by Arun Venugopal; India Abroad, New York, March 12, 2004
Jokes from Vijai Nathan
**My sister is a Born Again Christian. My mother was very upset when she converted. She said, ‘Why does she have to be Born Again Christian? We are Hindu – we are born again and again and again!’
**My parents were always so worried that I was becoming too American. My Dad would say, ‘So you want to wear pants, eat cows, have minty fresh breath. That’s it – you’re going back to India.’
**Every time I go to the aiport I get detained because security thinks I’m a terrorist. Last time the guard said, ‘Excuse me, miss, we hear a ticking sound coming from your body.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s just my biological clock.’
**When I first started stand-up comedy, I was scared to tell my parents because it is not something that Indians really do. So I told my mom fist, because she is the softer one in the family and she said, ‘No problem, I’ll handle your Dad.’ Five minutes later, my father is furious. He said, ‘Vijai, how could you do this to your family? I have struggled in this coundtry for 25 years and you’re going to disgrace me this way?’
I said, ‘But Dad, I just want to make people laugh, you know, be a comedian.’ He said, ‘Oh, your mom told me you wanted to be a Canadian!’
**My father loves to brag about his daughters. He says, ‘This is my daughter Santhi, she is A Doctor. This is my daughter Indu, she is A Lawyer. This is my duagher Vijai, she is A…adopted.’
Originally published March 9, 2004