Conversation with Bengali comedian, Zubi Ahmed

Today we speak with Zubi Ahmed. Zubi is a comedian and filmmaker from Brooklyn. She co-hosts a show with Pooja Reddy called Kutti Gang, which features South Asian women, queer, and gnc performers. She also wrote and directed a web series called “Polterheist,” which is available to watch on Vimeo.

Excerpt: “Before wanting to be a comedian, I always knew I wanted to be a writer but after I graduated high school, I thought about going into humanitarian law. I wanted to be Amal Clooney before Amal Clooney. My parents put me in islamic school for a really long time, but once I got out of that environment, I was just exploring myself, and felt that I was a late bloomer because I was in that environment for so long. I can’t remember if I was the funniest kid in the group, I think all my friends were funny. I think when you’re a kid, you hang out with kids that just make you laugh. I think everyone I was surrounded by always made me laugh but my biggest inspiration was always my dad because he was always the life of the party – fun, entertaining and just drawing people in. We owned a restaurant in Jackson Heights and people just loved coming to the restaurant because they loved to hang out with my dad so much -because he was so funny and entertaining. He had this special way of connecting with people, and I relished that.”