For India

Vir Das spends this hour sitting on a set of wooden stairs in a dhoti, sipping tea from a clay cup and trying to explain his country through its junk food. The show eschews broad cultural generalizations in favor of highly specific childhood memories, like analyzing why parents force their kids to eat Chyawanprash—which he describes as peanut butter for people who hate their children—and how Parle-G biscuits inevitably disintegrate when dipped in tea.

Filmed at Mehboob Studios in Mumbai and released on Republic Day in 2020, the set arrived while Das was balancing his Indian touring career with a growing presence on American network television. The intimate staging positions a small group of foreigners in a brightly lit section of the audience, allowing Das to alternate between explaining Indian culture to outsiders and commiserating with locals. He ranges from the beige-obsessed colonial logic of the British to the medicinal qualities of Old Monk rum.

The performance earned an International Emmy nomination in 2021, cementing Das’s transition from a regional star to a fixture of global streaming comedy.