Goodness Gracious Me no more

I happened to chance upon a back issue of the Guardian and was shocked to see that Sharat Sardana had passed away. He was only 40 and an extremely witty writer. I absolutely loved Goodness Gracious me and Kumars at no. 42. Humor never came easy to me. I’ve always struggled to tell a joke, more often than not I mess up the punch line. I’m no good at making fun of myself either. I watch other people do it all the time. It seems entertaining and those listening are always in peals of laughter.

I’ve only seen one stand up comedian in my entire life and his name was Papa CJ. It was a slow Saturday night so I left the restaurant for a bit and headed to Corks which is this comedy club bang opposite Bond Street station. That night was stand-up comedian night. So we were all entertained by Papa CJ. I kept thinking to myself ‘Thank God I don’t have the dorkiest name.’ I also wondered how many kids this Papa CJ had.

Anyway onto his set. All he did was make obvious jokes about the Indian accent and our weird sounding names. I could do that. It didn’t seem so difficult but the next day when I tried to retell some of Papa’s joke I could barely recite a single one. Guess I was born without the funny bone.