Comic shares some of the worst moments of his life in a new podcast interview

Romesh Ranganathan has recalled some of the worst moments of his life in a new podcast.

The comic shares stories of crying in the toilets at his first permanent job, getting booed onstage during a rap battle and almost quitting comedy in an interview with celebrity hairstylist Jonathan Andrew.

Speaking on the podcast This Is Not What I Asked For, Ranganathan spoke of his misery at his first job, a cost analyst for an airline caterer, working out what they would have to charge for various in-flight meals.

He recalled: ’It paid all right, but I just hated it. And I remember I started to think to myself, "shit man, this is my first permanent job, is this my life".

‘One day, I was spun out by how boring I was finding it and how much I was hating it that I thought "I'm going to the toilet, just for a break…  I just need to be away from this desk for a little bit".

‘So I walked up to the toilet, I sat down and then I started crying, just crying at where I was. I just thought, "fucking hell, is this what I do to retirement?"’

‘Then I came downstairs, and I sat at my desk. I felt amazing, like I pressed the reset button. Then for the next few months that I worked for that company, every two weeks, I'd go for a toilet cry.  And then I realised you can't live your life like that.’

He later became a teacher in Crawley, West Sussex, with a sideline in rap competitions. But that didn’t always go well.

The comic recalled one rap battle at the Scala in Kings Cross, where his limitations were exposed.

‘They had all these rappers and had all these rules about decency in the battle and shit like that,’ he told Andrew. ‘Just like Greece in the Euros, I kept getting an easy draw. I started knocking out people left right and centre… I couldn't believe it.

‘Then I came to regret it because I got to the final and it was me against two guys who could actually do it. It was a nightmare.

The lyric that I think got me knocked out the competition was something like: "This is Ranga and I'm rocking the Scala. You can't handle the heat of my chicken tikka masala." Which is like so shit.

‘They  started going "boo" and doing slit throat gestures at me. It was such a humiliation that my friends asked to leave separately because it was so hostile a vibe. People were pointing at me going, "you’re shit, man. You got done. You got done" as I was walking out.

‘I thought this could not get more humiliating. And then I looked up and at the back of the room was Mike Skinner [of The Streets]. And I thought, that’s great, he’s seen that happen.’

He also started performing comedy while still a teacher, though he admitted he felt guilty about quitting the stable job to follow his dream.

‘I was providing for my family when I was a teacher. But I decided that wasn't good enough for me. Chasing your dream is one thing and making sacrifices to chase your dream is fine. When you force sacrifices upon other people to chase your dream, that is slightly less noble.

‘That is something that  I had to reconcile with. I remember once finding a fiver in my pocket, a jacket that I'd put on after ages and [my wife] Lisa and I celebrated, like we won the fucking lottery. We just had no money. It was so mad.’

And he said he was ready to quit – until he took part in the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year competition at the city’s comedy festival in 2013.

He recalled going to the gig and calling Lisa to say: ‘I don't know why I'm going to Leicester… I think I'm going to quit

She replied:  ‘Just go do the competition, come home, let's have a chat about it’

‘Then I went to Leicester,’ Ranganathan told the podcast. ‘Then I don't know if I thought "this is going to be my last gig" but the stars aligned, and I won that competition.

‘It wasn't massive money,  but winning the competition was like a validation.  If I hadn't won that competition, I would have quit comedy.’

Ranganathan also looked back at his school days, in which ‘so many humiliating things happened to me.’

He recalled: ‘I did judo at school. I was one of the two biggest kids in the judo class. And the other kid was white, At the end, the judo teacher would make us fight each other in what they called the "coffee and cream" belt.  Everyone would sit around and watch the two fattest kids in judo fight each other.

‘One day I left my judo suit at school. The next morning my former teacher came in and said, "Romesh, you left your judo kit here last night," and he held it up and there was a skid mark in the trousers. He held up in front of the entire class!

‘This podcast should be, how did Romesh survive school? Another time I asked a girl out and she thought was a prank., The idea that she would go out with me was so hilarious to her, she thought I must be asking as a joke, Mad.

• This Is Not What I Asked For is available on all podcast platforms.

Published: 6 Feb 2023