Episode 2: Late Assessments, Masking & Comedy with Priyangee Guha

The host, Shreya has a conversation with Priyangee Guha who is a late-assessed autistic about masking, coping with music, and defining rest. Priyangee is a human rights lawyer by training, who now resides in Ireland and found comedy during the pandemic. She is also a registered celebrant. What are the rules an autistic comedian has? What kind of space is welcoming of disabled, queer comics? How do you deal with overstimulation as a result of your job? Listen to find out. 

Transcript

Episode 2 of Podcast At Odds. 

Released on Date: 25th May 2023

Guest: Priyangee Guha

Episode Title: Late Assessments, Masking & Comedy with Priyangee Guha

Transcript:

SHREYA:  Welcome to at odds. I'm Shreya, your host and chief Chatterbox, a name that was given to me by many teachers while I was in school.  So the conversation today is with Priyangee Guha, an autistic, comedian, celebrant, human rights lawyer who resides in Ireland. The conversation will be about autism assessment, life after that, and where to find community. We will also be talking about comedy and how  Priyangee navigates comedy clubs as an autistic and how she rests and recharges during and after.  Welcome to this new section of the podcast. It's called the at odds dictionary.  In the conversation ahead, you will encounter two words that may not be familiar to you.

The first word is ableism.  Ableism is a system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence and excellence. These assigned values then lead to bodies being oppressed in various fields. A person doesn’t need to be disabled in order to experience ableism. This definition was coined by Talila Lewis, thank you for your work in refining this definition every year. 

The second word you will encounter in our conversation today is called masking.  Masking is defined as suppressing certain behaviors that we find soothing, that others may think are not typical or may consider them slightly weird.  So this can include physical stimming behaviors like flapping of hands, fidgeting with objects, constantly shaking legs, rocking back and forth, or really deep interest in your likes and dislikes.  It can also mean mimicking of certain behaviors of those around us.  Neurodivergent individuals typically tend to mask so that they can fit into the society around them.  I hope the dictionary section was useful to you. If you would like to suggest any changes in the way we define things, please feel free to write or comment or reach out to me and without holding you back further longer, we are diving right into the conversation with Priyangee.  Thank you for being here. 

SHREYA: Hi priyangee, welcome to At Odds, I am glad our calendars finally coincided to make this happen. 

PRIYANGEE: Hello! Thank you for having me over. 

SHREYA: it is completely my pleasure, you are also my first guest to be recorded and I am equally excited and nervous. I would like you to introduce yourself quickly, not quickly but please take your time. 

PRIYANGEE: haha! It is one of those questions that I often struggle with how to introduce myself because the expected introductions tend to vary with the context. So in this context I am from North East India, I grew up in Assam, and after high school, I went across the country to Gujarat to study law, I am a lawyer, and I have over 10 years of experience in litigation. I am no longer a lawyer and am exploring alternate career options at the moment but in this context again about 2, 2.5 years ago I was assessed with autism, I am autistic and it led me to re-evaluate my life about what i could physically and mentally can and cannot do, that has been a journey and it si ongoing. I am currently living in Ireland. I am focusing on my strengths to see if there are other professions that would be benefited by my strengths and I can do something else other than litigation.  

SHREYA: Understood.  And what is the kind of working life and the kind of well activities you could and couldn't do?  That is what has brought you towards talking about, well, now being a celebrant and also towards stand up comedy.  So what do you think were the things that you were keeping in mind while you made this decision? 

PRIYANGEE:  My first stand up gig was in February of 2020.  That was like one week or ten days after I was told that I am autistic.  And at that point, the only female autistic person I knew was Hannah Gatsby.  And I was like, so what now?  And I was like, she does comedy, so maybe I will also do comedy.  And coincidentally, there is a UK based nonprofit called FunnyWomen who was doing monthly gigs in Ireland at the time and they were doing a gig in February and I signed up and that's where it started.  But apart from that, it was also because when I was in law school, I remember my first week in law school, I entered the campus… It was a residential college.  I remembered feeling very isolated because I could see all my classmates speaking English, walking English, talking English, and very confident in their public speaking skills and I didn't have that as a person from a smallish town and over the five years, I put in a lot of effort in public speaking,  class presentations and mock courts and stuff and eventually doing trainings  and obviously litigation involves speaking in public as well and advocacy in India and I did not want to lose that public speaking skill that I worked so hard towards, if that makes sense.  So to begin with, those two are the reasons why I started comedy. 

SHREYA: Okay.  I completely understand wanting to hold on to a skill like public speaking because as a child, I know that it was something that used to terrify me.  Like, I could write very well, but if you would make me stand in front of a crowd with a mic in my hand, I would just go mute and all the thoughts in my brain would just melt away.  But yeah, I mean, over time when I had to train myself, I did the very old fashioned facing the mirror and talking and got used to seeing myself exist as another human being whose mouth moves. That got me a little bit more okay with speaking in public.  So I completely empathize and understand it with wanting to hold on to this.  So I'm going to dial back to what we were initially talking about, which is your assessment as being autistic.  So when you said that it was just information, did you go looking for more information about what it is like to be autistic?  What was your information seeking journey like?  

