China, Donald Trump, Narendra Modi – Indian stand-up comic reveals why he likes to get political

Home from home I was born in 1979 in Dehradun, in the north of India, but my family moved to Nigeria when I was a year old due to my dad’s job. We were part of a close-knit, but slightly guarded, Indian community in Lagos. A defining thread of my life is always having an outsider’s perspective on wherever I am, which has influenced my comedy.

My parents wanted me to have an Indian upbringing but there weren’t a lot of Indian schools in Africa. So, when I was 8½, I went to boarding school in India (The Lawrence School, Sanawar). It was a very strict, co-ed, ex-British military academy. I was a homesick kid, but so was everyone.

I’ve loved being on stage since I was four; it’s an environment I feel at home in. I was into drama, debating, charades, quizzes, poetry. I also liked athletics. I wasn’t the cool kid but I was tolerated because I brought home some trophies in squash and basketball.

Born to act I studied political science in college for a year in New Delhi and wanted to go to America. Knox College, in the Midwest, gave 90 per cent financial aid, which is how I ended up in Galesburg, Illinois – the Mecca of civilisation as we know it. Studying economics involved a bit of pushing from the family, because even US$5,000 a year was a lot of money and they wanted me to have job prospects afterwards, not be washing dishes.

In the middle of my economics major, I took a beginners’ acting class. The professor called me into his office and said: “Look, I say this to one kid every 10 years, but you’re meant to act.” So I switched over to theatre. It felt like it was what I’d always wanted to do but I needed to hear it from somebody else.

After college, I became a dish washer in Chicago, where I did stand-up open mics for about five months. It began from there.