How Life Happens

Anuvab Pal’s connected all his and became a stand-up comedian

In the year 2000, I was unemployed in New York City. Being a cocky 23-year-old, I’d quit my job thinking life would give me endless opportunities (note to the young: looking back at age 37, it doesn’t). I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and so I went around saying “I want to be an investment banker”, as is quite common with young Indian professionals in the US who have no idea what they want to do with their lives.

My roommates had jobs at banks, and on that particular day, knowing that I was unemployed, they’d given me the critical task of locating (and destroying) Arthur, a doormouse that roamed around our apartment. Of course, I said ‘yes’, but I had no intention of spending an important day trapping a mouse. I, an important person, had important things to do. I had come across the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest films of all time and I intended to watch all of them. If I was lucky, something like employment wouldn’t get in the way until I’d ticked off at least half the list.

Citizen Kane was the first on the list; I’d never seen it although I knew that the words ‘Orson Welles’ and ‘Rosebud’ had something to do with it. I went out to get the video cassette (if you don’t know what that is, look it up on Wikipedia). The library didn’t have it. I know this would be hard to believe for anyone born after 1985, but there used to be a world in which, if a movie was not available, you could not watch it. The option of 183 other torrent sites did not exist then. As I sauntered back to my apartment thinking of ways to not confront the issue of the mouse, I thought to myself, ‘I should write a play’. I’d never written a play. Actually, I’d never written anything. I’d read and watched things. A play seemed easier to handle than a novel, which felt complicated (read: a lot of words) and would perhaps be better tackled once I was older and had experience with a lot more alcohol and disappointment.

The play would start with two people chatting. The first image in my head was of two people talking while throwing a cricket ball at each other. I had no idea who these people were, or why they were throwing a ball. They seemed like adults in my head and if two adults were throwing a cricket ball at each other without any reason, it would have been a bit mad. I needed a reason. Right in front of me was a calendar with a Shakespeare quote on it. Before you start wondering who, in this day and age (except for an Indian public sector bank employee perhaps) has a calendar on one’s desk, I should point out, these were the early days of the 20th century, people still had calendars, Amazon was just a river and Bon Jovi was still famous. I thought it might be a good idea to have the two characters in my head throw the ball at each other and quiz each other on Shakespeare quotes. I flipped the pages of the calendar and found 12 quotes. One character would ask it, the other would respond with the name of the play, the ball would go back and forth. I had the opening scene.

Now that I had two people, I had to find out who they were, what they wanted, why they were talking and how their conversation would end. I could feel a journey ensuing. Just then, the mouse came out. Arthur and I made eye contact. He nodded, as if giving me his approval, and sped away. I felt that if a mouse felt this was my higher calling, this must be it.

In the meantime, the library called to ask if I still wanted to borrow Citizen Kane. I said ‘no’. I had my own story to watch.

It started snowing, the ball kept going back and forth, time passed, whatever I was doing felt good, and I began to call myself a writer.

That conversation, once finished, became a play titled Chaos Theory, which went on to have about 500 shows around the world, introduced me to everything and everyone I know, got me to see places I never would have otherwise (Alaska being the craziest one). It set me off on my other plays, movies (Loins of Punjab, The President is Coming), stand-up career, everything. But this would never have happened except for a quirk of fate.

After I wrote the play that day/night into the subsequent month, I printed it out (again, it was the early 2000s, people printed stuff), kept it in a drawer, and forgot about it.

Anuvab PalCitizen Kanestand-up comedian