Indian comic moved from the heartland to La La Land
Rajiv Satyal’s parents, who are immigrants from India, expected their bright son to become a doctor or an engineer. They never expected a comedian. He was on the engineering track, earning a degree in materials engineering from his hometown University of Cincinnati. From there, he got a marketing job at Procter & Gamble. In 2006, at age 30, he moved to LA to be a manager for Fiji Water.
For him, turning 30 was tough.
“I flipped out and moved to LA,” he said during a telephone interview. Twelve weeks later, he quit his Fiji gig and spent a month meditating while figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. He also wrote a 65-page analysis of himself.
Now a stand-up comedian, Satyal, who has opened for Dave Chappelle five times, performs in Pittsburgh Friday at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium in Oakland. “The Man in the Middle,” an 80-minute show, is the 43-yearold comic’s personal take on the state of American politics.
When he arrived in LA, Satyal already had contacts at movie studios, record labels and talent agencies because of his Procter & Gamble experience. Some of those people returned his calls and talked with him about pursuing a career in comedy.
He found help at The Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, Calif. The club’s booker, Richard Barrett, put him in touch with Pat Hazell, one of the original writers for “Seinfeld.” A playwright, producer and director, Hazell lives in Austin, Texas, where he is chief creative officer for Sweetwood Creative.
“Pat and I really hit it off. I stayed with him. He cooked for me and he drove me around. We did a line by line edit of the show I’m bringing to Pittsburgh,” Satyal said. With Hazell’s help, the comedian whittled his act from 61 pages to 18.
“He’s a comedy ninja. He really helped me shape it,” Satyal said.
Fifty million people have watched the comedian’s video “I Am Indian,” an impassioned riff on how India has helped humanity — as in Mahatma Gandhi and gurus and karma and yoga.
Satyal performs weekly at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood. Since 2015, he has been married to Harsha Mistry, a pharmacist he proposed to at a comedy club.
“The Man in the Middle” is not as confessional as “No Man’s Land,” a show about his long dating career.
He describes himself as “left of center” and his parents as “fairly liberal and progressive.”
“My mom’s dad in the ’50s in India insisted that his four daughters and two sons all go to college. In the ’50s, that just wasn’t done. Boys went to college. Girls got their Mrs.,” he said.
He also has military background. “Both my mom’s dad and my dad’s dad fought in World War II on the side of the Allies. They were in the British Army. At the time, India was a British colony.”