."

"No.

Let's just wait 73 years until a comedian figures it out."

There's a wrap party, come along!

If I had to pick a good day for me, it would be today.

Right now, because my show is now over.

Yeah.

I don't know. I never know how to end shows, guys, I really don't.

You know, if this was an American special, you know, you'd find a big laugh.

You'd be like, "Thank you so much! Good night, Mumbai!"

But this is an Indian goodbye. So it's going to take a while.

[laughter, applause]

I miss home.

That's the truth. I miss home.

I've traveled more in the last two years of my life

than I have in the last 20, man.

And I think of home all the time.

And when I think of home, this is the shit that I think of.

You know, we get told every day what India is...

by people who have power.

And yet these people come and go like the wind.

These little things that make us smile, they stay.

That's India. Well, at least, it's my India.

I realize that your India is probably very different from my India.

You know, I suspect your India is better,

more sensible, edgier, funnier, more respectful...

but hey...

He who has the biscuits

gets to tell the story.

Thank you so much.

["Firefly" by When Chai Met Toast plays]

♪ There, I see ♪

♪ I feel no sorrow ♪

♪ Chale, Nikale, Guchche Ki Tarah ♪

♪ There, I see ♪

♪ I feel no sorrow ♪

♪ Chale, Nikale, Guchche Ki Tarah ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ LIke a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ There, I see ♪

♪ I feel no sorrow ♪

♪ Chale, Nikale, Guchche Ki Tarah ♪

♪ There, I see ♪

♪ I feel no sorrow ♪

♪ Chale, Nikale, Guchche Ki Tarah ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪

♪ Like a firefly ♪

♪ Up in the night ♪

♪ Alive and bright ♪

♪ Chasing all shadows ♪