You told your first joke in public when you were 7 and got into stand-up when you were 27.

Yeah! [laughs] Pretty big gap. Do you remember the CHIN Picnic? That was something that happened when I was younger. It was a very Italian festival, then as the years progressed, they added more people from different countries. Canada is a tossed salad, not a melting pot like the States, so we’re encouraged to celebrate our multiculturalism and stuff like that. Every year people would get together and there were different stages. My parents were very excited - you know, you have kids, they’re cute, you want to show off like, “Show Uncle your dance.” So they were trying to shove me up there because I used to sing.

They were like, “You can sing a song!” I was like, “I don’t have any backing music. I don’t wanna do a cappella, I don’t have the confidence for that. I guess I’ll tell a joke.” The joke was so stupid. [laughs] I was also 7. This is exactly how I delivered it: “So…I was fishing, and I was fishing, right? So, I was fishing and then someone came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, are you fishing?’ and I was like, ‘No, I’m teaching my pet worm how to swim.’ Ok, bye!” Then I ran off the stage. As I was leaving, these 12-year-olds were like, “What was that joke about?” So I repeated it with exactly the same cadence and I thought they were bullying me because they were like, “Huh, ok.” They just didn’t get it, probably because my setup and premise weren’t that great because I was 7.

I remember also around 7 or 8, I was watching Just For Laughs on TV and stuff like that. I remember my parents would always be like, “Brown people don’t do that.” Then I saw Shaun Majumder - who is also of a Bengali background; he’s half Bengali, half Newfie - and I was like, “See? He’s doing it!” and they were like, “Yeah, but he’s a man and he’s not even Muslim.” Every time another comedian showed up I’d be like, “Hey, this is a Muslim one or this one’s a woman!” They’d be like, “Yeah, but not you, right?” Then in Grade 10, Russell Peters performed at my high school and that was it, really. From that point I was just like, “Ok, I don’t have to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or accountant.” Though I am a licensed paralegal, if that matters.

It still counts, it’s still law.

Yeah, just enough so your parents get off your back. [laughs] The CHIN picnic doesn’t happen anymore, which really sucks. We lost something culturally in Toronto. It was such a cool display of people from different cultures getting together, but also separating themselves at the picnic in different cultural zones. [laughs]

What would you say the role comedy has played in your life has been?

Well, it’s the biggest thing for me right now. I stopped working in law in 2021 or 2022 because I was finally starting to make enough money from residuals from my album sales. I told jokes anyway, cover the pain with jokes, right? Because no one likes a sad clown. Comedy is pretty much the biggest thing for me right now and it’s helped me communicate with people. When I was a kid, initially I coasted on being cute and then in Grade 5, I moved from Scarborough to Rexdale, which is the opposite end of Toronto. I was new to another school. I was new pretty much every year or every few years. I went from a private Catholic school to a public Catholic school to a public regular school and that was all in Montreal. Then we moved to Toronto, so it was Downtown Toronto, Scarborough, Etobicoke, Rexdale, then back to Etobicoke. It was just a lot of moving, almost like I’m a military brat, but I’m not. [laughs]

I made best friends with the most popular girl in school but she was just friends with me because her best friend was in India, so when her best friend got back, she tried to push me out. I was bullied horrifically and I had never had that happen. After that I was like, “Never again. It’s not happening. I will be the bully. I will be the crazy person on the bus screaming.” That’s where the jokes really came from: retaliatory behaviour and trying to be the bully that doesn’t want to be bullied. Most of them came in the form of roast jokes.

I’m also one of the first Canadians to win a Roastie award, actually. So that feels good. It was me and Will Kristiansen and our roast battle won Best Amateur Roast, which I think is hilarious because neither of us are amateurs. I’ve been doing comedy since 2011-12, but according to the States, we’re amateurs because they’ve never seen us. [laughs] So we’re the first people ever to get Toronto to number 1 at the Roast Battles International and we won this silly award that they don’t actually give you. It’s just more of a verbal accolade, but still, I can put that on my comedy resume!

How do you do a good roast joke?

You need to know how to toe the line. I’ve done Your Hood’s A Joke a bunch of times, which is different than Roast Battles, and I’ve won almost every one; one I tied and one I lost. The majority of them I’ve won because I’m really good at insulting you based on where you’re from, which makes me sound like a racist now that I say it out loud. [laughs] My parents are from Bangladesh, my background is Bangladeshi, and usually I’m pitted against someone from India or Pakistan, which is awesome. Brown people know how to be racist against other Brown people very easily. [laughs] There’s a lot of historical context, like talking about how India just loves bending over for the English. I’m not homophobic or racist. I’m both a race and a gay. [laughs]

You did comedy training at Second City in Toronto. What was that like? What was the biggest thing you learned from that?

