The Funny Indian Newsletter, Vol. 219
December 2024: The Worst Year But Not a Bad Year
There has not been a year of my life where December differed so greatly from January. May 8th was the turning point, the inciting incident that defined the rest of 2024. As it should be, the day my Dad passed precipitated nearly every action that followed.
Over the course of these past 18 years of monthly newsletters, many of you have gotten to know me not only as a comedian but also as a person. After someone challenged me last year, I’m now combining my professional and personal achievements into one list. So, here’s the agenda for this last monthly missive, a combined Gruntled + Funny Indian Newsletter:
2024 Achievements
2025 Goals
Year of the Hustle Recap
Laugh
End-of-Year Thoughts on My Dad
2024 Achievements
Handled my Dad’s passing with love, grace, and aplomb. I thank God everyday for granting me the power, strength, and opportunity to manage the death of my father. I detailed the first part of that journey over the course of four posts. In the latest news, we successfully moved my Mom in with us in November. This is her accomplishment far more than ours—leaving Cincinnati after 54 years—but teamwork makes the dream work. My faith was strengthened, as was my confidence in Gruntled. I don’t mean that flippantly: Gruntled is my life’s mission — as you may recall, it is my project on finding happiness in our lives. The loss of a loved one serves as a stress test for your belief system: does it aid you in your time of need or was it all just bullshit? Nice to know it’s the former.
Earned 15M+ views on the Instagram release of I AM INDIAN. Blown away by the renewed success, a decade later—largely with a new generation—of my largest professional feat.
Crossed 50K followers on Instagram and 10K followers on YouTube. After being stuck at 10K and 9K respectively, it was great to break through. Far more important now than TV credits, your IG following is the equivalent of your G.P.A.
Released my Dry Bar comedy special. Here’s a 9-min clip. Shot in May 2023, this marked the first time the Industry had financed one of my standup specials.
Premiered All Over the Place, my one-hour standup special, in New York, the audio recording of which became an iTunes #1. The debut was May 9th. My Dad died on May 8th. But thanks to two dear friends, the show did indeed go on. After all, you don’t really need me if you have a recording of me. (An A.I. premonition?) And thanks to all of the album sales, we hit a cultural milestone.
Delivered a successful 2 1/2-hour Gruntled workshop to a full house at the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers annual conference in Boston. Last year, I’d given the 45-min speech to all 1,000 US-based IT employees of P&G, but this was the first time I helped the attendees put the teachings into action. (Yeah, I’m writing “teachings”: it makes me sound more like a guru and “learnings” isn’t a word.)
Opened for Hasan Minhaj in front of 3,000 people in my hometown. Who knew it’d turn out to be the very last night I’d spend with my Dad?
Co-produced and performed on South Asians Stand-Up for Harris. Other than the result, this was a success. India Today released a 20-min 1:1 interview of me to its 4 million followers and I was featured in Deadline alongside Stephen King and Kumail Nanjiani.
Delivered a one-hour standup set to the Bangalore-based employees of Deloitte. While I was in the area (!), I did four standup shows in two nights in Hong Kong.
Performed a very well-received table read of the sitcom pilot I’m creating and co-writing. I haven’t said much about this as it’s a work-in-progress, but getting great feedback from the many Industry writers, producers, and performers in the audience felt like no small thing.
Wrote and performed I AM INDIAN AMERICAN. It was financed by someone other than me, so to get hired to do a followup was pretty cool.
Interviewed Andrew Yang, Trae Crowder, Jimmy Dore, and Isaac Saul. For someone no longer following politics, I look back and see an all-star lineup here.
Met Bill Maher and Diljit Dosanjh. The second one was a bit more of a random encounter—albeit not so random as, the night before, I’d seen him sing in front of 50,000 people—but being in a position to have a full-on conversation with one of my political idols in the green room after his HBO show—and be told by the comedian who introduced us “he really liked you, he doesn’t talk to people for that long”—felt like a thing.
Did my 27th gig for the charity Akshaya Patra. I performed three more times in 2024 for this incredible organization, helping raise funds to (literally) help starving kids in India.
