Zarna Garg: Auntie With an Attitude Conquers the American Dream — One Goofy Joke at a Time
- She seems to be having the time of her life telling her story — in her own words, on her terms. She has a remarkable ability to translate her experience for an American audience.
Award-winning comedian and screenwriter Zarna Garg is many things: a proud immigrant, a mother, a not-so-successful lawyer, an instinctive matchmaker, and now — a bestselling author. Her memoir, “This American Woman” (with that hilarious cover of “the irrepressible Zarna in the lap of Lady Liberty”), is a revelation. It chronicles her childhood, two years of homelessness in Bombay, her move to America, a whirlwind of ventures — and finally, her rise as a stand-up comic.
It’s a roller coaster of family drama, chaos, and unapologetic realness. What shines through her words and pictures is Zarna’s immense love for family and her uncanny ability to juggle a million things without giving up. She’s a born hustler. She’s the Indian mom next door — but her life has been anything but ordinary.
Born in Mumbai in 1975, Zarna’s early life was shaped by a very strict/eccentric father, a distant mother, a lack of a protective umbrella, and pure self-reliance. After her mother’s death from liver disease when she was just 14, Zarna was faced with a choice no child should have to make: accept an arranged marriage or flee. She chose freedom.
For nearly two years, she couch-surfed her way through India, relying on friends, acquaintances, and extended family. Eventually, she returned to her father’s home, just to eat a home-cooked meal and sleep in her bed. But in the back of her mind, she was still plotting her escape. A student visa brought her to Ohio, where she lived with her sister and began building a new life. Her sister and brother-in-law were a huge support.
Zarna earned a degree in finance and a JD from Case Western Reserve University. But instead of practicing law, she focused on finding a life partner, and her independence. She famously took out an ad to meet eligible suitors and met prospective doctors, engineers, and lawyers in hotel lobbies. Then came Shalabh. They connected online — even though, at the time, he was just an intern at a financial firm. But Shalabh was persistent. They married in India.
Zarna’s description of her mother-in-law preparing her for the wedding is absurdly hilarious. As if that wasn’t enough, she also had to participate in a beauty lineup with other “bahus.” Eventually, Shalabh landed a Wall Street job, and they settled in New York — spending more than they earned while raising three, who according to Zarna are the most beautiful, talented, and smart.
Zarna was a hands-on mother, fighting to give her kids every advantage. One particularly fascinating chapter describes how she trained her daughter to get into an elite pre-K program. She enrolled the kids in sports, crisscrossed the city in her car, and discovered — the hard way — that gifted public schools could beat overpriced private ones. Along the way, she dabbled in late-night Pinterest projects and launched zany ventures before finally finding her niche.
She turned her bathroom into an office and often worried more about whether her audience had eaten than whether they’d laugh. And somehow, it all works.
The Start of the Beginning
Her story was just getting started. After trying her hand at entrepreneurship, screenwriting, and paralegal work, it was her children who gave her the nudge that changed everything. On a dare, Zarna stepped onto a comedy stage. That first three-minute open mic set in New York led to a comedy empire — one viral TikTok, one late-night appearance, and one sold-out show at a time.
Her success didn’t happen overnight. She had no gigs at first. She was nervous. She was scared of falling flat on her face. She waited hours for stage time. She performed alongside a Jewish comic (hinjew) in packed basements. And in 2023, she met Kevin Hart during his Lyft Comics competition.
Her screenplay “Rearranged” won accolades, and she was named one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch. Her debut special, Zarna Garg: One in a Billion, premiered on Prime Video to rave reviews. Her next, Practical People Win, is set to premiere on Hulu in July 2025.
In “This American Woman,” Zarna peels back the curtain on the chaos behind the comedy: the guilt of motherhood, the expectations of Indian culture, and her fight to be heard in a male-dominated industry. She’s relentlessly honest — sometimes outrageously so. She spares no one. Not even her mother-in-law, who (Zarna notes gleefully) posts bad reviews of her book online.
Zarna isn’t camera-shy. She seems to be having the time of her life telling her story — in her own words, on her terms. She has a remarkable ability to translate her experience for an American audience — and that’s what makes her so compelling.
She jokes about bindis, bubble baths, Chuck E. Cheese, helicopter parenting, and the bizarre idea that crying in public might make you go viral. She turned her bathroom into an office and often worried more about whether her audience had eaten than whether they’d laugh. And somehow, it all works. For example, she quips: “Every married woman puts a bindi on her forehead so she knows where to shoot herself.”
The memoir ends with a triumphant return via Dubai to Mumbai, where Zarna invites her older brother Suresh — once a parent figure — to share her stage. It’s a full-circle moment and a powerful close to a remarkable journey.
Zarna Garg has made a career out of saying what others won’t. And she does that in a comfortable kurta and leggings with a belt on her waist. “This American Woman” is bold, brilliant, and deeply human with lots of black-and-white pictures of Zarna’s family. It is a reminder for anyone who tried to be heard. Often the most successful people are the ones who refuse to stay silent.
Zarna’s success is no accident. It’s the product of a childhood without safety nets, her desire to read everything she could lay her hands on as a child, the tenacity of someone who refused to be invisible, and a rare ability to turn everyday chaos into comedy gold. She did find a “Nice Indian Boy,” her husband Shalabh, whose romantic gesture of buying her a pink Judith Leiber clutch did not fly with Zarna. But Zarna concedes that they have a good marriage even though they do not say “I love you” to each other.
Counterintuitively even though Zarna’s relationship with her father was strained, she has inherited his originality and his relentless drive to succeed. Whether she’s starring in the New York Times Critic’s Pick “A Nice Indian Boy,” hosting The Zarna Garg Show podcast, or opening for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler — Zarna is unstoppable.
With one foot in Huntsville, Alabama, the other in her birth home, India, and a heart steeped in humanity, Monita Soni writes as a contemplative practice. She has published hundreds of poems, movie reviews, book critiques, and essays, and contributed to combined literary works. Her two books are My Light Reflections and Flow Through My Heart. You can hear her commentaries on Sundial Writers Corner, WLRH 89.3 FM.