PRIYANGEE:  Initially, I consciously made the decision to not look up because I wanted the time to process the information that I am autistic in isolation to other people's journey.  And once I came to terms with that is when I sort of started looking for more information and as a professional who has worked with self advocacy groups in legal advisory capacity, I already  had a head start in terms of what kind of information one should seek from.  So I did not google.  I actually went directly to the I don't know what you would call it, the eye of whatever, the storm or whatever and I straightaway went to the community for wisdom instead of professionals and I think that was a wise decision.  A, it was a wise decision to pause and not start immediately and B, it was a wise decision to learn from the community and not from professionals. That kind of filtered out the initial shock of ableism and ableist narrative of what autism is like.  

SHREYA:  So when you say you reached out to community for information, would you mind telling us what was the name of maybe the self advocacy group or the community you had reached out to for information?  I'm only asking in case there are people who are listening who may also be on their journey towards self assessment. 

PRIYANGEE:  In whatever social media of one's choice, if they look for the hashtag actuallyautistic, which is the hashtag popularly used by autistic community for talking about themselves.  Serious things, funny things, goofy things, everyday life.  I think that is the only source I would recommend. The other would be a lot of first person narratives by autistic folks.  But here's the thing. Publication is so complicated, and getting oneself published is such a complicated journey that there aren't many first person narratives.  And even those that are existing are very Europe or America centric.  So if it is somebody from, say, quote unquote, GlobalSouth, a lot of it may not be very relatable, even though the overarching theme will be relatable.  So that is one source that one could potentially go to.  But again, a lot of these books are not available in audiobook format.  So if you're somebody who like me, who prefers alternate means of reading books, then that option gets limited by itself.  Long story short, look up for hashtag actuallyautistic in any social media of your choice and first person memoir narratives of actually autistic folks. 

SHREYA:  I mean, the moment I got assessed, I think I came running to you in your DMs and saying that, hi, so now what do I do?  And you led me to the hashtag, and it has made my social media feeds kinder and I think 75% more relatable.  And I never thought such kind of resonance was possible on social media. 

PRIYANGEE:  Yes, as much as one can write a thesis on the evils of social media, social media has really helped the disabled community gain access to their community, to get the wisdom to share their own wisdom and to find a community of support and resonance in social media and I think that is a power that nobody can take away from because prior to social media, physical spaces were not accessible to a lot of disabled folks and to have that space created on your mobile phone or computer, which you can access at your own pace and in your own way and not be dominated by professionals or parent groups. Yeah, I'm not saying parent groups don't deserve their community, but first person narrative became a lot more prominent in social media and one can't deny the benefits of that. 

SHREYA:  You also said that while looking for first person narratives, you came across the actually autistic community.  So what are the discussions do you feel like you can have with this community that you couldn't have with people prior to this?  

PRIYANGEE:  I don't reply to a lot of the content because I feel like I don't know them in a one on one level to have that kind of engagement with them, but in terms of what kind of conversation does this allow me to have.  So there are certain standards and expectations of a person that is sort of instilled in a person from a very young age and any deviant from that behavior or action kind of is deemed odd. 

SHREYA:  Yes. 

PRIYANGEE:  And that odd behavior to normalize that odd behavior and to say that, no, it is not odd, it is just a different way of being is the kind of conversation that a community space allows and at the same time so social media can sometimes be like an echo chamber, right?  So if I post saying I like X, Y and Z and then 15 people respond saying oh, me too.  So that kind of sort of makes one feel less alone. 

SHREYA:  Yes.  

PRIYANGEE:  Also sort of gives a justification to oneself as why I prefer this way.  It explains a lot of their own being. 

SHREYA:  Yeah.  

PRIYANGEE:  And it's a journey, it's a continuous process.  I won't say that I know everything about myself and every day I discover that the fact that I prefer A over B is because I'm autistic, because someone else posted it on social media with the hashtag actually autistic.  And then I go, oh, that's the reason.  

SHREYA:  Thanks for bringing that up.  One thing that I have found, which is slightly different in the actually autistic community, than,  it is in how social media is used overall is the plurality and the diversity of experiences of the same type of thing and the willingness to have a conversation over it.  I'm taking the example of what you mentioned, that of people posting that I like XYZ, it tends to form an echo chamber of people who like similar things. Whereas I have found maybe this is true also of the disabled community at large and not just the subsect that is the autistic community that people want to addon to different experiences and they allow people to exist.In all their different ways, which I feel that very often social media at large still is trying to mold us into this one whole cohesive being at large who likes and says the same things. 

PRIYANGEE:  Yeah, because there's no one way of being autistic. Right? 

SHREYA:  Yes.  

PRIYANGEE:  Most popular saying is if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person.  Every autistic person will or every autistic self advocacy person will use that line at some point in every forum.  And I think it is important to reiterate that, because people forget that one autistic person is just one autistic person.  It is like me telling a non autistic person, oh, I know one non autistic person, and therefore why are you not the same person as that person?  If that does not make sense, then why do they expect every autistic person to act the same way?  And that whole my brother's best friend's neighbor's cousin is an autistic, but you are not like that person is a common response that all of us get or will get at some point if they haven't. SHREYA:  Yeah.  I mean, it was the first reaction of 95% of the people whom I told about my assessment after I'd gotten it, saying that, oh, no, I never thought that you would be autistic, knowing you for so long.  Well, the kind of representation that is there in popular media and otherwise is very narrowed down.  Tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of how autistics may look like.  