Turned in a writing packet to Real Time with Bill Maher. The way you land a TV writing gig is by submitting one of these bad boys. It’s very hard. You have to follow the format, in this case a Monologue, New Rules, and Editorial. Aside from the friends who got me a green room invitation, I had a friend who’s a Real Time staff writer put in a word so I knew my packet would get read. I had a friend who’s an agent at Gersh allow me to place his name and status on it. And I had an entire group of dear friends, many in the Industry and several whose names you’d know, provide feedback. I didn’t get the gig. Which tells you, if I had all that support, just how talentless I am. Kidding aside, I heard directly from the head writer/producer that only two packets moved forward (and now there are rumors Maher himself might even quit). The background is that I’d been assembling this packet for months but got a text only 72 hours ahead of time that it was due on a Sunday night. My wife took care of our three-year-old all weekend. Just feeling the love from my family and super well-established friends all pitch in to help me was in itself a living example of when I say my biggest “achievement” is this “network of family and friends I’m blessed to have.”
Earned Platinum status on Delta Airlines yet again. What a juxtaposition from the one above, huh? Hey, anyone who knows how much they changed the rules in 2024 can tell you how difficult this was.
Earned 2M views on a standup clip and hundreds of thousands on my talk show clips. This occurred amidst releasing a torrent of content on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok.
Led and attended a bunch of events. Every comedian is a travel agent and an event planner. Besides the NY premiere of All Over the Place: my son’s third birthday party in Burbank. My Mom’s sendoff party in Fairfield and my Mom’s Bollywood! At The Fitton Center, which I emceed. A Private Holiday Party at The Bourbon Room in Hollywood. The 30th high school reunion for the Class of 1994 at Fairfield High School. Several Cinnamon Entertainment Meet-Ups in Hollywood. My own 48th birthday in N. Hollywood. Oh, and I attended the Diwali Ball in New York, with my bald head featured (mentioned?) in The New York Times.
Performed on lineups with Hasan Minhaj, Howie Mandel, Tiffany Haddish, Sebastian Maniscalco, and Jim Jefferies.
Co-wrote a Substack piece with journalist Asha Rangappa.
Released twelve Gruntled Newsletters and Funny Indian Newsletters. Hey, you’re reading it.
2025 Goals
Continue to nurture my “network” (too formal a word) of family and friends to experience the joys of daily life and the special occasions (my 10th wedding anniversary, my son’s 4th birthday, and my own 49th) and prepare for any pain down the road.
Run another perfect Year of the Hustle.
Keep my vital signs strong.
Earn $xxx income.
Prioritize Gruntled: write a book and deliver at least 12 talks. (Wanna…book me?)
Deliver a new (primarily standup) live show.
Entertain 100K Instagram followers.
Submit our TV pilot.
Release more episodes of my talk show, What Do You Bring to the Table?
Release all WDYBTTT? episodes as podcast episodes on The TanGent Show.
Keep co-hosting Cinnamon, my monthly Entertainment Meet-Up.
Year of the Hustle Recap
It certainly appears I’ll run my ninth straight perfect Year of the Hustle. What’s that? It’s the only system I’ve found (and designed, incidentally) that works in keeping your New Year’s Resolutions (and is the “product” I advocate in Gruntled).
In my January newsletter, I discussed how I was poised to go “on a run,” when things are firing on all cylinders. I’m happy that did happen between the dates of February 17 and April 27. The opening was when my friend Eric indicated in Las Vegas that he’d book me for that gig in Bangalore. The closing was the day after I opened for Hasan Minhaj in Cincinnati. Happy to say that stretch will go down as another chapter of my “good ol’ days.”
Ironically, or maybe indicatively, I’d written on the blackboard in my studio, “This Is Your Year.” I’d never declared that before. Was it my year? I’m still sitting with that (and it’s not over yet), but there’s no denying that 2024 will have lasting ramifications for the rest of my time on Earth.
A couple other milestones…
In October, I’d spent as many days in LA married as I had single.
In November, I stopped following the news. All of it. Right after the election, I unsubscribed from newsletters and podcasts and stopped recording any TV newscasts. Many of you know I predicted in 2014, pre-Trump, that America had seven to ten years left. Was I right? Well, no. Not technically. Not yet. But I really don’t feel like watching the collapse of a nation I so dearly love. I have nothing to add and I hate the national conversation (on both sides). And though it’s what most crazy people say, in time, I’ll be proven right.
You know how you get to the point when you stop listening to new music? For many, that happens in their 30s. For me, I kept up all the way through 2019, when I was 43. Popular music has been described as the “soundtrack of our lives,” and the pandemic removed all context: “Oh, I was at my friend’s wedding reception when I heard ‘Blurred Lines’” or “I was playing ping-pong in my basement, listening to Q102 when ‘U Can’t Touch This’ dropped.” I still have a pretty good ear for what’s poppin’ but I can’t tell you the Billboard #1 like I could for most of my life. That’s how it’s been with politics. It all used to make sense, even if I didn’t agree with it. And now it’s jumped the shark. The line that goes through my mind is from “Forgot About Dre”:
This is the millennium of Aftermath.