Initially, I went to Second City for sketch because I love Saturday Night Live and that was one of my goals. Then when I found out what their lives were like, I was like, “Oh, fuck no! This is terrifying. I would be such a cokehead.” There’s no way to survive that. Do you know what they do? They’re pitching ideas on a Monday, then they’re filming on a Saturday. They basically sleep in the office for a couple hours every once and a while. They say they’re chugging coffee, but they’re definitely railing blow. [laughs]

No one can survive that way.

Oh my god, John Mulaney ended up in rehab a few times. He’s an incredible writer, I love him to bits, but that’s what triggers it. You’re just stuck in these loops and you don’t know if your pitch is even going to make it through, so you have to come up with several original ideas every week. Then you have Lorne Michaels go through it and you have the guest host vetoing it or not. It’s hard to watch your babies get killed like that. Sketch is also a thing where you need a group of people to do it. I was in a sketch group called Fusion and it had Brandon Ash-Mohammed, Franco Nguyen, and Guled Abdi. I was with a bunch of rockstars. They left to go on TV and I ended up holding the bag the same year I was getting married, so it was a lot of work. Sketch is something you need a team for.

After that, I realized that it’s really hard trying to corral people outside of class; it’s like herding cats. People do not want to make time to do that. They all have day jobs, they all have personal lives. So then I took a stand-up course because I was like, “This is something I can do on my own.” It got bigger than I thought it would because I really never saw myself as a stand-up comedian, even though I did tell a joke on stage when I was 7. I really thought I’d be part of a group. It’s easier to formulate these groups after you’ve established yourself as a stand-up.

The training was good, the teachers were good. Jim McAleese and Evan Carter were my instructors. These guys are old-school dudes. This was in 2010, I wanna say, so it’s been a while. 15 years, holy crap, I’m old! [laughs] But it was great. I’ve since taught stand-up at Bad Dog and at other places. I run workshops and stuff like that. I wanna say I’m paying it forward in a way. It was cool. It was great. It made me learn joke structure. It made me learn the listing technique which is the most rudimentary way of making jokes, very Rodney Dangerfield-esque, which is not at all how I perform, but it is a skill. You can come up with like 20 new jokes a day. They’re not necessarily good, but they are jokes. [laughs]

What do you say to aspiring comedians when you teach?

If I’m teaching, that’s different, but usually there’s a lot of people who come up to me and say, “I’m so funny at work and I want to be a comedian. I think I could be a comic.” I’m like, “It’s harder than it looks.” I mean, I’m telling jokes to drunk people for approval, it’s kinda sad. [laughs] Just work at it. It’s a skill like anything else. What I say to comedians who are not in the classes, I’d say take the class. I’d always say take the class. Learn the basics and it also has a built-in show that you can showcase in.

But if you’re in my class, the biggest piece of advice is be nice to everyone, actually. Be nice to everyone. You do not know who can help you in the future. You are looking out for your future self. If you’re bullying someone now, you don’t know if that person’s going to have a TV show that you’re going to audition for or just a comedy show that you wanna be on. Just be kind, be nice, and practise, practise, practise. You could have raw talent and be a bully and just fail because you do not know how to make connections. If you’re just mediocre, that’s something you can still work on. Your comedy will get better, but you need to make these connections with people because, at the end of the day, it’s just humanity. Wow! I sound like a fucking fortune cookie. [laughs]

It’s good advice though.

It is good. People don’t take it until it’s too late sometimes and they’re like, “Why am I not booked on these shows?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, because you’re mean to people?”

Your first comedy special and album was About Time in 2022 and you released the Babymaker EP in 2024. How did you decide which material to record? What went into creating them?

I also have an OUTtv special, which is different than my album, but it came out on the same day. Glenn Sumi put my actual special, About Time, in the Top 10 Comedy Albums of 2022, which is nuts! I didn’t even know it happened. The people on my label reached out like, “Congratulations! You’re in the top 10 comedy albums!” and I was like, “That’s crazy, that’s great!” CBC did an article. Then suddenly people started reaching out like, “I’m so sorry,” and I was like, “What happened?” It turns out that right-wing Twitter - that’s the only thing I’ll deadname, Twitter is always Twitter - and right-wing Reddit created a sub-sub-Reddit about me. People were like, “Any press is good press” and no. Sometimes there’s a human being on the other end whose feelings are very hurt. I remember going into the sub-sub-Reddit and seeing, “Its parents would throw it off a building.” I was like, “No, my parents love me, so they wouldn’t. Sorry that your parents would if you were gay or identified as a different gender or something.” Then I remember going through the comments, because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, and there’s a person posting like, “Hey, so, I checked out its comedy and gonna say, not bad,” which is the biggest compliment from someone who wished death upon me right before that.