PRIYANGEE:  Yeah.  I mean, anybody who has met me after I turned twelve, between twelve and 35 don't actually know me because at the age of eleven and a half, I sort of understood the concept of masking.  And I never stopped.  I still mask if it's a place that is not my home or a neurodivergent led place.  I will continue to mask if it is beneficial to my safety and my career, and if that is the kind of space that I feel like I can't not mask.  And the fact that somebody tells me, I've known you for X years and I've never seen you act like an autistic person says a lot more about that person, than about me as to why that person couldn't create that space for me.  SHREYA:  When we are quite young, certain standards of behavior are set.  I felt it because I was the oldest child in an Indian family and there were very very not unwritten, but there were very well spelled out rules of expectations of behavior, expectations of academic and non academic performance that had to be met irrespective of whatever it is that was going on in your life.  

PRIYANGEE:  I mean, it's not just about expectations that are set.  It is also about expectations that are set and encouraged and appreciated. 

SHREYA:  Yes.  

PRIYANGEE:  And children are very good at observing all those minute details and mimicking them.  Children are very good at manipulating adults, and adults don't really realize that.  They are very good at observing these minute details, what the adults like, and mimicking that.  And that kind of sets the base for what masking looks like for any neurotypical person.  

SHREYA:  Would you be okay to give certain examples of how you may have masks? 

PRIYANGEE:  Okay.  At this point, after close to 30 years of masking, it is very hard to discern for me what is masking and what is real Me. 

SHREYA:  Yes. 

PRIYANGEE:  I will start that as a clarification because sometimes some of the times I am masking even without realizing that I'm masking because I'm used to behaving in a certain way in a given environment that I no longer know what I really am at this point.  But in terms of like social settings or workplace socialization or elevator chats to sort of have some of the talking points handy.  For example, if I meet somebody in an elevator on a Monday, what I would do is ask them oh, how was your weekend?  Did you have a nice weekend?  If I meet them at the end of Monday, then I'll be like, how is it just Monday?  And that kind of is an open ended conversation that prompts the other person to talk and then I pick up from there.  Or if it is a Wednesday, then I'd be like oh thank God, it's a hump day and we're 2.5 days to go.  Or Friday, do you have a nice weekend plan ahead?  So these are some of the talking points that I have in my back pocket.  It's very formulaic, but it seems to work for people. 

SHREYA:  This is why formulas exist, because there is a consistency in response that they invoke, that you just know then how to go ahead with that conversation.  

PRIYANGEE:  And that is a way of masking to sort of prepare yourself for a situation where you are expected to engage in small talk and meaningful talk.  I mean, it's not like I'm not listening to the person responding.  

SHREYA:  I completely get this for me, for the longest time I think I really enjoyed dancing, but I completely dislike loud noises.  But for the point in my twenties, I had convinced myself that having a great time at the end of the week meant going to a loud and crowded club and dancing away.  Though I would spend the rest of the weekend completely in hibernation and being quiet.  That would be revocably most of my Friday nights.  And I think I could just continue this for a couple of years before my body physically was like I don't think you can do this more Shreya. So you had specifically mentioned that you have worked in head self advocacy organizations from a legal standpoint, but when it comes to autistic self advocacy, I just want to know what does it look like for you on a larger, maybe more organized, institutional level and what does it also look like on a personal day to day level? 

PRIYANGEE:   I don't know if I have any input on a larger organized level because I've not been a part of that ever in terms of autistic self advocacy.  But in terms of for my own self to begin with, labels like autistic and autism is only as much helpful if it is providing a person with the required support and community that they deserve.  If the label is something that is creating more hindrance than help, and if a person wants to let go of that label, then they should.  But in terms of self advocacy, self advocacy by definition never helps the person doing the self advocacy.  Now, whether it is for autism or for racism or for transphobia, it rarely ever helps the person doing the self advocacy.  It is done with the hope that two generations down people will not face the same things that the person doing self advocacy is facing.  Having said that, for me, there are some strict boundaries that I set that I'm not going to tire myself doing self advocacy.  If there are certain information that I prefer to keep private, I will keep that because the self part of self advocacy is also very important for me.  Sorry, what was your question again? 

SHREYA:   What does self advocacy look like in your day to day? 

PRIYANGEE:   If I feel like a certain experience of mine talking about it, putting it out in the open is going to help another person in a remote part of India who doesn't know why this thing is happening to them, then I will talk about it.  But obviously within the limitations of my own privacy and within the limitations of my own physical and mental wellbeing.

SHREYA:   Understood.  So I am now moving gears and I'm going to come back to talk about comedy.  Your show is called autistically Yours, and because I have seen a little bit of your work in the funny women heats that were happening this year, I know that being autistic informs your craft and your material.  If you could just tell us a little bit more about it?  First, how does being autistic inform comedy as a craft for you?  

PRIYANGEE:  Like I said, I started my comedy in February of 2020 and then I paused.  Well, because everybody paused and I resumed semi sincerely this year in April.  But once I reflected on the roots of my comedy, I could actually trace it back to the year I started Masking, when I realized that if people around me, my friends and family who were mocking me for whatever I was doing, if I could take that narrative and turn it around and mock myself, then that takes away that narrative from them.  And I can control the narrative sort of beta ing, the alpha, alphas in the family and friend circle who like to alpha people.  If you sort of show them that, oh, I am so bad, they sort of feel the need to protect you immediately.  So I sort of took away that control from them and spun it around and did not give them the opportunity to mock me.  It was very self deprecating.  Now that I look back on my comedy script, it is also very self deprecating.  But I have some ground rules.  And the ground rules are never talk about a trauma on stage that you have not processed with your therapist first.  