It ain't gon' be nothin' after that.
So give me one more platinum plaque.
And f*ck rap—you can have it back.
One massive upside to turning off the podcasts and taking the time to drive and do chores in silence is I’ve gotten my inner monologue back. For a creative, it was a crime against humanity (my own humanity) for me to give up my brain space. I replaced my own thoughts with everyone else’s—nearly all of whom turned out to be wrong anyway. So, yeah. I’m sure I’ll return to one of my old Hustle habits: Listen to the 5-min All Things Considered hourly update once a day. That way, I have some semblance of what’s happening. But I gotta tell you: Ignorance truly is bliss. These last several weeks have been glorious. However, it’s unsustainable. In my line of work, you can’t afford to be clueless.
Year of the Hustle — The Don’t List
There were six behaviors I was trying to reduce or eliminate:
Checking the news compulsively: Naturally, as the election approached, many of us got sucked in, oftentimes willingly. But early in 2024, I’d deleted the News app from my iPhone. All in all, I did very well with this.
Texting while driving: I’m happy to say I stopped doing this while in motion (and am sad to admit that was ever an issue at all). I still kick myself for doing the thing it appears all Angelenos do: look at our screens at every single red light. As I’ve said for years, the cure for many of our ills is, in contradiction with the Adam McKay flick: Look Up. Look up at the blue sky, the mountains, the smog—anything’s better than continually seeking that dopamine hit.
Eating outside my defined hours: I continued intermittent fasting and it has been a Godsend. I follow a 16:8 schedule, so I eat from 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM. It wouldn’t have been hard to wait till midmorning when I was single, but with a young child at home, I’m often up at 6:30 AM so going foodless for four hours is not easy. It’s also not easy eating at 5:45 PM, but it offers us a chance nightly to sit down together as a family.
Smack-talking: It’s still one of my guilty pleasures, but I did well with this one. Sure, I can still clap back with the best of them. However, I deliberately chose as much positivity as I could muster toward folks, even if they were pieces of shit.
Displaying excessive anger: Much-improved. I still lose it more often than I’d like, but I slowed my roll, took on less, and focused more; by trimming the fat, I gave myself more time to get the little things done. Don’t I mean the big things? No. I rarely, if ever, get mad over the large stuff. It’s the minutiae that trip me up on a daily basis and I’m getting better.
Drinking too much: OK, so this last one was interesting. I’ve done Dry January (abandoning alcohol for the year’s first month) for about a decade. In 2023, it was tough. Like “Do I have a problem?” tough. By Jan 7th or 8th, I was jonesin’. But I also knew it was due to far more social commitments than I usually have at that time. 2024 was a breeze: I didn’t even think much about it till maybe Jan 28th or so. At that point, I got an idea: how long can I go without imbibing? And maybe if I consume for only a few nights of the year, I can reward myself. I went to Vegas for my friend Steve’s 50th. Miraculously, on Friday night, I abstained. On Saturday, as I was fading from fatigue and realizing I was about to go home around 6 PM, I finally succumbed. And I’m glad I did. It’s so rare to have so many of my college friends in one spot. And it was Michael Jordan’s birthday. (He wasn’t there. I just always remember it.) ANYway, Feb 17th was a special occasion so it felt right. I decided “12 Nights of Drinking” seemed arduous so I chose that number. That it’s an average of once a month was a coincidence. I had Night 10 for the Holiday Party on Dec 12th. At this point, it’s safe to say I’ll make it. (Does New Year’s Eve count?) What did I learn? The experiment was successful in proving my hypothesis: I’ve never had an issue with the number of nights I drink. It’s how much I drink when I do drink. I didn’t place a cap on it and, well, suffice it to say my 2025 challenge will be to keep it under a certain number in a night. The other metric is # of drinks per year. For this one, I’ll be under 100. Though even my doctor says 14 drinks a week is fine, I’ve never subscribed to the idea that two drinks a day for men is okay. That seems excessive and really high if you’re in your 40s. Maybe around six drinks a week (just under one a day) is decent? That’d be a little over 300 drinks in a year. So, if I can keep it under 200 drinks in 2025 (double 2024), I’d say that’s a win. But I’m still contemplating it and am open to your thoughts. In my first 2025 newsletter, I plan to tell you more about how I gave up caffeine for five weeks—and why I plan never to do that again.
