“When Emily came to Paris, she already had a job and lived in a part of Paris that’s very posh. I came to Paris with nothing, no job, and not speaking the language,” says comedian Sebastian Marx, who is an American living in France. He’s currently visiting India for the first time ever and recently performed at Alliance Française in Delhi.
“Parisians are like, ‘We want to see Emily go to the bad neighbourhoods of Paris’ and see how she reacts because she only goes to the nice ones and never orders a baguette wrong or gets mugged,” shares the 45-year-old whose Insta fans vouch for his accurate comical dissection of cultures and languages, especially the French. He, on the other hand, remains surprised at how, within India, one can witness various kinds of English accents. “People think and react to the fact that our Englishes are not the same English. Even I thought we spoke the same language, but not at all! I’ve had lots of misunderstandings with the Indian people. You guys speak English, and I speak English, but it’s not the same English! Like the hotel people here don’t understand when I say my room number is 2033. I say tr-ee tr-ee, and they don’t get it. Even the Indian intern with me Indianises his English to make them understand the room number (smiles),” he adds.
Beyond the accent, he’s still excited to revisit the country and jests, “Please call me back; I promise I will Indianise my English if I need to.”
‘Donald Trump isn’t the brightest guy’
“I’m not surprised Donald Trump needed a translator to understand Indian English… I don’t think he’s the brightest guy. But then we also have so many different kinds of English,” opines Marx.
Comedy row courtesy Kunal Kamra
Marx says, “I had never heard of this comedian (Kunal Kamra), but I know that the comedy club where he made the joke about a politician was brought down… That’s the irony: the reaction of people raised his popularity, and now I want to know what he said.”
Guy to guard the ATM machine!
When in India, how can a westerner not be amused by the eccentricities of its culture? Feeding off on the same, Marx narrated an incident to the audience: “I was going to an ATM, in Delhi, to take out the money, and it had a booth, and there was someone inside. So the guy sitting in front of the booth, who acted like the traffic controller of who can and cannot go to the ATM, saw me entering and said, ‘Wait, you have to wait there, you know.’ I first thought he wanted a tip, but then I realised this man’s job was to man an ATM machine! Then, when my turn came, I found out there was no cash in the machine so I told him about it, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I know’. So I didn’t get why he or the guy before me didn’t stop and inform me earlier?”
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