My Favorite People in the World Are...
… Before I finish that cliffhanger: thank you if you came to see me perform in Portland, OR ☺️ It was lovely celebrating 10 years of Kickstand Comedy!
Now, to complete the subject line. My favorite people in the world are my grandparents.
In South Asian families, grandparents are a big deal. And wherever they lived was the hub that everyone visited for the holidays. My grandparents happened to always live 5 minutes away from me or with me, so I used to be the hub! Therefore my house was always OVERFLOWING with people, especially during the holidays.
My grandparents babysat me, cooked for me, half-raised me… they were just always part of my family equation, and while my parents were frequently busy, Thatha and Paati (we have a nickname for her but if you’re a Tamilian who’d be like uh why don’t you call her Paati I can’t handle you right now) introduced me to things like “playing Scrabble,” “learning how hard it is to roll a chapati,” “heated arguments about physics homework,” and “watching I Love Lucy marathons.” My grandparents made my family feel like a capital-F FAMILY. And I’m truly grateful for them.
But very sadly, I lost Thatha 7 years ago, and now my house is no longer a hub. So the holidays hit differently.
I still continue to have to process my grief around losing someone so important to me, and actually wrote a movie about it, and what it was like to experience the Hindu 13-day death ritual for the first time. The language barrier meant I had a hard time following what we were doing, and the “being born in the U.S.” barrier meant I had a hard time grieving the same way as everyone else. And it didn’t help that our Hindu Priest told me I couldn’t cry during the 13 days because it would “tie Thatha’s spirit to the mortal world.” I hate this Priest and I think that’s healthy.
So my movie is about a woman who loses someone and has to try to help her parents perform the Hindu death ceremony when, all of a sudden, her whole family gets RAPTURED in a Hindu Rapture — which is not a real thing but it will be in the movie. And now, this idiot (my ears are burning) must figure out a Hindu Rapture all by herself. I have never seen a movie like this before, but if I did I’d be AGOG and start crying, and then be mad at myself that I didn’t write it.
I can’t say that my grandfather would “like” this movie (because in true Thatha form, he doesn’t like anything 😀), BUT, as I have learned, grief is very personal, and you can honor people in your own specific way. So while writing isn’t for everyone, there ARE ways to grieve out there that will be right for you, and don’t let anyone, including rude Priests, stop you from finding them.
Now to bring the mood back up: do you have a favorite family recipe?* Share it with me! And with your permission, I’ll get a convo going on my IG stories about everyone’s submissions!
More soon -
Rekha
And check out these shows to see me LIVE!
01/08/25: Art Begets Show at 7p PT (hosted by ME and Sandeep Parikh) @ UCB Franklin (for those not in LA, livestream tickets ARE available!!!!!!!)
01/15/25: The Multitude at 7:30p PT (hosted by Priyanka Mattoo) @ The Elysian
And check out this interview I did for Axios Philadelphia!
*My submission would be my grandma’s aloo kuutu with poori but immigrants do not ever have recipes so I can’t answer my own question, sorry! But enjoy my VIRAL HOLIDAY HAM RECIPE! PLEASE COOK EXACTLY AS RECIPE INSTRUCTS!