SHREYA:  Oh, yes.  

PRIYANGEE:  The reason behind it is that the laughter that I receive can also be very harming.  If I'm saying something deprecating about myself that I have not processed and the audience is laughing, it sort of reassures my insecurity and that is never helpful.  So that is where my comedy stems from.  And secondly, I realized that as an autistic person, if the same input in my head does not output the same way compared to, say, somebody else in my friend's circle and when I would express how I processed it and people would laugh.  Because according to them, that was the most unusual way of coming to a conclusion to the same given set of facts.  I thought, why not use that as a way to talk about neurodivergence and to inform people that you can give the same set of facts to two different people, but the processing will be so different based on our brain and our life experience and several other factors.  And if that draws a laughter, might as well get money for it.  

SHREYA:  I love this.  I'm going to ask you a question about what you said initially. Right. Never talk about a trauma in public unless and until you have discussed it in therapy enough before.  So how do you approach new material?  I assume it's not just like you write something like, okay, I found trauma, then I have to process it before I go on stage.  I assume it is work of a lifetime and work of your own lived experiences.  

PRIYANGEE:  And it doesn't always have to be based on trauma, any silly thing that has happened during the day.  So what has happened as a result of me doing stand up is a lot of those one liners that come to my head in any given situation.  I jot it down and I don't write it on social media.  And I use that in my comedy set.  And that can be anything from Rishi Sunak being the first Indian Prime Minister and how expecting Rishi Sunak to help Indians or Elon Musk is an autistic person and expecting Elon Musk to work for the autistic community.  It can be things like that.  It doesn't have to be my own trauma all the time. But yes, there are some ground rules I have.  The other one is to not talk about my relationship with my partner on stage and to not mock my parents as much as possible or my siblings.  I think everybody has ground rules when they perform on stage.  And these are just my ground rules.  Never bite the hand that feeds you.  

SHREYA:  Oh, yes, very important.  And actually, thank you for bringing up ground rules, because clearly these ground rules seem like they have some kind of values working at the back end.  So what do you think these values are that inform all of these decisions that you're making that led to the framing of the ground rules?  

PRIYANGEE:  Well, one of the key ground rules that I have in comedy is as a person who has been mocked all my life, I do not ever now or in future, want to have a content where I am making fun of a vulnerable person. And that is one ground rule that I stick to and I hope to stick to for the rest of my life, is never punch down, never mock the audience, and never have fun by making fun is one of the ground rules I have.  And obviously all the others that I told you that I don't want to make myself vulnerable, where the response is going to sort of traumatize or reaffirm my mind security or trauma and never punch down.  Whether it's about disability or about gender, sexuality or mental illness, never punch down on a vulnerable, marginalized community.  

SHREYA:  So I have watched some amount of comedy that comes out of India, and I spent a lot of time watching the funny women heats that you were a part of.  And I feel like I can distinctly make out who are the comedians who have ground rules which are very similar to yours, and there are those that who don't have them.  But having these ground rules, et cetera, what does it make possible for, say, the future of comedy or the world in which this comedy belongs that you are specifically imagining or envisioning?  

PRIYANGEE:  I think it is too early for me to sort of make any profound statements on the future of comedy per se, because I'm extremely novice in this field.  Like I said, I semi sincerely started this year in April.  But in terms of my expectation so comedy is not something I'm doing right now professionally.  I only perform in small clubs in Ireland, and after my first gig, somebody saw me perform there and gave me a spot, and somebody saw me perform somewhere else and gave me a spot, so it sort of rolled onto it.  So in terms of where I perform, I closely vet the venue and the host.  I do my due diligence and make sure that those spaces are the right spaces for me.  I've had a very sheltered experience of comedy clubs because spaces that I form in are very queer, friendly, neurodivergent as much as possible, and also not racist.  And the comedy scene in Ireland is very diverse and very open to new people joining and very encouraging of new people if that person really has even an iota of skill, basically, long story short, my life in this sector has been very sheltered and that is how I have designed it.  And I think if I have to answer your question as to how I envision it, I think I would like this to be the norm, to have the kind of safe space where whether I'm performing or as an audience, I don't leave that space feeling very violated or made fun of.  I think that is what I would imagine comedy.  Comedy where, like I said, nobody is having fun at the cost of making fun.  

SHREYA:  I get that I have gone to open mic night and picked a seat in the back and just kind of like blended in with my chair, hid behind a pint of beer, hoping that the comic on stage will not pick on me to do crowd work because I dislike attention.  And the second is, it is one thing, as you were saying, to make self replicating jokes and laugh at yourself, and it is a whole other thing to have it done by somebody who does not know you at all.

