Decked in an eastern style red shirt with her long, black hair pulled back in two coquettish ponytails, Vijai Nathan launched headfirst into an imitation of her Indian mother.

"My sister is a born again Christian," she began, her soft American voice slowly changing into a thick Indian accent.

"My mother doesn't get it. She says 'Vijai, why does she have to be a born again? In our religion, we are born again and again and again'."

The audience roared with laughter and the small dark room at Rose's Turn in New York City reverberated with applause.

The Indian comedienne had scored a point.

But she is not just a comedienne.

Over a dinner of vegetarian omelet and fries, Vijai, a former journalist, explored the depths of racism and the wisdom of Yoda.

All done, of course, with comic flare.

To the untrained eye, the petite 29-year-old with the winning smile may not appear to be a crusader, but make no mistake -- Vijai is on a mission to break down the stereotypes and barriers facing Indians in American society.

And she is not willing to settle for trying.

"The wisdom of Yoda shaped my philosophy," she said, putting on a high-pitched imitation of the unforgettable Star Wars Jedi master's voice.

"Yoda says 'there is no try, only do'. Maybe Buddha said it too, but he wasn't there. Yoda was."

With those magic words in mind, Vijai left behind her inhibitions and her fears of expressing herself as an Indian in American society. She also gave up a successful career as a copy editor on the Baltimore Sun to pursue her unorthodox dream.

"Honestly, journalism is something that I had no interest in," she said. "I mean, what else do you do with an English degree? It's either journalism or Starbucks and Starbucks wasn't calling. I burned myself in the interview, so Starbucks wasn't having me."

But while Vijai is quick to crack a joke, the one thing she is dead serious about is bringing Indian society into mainstream America and fighting the racism she faced growing up as one of the few Indians among a majority of whites in her Maryland hometown.

"Stand-up comedy, in a way, is the most American thing," she said. "When you think of Americans, you think of them as in-your-face, speaking their minds and standing up for themselves."

For Vijai, however, the quest to be American had more than its share of obstacles. Growing up in a traditional South Indian household in Maryland in the 1970s, she was discouraged from straying too far from her cultural traditions.

"To be an American was to disrespect your parents and not value where you came from," she recalled. "So within the family and within that Indian society, it was -- don't be American because being American was bad."

And the outside world was hardly waiting with open arms to accept the American-born Indian into their society.

"When I was younger in school, like the third and fourth grade, I was told to go back to my own country and that just had such a huge impact on me," Vijai said. "I could say that I was an American, but to them I'd never be an American." It was that search for identity that led her to stand-up comedy as a means of enlightening her audience as well as poking a few good-natured jabs at some of the idiosyncrasies that make South Asian culture so humorous.

But while Vijai, who is adamant in pursuing South Asian audiences, sees her Indian humour as an asset, the real key to her appeal is universality.

"When I first started writing (jokes), I didn't even mention that I was Indian because I wanted people to accept me as an American," she said. "I talked about dating, television, sex, things I actually didn't know a whole lot about being a repressed Indian without a whole lot of dating stories I could talk about."

During her first few performances, Vijai admitted much of her material was made up to appeal to her audience and sometimes edited to appease South Asian standards of decorum.

"I used to do a talking vagina joke," she grinned. "I don't do that one anymore."

It wasn't long, however, before she started incorporating her own life experiences into her act and as she opened up to her audiences, Vijai set out to shed light on tougher issues like racism through her comedy.

One of Vijai's classic jokes revolves around the ignorance of one audience member at a performance who mistook her for a Native American.

"This guy shouts out 'Whoo! Keep it going for the Cherokee!' So I said, 'Sir, I'm not the kind of Indian with bows and arrows. I'm the kind with unlimited access to nuclear weaponry.' "

The audience erupted. She had scored another point.

While audiences have been favorable to the Indian comic, the road ahead is still bumpy. Vijai, a regular act at various bars, comedy clubs and fundraisers throughout New York City, recently signed with a college agent and will be taking her show to campuses in the fall, where she hopes to contribute to the enlightenment of students and professors through her satirical sense of humour.

But racism within the industry still places stumbling blocks in front of minority comedians and prevents Vijai from displaying her talent to wider audiences.

"The clubs are owned by people who manage talent, most of who are white, and they want to put them on stage," she explained. "And then you have other white people telling you how to be Indian. It becomes very hard to get your foot in the door."

Still Vijai is far from complaining. While working part-time as "vice-president of reception" at Bishop Partners, an executive search firm, she still performs 2 or 3 times a week at various New York clubs.

She has also appeared on the PBS special Asian America and performed at events like the New York Special Olympics and Diasporadic, an arts and activism festival.

Vijai is currently working on a one-woman show and hopes to debut 20 minutes of the programme in May. As for her stand-up material, there may be some surprises in store.

She plans to look into Bharat Natyam classes to solidify her East-meets-West style of comedy. "I want to do Bharat Natyam to Britney Spears," she said. "I can't think of anything funnier."

Photos: Suresh Manjanath

Design: Lynette Menezes

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