Being Comfortable with the Uncomfortable
[Music]
i just want to start off with a song
that i wrote it’s
called hero complex and it’s about my
experiences noticing different women
around us and
how we just need to take a promise to
just
be there for each other and as many
women as we can
so
that girl on the street begging for arms
no shoes on her feet
i should have been there for her
that girl on the train sitting all alone
the night was getting late
i should have been there for her
that man on the scene he’s screaming out
i can’t breathe i should have been there
i should have been there for my sister
should have been there for my brother i
should have been there for
her i should have been there for her
i should have been there for my mother
we should have been there for each other
i should have been there for her i
should have been
there for her
that girl in the magazine trying to get
smaller for the bigger screen
i should have been there for her
[Music]
that girl at the club left drunk looking
for love
did she get home i should have been
there
i should have been there for my sister
should have been there for my brother i
should have been there for her
i should have been there for her i
should have been there for my mother
we should have been there for each other
should have been there for her i should
have been
there for her that girl in the mirror
that girl in the mirror i should have
been there for her
i should have been there for her
that girl in the mirror that girl in the
mirror
i should have been there for her
[Music]
okay so that was a song i wrote called
hero complex and uh
yes i am a singer songwriter actor
voiceover artist
just as many things as i can do as an
artist i try to be all of those things
and
i actually grew up on a stage because i
was very blessed to be born into a
family
my grandparents jalabala gopal sharman
they built literally with their own
hands a beautiful theater in delhi
called the akshara
which is where i have grown up i have
learned singing dancing kathak i have
watched my grandparents perform i have
performed with them
whether it’s just accompanying my
grandfather for poetry readings or
singing the beatles with him or
singing kale seagull or just doing
little bits here and there
two full-blown plays as i got older
and the thing is uh for me
the idea of gender it was broken very
long ago by my own grandmother
jalavalavedya because she did this play
the ramayana
uh written in english by my grandfather
toured all over the world
and she performed all characters of the
play on her own
it was a solo performance so she
performs dashirath she does kaikei she
does hanuman
ram sita and i am watching her as a
child
seamlessly transition between all these
different characters i won’t even call
them different genders just different
characters
and so as a child who grew up in this
environment on this safe space i called
home which was the stage this idea of
gender didn’t really
bother anyone at home because it’s not
what we were about and
i think the place where it really
started to exist
these idea of genders and like tagging
people etc was
when i started going to school in delhi
and i went to a
you know a very delhi school where
everybody was like from a business
delhi family and i was the only girl i
think in my class
who first of all who was south indian
second of all it was from an artist
sort of background and uh you know it
was a sort of place where
if you’re somebody who’s not sure about
your gender if you’re a boy who’s
slightly
how do you say feminine if you’re a girl
who’s a little boyish blah blah blah
you get teased you know and you are from
a very early age
made to sort of feel uncomfortable and
sort of lost
about where you sort of belong and
that was my sort of experience in a
school you know i had these parallel
lives going on
as this theater girl was a little rock
star in my head
and then in school as this mute child
who barely spoke to anyone
never participated in a school play or
choir or anything
and so it became very difficult for me i
i you know i was teased for many things
including like
my skin color and whatnot and
uh this went on for a long time till i
shifted to a boarding school in masuri
beautiful school where
i had a very uh filmy kabhi khushi gavin
moment my first week in school in
boarding school i’m sitting in assembly
and
we had to practice jana ganamana because
uh
independence day was coming so i sat
down in assembly and there are kids from
all over the world in the school there’s
a australian student sitting here south
korean student sitting here canadian
behind me
you know and then jenna ganawana starts
playing on the speakers the lyrics come
up
and everybody got up you know the
chinese student got up the korean
student got up
i got up and everybody in their
different accents and their different
backgrounds
they started singing just you know it
and that was a beautiful moment for me i
remember crying
at that very moment i think i was about
14 and a half years old
because i suddenly saw myself in the
midst of so many people
from so many different backgrounds
coming together
appreciating each other’s you know where
they come from
who they are it becoming a part of you
and i suddenly felt more like i belong
in this place
where there were 100 nationalities
rather than belonging to my delhi school
where there were kids from just
one section of delhi you know and uh one
one turning point for me was um when
this irish
physics teacher of mine heard me singing
one day and i was just practicing
with my roommate and she was korean and
he heard me singing this kelly clarkson
song he said you guys
must perform this you’re going to
perform this after lunch tomorrow in the
lunch area
and i was just like oh my god no i you
know i’ve never performed outside of my
family’s
like theater my home safe space my stage
and he said no nothing doing you’re
doing it i’m setting up a mic i’m
setting up a speaker
keyboard you better show up at 4pm so
when the bell rang
i’m running to the lunch area there are
kids everywhere shouting chatting and
i’m shouting i’m like i’m performing
guys please you know come watch me this
is my first time performing
and you know in the middle of lunch i
suddenly started singing and my roommate