PRIYANGEE:  It is one of those values that a lot of comedians have where don't mock the audience.  And some of the comedy clubs actually have that as a rule where before, when they give the spot, they have a rule where they say, don't pick on the first row.  Obviously, some people are excellent at crowd work and they do crowd work without insulting anybody.  It's just crowd work is fun to some people.  It's fun, it's unpredictable, and it requires a great deal of skill set, which I still don't have because it's very unpredictable what kind of response you will get.  And to build on that, I one live comedy of a popular comedian who does crowd work but does not make fun of the crowd.  And I'm going for Hannah Gadspace body of work tomorrow.  And Hannah popularly does not do crowd work.  I don't know what she will do this time, but she doesn't do crowd work.  So there are two kinds of comedians and they're both acceptable. 

SHREYA:  Yeah, I think just having the space to accept those is something that's an expectation that should exist, regardless, as opposed to something that has to be put down as a lay of the land, as you were mentioning.  

PRIYANGEE:  Well, a lot of things should exist by default, but have to be mentioned.  Right. 

SHREYA:   I am so excited for you going to watch Hannah Gagby live tomorrow, because what you were mentioning initially about your material, about how you have perceived things differently, made me immediately think about some of her material where she's talking.  I think about when prepositions were introduced in school.  I think I may be getting it wrong, but like, a cat is on the box, inside the box. 

PRIYANGEE:  Yeah, that is true.  It's sort of similar, I suppose. 

SHREYA:   Yeah, I mean, it is just a showcase of different brains working differently.  

PRIYANGEE:  And that is why she's so relatable to a lot of autistic people.  She's the reason why I did my first gig and also because I felt like there was a need for a brown autistic person occupying space so that if somebody finds out they are autistic, they know that there is a brown person out there who's also autistic.  And that's fine. 

SHREYA:  Yeah.  I mean, it is very important to have that kind of representation because it completely changes, I think, what you conceive of as being possible for yourself.

PRIYANGEE:  And unfortunately, I didn't have that when I found out I am autistic.  I mean, later on I found out about two or three people, but immediately I did not know of anybody.  And this is true not only for people of my generation, but also for the future generation where my friends are having kids and some of them will be autistic.  And if and when they find out that they are autistic, they should immediately know that there is somebody out there in their friend list who they can contact and DM and process this thing over.  

SHREYA:  Yes.

PRIYANGEE:   But also remember that the person they are contacting is also autistic and not be ableist about it.  Sorry,

SHREYA:   I was going to say maybe out of spoons, but yes and not be ableist about it.  

PRIYANGEE:  One time this parent contacted me saying I just found out my child is autistic.  Will my child ever be normal?  And I was thinking to myself obviously I answered the question but I was thinking to myself that question really bothered me for a really long time because in my head I was like do you not realize that you are indirectly calling me not normal?  Where is the empathy?  And you think autistic people are lacking in empathy, so that kind of thing want to be available, but I also don't want you to treat me like a punching bag.  

SHREYA:  Yeah.  And available with boundaries and respecting the other person as a human being.  Kind of like having rules for comedy.  Should also have rules for talking to autistic people.  Sometimes.  Must not say these things.  Please remember XYZ.  So now that we are talking about rules, you mentioned that you mostly perform at queer and neurodivergence friendly spaces, so tell me more about these spaces what are the things that they have done to ensure some amount of inclusivity?  

PRIYANGEE:  They are run by queer people they're run by one of my favorite clubs to perform in Ireland is run by trans folks they have very diverse lineup unfortunately the venue is not very accessible but these are all small clubs and these are all institutional designs the owners of which cannot completely fall on marginalized community.  Right for example, when I am performing I have never had a sign language interpreter.  Am I happy about it?  No can I hire a sign language interpreter every time I perform?  No, because myself, I'm not getting paid for most of these gigs.  So these are all institutional and systemic decisions that needs to happen.  But in terms of the clubs, they don't encourage racism, they don't encourage sexual abuse or harassment.  There is a code of conduct and if somebody has sort of violated it, they don't get invited again.  Guests and audiences are also apprised of, in the beginning of the ground rules of how to engage with comedians. That kind of creates a safe environment to perform.  And for me, every time I go to a new venue, I contact the people who've been in the sector for a long time and I find out if the space and the host are safe and nice to work with.  And only then I go and perform.  And these are due diligences that I can afford to take because my livelihood and my household is not dependent on the money I get out of comedy. Right.  I have to acknowledge that it comes with a bit of privilege.  But having acknowledged the privilege because I have it, I might as well do all of these things for my own well being. 

SHREYA:   I mean, definitely, I think also very important to ensure I like the space, this phrase a lot, a conducive environment where you are allowed to behave in a certain way and also it encourages a certain form of behavior not just from the people participating in it, like the comedians.  But also, like you mentioned, there are ground rules for the audience, so I mean,  because all interactions are a give and take.  So if it isn't mutually beneficial for everybody present there, then not everyone is going to have a good experience.  

PRIYANGEE:  Exactly.  And once I realize that the space is safe for me, I will keep going back there.  And there are certain clubs that I always prioritize my availability for.  If I'm available and if I have nothing heavy duty happening the day before or the day after, I generally don't say no to them because I know that I will also have a nice time performing with them.  

SHREYA:  Are there any accommodations that you ask for at any of these specific clubs before you go to perform there?  Apart from the due diligence that you do to call up people and to check if you're performing at a new club, do you ask for certain specific requirements that you may have?  

