 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Piyush Dinker Pandya, the maker of the hit film American Desi starring Kal Penn, has a new obsession these days desi stand-up comedians.
Pandya is busy taking his show, The Gurus Of Comedy, to half a dozen cities on the West Coast, in New York and in Boston.
"We will be showcasing some of the funniest South Asian talents," says Pandya. The show, produced in association with AVS and Art Wallah and hosted by Mo_D, includes such artists as Anand Chulani and Paul Varghese.
"For a long time, I had been watching a handful of desi stand ups such as Russell Peters and Viji Nathan," says Pandya. "I had a gut feeling there were quite a few of them doing their act in clubs across the country and that we weren't really aware of it, till a mainstream newspaper wrote about them."
Pandya hosted The Gurus of Comedy the first of its kind showcasing South Asian artists in New York a year ago.
"It was an eye opener," he says. "There were a few in the show who had made a name for themselves but were not widely known. Russell had a following in Canadian cities such as Toronto and Montreal but we didn't really know him in New York."
The response made him wonder why others had not thought of similar shows. "I was glad that my company was able to do discover them in a way others hadn't before," he says.
Pandya also has plans to take Gurus to cities in the Midwest and the South, if the response is good.
Schedule for the show:
Fri Dec 10 - San Jose
Sat Dec 11 - San Francisco
Wed Dec 15 - New York
Thu Dec 16 - Boston