starts playing and
everybody who’s playing and eating
talking they just
became quiet they heard my voice they
walked towards me
and you know that was the first time i
had really broken away from this
safe sort of space i called home and i
realized that hey
maybe i can do this on my own and i was
shaking you know
i still shake sometimes when i perform
like right now i was still shaking you
can probably hear it in my voice
but um and i thought about this quote
because i love
will smith very much and he says you
know if you can’t
face your fear just do it scared and
that’s
exactly i think what being an artist
also has a lot to do with you know we
sometimes i think we’re mad to think
that we’ll write a song and hundreds of
people will actually
connect to it and hear it we really have
to just put ourselves out there
and that’s why the topic i was sort of
wanting to touch upon was just
the journey of you know going from
uncomfortable to being uncomfortable
from going from comfortable to being
uncomfortable and just
transitioning between these two
throughout your life
as an artist and the ironical part about
being in this
industry where you know either you’re a
writer
actor singer comedian whatever you are
you put yourself out there you know no
matter what religion background that
doesn’t matter
you put your art out there and the more
comfortable you seem to the public the
more uncomfortable sometimes it makes
them like
you know when i see a friend of mine who
might be an influence or something
post a picture where she’s feeling
really comfortable in her skin or with
her body hair or something
that person is immediately of course
appreciated but she’s also immediately
trolled
and so it’s so it’s so ironical that
when one decides to sort of really come
out
and try to be comfortable with
themselves they are made to feel so
uncomfortable by people around
them and why is it such a threat to the
public
and to people to see this person sort of
growing and why don’t they support this
growth
and i think that’s a huge part of this
sort of industry
the media industry or whatever the
artist industry that we are a part of
and um of course as a singer i’ve done
so many things i’ve
done musicals i’ve done jingles shows
blah blah blah
and i was you know kind of tired of the
scene i wanted a change of scene and one
of the things i did
last year was i sort of ran off to new
york city
i said you know maybe i want to live
here or maybe i want to be a musician
here
and i tried to you know i set up gigs
for myself
i did independent shows i met musicians
there and it was the first time i had
actually received
feedback from a foreign audience and
they even
enjoyed like this hindi song i did and i
was just like i want to stay in the city
i
began working as a waitress to support
myself over there because i was just
like mom i don’t think i want to come
back right now
you know and that was a whole new
experience for me just like
first of all being in the service
industry you know not everybody was very
excited that nisa has
gone to become a waitress you know in
new york city
but it was just me saying yes to
experiences me not taking people’s
judgments like oh my god you know you’re
working as a waitress
because those words were said to me by
people close to me you know and
it’s not about that it’s about you as an
artist every experience
you feel you put it into your work
it just happens and it may come from a
place of discomfort comfort wherever it
comes from
it will and it should go into your work
and again you know one of the the reason
i
left new york at all was because i got
this huge opportunity to
record a song with er hemansha which i
got to really i mean which released this
year
it’s called you got me it’s on youtube
but uh yeah and it was such
an amazing experience interacting with
er himan
and he’s just such a wonderful person
he’s all about the music and he doesn’t
care who you are where you’re from
he wants to hear your voice and that’s
what it’s about
and so for me if i go into a studio
mostly i’m feeling very nervous but here
i’m answering
made me feel comfortable why because all
he expected from me
was my voice and the scale of my voice
so the message i kind of just wanted to
leave with
was that um issues these days especially
for
women especially for women who put
themselves out there or anybody who puts
themselves out there
people who are watching and consuming it
goes beyond our petty
problems and competition and jealousy
you know there needs to be a movement
towards
supporting people who are transitioning
into becoming
comfortable as people who you know put
their thoughts there put their opinions
out there
and i think you know people like bhikaji
karma rani lakshmi by even rosa parks
they didn’t just do one thing to change
the world
they did something every day so as an
artist what is it that i’m going to do
in my next song in my next film in my
next ad
whatever i do what is it that when a
person watches me
what is that one thing that they’re
going to really
you know grab from that experience that
will make them want to do something good
something for the betterment of society
all in all
and um yeah that’s basically the message
i wanted to sort of work on and
leave with is to have this sort of
feeling of being together
and really letting people be the best
version of themselves
and i’m going to end by singing this
song
by alicia keys it’s based on the poem
i know why the cage bird sings and i’m
dedicating it to my mom
because she just finished fighting kovit
oh my god
anyway but she really likes the song um
so yeah it’s based on the maya angelou
poem
i know why the cage bird sings okay
[Music]
um
right now i feel like
a bird
cage without a key
everyone comes to stare
at me
with so much joy and revelry
they don’t know how i feel
inside
through my smile i cry
[Music]
they don’t know what they’re doing to me
keeping me from flying
that’s why i say that i know why
the cage bird sings
[Music]
only joy comes from
she’s so rare and beautiful
to others
when i just said her free
so she can fly fly
fly
spreading her wings and her song
[Music]
let her fly fly
fly
for the world to
see
[Music]
let her fly fly
fly
fly fly
for the world to see
for the world to
[Music]
see
all right thank you very much