Sometime last year, Sumukhi Suresh decided that she wants to die by the time she’s 65. There’s a little flexibility on the exact age (“maybe if I get a Gandhi-type role, I’ll push it to 70”), but she’s all-in on the idea of a properly scheduled death. The notion might sound a little morbid, but Sumukhi insists that it’s actually liberating. “It means I have 30 more years left, and it would be so sad if I’m still cribbing about how I look or some other hang-up,” she says. “So now I’m like come on, try everything. Have some fun.”

That’s exactly what Sumukhi has been busy doing. In June, she did her first fashion shoot for Flipkart’s Spoyl app, appearing on four billboards all across the city. Just last week, she opened the show for designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla at the prestigious India Couture Week in New Delhi. She may even add modelling to her already impressive list of skills—standup comedian, actor, writer, director, entrepreneur—and possibly pull a Fenty à la Rihanna.

“I’ve realised that whatever I want to try, the best blanket I have is comedy,” she says. “And using that little blanket, I’m like, can I try this? Can I try that? And you know, even if [the fashion thing] fails, there’s 100% a 10-minute comedy bit on it. So it won’t be a total loss.” 

Fashion isn’t the only space where Sumukhi’s new self-confidence is bearing fruit. After a successful European tour earlier this year, and a bunch of critically acclaimed performances in India, her comedy show Hoemonal just kicked off a two-week debut run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this week. There’s also plenty of other wins to celebrate—signing on with Karan Johar’s Dharma Cornerstone Agency, upcoming film and TV releases with her company Motormouth, and more—but we’ll get to those in a bit. Right now, it’s all about the Fringe run. 

“I’m so nervous because I’ve had to cut my show down from two hours to one,” she says when we sit down to chat in her Bandra flat, a few weeks ago. “But you know what, if it doesn’t work, I’ll just do a new show. Because I have to, I’ve committed to entertaining these people for 12 days. Maybe I’ll just do five 11-minute sketches. Or maybe I’ll just sing and play the guitar. I’m a terrible guitarist, by the way.” 

For all her self-effacing drollery, Sumukhi’s excitement about Edinburgh is palpable. As it should be. A run at comedy’s global mecca is a career high for any comedian, and doubly so for someone who grew up as a nerdy, somewhat unpopular kid. In fact, Sumukhi only started performing—doing theatre during her college years in Chennai—because in her mind the stereotype of the popular girl was someone who was in every college club, who did all the extra-curricular activities. 

“My first play was actually a very bitter-sweet tale,” she remembers. “It was not meant to be funny, but it became funny because I was acting in it. I remember my director said that I was going to become a standup comedian one day, and I was offended. Like, do you mean I can’t become an actor?” 

The director, it turns out, has the last laugh. When she moved to Bengaluru in 2009, theatre led to improv and sketch comedy, where she became friends with other comedians including Kenny Sebastian, Daniel Fernandes, and most notably Naveen Richard. Her and Richard formed a formidable partnership as writers and performers. Together, they worked on the Youtube mockumentary series Better Life Foundation—a much-loved cult hit among Indian comedy fans—and Prime Video sketch comedy show Go Straight Take Left. 

While all that was going on, she was also hitting the open mic stage, honing her standup skills and slowly building her first hour. In 2019, she released her debut special Don’t Tell Amma on Prime Video. Like most debuts, it was an uneven offering. Her talents as a comedic performer were undeniable, but the content itself was—as one reviewer put it—”relatabl[e]y average”. 

“Don’t Tell Amma was such a classic first special of just noise and like, ‘look at me I’m doing a special’,” says Sumukhi, who readily acknowledges the special’s shortcomings. “But it was just something you have to do. My favourite analogy is that it’s like losing your virginity. You have to know if you can do it, survive an hour on stage.” 

Not that Sumukhi had much time to dwell on the criticism. She was too busy working on Pushpavalli. Sumukhi created, wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed show (with Richard, incidentally, as one of her co-stars and co-writers) that established her as one of the hottest talents to emerge from the Indian comedy scene. In 2019, Sumukhi and Pushpavalli director Debbie Rao were signed on to William Morris Entertainment, one of the biggest American talent agencies. 

