Fabulous@14 | Ahead of Christmas, actress and comedienne Sindhu Vee talks about her latest project, ‘Jul’ family traditions and more

Yes! It has been a delight to help bring Mrs Mulji to life on screen. That Christmas is a very modern take on an age-old tale of love, family and friendship that marks Christmas time. One thing I found refreshingly different is how the adults are not stereotypically ‘responsible’ at all times and the trials and tribulations this causes.

It’s going to be a very Danish Jul (Christmas) celebrated on December 24. In the days leading up to it, there will be a lot of eating — typical Danish Christmas delicacies like æbleskiver (a round sweet dough ball eaten with jam and powdered sugar), brunkage (brown cookies with almond, ginger and cinnamon) and gløgg (Danish mulled wine). The Christmas meal will include two of my favourite things — risalamande with cherry sauce (a cold rice pudding made with cream and a single whole almond hidden in it — whoever gets it when they are eating the risalamande, gets a prize. My mother-in-law skews this, so the grandchildren will win — which I think is unfair) and caramelised potatoes. Danish Christmas shows how little Danes fear sugar. The Christmas tree will be cut by us from a Christmas tree farm (sustainable, of course, because this is Scandinavia) and be decorated with real candles. It’s all spectacular — and I haven’t even mentioned the gifts!

Well, next year it’s going to be That Christmas, obviously, but until then it is the Richard Curtis jewel Love Actually. We will probably also watch Elf (starring Will Ferrell) because everyone in our family knows the dialogue by heart — so, it’s like movie karaoke.

The story is about a family, the Pradeeps. There’s the wife — Sudha Pradeep; the husband — Mahesh Pradeep; the three kids, two of them teenagers — Bhanu and Kamal; and one is the younger one — Vinod. They have moved from — and this is very important, modern-day Ahmedabad — to the United States, because Mahesh Pradeep has a SpaceX contract and it’s his dream to have that kind of work. Dr Sudha Pradeep, a neurosurgeon, like many Indians, is not interested in moving. For her, home is fine. As the character I’m like, “I don’t want to live abroad, what’s going on?” But you know, as my mother used to say, getting married is easy, but staying married is hard. So, to make a compromise for the marriage, they move. It’s what happens to them when they arrive, that forms much of the premise. I think a lot of Indians watching this in India, if not all Indians, will understand that in this day and age when Indians move abroad, they’re extremely well aware of what abroad is. We have the internet to inform us. But that doesn’t mean you’ll get there and like it. Any family, from anywhere, moving to any place will experience some nice things and some things not so nice. And, the kids (in the series) are typical teenagers. They have their personalities. Some are more excited about being in America, while some are less. Of course, their mother is concerned because, like all Indian mothers in India, she thinks abroad is very corrupting, not realising that their children are already corrupt enough, but they just don’t know it. I won’t give more away, but it’s that story and is very funny!

Firstly, what drew me to the project most was the story and the script. It’s a sharply written story about modern-day Indians in the United States and I love that. It’s loaded with jokes. As a stand-up comedian, that’s important to me, that it be funny. Then there is Sudha’s character. She’s a pretty straight-up desi mum. She wants her kids to do well. She takes care of them, but obviously, she’s very protective and she will do whatever needs to be done.

I remember, once when I was very young and very late at night, I told my mother that I had a school play. First of all, I got into trouble for not telling her earlier. She had my costume and we didn’t have a dryer or anything and I had to go the next day. I remember she washed them in the sink, wrung them and then told me to jump on them, hang them and use the hair dryer to dry them. By the next morning, I had a perfect outfit and I went for the play normally. That is the thing with Indian mothers or any mother — you do what you have to ensure your kids don’t stumble and don’t fall. That’s what Sudha does. I mean she’s not doing anything particularly off-piste when it comes to an Indian mother. However, during the show, she does go a little bit off-piste. But then again, she’s highly educated. She’s not scared of Americans or she’s not in awe of America. She’s smarter than most people she meets. At least, she thinks so. And frankly, you know, she has that Indian thing where she feels confident that she is a doctor. All in all, it was not something that I didn’t recognise. I’ve seen people like my mother’s friends, who were doctors in India. They always felt smarter and had more confidence than your average mom. I just channelled all those aunties into Sudha!

Alphabet does not have a theme as such. It’s a show about many different things that have marked my life in the last few years — the cost of having a different ‘home’ country than your children, the hair women want, the importance of unconditional love between friends and the unspoken codes that bind a family across generations. I’m writing a new show now and will definitely bring it to India probably in the next 18 months or so.

I had never seen live stand-up, before the first time I got onto stage. I didn’t think I was going to be a stand-up comic. It was a fluke thing. A lot of alcohol was involved. Just a lot! But also, I had three young kids. It felt reckless in a way that was still acceptable. You don’t want to have three kids and do something so reckless. As I had never seen live stand-up, I didn’t understand what I knew intellectually. I’d only seen a DVD of Eddie Murphy, who I still think is very funny. So, I wasn’t thinking very deeply about it. But then what happened is as I was doing it, I got a laugh or two. I remember very clearly something in my head was like, “What is this? I have to do this again.”

Funnily enough, the next day I went home and started Googling stand-up comedy. I was reading about it and buying books. I bought every book you can think of on stand-up comedy, even the most ridiculous ones. Then I talked to people. I didn’t know any stand-ups, but I knew the people that were in a group, Funny Women UK. I just never stopped trying to be part of comedy thereafter. I felt lucky to be just somehow involved with this thing. The crux of it was about saying something funny. I’d always wanted to do that. When I was a kid, being like that, telling a joke — it was always in me, but it was never a legitimate thing. It was like a bad habit.

Especially when I was growing up, girls who talked about or said something that made everyone laugh and in that way attracted attention to themselves — it was not considered a good quality. So in a way, it was like this secret that I enjoyed so much. So, as a result, when I began watching stand-up, I realised that may be a problem, a personality defect. But I didn’t care. Many of us have this personality defect. It was lovely to meet other people like that. Not that I think that I have a personality defect now, neither do they (laughs). But it started like that. So, my initial concerns were less weirdly enough about being on stage and more about investigating, “what is it about me that wants to do this?” I didn’t talk about it much with anyone because I didn’t want to have people’s opinions on it. After all, I was sure this was what I was never going to stop doing.

In 2025, I hope to finally have some kind of physical exercise regime in place. I have been trying for over a decade but I am not a quitter, so I’ll keep trying. Professionally, I just want to keep doing more of what I have been doing and getting better at it. Nothing would please me more than bringing more laughter to more people in more places and using the word ‘more’ more (laughs).