With over 700k followers across Instagram and TikTok and her hilarious clips amassing instant virality, Gauri B is on her way to becoming a household name in the comedy world. I was lucky enough to talk to her as she gears up to go on her tour and take her talents all over the world. We cover everything from cold crowds, her dreams of taking over the standup scene, and of course the struggle of being a brown woman in an unfamiliar industry, including the age-old conundrum of brown parent guilt.
Gauri grew up in Punjab until she moved to Germany at the age of 21 for an internship in her final year of pursuing a Bachelor of Architecture. She knew that she was good at talking up a storm, but it wasn’t until she was pulled up on stage at a women’s empowerment conference that she realised she could make a career out of it.
“As an intern, I was just there for the free food and the drinks. Ironically the workshop was conducted by a straight white man who was teaching women how to feel empowered,” she says.
“There was an exercise where we had to just speak impromptu on like random words that he gave us. I talked about my biggest fear – tall people. The whole room, just sort of like burst into laughter and I was enjoying it so much that I started like acting it out and I did this whole bit. That was my first five-minute stand-up bit that I did not even realise that I was doing stand-up.”
It turns out the host of the workshop was a comic himself and encouraged her to pursue stand-up. Her first two gigs weren’t exactly smooth sailing, but Gauri says by her third time round, she could start to, “see how [she] had imagined the kind of comedian that [she] would want to be.”
As a fellow brown woman, I know firsthand how challenging it can be to convince brown parents to support any new path you may want to take. Gauri faced similar struggles with her parents, who had difficulty accepting the idea and the optics of their daughter becoming a standup comedian.
“In the beginning, it was hard for them to understand why I don’t want to do architecture anymore, because I did my masters in media as well,” she explains.
“They were like, ‘Why? You spent five years doing this [architecture]. Now you’re doing something else. Is it the best thing to do? Is it safe? Is it secure?’ But now I think as it’s working out, they’re just, you know, they’re just happy and proud, I think.”
We shared many stories of our parents’ disappointment, which I will keep private for both our sakes. Ultimately, we concluded that every parent will have their disappointments, even the parents of Bollywood’s nepo-babies, until one day you prove them wrong – not out of spite, but to demonstrate that every choice you make for yourself is the right one because it shapes who you are now.
The doubters don’t stop there though. Gauri says, “Going viral in India is one of my biggest fears. Because like as soon as you go out there, it’s like the comments are just…”
Unfortunately, some of her biggest critics are from her own home, spewing racist and judgemental comments. But, Gauri is determined to build and use her platform to spark important conversations, whether people like it or not.
“It sounds so cliche, but I don’t want a joke to just be a joke,” she says. “I’m using it as a platform to voice my own opinions and just talk about the society that we live in and how it impacts the minorities. So it’s always got like a dash of truth in it.”
Her recent viral clips include commenting on the genocide in Gaza and the increase in conservatism in Europe, so it’s safe to say she isn’t afraid of speaking her mind. But it’s not lost on me how much of a risk she’s really taking by saying how she really feels in a space that already doesn’t welcome her.
When I ask her if she ever gets scared telling confronting jokes in front of predominantly white crowds and then showing them to the rest of the world, she says no. Gauri explains it’s just a matter of working the crowd and essentially training them on how to receive her jokes.
“In the US, stand-up has been there since the 40s. So they get it, they get it’s just a joke, and you’re supposed to laugh at it. But in some European countries, [standup] just makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s just about getting them to open up and just doing a lot of crowd work where you just sort of dive into the space and let them know, ‘Hey, it’s okay to laugh. It’s fine.’ So it’s like a different tool that you need to use to sort of work the crowd.
“But I think if you can then work a completely white crowd that does not know how to enjoy stand-up comedy in their second language, then you can definitely kill in all the easier places.”
I first saw Gauri at the Brown Women Comedy show at this year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival, which featured an all-South Asian women comedy lineup. It was honestly incredible to see so many brown women be so unapologetically themselves without having to pander to the white man. A hard-line many ethnic comedians strive to tow is using their culture in their sets – which can be a very big part of their lives and therefore their comedy – without extorting their culture for laughs. Too often, comedians fall into the trap of caricaturing their own backgrounds to appeal to broader audiences, but this show was different. Gauri strives to be different.
“It’s hard to not shit on yourself as a comedian. Most comedians have zero self-esteem. So it’s very hard. And when I started out, I was writing a lot of self-deprecating jokes,” she says. “At some point, I don’t know, I was having a conversation with someone and internally I went like, ‘Okay, that’s it for me, I’m not gonna do any more self-deprecating jokes.’
“And one year into comedy it’s just like a rule I made for myself. I was like, ‘Why do we need to put ourselves down when we have been the butt of the joke since so many years?’ You know, if I have a plot platform and a voice, I have the opportunity to just reverse it. If I can write a self-deprecating joke, I can also write something else, so it’s just making internal rules or principles for yourself.”
As Gauri B continues to rise in the comedy world, she embodies the future of brown women in comedy — unapologetic, daring, and fiercely authentic. Gauri’s success is not just a personal victory but a collective stride forward for women of colour in entertainment. It signals a shift in the comedic landscape, one where diverse voices are not only heard but celebrated. Mark my words, we’ll be hearing about Gauri B for years to come.
You can find her tour dates here.