Year of the Hustle — The Do List
Ate five servings of fruits and veggies a day, including one serving of greens.
Drank 60 ounces of water a day.
Recited my mantra nearly 10,000 times (over the course of the year, obviously).
Meditated for 20 minutes a day.
Written for 30 minutes a day.
Did yoga and counted my mala beads.
Updated my Gratitude Journal and Anger Journal (gotta love that juxtaposition).
Exercised: often 8-Min Abs + Tabata + free weights.
Read 12 books (again, for the year).
Kept my Gmail draft box under 50 emails (weekly).
Tracked our finances (weekly).
Maintained our cars (weekly).
Laugh
Since this is a FUNNY Indian Newsletter, I present here the 5 funny things that I saw, heard, wrote, or remembered for the last month... otherwise known as FIVE - Funny Indian's V Events. Enjoy.
I was proud of this one. The pic, not the behavior. Am I at a red light?
Wow. “What else do I have to say?”
My friend sent me this Viral Vibes Reel months ago and I finally watched it. I cried for two straight minutes. The good kind of crying.
End-of-Year Thoughts on My Dad
Aside from my own birth (OK, so maybe 1976 was bigger than 2024) and equal to the birth of my son, the death of my father is the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my life. When you gain a child, you don’t yet know what it means. When you lose a parent, you absolutely know what it means.
I titled this year’s final newsletter the way I did because the reality is that the day my Dad died was the worst day of my life but still wasn’t a bad day. That might sound crazy or insensitive, but here’s the thing: I happened to be in New York with my most empathetic friend who got me back to my hotel so I could meet my brothers within about an hour of hearing the news. We all flew home. And we were surrounded by family and friends. Perhaps the closest we get to God is the light that emanates from everyone around us. They say tragedy brings us together. We’ve all heard that. But—maybe this exists in some form that I haven’t seen/heard/read*—the worst circumstances brought out the best in every single important person in our lives at the same time. Though nothing and nobody will fill the specific void, for a period of time, you get to see everybody you know at their absolute best. The empathy, the hugs, the laughs, the tears… it all hits you at once, and if you’re open to it, warms your soul in a way that’s indescribable (at least for this writer).
*This passage from one of James Clear’s weekly newsletters is the closest I’ve read:
Writer and scholar C.S. Lewis on what friends bring out in each other:
"If, of three friends (A, B, and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but "A's part in C," while C loses not only A but "A's part in B." In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets."
It dovetails with what some of my friends have said to me after I tell them they’re funny: “I’m funny only with you. You bring that out in me.” I know I also uniquely piss some people off so it isn’t all positive. But it’s a life lesson for me: whenever I wonder, “How can my close friend like that other person? He’s such an asshole,” I try to remember this: we never know how anyone really is because we’re all different with different people. Maybe my energy is bringing something negative out in that “asshole.” And my friend’s energy isn’t. So, he’s really an asshole only with me. I bring that out in him.
Separately, I’m apparently not the kind of person who can go into shock. I adjust to reality extremely quickly. Though my Dad’s passing was sudden, I wasn’t in shock. That said, I was surprised. At the end of each year, for as long as I can remember, I’ve thanked God that everyone super close to me was OK and that—knowing tomorrow’s not promised—it’s looking like we’ll get through the next year OK, too. I had that thought at the end of 2023, and within five months, Dad was gone.
Since the ’90s, I’ve been such a big fan of “The Impression That I Get” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. The whole ska (!) tune is chock full of wisdom… the chorus goes…
I've never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
…however, the main point is:
I'm not a coward. I've just never been tested.
I'd like to think that if I was, I would pass.
Look at the tested and think, "There but for the grace go I…"
Might be a coward, I'm afraid of what I might find out.
Someone who’d experienced a lot of loss through his life once worried for me, saying the first big one would hit me really hard. His heart was in the right place, but he was wrong. Loss, even sustained loss, won’t by itself strengthen you. “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” is not an immutable law of physics. Your mind, your body, and your soul will become more resilient only if you receive the blow and consciously respond well. I’m here to tell you that, if you haven’t gone through it yet, don’t worry. You, too, will almost certainly experience loss. And if you prepare yourself and your self, you, too, will go on, and may even go on to have a great year.
Happy Holidays… Merry Christmas… and Here’s to a Great 2025!
This is your year.