COVID-19 derailed many of the conversations she was having about starring in Hollywood, but the accolades kept piling up. In 2022, she was selected as a participant in BAFTA Breakthrough India, the British film and TV academy’s year-long talent showcase. The same year, she launched her own company Motormouth Writers Pvt Ltd. In the years since, she and her team of writers—which includes comedians Sumaira Shaikh and Siddharth Chandel, and Pushpavalli writer Ayesha Nair—have been busy working on a number of projects, including an upcoming Vikramaditya Motwane film, another film with Tushar Hiranandani, and a British film she’s developing that she’s very excited—but also tight lipped—about (and yes, before you ask, she confirms that the Vasu PG spin-off is still happening). 

There’s also another film she’s working on, with Vir Das this time. Speaking of Das, Sumukhi was among those who walked the red carpet at the International Emmys ceremony where he picked up an award, looking resplendent in a Rhea Kapoor gown, which we’ll chalk up as another career win. 

“I met the creators of Derry Girls there, which was the highlight for me,” she says. “They’re too funny. They have such a different perspective. I’m not trying to equate us, because Derry Girls is at another level, but it reminded me of how Naveen [Richard] and I were when we were writing Go Straight Take Left and Pushpavalli.”

The long gestation periods of big-budget feature films means that almost none of her projects are out yet, which is a little frustrating. But experience—and the sage advice of her new manager Kim Sharma at Dharma Cornerstone Agency—means that she’s now learned to let go, to focus on what’s in her control and not fret about the rest. 

“Standup comedy and Motormouth are where I get to exercise my control-freak nature,” she says. “And standup also gives you the instant gratification that you crave. So I can wait for the rest, no problem.” 

It’s hard to believe that with all these plates she’s juggling—there’s other projects I’m skipping, including an acting role on an unnamed Netflix ensemble show—she’s still got time for standup. But if reviews of her recent India shows of Hoemonal are anything to go by, she’s taken her comedy to a different level. 

Part of this has to do with the fact that she’s just a much more seasoned performer, more at ease on the stage. But what makes Hoemonal so good is that it showcases her evolution, not just as a performer but also as a person. 

“There’s more of an acceptance of who I am,” she says. “As an artist, sure, but also in terms of body acceptance. I don’t dislike what goes on stage, so therefore there isn’t that shyness to me onstage.” 

The two hour show revolves around two key recent events in Sumukhi’s life. The first is when she went on her first-ever date, in her 30s. Her date turned up, took a selfie with her, and then disappeared. Sumukhi uses that “ridiculous experience” as a launching point for riffs on what it means to die—and live—alone, ideally at 65. 

“My Europe tour really changed the show and brought it together, because I was touring alone,” she says. “I was having this huge conversation about dying alone. And I was in the coldest countries in the world, at the worst point of my life, alone. I was like ‘I’ve gotta write this down.’” 

The other key event was when she got a new gynaecologist, who finally took seriously the hormonal and menstruation-related issues she had dealt with all her adult life. That led to a series of lessons and revelations, including, crucially, the fact that she cannot have children. 

“I’ve never wanted kids, but it’s different to be told you can’t have kids,” she says. “That led to a bigger conversation that I end up having [in the show], about how the research on women’s reproductive health is so shit. And there’s such little conversation about it also, so you don’t really know what you’re doing.” 

There have been plenty of raving (informal) reviews and standing ovations for Hoemonal, but perhaps the biggest indicator of its success is the women—young and old—who line up after every performance to give Sumukhi a hug, and cry a little. It’s a reflection of how they felt seen by Sumukhi, and of how rarely a work of art speaks to these particular aspects of womanhood. There’s one such audience interaction that has really stuck with Sumukhi.

“There was this lady in her 70s, wearing a gorgeous blue saree, who came backstage,” she remembers. “She told me that it was her husband’s first death anniversary. She told me: ‘today I didn’t want to be sad, because he never wanted me to be sad. This is my wedding saree, so I wore it and I came here to laugh and have a good time. Which I did, but you also helped me cry today. Because I was being so brave that I didn’t want to cry, to show that I’m fine. But thanks to you, I could let myself cry today.’” 

“It was such a validation, and it was such a great moment,” Sumukhi continues. “I always carry that with me.”

Feature Image courtesy Sourabh Chouhan