looking at these two words I’ve always
been told to fit in you know in India
it’s weird to be different people don’t
appreciate it if you are different you
always have to blend in with the group
blend in with the majority and my dad’s
in the army and because of which I’ve
had to change around eight schools and
sometimes I speak Hindi sometimes and
Tamil Nadu I have to speak Tamil so why
would I want to be a rebel I always just
wanted to be you know blending in with
after my eighth grade I realized that I
wanted to be rich and successful I come
from a middle class background and I did
not want to be driving around in a
Maruti 800 when I was my dad’s age so I
said I want to be rich and successful so
people told me there’s only one path you
need to walk into if you want to do that
first you do this and then you do this
and I will be successful so I was like
okay I was this above-average student in
school and when you’re above average
that’s this thing that your teachers
always tell your parents right they’re
like this one is smart he just needs to
put in a little bit more effort and he
will top the class so I was like okay
maybe I’m a hidden genius maybe there is
an Einstein or a Newton in my head that
I am not willing to discover yet okay I
am smart I can be rich and successful
let’s go for IT coaching so I went for
IT coaching for two years and then I
realized that I was not smart enough or
I was not dedicated enough to get into
IIT and then one fine day school was
awesome right school was awesome or
every now and then I’d fake a stomach
ache before my math exam but culturals
were always there to fill that gap up I
would enjoy going to all the culturals
and attending all the cultural events
then after my 12th board exams got over
it was that time when my dad sat me down
he had one of these intense father-son
conversations he looked into my eyes and
he said hum I come from a poor
background but I wanted to be an army
officer
so I struggled I followed my passion and
I became an army officer you have your
entire life in front of you now you have
to decide what you want to be so tell me
some you have all the choices in the
world tell me what kind of engineering
that I okay I was also just going with
the flow and you know when you’re in
India and if you’re considered a smart
person you would obviously want to take
up science and engineering because Arts
is for dumb people right like only kids
who are not smart take apart I was like
okay dad I’ll be an engineer I’m smart
got into engineering the biggest mistake
of my life first day of college I hated
it I was like okay I have no idea why
I’m here I looked at all these people I
was like what am I going to do
dad I want to drop out said go back I
paid four lakhs donation said okay I’ll
go back I struggled with college two
years of college was a horrible I hated
going to college because I don’t know
what’s up with these engineering
colleges like nobody comes up with the
idea that let’s make a college in the
heart of the city no you want to make
the poor kids travel for two hours in
the morning and two hours in the evening
back home my college was in the space
called sleeper before and after I
started hitting going back to college
I’d come home every day cry to my mom I
told my parents I’m going to commit
suicide then I’d come up with creative
excuses I’d be like my you know Rajiv
Gandhi he went to sleep and booted once
but they wouldn’t listen so I did
something that a lot of people do I
started reading a self-help books so and
most of the books tell you one thing
they like follow your passion but here I
was in second year of engineering
looking at everybody who’s like dude we
need to study for GRE man we need to I
want to get into this university that’s
my dream company I’m sitting in another
now I had to figure out what my passion
was I never knew what my passion was
because I was like nobody wants to be a
black sheep here nobody wants to be that
person who’s an odd one out in India
like I remember in school even though
I’d only groove to go in the songs all
day at home when it came to writing my
favorite artist in the slam book I’d be
like Justin Timberlake bro
Akon yo mmm that’s what I listen to you
know like most of us we make up
imaginary girlfriends in like foreign
countries when we’re in school okay
maybe that’s just me but yeah the point
is I had to find my passion and then
something happened I started thinking
about what is that one thing that I
would want to do for the rest of my life
and still be happy I went back to this
incident in my second grade where I
played Charlie Chaplin in this fancy
dress competition and I slipped that
fell on stage and I actually hurt my
head but just then the audience started
clapping and I got up with a big smile
on my face that I got the second prize
and I was all happy and I realized that
performing for somebody and making
people laugh was something that I always
wanted to do in my life throughout my
childhood and throughout my school I was
in the theater club there and the joy of
performing on stage you know that that
kind of joy nothing else can replace
that for me so I said I’m doing
something that I don’t like I’ve been
doing it for two years I need something
that I can hold on to to just survive
engineering and that’s when I decided to
start my theater club in college me and
