Shivani [Mathur] and I headed to Washington, DC the night before the show and settled into the Watergate Hotel (maybe an ominous sign?). We did some monument tours during the day, and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for the show that night. On the day of a show, I typically nap in the late afternoon (this is part of my prep), but that day I only slept about 30 minutes. I don’t usually write a show a few hours before, but I’d been thinking of a “Two Indias” riff for several months. The pandemic really brought the disparity in India into sharp relief: You had migrant workers and farmers dying and suffering, and then prominent families who were definitely not having that same experience. It was hard to ignore the privilege you had and what that meant relative to others.

Now don’t ge

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