Kashmiri Bhatta

Online Chat

Nimesh Patel (Gujarati: નિમેશ પટેલ; born 1986) is an American comedian and television writer. In 2017, he became the first Indian American writer on Saturday Night Live.

Early and Personal Life

Nimesh Patel was born in Parsippany, New Jersey into an Indian Gujarati Hindu family. After immigrating to Newark in the 1970s as a 17-year-old, Patel's father worked as a cashier at a Macy's before opening a liquor store in nearby Irvington.

After graduating high school, Patel moved to New York City to attend New York University where he pursued an undergraduate pre-medical degree, a decision he concedes was influenced by his parents' desire for him to seek a stable, high-paying career. However, during his junior year, Patel changed majors and eventually graduated from the New York University's Stern School of Business with a degree in finance in 2008.

Patel resides in Brooklyn and is a regular comic at the Comedy Cellar, a comedy club in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan. Patel is Hindu and identifies as one, although he does not practice.

Career

During his freshman year at NYU, Patel attended a show of Dave Chapelle's at The Comedy Cellar in Manhattan. Before leaving early to prepare for an exam the next morning, Patel found himself the subject of a joke from Chapelle, a moment he credits with sparking an interest in comedy: "I always thought about comedy from then on, but I never thought it was something I could do."

Having earned a bachelor's degree in finance during the 2008 Financial Crisis, Patel struggled to find a position within the industry and instead picked up a series of short-lived odd jobs while living with his parents. He eventually joined his cousin as a temp for Bloomberg before interning at New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC).

After performing his first stand-up show at The Stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey in August 2009, Patel's internship at EDC brought him closer to the New York City comedy scene where he became a regular feature at Matchless in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

In 2012, Patel joined Michael Che and Mike Denny in hosting Broken Comedy, a weekly comedy night at Matchless. Calling Matchless "the greatest place to do a comedy show," Patel attributes his more informal, conversational "just talking"[6] approach to comedy to his six years spent hosting shows at the venue. During a 2015 show, Patel caught the attention of Chris Rock, prompting Rock's representatives to email Patel with an invitation to join his writing team for the 88th Academy Awards ceremony.[4] In 2017, Patel began working as a full-time writer for Saturday Night Live, mainly writing jokes for Weekend Update, a segment co-hosted by Che. In 2018, Patel was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for his work on SNL.

He also wrote material for Hasan Minhaj's 2017 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner appearance.

A week after his first television appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers in July 2018, Patel's agent informed him that he would not be returning to SNL. Later that year, on November 30, 2018, roughly twenty-four minutes into a comedy set, Patel was interrupted and asked to leave by the organizers of cultureSHOCK: Reclaim, an event for Asian representation hosted by Columbia University's Asian American Alliance.[8][9][10] In December, Patel published an op-ed in the New York Times recounting the joke that prompted his removal and explaining his reaction:

I open by saying I live in Hell’s Kitchen, a diverse area in New York populated by, among others, gay black men who are not shy about telling me they don’t approve of what I’m wearing. I try to learn things from everyone I encounter, and one day I realize oh, this is how you know being gay can’t be a choice — no one would choose to be gay if they’re already black. No one is doubling down on hardship. Then I say, no black dude wakes up and thinks that being a black man in America is too easy. No black dude says, “I’m going to put on a Madonna halter top and some Jordans and make an Indian dude real uncomfortable.” That’s not a choice.

... The student organizers were within their rights to pull me offstage; people are just as within their rights to be offended by anything, as comedians are within their rights to say anything. I believe the student leaders were wrong to cut my mic, but as a person, I cannot control how people think and how they react.

...I do not think we should let the actions of a small group — actions that get blown out of proportion because they feed a narrative many people want to hear — paint college campuses as bad places to perform and paint this next generation as doomed.

In October 2020, Patel posted a video of his full Columbia set in response to a series of articles and online backlash he believed to be untruthful or had misrepresented the event.

He has also featured as a comedy and politics panelist at the Foreign Affairs Symposium at Johns Hopkins University[13] and appeared on @midnight and Comedy Knockout.

Influences and Comedic Style

Patel's main comedic influences are Chris Rock, Larry David and Patrice O’Neal.[14] Informal, conversational, and at times controversial, Patel considers his comedy to be "socially aware and willfully ignorant."

Courtesy – Wikipedia
- Nimesh N Patel

Online Chat

© 2021 - All Rights Reserved