PRIYANGEE:  Not yet.  Because even I'm in the process of understanding what accommodations look for me, it is very hard to imagine what accommodation will look for me when I've never experienced an accommodation.  How would I know?  I need ABC as a means of accommodation.  If I've never experienced ABC,  how do I know ABCs exist?  Having said that, I usually perform in the first half of the show and I leave in the second half.  And that is not because of accommodation, but because of the distance that I have to travel and public transportation.  Other than that, I have not yet asked for any accommodation because I don't know what that looks like yet.  

SHREYA:  Understood.  Have you ever performed at a couple of clubs and decided that one was better for performing in and as a result realized that what is the kind of environment you prefer?  

PRIYANGEE:  Yeah, I mean the… like I said, one of my favorite clubs in Ireland, they have something called Code of Conduct.  Have something called code of conduct and they adhere to it. They sort of ensure that it is not racist, not ableist, not sexist, not homophobic, not transphobic environment.  And if they feel like somebody could be violating that save space, they make sure that they don't get invited.  And every single time I have entered that space, I have felt safe in that environment.  And not just me.  Like whenever I've taken guests with me and they have also said the same thing it's a lovely environment, it's a very diverse environment and people from all walks of life walk into that room and share their lived experience and have fun and not humiliate another person, not at the cost of another person's well being.  And like I said, I know I keep repeating the same thing, but I think that is a value that I keep very close when I'm performing on stage.  And when you have that environment when I have that environment is when I would go again and again. 

SHREYA:   It sounds like a very kind and inviting space. 

PRIYANGEE:  Yes, it is.  And that is because it is a space held by marginalized communities. 

SHREYA:  Yeah. 

PRIYANGEE:  And so they have their own lived experience of being mocked at and they know what that feels like and that is the value they have.  

SHREYA:  How do you prepare for a gig, both in terms of prepping for your material? And you also mentioned that you have to travel quite a bit.  So what does the day before or that day look like for you?  

PRIYANGEE:  There are certain days of the week that I don't perform because I know the following day will be very heavy duty.  Nowadays I don't perform on Wednesdays because I have an early morning class to attend on Thursdays.  And if I come back at midnight, there is no way my body is going to wake up before the class starts.  

SHREYA:  Yes. 

PRIYANGEE:   So if I have a commitment, say on Wednesday, then I will not perform on Tuesday or on Thursday.  I don't perform every day of the week.  I perform maximum of two to three times a month.  This also stems from the fact that my household does not run on my income as a comedian.  It's a privilege.  And that is what my body will allow.  I have to set aside close to four to 5 hours for a ten minute gig, which includes traveling and waiting for my turn to perform.  And that is a long time to subject myself to external stimulation. 

SHREYA:  Yes. 

PRIYANGEE:  Technically, even though technically I'm working anything between five and 15 minutes, that's a long time. Those are my limits.  

SHREYA:  Four to 5 hours is a lot of exposure to the well, I will just say elements even like 15, 20 minutes of performance.  

PRIYANGEE:  I mean, a lot of people ask me, why do you not perform more often?  But that's just what my body will allow. 

SHREYA:   So once you're back from a gig and say it is not a day.  Well, the next day you don't have something heavy duty to do?  So how do you destimulate yourself or regulate yourself once you're back?  

PRIYANGEE:  The advantage of the long commute is that the commute itself sort of is a good time to unwind. Right.  I'm not going straight from the venue to bed. There's a good one half hour time gap in between before I actually reach home to go to bed.  So that is a good time to sort of put on my noise canceling headphone and just sit back and wait for the bus to reach my bus stop. I always have…that is true for whether I'm gigging or going on a holiday or traveling.  I always lay aside my home clothes on the bed which will be ready for me to come back and slip into immediately I put my makeup remover and the reusable cloth that I use to remove my makeup on the bed ready to use.  All I have to do is change and remove my makeup and then I'm good to go to bed.  

SHREYA:  So I'm assuming public transportation in Ireland is not as well the sensorial nightmare, it can be in India, because anywhere I grew up in Bombay, if I had to just imagine taking the train home from college, that itself would be subjecting myself to crowds, loud announcements, lots of running around, being physically pushed around. 

PRIYANGEE:  Largely also because the bus that I take is a commuter bus and not a local bus.  By that I mean it's intercity bus. 

SHREYA:  Aah…got it.

PRIYANGEE:   I live in another city and that by itself, I mean… how do I give you an equivalent?  It's like one of those red bus.  Does red bus still exist in India?  

SHREYA:  It does, it does. 

PRIYANGEE:  Yeah.  It's one of those buses like long distance commuter buses and not a local city bus.  I mean, I take one city bus to reach the long distance bus stop. There is a bit of running around for that.  But the final bus, that where I spend most of my time in is a long distance commuter bus.  So the lights are dimmed and it's quiet and not much sound, soundproof.

SHREYA:   That sounds very relaxing and nice.  So I don't want to make assumptions but is the environment of the bus in contrast to the spaces in which you perform or can you just tell me more about the spaces in which you perform in terms of the noise levels there, the kind of crowds there or anything that can cause sensory overstimulation?

PRIYANGEE:  I perform in pubs and clubs so I mean, obviously they're very noisy, but because I perform so less often I sort of like prepare before I go, right? The day before I don't have much to do, the day after I don't have much.  I'm sort of prepared to be blasted with sensory overload for the next for 2 hours and then not do it for a week or so.  That much is tolerable for me when it is in a controlled timeline.  