a group of my friends who are also very
creative very productive very you know
performance oriented but had been forced
by the parents to join engineering
they’re like yo bro let’s do
this we started a theater club and we
put up two plays this was in 2014
we put up these it’s too short plays and
after that for the first time in my
college life I was enjoying college I
would wake up go to college every day
sit through those eight hours just
thinking about those two hours of
rehearsals in the evening and like for
the first time in my life I was not
trying to be someone else
I was not pretending to be someone else
I was being myself and people who are
accepting the kind of person I was I was
being so that gave me a lot of
confidence and then I started interning
at an entertainment collaborative or
theater collaborative called a factory
and after joining them wrote my first
play the play was titled to be II or not
to be II which spoke about the
frustrations of being in an engineering
college when you really didn’t want to
and that play won a lot of awards and
then I realized that there are so many
people in our country or engineers
who’ve done engineering just to figure
out that that is not what I want to do
but you know it’s become like these four
years that you spend in a place after
your 12 standard just to sit and think
what you really want to do with your
life and then we asked ourselves why so
many of our engineering graduates are
not employable so this was the play to
be or not to be
and after this something magical
happened one random online ad about
Pepsi IPL intern Pepsi was the sponsor
of IPL and they were taking one guy to
the by to go hang out with all the stars
and because that’s been in the army as I
told you guys my international
experiences have always been very
different like that would often take us
to the border and it’d be like when I
see that side is Pakistan the side of
India you know something that side is
China this side is India I’ve often
wondered looking at a camel on that side
of the board is saying oh a Pakistani
camel just looks like an Indian camel
that’s amazing so first time in my life
of flying abroad alone for days in Dubai
meeting these cool guys the rod Kohli
so trying to do push-ups with Yuvraj
Singh it didn’t go that well huh so that
happened and for four days of living the
life the life in the white but I had to
go back and do my engineering now so
last day sitting in the airport waiting
for my waiting to board my flight and
I’m reading The Alchemist because I was
all getting like philosophical now I was
like let’s understand the meaning of
life so this is one coat which really
stuck with me it said if you really want
to do something in life the entire
universe will conspire to bring that to
you and that’s when I decided I said
sham you’ve never known what you wanted
to do for the first 20 years of your
life you don’t even know who Justin
Timberlake is and now you finally know
what you want you’re enjoying yourself
just grow a pair and tell your parents
that you don’t want to go to college at
least for a year and do what you wanted
to do just just take that leap and so I
went up to my parents and I was like my
order drop out said what are you doing
with your life you know if you drop out
the entire world is going to look at you
and laugh then I had an idea I told my
parents I’m taking your break let me try
and do all the things that I wanted to
do in this one year and then if you
think that I’m not doing that well I’ll
go back to college they did not
immediately agree but a lot of emotional
black males later a lot of crying a lot
of fighting they finally agreed they
said okay fine do whatever you want you
know that’s what your parents tell you
when they fed up with you they’re like I
cannot argue with you anymore do
whatever the hell you want it’s like to
whatever you want so after my mom told
me that the entire world would laugh at
you I realized that one thing that I’ve
always wanted to do in my life was
stand-up comedy so so I wrote a
four-minute set and I started
frequenting open mics for the first 20
times I went there not a single person
lost that’s the worst feeling you know
when you come in and you’re like hey I’m
a
I’m going to make you laugh towards the
end people are just staring into single
so 20 times coming back home crying
saying are you Asia what are you doing
why can’t you be funny after that I’ve
had my first love for the first time I
made someone laugh at an open mic and
that was the best feeling and post that
I started doing a lot more shows this
picture is very special to me because
all throughout my life my parents wanted
me to get into IIT and after I dropped
it I went to IIT and performed for these
bunch of IIT ins and made them love my
first line when I went up on stage was
ma I finally made it I’m inside IIT row
then the first time I’d written into che
factory to join them as an intern I
wrote to them saying that I want to be
part of a YouTube channel from the south
which makes content like the all-india
buck showed and six months down the line
after the first video which got over 1.7
million hits on YouTube we were there at
the YouTube FanFest performing with them
so that was a very very very special
moment okay so one year was almost
coming to an end now so my parents were
