Getting Serious About Humor: Where Comic Writing Comes From

I am a fan of Zarna Garg's on-line videos and the clips of her stand-up I've seen. So, I jumped at the chance to buy her memoir, This American Woman, when the e-book edition was on sale. (I like ebooks, because I'm a minimalist and control the number of things around me. I like them even more when they're cheap.) I was talking about it all the time I was reading it.

Interesting point: I often force a family member to watch Garg's videos, some of which include her family, because everyone wants to share funny stuff, right? For the most part, he just does not get them. I find this fascinating, because I believe Garg's work is incongruity humor, my favorite kind. She describes herself as "America's first Indian immigrant mom comedian" and does a lot of Indian culture clashing with American culture humor, which often ends up being commentary. She grew up in India, moving here in her late teens. She definitely gets America. 

Oh, and she also has some feminist stuff going on, describing what life was like for a girl in India, even a girl from a family with money. The family with money part ended rather abruptly when she was fourteen and her mother died. She was the youngest child, and her father wanted her to accept an arranged marriage. Our Zarna would have none of that, which meant pretty much living on the street for a year and a half. She continued to go to school during the day, while hustling her friends for places to stay at night. She ended up going back home to her father. What saved her from marriage was the paperwork coming through that enabled her to move to the United States to live with her sister and brother-in-law.

So that's an interesting backstory for anybody, but particularly a comedian.

I'm always fearful of giving away too much of another writer's story, particularly a personal story. So I will just offer up some of the fascinating stuff about how Garg got into comedy. She grew up in a business family. Her father was a businessman. Her brother was. After graduating from law school in this country, she married a man going to graduate school in business. She got permission to audit his courses. She wanted to do his homework, though he said no, because, it seems, he liked doing homework, too.

Her big interest, after she finished up her years as a New York City mom, was business. She wanted to start a business and made a few attempts.

They didn't go well.

And then someone suggested she try comedy. Which she treated like a business. She went about becoming a comedian in a very business-like manner. And it worked for her. It seems to be not only a business, but a family business.

If you read her book, watch her videos, read what she says about herself and her life on-line, you'll see how much this woman works.

• Of course, there is the stand-up appearances. 
• But she has also written an award-winning screenplay. Read the book. She'll explain why awards for screenplays are important. She's made me rethink submitting short-story manuscripts for awards.
• She won a Webby in 2025 after seven years of making videos.
• She does a podcast with her family. 
• She's an actress.
• She's all over the place. There's an article about her in The New Yorker! I read the New Yorker! How did I miss that?

I don't know that I would say that there is a lot in This American Woman about humor as a subject. But if you read this book, you can see how Garg's life experience is woven into her comedy persona. At the same time, you can see how that comedy persona is not necessarily the real Zarna Garg.

And that has something to say about where comic writing comes from.