SHREYA:  Yes.  Exposure in bursts, which you can mentally prepare yourself for, is also, I find how I deal with overstimulation.  I can prepare myself for it. 

PRIYANGEE:  Yes. The equivalent that I'll give is like Indian weddings. Especially in Delhi, there's the whole culture of Sangeet, right?  I usually go to Sangeet and I don't go to weddings predominantly because Sangeet also has free flowing alcohol and food and dance and all the nonheteronormative, brahmin dominated aspect of a wedding.  That's like, what, one or two weddings in a year?  Which is doable.  But as soon as Sangeet gets over, I had zero energy for going to the wedding the next day.  And I have historically always skipped a wedding, barring one or two.  So you have prepared for that event?  I've experienced it and now I'm done.  And this is before I knew I was autistic.  

SHREYA:  I think I'm going to steal your attending Sangeet and skipping the wedding functions thing.  Because I think also the Sangeet tends to be the kind of most participative thing that Indian weddings have.  It is the proliferation of Bollywood, as I would like to call it, because I think even in Tamil Nadu, that's Chennai where I stay, I see Tamil weddings also following the same routine for some reason. Not like our weddings aren’t already long enough.  So from all our conversation, I have realized that you plan ahead. Right?  You only take up comedy gigs when you know the next day is not busy.  You mentioned that Thursday morning you have early class, so you don't want to be out late at night on a Wednesday.  And you're very cognizant about how you use your time.  So I wanted to ask you, how do you factor rest in?  And what does resting routinely look like?  

PRIYANGEE:  You know how people put meetings in calendar?  

SHREYA:  Yes.

PRIYANGEE:  I put rest in my calendar.  

SHREYA:  Oh, lovely.  Please tell me more about this in a little bit more detail.  

PRIYANGEE:  I mean, there's nothing more to say.  I just put rest for today.  That's my agenda.  SHREYA:  Oh, so you block like two, 3 hours saying that all, like more?  

PRIYANGEE:  Well, it depends on the week or the month or the day I have had.  Say I have a three week long travel, I come back on a Friday and Saturday, Sunday, two days of rest.  That's it.  That is all I have.  I don't unpack my suitcase.  I don't do the laundry because I have other clothes that I can wear.  I don't immediately need to there is no rush.  And immediately emptying the suitcase.  And yeah, that's my only agenda that weekend is to rest.  Or if I've had a very extensive gig the next day, first half, it's rest.  So it can range from a few hours to a few days to one whole week, depending on how life has been.  

SHREYA:  So how do you rest?  Okay, that may come across as an uninformed question, but are there certain things you do which you find restful?  

PRIYANGEE:  Yes.  I sleep a lot if I'm by myself.  And I don’t have the  energy to cook, before I travel.  I have something frozen in my freezer. 

SHREYA:   Excellent.  

PRIYANGEE:  I can just open it and pop it in the oven and there's food, but if I don't even have the energy to eat, I usually have some baby soup powder in my pantry all the time.  So like mixed vegetable soup or 

SHREYA:  yum 

PRIYANGEE:  or something like that, which is like CERELAC, but soup. 

SHREYA:  Yeah, I get it.  Sounds incredible.  

PRIYANGEE:  So that way I know that there's some amount of nutrition going in my body without me having to chew.  

SHREYA:  Yeah.  

PRIYANGEE:  So to answer your question, rest looks like sleeping and hiding under the blanket, watching familiar TV shows, sitting in my favorite sofa corner.  It's nothing very lavish, but just slowing down.  

SHREYA:  Has your relationship to rest changed since you got assessed as being autistic?  PRIYANGEE:  Advantage of a late life assessment is that by then I had already had some coping mechanisms and I just knew the reason why I needed those coping mechanisms and thankfully none of them were unhealthy coping mechanisms, so I just continued with it and now I had a justification.  

SHREYA:  So you used to have rest scheduled on your calendar before as well?  

PRIYANGEE:  Well, not scheduled per se, but yes, I wouldn't put it in my calendar like I do these days, but yes, I mean, the essence of it was there.  

SHREYA:  Wow.  I'm only saying wow because I have a newfound appreciation since I got assessed about rest.  But I knew in the past that some amount of not moving and not interacting with the world was needed.  Yes, but now I look at it in a completely different light.  But I'm glad that you got that going way before.  I feel like it's not rewarded as enough, which is why I have very often deprioritized rest over probably something like socializing or you know, going to a new restaurant to try something new to basically check off all the things that will potentially cause FOMO. 

PRIYANGEE:  No.  Even as child, I have really closely guarded my sleep time and nap time.  So much so that I have been really territorial about it.  I do not care how cool the next event is and how badly prepared I am for the exam the next day I have to sleep 8 hours minimum and I will sleep 8 hours minimum.  

SHREYA:  Yes, I mean, I echo a similar kind of relationship with sleeping early and sleeping on time.  And despite however uncool it would make me, even at house parties, I would be the one found sleeping first.  And I have never been ashamed of it.  And I would just call it being South Indian.  And for some reason, that was more acceptable to people than anything else.  So I just pretended it's something that South Indians and Tamilians do.  