like now what and that is what I
understood when I dropped out of college
or when I took a break from college I
was like in this one year I’m going to
do something so phenomenal so amazing
that my parents would be like wow then I
realized that Indian parents even if I
had won the Academy Awards that year my
mom would still come up to me and be
like degree come finish Kerrville so so
they were like okay time to go back to
college now okay we understand that you
don’t want to do engineering do you want
to take up an arts course that’s for
dumb people do you want to do that job
so uh but but secretly I did not want to
go back to college I was in the real
world working with real-life problems
working with real people doing stuff I
was like no I want to do something else
and I remember it was a lazy Saturday
afternoon when I was at a children’s
theater workshop teaching children
children theater
of wearing shorts and a sweaty t-shirt
and I get a call from the HR of
Hindustan Times media and she’s like you
have an interview in one hour and be
ready all the best so I didn’t have time
to go back home and change into my
clothes so I just went like that
wearing shorts and a sweaty t-shirt
walked into the office and there I see
ten people sitting there in a line with
the briefcases with a tie so the perfect
corporate attire had come in panting the
sweaty t-shirt of mine wearing shorts
even the watchman was like we already
got water for this week like but I was
confident right I was like I’m going to
do this I’m going to do this so I went
there I went inside and I had never
really wanted the job I was not looking
at a job I was like I’m just going to go
in there and talk to these people have a
nice time so I remember all of these
guys sitting outside and I walk in and I
say hi to these guys and they’re like so
what do you doing
and I’m like actually I do stand-up
comedy and then I get up and I’m
performing for them that’s part of my
interview I perform stand-up comedy for
them and these guys from outside they’re
staring at me saying what the hell is
happening what is he doing so they kind
of like me in that interview and they
offered me a job as a producer for
writing content and I was involved in
setting up a Bollywood radio station in
Chennai and pretty much you know
brainstorming the show names and
deciding what content has to be there on
the radio channel and a while later they
said you know what have a decent voice
why don’t you try being an rj so for
three months I had to do 30 links every
are a link is something that comes in
between a song when the rj talks and
initially the thing about being an rj is
that a lot of people take it as an
announcer you cannot be an announcer and
be an RJ RJ is a person who is you know
kind of when you’re driving your car and
you’re listening to the radio it should
feel like he’s sitting next to you and
talking to you and a lot of people when
they get into radio your immediate thing
about being an RJ is always to try and
copy somebody else who’s already an RJ
so for me to crack my style it took a
while and after three months the first
time I remember it was midnight 12:30
and they gave me a graveyard shift they
like
go live now my hands are shivering I
switched on the mic I said something
turn down the mic and I actually got
messages I thought these guys are
playing a huge prank on me saying making
me sit in this room and talk to myself
but people could actually help me
outside and that’s when my journey is
hard Jay started and I got to interview
some cool people after becoming an RJ
and then I lost a bet so I did a show
just wearing my boxers and my and then
my parents are like okay cool
you’re an RG no but you need to get get
a degree still so I said okay cool you
know what I’m not going to be this rebel
you want a degree I’ll join in a
correspondence course I will give you a
degree so someone told me about this
magical thing where in India you have
this thing called correspondence where
every year you just have to go write
your exams and you’ll get your degree in
three years I’m like cool I can do that
so I joined that and till date my mom
tells me not to tell someone that I’m a
college dropout she I don’t know for
some reason she’s like no just don’t say
that
tell them you finished it okay just tell
them you finished it don’t tell them
you’re a dropout and even even at
college functions when I go there
teachers are kind of like they hesitated
to introduce me when they introduced me
to their you know Dean’s and hods
they’re like ah Hisham Ranganathan he’s
you know an RJ and he they’re like which
college did you study and what did you
like I’m a college dropout Ohio I was
feeling kind of embarrassed to say that
so finally from being this guy who was
kind of ashamed to tell people that you
know I left college to do something else
it became it became something that I
completely accepted and it was something
that I was kind of proud of so then a
couple of newspaper articles later my
parents were like okay cool I want to
leave you guys with this all throughout
our life we we suppress our feelings we
compromise to other people we don’t care
about aspirations we just want to go
with the majority we want to you know
fit in with the crowd for once just try
to be yourself don’t try to fit in and
hopefully you’ll find yourselves thank
you so much [Applause]