Being a comedian was never Zarna Garg’s dream.
She never expected it’d be the career she’d fall into once her youngest son started school — even though it was fated.
“The astrologer in my chart had written, this girl will talk and talk and talk,” Garg tells me. “ I had a moment of like, I didn’t come [to America] so I could just drive kids around from class to class.”
Her kids were the ones who pushed her to pursue comedy. To appease them, she went to an open mic that her friend recommended. “And I never looked back,” she says.
Anyone who’s seen her on social media knows that Garg’s identity — as an immigrant, as a brown person living in America, as a parent, as a practical optimist — is the lens through which she delivers her humor. Her newest comedy special, “Practical People Win,” which premieres on Hulu on July 18, is no different. If anything, the special is the laugh-out-loud, witty articulation of everything that Garg has stood for, and continues to.
“I’ve lived in America for so many years — and I’m still fully Indian. I look Indian, I wear Indian clothes, I have an Indian accent,” she says in the hour-long special. “I mean, I don’t see the point in dropping the accent now. Why would I not play the diversity card? How do you think I got booked here?”
Donning a magenta anarkali with metallic accents, red bindi and red lipstick, the comedian has committed to showing up as she is. Many of the things she’s said on stage are actually things she’s yelled at her children. The auntie persona isn’t a bit — it’s her, through and through, she says. She doesn’t have the bandwidth to show up as someone else.
“Now, am I also leaning into some stereotypes? Of course,” she acknowledges. “I make fun of uncles on behalf of all aunties in this world. I feel like that is long overdue.”
People come up to me all the time, and it’s like, ‘Hey, auntie, are you gonna match me?’ And I’m like, ‘Bro, you can’t afford me.’
But beneath the auntie surface, Garg is doing something far more layered: using that familiar persona to explore complex themes of parenthood, immigrant guilt and intergenerational tension. She has always written her material for a broad audience of people who find themselves pondering these motifs.
She’s aware of how those who see her make certain assumptions about who she is; perhaps that she has a penchant for other people’s drama, for gossip, and weirdly, for matchmaking — a classic South Asian auntie trope. “People come up to me all the time, and it’s like, ‘Hey, auntie, are you gonna match me?’ And I’m like, ‘Bro, you can’t afford me,’” she laughs.
She’s also gotten criticism from those living in India that her material around Indian identity is outdated. But Garg ultimately can’t represent the perspectives of 1.4 billion people — nor does she want to. “ India’s a complicated country like America. It’s a big, messy, complicated country. So I push back by staying true to what I see and what my eyes observe,” she says.
Garg operates through her identity as a parent, above all — and that’s the focus of much of her stand-up. Dealing with the highs and lows of aging parents and kids is a universal experience across cultures. “It’s all very mainstream mom and dad stuff. Like, every mother in the world is saying the kind of things I’m saying.”
It only makes it right — practical, even — that if Garg’s in-laws, husband and children are the centers of her attention, that they’d be the centers of ours.
In “Practical People Win,” Garg tells us about her mother-in-law, a recurring character in Garg’s stand-up who frequently calls and tuts at her for being anything short of the perfect mother and wife. Then, there’s her daughter, who carries the load of being the eldest immigrant daughter.
“She has a therapist,” Garg reassures the audience. “That’s right, I pay $350 an hour for them to talk shit about me.”
There’s also her oh-so-handsome eldest son (“He’s so handsome! I’ll show you a photo after!” she exclaims), and her youngest son, who’s somehow taken on the weight of the world on his shoulders. (“This kid acts as if he’s growing in the slums of Calcutta, and education is his only way out. I told him, ‘Calm down, we have three bathrooms.’”)
It’s not often that brown women with familial obligations and duty — like Garg — can find a career in something as provocative, bold or public-facing as comedy. Comedy, at its core, is the antithesis of principles underlying many South Asian cultures that often wonder what other people will think and shy away from airing any personal matters.
As much as Garg jokes about her family, they’re the ones who led her to this career and have supported her to stay in it. (Yes, that includes her mother-in-law.) “ I like to say that we are a family business. I just happen to be the face of it,” she tells me. “I just happen to be the face of it.”
At a time when the world feels exhausting and absurd, Garg offers something radical: laughter that’s earned, joy that’s chosen and proof that practical people like Garg do win. “Fun has a place in this world,” she says. “There is a place for joy and humor.”