PRIYANGEE:  Even in my hostel, my building mates were more scared of me than the warden because if they made any sound in the lobby after 10:00 p.m., they knew that a wrath of Priyangee was to be experienced because she is sleeping and it is her sleep time.  You do whatever you do in your room, but don't disturb. 

SHREYA:  I'm just trying to imagine if I had tried to implement something similar in my hostel, it would have never gone down well.  I just learned to sleep with noise in the two years that I had to live in a hostel.  And because we didn't have any rules, we had no wardens, because we were doing our postgraduate course then.  So I stuck to my sleeping at 10:00 p.m.  Agenda regardless.  But I just learned to sleep with noise. 

PRIYANGEE:   Silence is crucial.  But here's the thing.  I usually wouldn't say anything with noise or I wouldn't spend the day in the room and let people do whatever, but they all knew that she's going to spend the whole day outside and let us do whatever 10:00 p.m..  All noise has to be restricted to the room and that is how it goes. 

SHREYA:   I have a slightly tangential question to ask to this, and this is mostly from my experiences when I had a full time job and I used to go physically to work and I would come back, I would just cherish the silence of my house.  But I know that a lot of people like to come back home and they have like, music playing constantly, et cetera, but I just want silence. Is that how it is with you or do you find music calming?  

PRIYANGEE:  I have a very complicated relationship with music.  I only listen to music when I need a lot of focus.  At that point I play one song on loop, sort of make it that as a background sound, or when I'm in office and everybody is being very noisy and I'm unable to focus and I need to control the environment, is when I play again one song on loop.  And that allows me to focus because after the second or the third time, it just becomes a background sound.  To answer your question as to what I do when I come back from outside, I prefer silence.  Yes. 

SHREYA:  Your complicated relationship to music is the first time I have heard anybody describe what I also find to be my relationship with music.  I have never sought out to listen to new music unless and until there is only one artist that I like, truly, that is Taylor Swift, who's every new album I will listen to.  But apart from that, I feel absolutely no urge to discover music.  And this is the first time I'm saying it out loud because I'm very conscious about how people perceive me if I say things like that.  

PRIYANGEE:  Yeah, because in any new friendship or relationship, one of those common questions you ask is, what sort of music do you like?  And I don't like music and that is because I prefer silence over music.  And usually it's very complicated.  I do like listening to music, I enjoy singing, but in an environment in a way that I can be in charge when and how much and what volume and what music. 

SHREYA:  Yes,Yes. Whenever people ask me what is your favorite music and what do you listen to, I always tell them it is whatever that the people around me want to listen to because I just surrender the playlist to them unless and until it is at a volume that is beyond something that my ears can handle.  Like I'm always sitting next to the speaker fiddling with the volume button.  PRIYANGEE:  I mean, the only time I play loud music is for my birthday and party environment.  And that's when I bring out all 70s, 80s, 90s of the Bollywood. 

SHREYA:  Yes.  I also feel like telling people what music you like and then you say it is Bollywood. That people are just so dejected.  But I don't think people understand that that is all I listened to when I was growing up.  So my brain thinks in Bollywood lyrics very often. 

PRIYANGEE:  That is one of the Autistic traits to think in Bollywood lyrics and popular film dialogues. 

SHREYA:  Yes, I do with other people as well. Tell me more about how it comes out for you. 

PRIYANGEE:  No, just in terms of I don't know if you noticed initially when I was talking about my experience in college, I was like talk English, speak English, walk English.I think it's one of SHREYA:  yeah, it is Amitab Bachan’s dialogue. 

PRIYANGEE:  It acts as a dictionary or interpreter of autistic folks and neurotypical folks where they know what we are talking about and we know what they're talking about in the context of the film and the song.  

SHREYA:  I sometimes take regular conversation dialogues that somebody will say and then my brain immediately reminds me of what other song that I would have heard which was similar to it.  And I immediately break out into song.  

PRIYANGEE:  Although many Autistic tests will have this question. 

SHREYA:  Oh, yes, I remember that.  I think when I was filling that test, to me, I realized that, wow, these are things that I did not realize I was doing till I was specifically asked to recount it.  

PRIYANGEE:  I think it's a continuous learning process, I think.  

SHREYA:  Okay, so I'm actually done asking you all the questions. Is there anything else that you would like to say that is coming up in your mind?  

PRIYANGEE:  If an Autistic person is listening to us talking, for them to know that autistic is not a bad word.  It's just another way of being.  And there are different ways of being and this is just how we are.  I mean, look at your life and your CV.  And if you look at my life and my CV objectively pulling down the humbleness for a second.  We have achieved things in life without the support that we needed and we deserved because we maneuvered around life and figured out what works for us and if the assessment feels like the end of the world for you, it is okay to feel that way, but that is not the case and it will get better once you figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are and what works for you and what doesn't.  Life will get better.  And until then, you have the actually autistic community to get that support from.  And the community is actually open to professional diagnosis and self diagnosis.  Just be kind to yourself and be open to unlearning everything that you've learnt and learn to live in a way that is more conducive to your being.  

SHREYA:  Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Priyangee.  I hope you enjoyed it and I'm sorry that it was a bit long.  If you like the podcast, if you have something to say to us, please follow me on Instagram at podcast At Odds. That is podcast AT ODDS on Instagram You can also email or DM me for any suggestions that you may have.  See you, hopefully very very soon with the next episode.This is Shreya here. Thanking you. Bye.