For the material in the specials, everything is real. It might be a bit hyperbolic sometimes, but honestly, everything is real. My life has been fucked up the entire way through. My parents lived through a civil war. My mom’s side of the family were freedom fighters. They’re very broken because of it. Some of the stuff that I talk about is a direct offshoot from that. Also, I was a queer person in the early aughts who was very, very out. In 2001, being out like that, especially as a Brown person who’s Muslim, was not a thing. But I did have supportive parents to a point. I felt comfortable enough and I’m Canadian, so I felt safe. If you listen to the album, everything is real, except I never called anyone Ethel Merman. That was done for a wrestler that I was seeing. He was like, “Reference Ethel Merman for me,” and I was like, “Ok.” [laughs]

How would you describe your writing process?

I do it the opposite way that people are supposed to write. Most people sit down, they come up with ideas, they brainstorm, but I just babble at people. Telling jokes to drunk people for approval is my job, but it’s also something I like doing for fun. If something clicks when I’m having a conversation, I will stop the conversation and make a note and then go back to that note and extrapolate from there. It is pretty backwards. When I first started, it wasn’t like this. When I first started, I did it the standard way that everybody does. You come in with little nuggets, write these jokes, they’re not that great, my soul really wasn’t in it. As you can tell, I babble a lot. [laughs]

That’s how you get gold! You’re panning for it.

Oh my gosh, yes. I didn’t realize I was a prospector. [laughs]

Along with stand-up and teaching, you also have a production company, called Rushzilla Productions, and put on lots of cool shows, like Asian Comedy All-Stars. What goes into the production side of things?

Let me tell you how [Asian Comedy All-Stars] came about. I’m Asian, people forget that. [laughs] Especially in North America. If I was in the UK, I would be considered Asian and they would use the very racist term “Oriental” for East Asians. But in Canada and the States and even Mexico, when you say “Asian” they think Chinese, maybe only. I was being overlooked or I was the only South Asian booked on these shows. It was frustrating to me. I wanted parity and representation.

Then the movie Crazy Rich Asians came out. I don’t know if you ever read the book, but there are a lot more South Asian characters; they’re not just servants, and they are completely cut out in the movie. I remember making a post about it. South Asians are so content with their lot in life sometimes and we don’t stand up for ourselves as much as we should. So I grabbed one of my best friends, Leonard Chan, who wrote for Simu Liu on the Junos and he’s won Canadian Screen Awards. I was like, “You’re an East Asian male-presenting person and I’m a South Asian female-presenting person. Already there’s some sort of parity here.”

For the very first Asian Comedy All-Stars, I tried to represent all of Pan-Asia. The Chinese media came to my first show. They fully ignored me and went right to Leonard like, “Are you guys doing this show in Chinese?” I was like, “I’m right here!” The Rivoli is where the show is held and the lineup to get in went around the street on Queen and Spadina, down almost into Chinatown. The second show, someone passed out in line because they waited so long. My dentist was at the show and she had some medical training so she sobered up real quick and helped the person who passed out. It was crazy because she was hammered at first and the second someone fell down, doctor-mode came over her. [laughs]

This show came about because I wanted to create work for myself and people who look like me. I wanted to really show that Asia is a big ass place. I consider people in Arab nations like the Middle East, West Asians because they are in Asia. If you’re Siberian, you’re still Asian. You should be able to represent yourself and not have people say, “What kind of Chinese are you?” We all look different. We have different cultures, different religions, different food. We have different jokes and we should be able to tell them.

You wrote and appeared on History By The Numbers. What was your favourite fact that you learned on that show?

So I was at Oasis Aqualounge, the sex club, with another person who was on the show and a third person. We were in the pool and this guy comes up like, “Hey, are you those people from History By The Numbers?” Then he left and started bringing people over like, “Those two are from TV!” I don’t even remember what my favourite facts are, the only thing that colours my brain now is that Oasis situation. [laughs] It’s like you’re in a three-way and you’re making the recycling symbol and then you hear, “Are you from History By The Numbers?” I was like, “Why would you recognize me now? Why now?? My mouth is busy!” [laughs] The other time I was recognized was at a baby shower. I should turn it into a joke, actually, it’s so ridiculous.

Everyone who was on the show wrote their own material on it. We did the man-on-the-street parts because it was during lockdown and they wanted to book them instead of finding people on the street because of COVID testing. I know a lot of history facts, but so does everyone on the show. We were all comedians.

The recycling symbol is such a visual. [laughs]

It’s better than human centipede, right?

A lot better! The recycling symbol is having fun, the human centipede is not.

Recycle, reduce, reuse, and close the loop! [laughs]

You’ll be performing at Punx Can’t Laugh Fest in Toronto on October 18 at Rainhard Brewery. What are you looking forward to about this festival?

