Last month, actor-comic Vir Das won the International Emmy Award for his stand-up special Vir Das: Landing in the Best in Comedy category. He shared the award with the British teen show Derry Girls which he described as a “classic sitcom with a modern heart.” “A standup comedy special is a smaller piece of filmmaking compared to an ensemble series like Derry Girls. To be in the room with the makers of the show was flattering itself,” he shares. Vir adds he was nervous when his name was called onto the stage. “I don’t remember any of it. It was such a blur.”
After the win, Vir posted a photo on Instagram, taken by his manager, holding the golden trophy while standing next to a cleaning stand in a kitchen. During his days while studying in the US, he worked as a dishwasher for some time. “Big moments need grounding,” read the note over the photo. “It was a real moment in between all the glam,” says Vir.
Vir Das was born in Dehradun on May 31, 1979. When he was over a year old, his family moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where he attended the Indian Language School for the next eight years. When they returned to India, Vir was sent to a boarding school (The Lawrence School) in Himachal Pradesh’s Sanawar and finally, he landed in Delhi Public School, Noida. “I would have loved to be brought up in India in the first few years of my life. Play cricket in the fields and stuff,” he says. “I think very early in life I realised what felt like home. When I attended schools in India, I realized where I was meant to be.”
Vir reminisces how studying in Noida was a “reality check” after being in a privileged boarding school. “Thodi maarpeet hoti thi Noida mein (There were some fights that happened in Noida). But I was bitten by the stage bug only here. I was never in class and was either involved in debating or dramatics.”
The next stop was Delhi University’s Sri Venkateswara College, which Vir ultimately left after 18 months. “I got accepted into Illinois’s Knox College. I always wanted to go to the US,” he says. Any particular reason? We ask. “My then-girlfriend had gone to the US,” Das confesses, amidst chuckles. “I had no idea how big the USA is. She went to New York and I was in Chicago. It was a 12-hour drive. By the time I settled in the country, we had broken up.”
However, his time at Knox, made him fall in love with acting. He graduated in Economics and Theatre. “I remember this professor once told me, you are meant for the stage. I still haven’t decided if I am an actor or a comic. I had initially planned to teach theatre if I couldn’t become an actor. Till today, every other day I wake up and feel like doing a play.”
Mumbai happened after Das had tasted the stage as a comedian in Delhi. “My first show was at the capital’s India Habitat Centre. Once you get the applause from a crowd of 350 people, there is no going back,” he shares. He soon got offered a job as a Video Jockey (VJ) in Mumbai. “I was like, ‘What is a VJ?’. I was terrible at it, and got fired in four months,” he says. He soon got another gig, a news-comedy segment on a leading news, titled News on the Loose.
“I remember watching Rang De Basanti. It changed my life,” he shares. “Although headlined by a major star (Aamir Khan), the film felt like a true ensemble. The characters played by Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor and Siddharth were not ‘side roles’. I realised something was changing and thought there might be space for people like me who weren’t over six feet tall and traditionally good-looking.” Ultimately, Vir went on to feature in films like Namastey London (2007), Badmaash Company (2010) and Delhi Belly (2011), amongst others. “I remember quitting CNBC to do Delhi Belly. Me, Imran (Khan) and Kunal (Roy Kapur), were so young. We shared a vanity van. The experience we had on the sets of that film, really spoiled us for the rest of our careers.”
Vir, now 44, is mostly tasked with writing stand-up material for an audience that is way younger than him. “They are all between 18 to 28 years of age,” he says. How does he maintain relatability with them? “I tell them why I like them, why they scare me and maybe why I scare them. I am not one of them but I see them. It’s no rocket science, just be real.”