Alingon Mitra ’08 On the Nuances of Comedy and Humor as Human Connection

How does a friend suggest you tell your Indian parents that you’re dating a white girl? This is the joke that stand-up comedian Alingon Mitra ’08 first wrote for Ghungroo, Harvard’s South Asian Cultural Show, and then later performed on “Conan.” The punchline: “First you tell them that you’re gay. Then when you tell them that you’re straight, they’ll be so relieved that they won’t care that she’s white.”

Mitra continued, “So I go to my parents. I say, ‘Mom, I’m gay.’ And they say, ‘We already know that.’”

Once a member of the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, and now having written for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and “Adam Ruins Everything,” Mitra is currently on his Sermons Tour — the title being a cheeky reference to the fact that he performs mostly on Sundays. Mitra’s list of achievements is a long one: He has performed on “The Late Show with Steven Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” and he was named “Funniest Comic in New England” in 2013.

Mitra speaks about stand-up the way one would one would talk about an old friend: with affection, gratitude, and recognition of a long and meaningful shared history. In particular, he acknowledges the importance of comedy in today's context.

“The way we actually consume ideas isn’t through academic papers,” Mitra said in an interview with The Harvard Crimson, referencing Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” “It’s through art. You are not going to go through JSTOR, generally, to figure out what your ideas are. But you’re watching movies, you’re watching stand-up, you’re reading poetry, you’re reading books. All these things are the way in which these ideas filter down to you.”

For Mitra, comedic inspiration is drawn from three main “buckets” — the observational, the political, and the cultural. As a child of Indian immigrants, he is especially aware of the way his upbringing has influenced his comedic signatures: He appreciates having a different perspective to meditate on America’s absurdities.

“If you’re not a child of immigrants, or the people who are around you and the people that are raising you are generally people who have lived in America, they are so familiar with that machine that they’re not really looking at it anymore,” he said.

Mitra observed that part of the strength of being a comedian with immigrant parents is the ability to observe distinct cultural differences and “act as the interpreter.”

But stand-up and comedy for Mitra is also universal in the way that crowds everywhere can relate to certain jokes. Mitra recalled one memorable experience opening for Russell Peters in Dubai, for an audience drastically different from the ones that he was used to.

“It was a very cool experience because you get to see a lot of the stuff that you talk about, even if it’s not directly related to the person you’re speaking with — they’re able to connect with it,” he said.

For Mitra, good comedy is generalizable, in that people from all walks of life can relate to the humor in his sets — even if they do not necessarily share some of his experiences. Comedy transcends cultural boundaries to some degree, but Mitra noted that in the past, comedy was very much defined by them.

The advent of social media, too, has inevitably changed the way comedians perform and publicize their work. Social media has given stand-up comedians their own platform and thus a way to reach the right audience. Before the age of social media, circumstances were drastically different.

“If you were trying to get exposure, you had, probably, these lanes that you had to try to go to get exposure. And the people who would allow you into these lanes were gatekeepers,” he said. “There might not have been as much openness with those gatekeepers, just because — let’s say they didn’t have the same cultural background as you. So jokes that touched on that sort of stuff wouldn’t necessarily relate to them. So they’d be like, ‘Oh, I don't think this is funny.’ But there’s an audience out there that would, and they just don’t know about it,” Mitra said.

With a substantial social media following of 247,000 Instagram followers and counting, Mitra’s quick wit and warm presence makes him a comedian that eyes are certainly on. His stand-up is hilarious, topical, and engaging, yet never crude. He consistently finds the right balance between being bold enough to get a crowd laughing, but never so abrasive as to gather jeers. In fact, when asked how he handles the occasional tough crowd, Mitra said gracefully, “Empathy” — although, for full disclosure, his original response was, “I just start crying immediately.”

Remarking on the comedic discipline as a whole, Mitra noted that when comedians do go for the riskier jokes, they should make these jokes their strongest — risky jokes should implicitly carry the most nuance and complexity. He compared it to Evel Knievel doing a big jump: “If you don’t have the momentum and acceleration to get all the way across, you crash and burn and you die.” In other words, the higher the risk, the higher the quality must be.

Ultimately, Mitra finds real fulfillment in his work through his impact on others. Mitra said that many times after he finishes a show, audience members will come up to him and share how they frequently watch his Instagram reels when they are having a difficult day and need “a little bit of levity.” Mitra appreciates being an outlet that can bring people joy. For him, this aspect of his job — the human connection of comedy — is one of the most meaningful. He is a comedian who not only understands the behavior and emotions that generate great sets, but is deeply aware of what humor can do for the soul: help people see the light in times of hardship.