I’ve been loudly screaming that I’m not a punk my entire life, which is really stupid, because I don’t want to be misrepresented as an oogle or something. I just love being around like-minded people. I want to be in a show with like-minded people, people who like the same music. I do have a large repertoire of music that makes my skin stand on edge in a good way, that’s a positive.

These comedians that I’m booked with, I don’t even know who’s on that same lineup; I just know that I’m going to like them. I love Gabe, I love Jeremy Dobski. I love these guys and I love that they’re putting on this festival. Last year, I didn’t even realize they were having one and very last minute, I was like, “Please put me on!” and they were like, “Sorry babe, we can’t. It’s really full.” So I’m begging to be on this show, which is crazy, people usually come to me. [laughs] I’m stoked! I’ve never been to the Rainhard Brewery, but I’m looking forward to it.

I’m looking forward to it because punks have a stance. We’re anti-racist, we’re anti-misogynist, we’re anti-transphobic, we’re anti-homophobic, we’re anti-all the bad things. Just being around people like that makes me happy. Also, I get to wear my spikes, so that’s fun. Popular media has made it so they think that punks are all white and racist, which is ridiculous. It’s the complete opposite. I’m just stoked to do this show with people who think the same way as I do. Not that I wouldn’t perform with people who don’t think the same way I do, but it’s nicer when they do. [laughs]

You can hang out and talk.

We can talk about punching Nazis together. These knuckles are scarred for a reason. I’m never ashamed to punch a Nazi.

What goes into putting a festival set together?

I think it’s the same as any set. You should put all your power into everything that you do. I was going to say do 110%, but the Asianness in me would not let that happen because that’s not how math works. [laughs] Put your all into it, regardless of what it is. I’ve done Just For Laughs a few times, I’ve done ZooFest in Montreal, and Winnipeg Comedy Festival, which at that time was the biggest festival because Just For Laughs was kinda dead for a little bit last year.

It’s not any different than anything else. Just fucking do your best because you want people to see your best, right? Unless you have incredibly low self-esteem which means you have to try harder, actually. [laughs] There’s nothing different that I do to prep for it. I might consider it more important just because it is a festival, but same thing, same work. I don’t do open mics anymore because they’re filled with incels, so much racist misogyny.

How would you describe the comedy scene in Toronto overall?

I have a very specific view of it. I mostly do queer, Asian shows; those are the things I’m known for. I’ll also do stuff with my friends and I have friends from different walks of life. I am speaking frankly about the fact that I do think the open mic scene is toxic, but that’s just part and parcel of everyone trying to shoot their shot, so you’re going to get everyone. To be fair, if I do end up at an open mic, it’s usually at Comedy Lab because the owners will be like, “Just stay for a minute, you’ll be first or second.”

These new kids don’t know who I am and it’s pretty funny. [laughs] That’s me putting on airs a little bit. I remember sitting in Ambassador Pizza and having drinks and this Brown chick came in and they were like, “She’s a comedian!” I was like, “That’s so great!” When I started, there was less of us, way less of us. Now the scene is diversifying in a variety of ways. The proliferation of comedians is happening and that’s cool as fuck, I like that. I was like, “Hey, that’s so cool! I’m so happy you’re a comedian!” She was like, “Who are you?” and the bartender was like, “She’s a pro,” and then walked away. [laughs] That’s like a mic drop, but without me dropping any mics or anything.

The scene is vast. The scene is huge, there are different genres of comedy everywhere. Everyone is making their own sections of stages and stuff like that. Along with Asian Comedy All-Stars, I also run MuJew, which is the Muslim and Jewish comedy show that has sort of been on hiatus. Everyone is creating their sub-sections, which is good because that means the incels are away from us. They make their own shows. [laughs] They’re not trying to hijack my shit.

Do you have a joke that you’ve written that you’re most proud of?

“Pigeon Genocide” is my favourite, but it doesn’t play on the radio. I did submit it and the producers were like, “This is a little much.” But yeah, that’s my favourite one. It’s real. I did have to kill a pigeon in my bathtub and we ate it. I just like it because it delves into certain topics that people usually don’t talk about. First of all, it’s trying to humanize my insane mother and it’s bringing up the fact that war is a thing and people who are traumatized react different ways. Curry is tasty. [laughs]

I do like “Space Mermaids” a lot too, because I get to sing in it. That one plays on the radio, constantly. You know what joke I really like? “Jizz Baby” from the EP. It’s the closest thing to viral that I have. It’s just fun to talk about jizz the entire time. That’s not even an intelligent one; that’s just the “jizz, jizz, jizz, jizz, jizz” joke. [laughs]

Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you’d like to add?

Asian Comedy All-Stars will be October 25 at the Rivoli. I’m also part of the Comedylicious Festival which is comedy with food. I’m stoked to be playing Punx Can’t Laugh Fest on October 18!

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