Then the world got loud

I did another storytelling night. The prompt was to end a performance with “…then the world got loud” for the Opening Gala of the Weekend of Words (WoW).

It was my third time performing as part of the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide. It’s one of my favourite because I get to spend so much time with comedians and writers from all over the country.

On stage for the Comedy Debate at Her Majesty's Theatre

At my first OzAsia Fest, a few comedians were having drinks after an event and we all swapped stories of the weirdest gigs we’ve ever done. When it was my turn, I told the story of the lady who saw me on TikTok and flew me to her wedding in Italy to do a twenty minute set in an ancient grainery located an hour outside Rome.

Sami Shah, comedian and journalist said, Sashi that’s the strangest story I’ve ever heard, who are these people?

I said, I’m not sure I couldn’t find anything online about them when I headed over six months ago.

He said, give me their names.

Within minutes, he pulled up websites alleging the groom to be a serial fraudster with a string of unpaid bills (including wedding suppliers), in the middle of a trial in Singapore. Never have I been so impressed with journo skills or laughed quite so hard in shock.

Sami now curates the WoW, here’s my response to his prompt.

—

I’m thirty nine years old and in my second official year of being a full time comedian. It’s what I write on incoming passenger declaration forms so that’s how I know it’s legit.

It’s been a strange road for a kid who was born in Colombo and didn’t know that “comedian” was a job for adults. Especially when the only true markers of success in the Sri Lankan community are becoming a doctor - marrying a doctor - and making children who grow up to be - doctors - and marry doctors - and so on, the cycle continues.

It’s especially strange because at thirty one, I accepted that I needed to live a predictable and stable life.

I had strived against this since I was a kid. When my friends in the Sri Lankan community in Perth sat for the medical entrance exams, I bucked the trend to study law. That was the extent of bucking the trend - going to uni to study something other than medicine.

In law school I looked around at my peers and thought, I’ll be different. I won’t chase money - I’ll chase travel, stories and making a small but good difference in the world. The only area of law that appealed to me was human rights - a grand concept I decided to uphold and defend with pride.

I chased my version of an exciting life for a decade. I worked with Vietnamese asylum seekers in the Philippines while living with eleven other people in a four bedroom highrise in Manila. I worked on the cases of Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey, Syrian asylum seekers in Egypt, Pakistani asylum seekers in Thailand and the Burundian refugee crisis in Tanzania.

I got all the adventure I wanted and worked with stories that consumed me long after I left the office. But the contracts held little security. I never knew whether they were going to be renewed or where I’d head to next. Every time I moved I said goodbye to the small community I pulled together and went on to start a new one. It was exciting and new but also transient and overwhelming. What I found in each place was that human rights were a nebulous concept in application - and to uphold them - everyone needed heaps of money.

And love was hard. In the middle of all the moving and the working I cancelled a wedding two months before it was to take place. After leaving my fiance - my best friend of almost eight years - I went on to date a collection of people who should only be trusted to put stickers on apples. Once I saw an apple with two stickers and thought, ah that’d be Ben. Or Warren.

I returned to Australia at thirty with all my ideals - about love, work, money - shaken off with the dirt on my hiking boots, to get through quarantine at the Arrivals section of the Perth International Airport. I was single, broke and tired of the career niche I’d cornered myself into.

I now looked around at my peers with envy. They had partners, children, pets, mortgages, career progression - evolving lives. They’d paid off their HECS debt and added to their superannuation. I hadn’t thought of either words in years and my glasses were held together with sellotape.

My parents sat me down for a series of talks - they said Sashi, get married or get a Masters. I couldn’t imagine contractually binding myself to anyone so I started a Masters in Law in Melbourne - because why not double down. The plan was to finish it in a year then head back overseas to the adventure I’d left.

But I fell in love with Melbourne. It was horrifically cold, windy and grey but it was a world filled with so much passion - the best of music, comedy, arts, sports, food - all the things that make life worth living. Everyone seemed to have two personalities, their day one and their night one. There was an accountant who ran welding classes, an architect who was an artist, a lecturer who was a DJ.

I moved into a seven person sharehouse where weed grew in the second kitchen, there was acid in the freezer and nangs under the stairs. At the midway mark of my Masters, the idea of leaving became impossible. I moved to studying part time and started work at an immigration law firm.

Mental health was spoken of widely in my new community, a stark change from my old one which preferred drinking and chain smoking to shroud over the anxiety attacks and struggle to sleep.

I started seeing a psych for the first time and speaking about my work. How I’d once seen a video of a man with a broom at the ocean shore, trying to sweep a wave away while another rolled in. It felt like an apt metaphor for the world of asylum seekers and refugees - every day, the calculated actions of powerful men with fragile egos creates more.

After learning the words high anxiety, depression and burnout, it was clear that my mind needed a job with stability and money. I heard of a magic place that - compared to my old work - paid a lot and had lower emotional tolls. Mostly because the gargantuan level of bureaucracy, political quagmires and perpetual restructures ensured a glacial pace of approvals. I heard of - the public service.

So at thirty one, I accepted that I’d chased all the wrong things. I planned to finish my Masters and enter the public service. I watched a few episodes of the Australian television show Utopia to prepare because my friends in the public service said it was not a comedy but a documentary.

Around this time, I was going to a lot of gigs around Melbourne - watching music and comedy in my poor state of mental health always brought me back into my body. At a music festival, a new friend - you tend to meet a lot of new friends at music festivals - told me I was funny and should sign up for Raw Comedy. Raw is Australia’s largest open mic competition run by the ABC and Triple J. It began in 1996 and past winners include Josh Thomas and Hannah Gadsby - anyone can enter, you just need to say something for five minutes.

I signed up for a heat. I wrote stories of dating and working around the world and practised into a hairbrush in my room. I didn’t tell any of my housemates where I was going. On the Sunday afternoon of the heat I arrived at a pub called The Evelyn with an unrelenting urge to heave.

When the competition kicked off, the 15 acts that came and went in the first half were a blur. During the break I stumbled out into the sunshine from the pitch dark bandroom and paced around the alleyway, running through my stories. I eyed off the tram heading past and thought I could just jump that back home. I’m a thirty one year old woman who should be married with a baby and a mortgage. Who was I kidding being here?

Then I thought - I’m already here, I don’t know anyone and it’s just five minutes. If this doesn’t go well, I can get a souva on the way home, crawl into bed and pretend it never happened. Just like those last three dates I went on.

I walked back inside and soon, there was no time left to panic to second guess myself, because it was my turn. When I walked up the steps onto the stage, I felt my heart pounding in my ears. I took the microphone out of the stand, stared into the dark and told my first joke. Then the world got loud.

—

If you’ve been thinking about going and doing something weird, here’s me telling you to go do it! As long as it’s not against the law.

Worth mentioning that I didn’t even get to the national final of the comedy competition - but I’m over it and that’s what matters. I worked in the public service for six years and was truly sorry to leave some of the best and funniest people I’ve ever met. I went full time into comedy in April last year mostly because of my health - it’s been a wild ride since.

My new stand up comedy tour will be on sale soon so sign up to my mailing list and you’ll get a ding when I’m in your city.

In the interim, you can find my stand up comedy show Boundaries on YouTube and my memoir Standstill everywhere on ebook and audio.

Physically, it’s out in Aus, NZ, the UK and comes out in the US next month. Rad.

Big hugs

Sashi