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If comedians were meals, Hari Kondabolu would be the delicious, home-cooked variety. Other stand-up comics are frequently almost equally tasty, but often, I find myself enjoying a routine only to feel nauseous looking back at what I’ve tacitly endorsed with my laughter—exactly how I feel after eating McDonald’s. Following a Kondabolu set, I feel good.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make the guy sound boring—he is laugh-until-you-hurt funny. What’s special is that Kondabolu’s brand of socially conscious stand-up manages to be utterly hilarious while also utterly avoiding the racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes that have made such easy fodder for others. Sitting in the audience, I laughed hard at everything, without glancing around guiltily to see if other members of the audience were the butt of the joke.

Kondabolu got into comedy at an early age, starting to write at age 16,  influenced by the likes of Margaret Cho, Stewart Lee, and Paul Mooney. At Bowdoin College he started to move away from some of the easy, sometimes stereotypical jokes of his youth and towards political humour, and particularly, the politics of race.

In 2006 Kondabolu made a short movie, Manoj, where he portrays both an Indian comic named Manoj who uses stereotypical portrayals of Indians for easy laughs—”A lot of times people come up to me and say, ‘Manoj, why do Indian people eat monkey brains all the time?'” Manoj says in the film. “That is simply not true. If you knew anything about monkey brains you’d know monkey brains are very, very expensive. You can’t just eat them all the time. If I had a dime for every time someone came up to me and asked, I could actually afford to eat monkey brains!”—and himself, an Indian comic disgusted by Manoj’s material. The film was a hit, airing at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival .

Kondabolu didn’t take a normal road to comedy, if there is such a thing. After graduating from Bowdoin College he moved to Seattle to work as an immigrant rights organizer, focusing on “detention and deportation issues,” while continuing to do stand-up at night. There, he found a supportive community of comedians and other artists and was able to make new strides with his material. Eventually, he applied to a human rights masters program at the London School of Economics.  

Everything happened at once for Kondabolu: he was discovered by the HBO comedy festival, he got a set on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and he got into LSE, all in the same week.

“I didn’t know what the fuck to do because comedy wasn’t the plan. I just really liked doing it and you’ve seen what I do, I just didn’t assume this would work in more than Seattle, San Francisco, now Montreal, … there’s [only] a handful of places I could play, so it was kind of weird I was getting mainstream national recognition,” Kondabolu said.

He decided to take a year off from comedy to get his masters, but came right back afterwards. For the past three years he’s travelled and performed, played a part in a Sandra Bullock movie, and built his reputation.

“I don’t want to be niche to be perfectly honest. I don’t think the issues I’m talking about are niche. Racism should not be fucking niche. This should be mainstream and my goal is to be mainstream.”

*****

Kondabolu performed to a standing-room-only crowd at the centre culturel Georges-Vanier this past Thursday Sept. 8, at an event co-hosted by CKUT, Rad Frosh 2011, and QPIRG Concordia and McGill.

The organizers led the set with the 15-minute film Manoj, which got big laughs, even though more than a few of those were for the simple jokes that Manoj was satirizing. Regardless, the audience was ready when Kondabolu took the stage.

It’s difficult to imagine an audience and a performer more perfect for each other than the crowd there and Hari Kondabolu. Educated young people who are politically aware seem to be the target market, and the Montreal crowd couldn’t get enough of the jokes or the worldview. He received a semi-standing ovation, which he later mocked in his Q&A.

Later he tweeted, “Fun show in Montreal. Had poutine after. Feel bad I need to leave this city so quickly.”

So does Montreal.

Visit harikondabolu.com for more information.