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  COPYRIGHT © 2010 Russell Peters

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Peters, Russell

  Call me Russell / Russell Peters.

  eISBN: 978-0-385-66964-1

  1. Peters, Russell. 2. Comedians–Canada–Biography.

  I. Title.

  PN2308.P48A3 2010 791.4302′8092 C2010-902530-X

  Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited

  Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website: www.randomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  TO MOM AND DAD—WITHOUT THEM THERE IS NO BOOK OR ME.

  TO MY BIG BROTHER—CUZ WITHOUT HIM THIS BOOK MIGHT HAVE JUST

  BEEN A FLYER! THANKS FOR YOUR DEDICATION, HARD WORK

  AND MOST OF ALL, YOUR LOVE.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  PART 1: FAMILY MATTERS 1) Call Me Russell

  2) Dad Wanted a Girl

  3) Someone Watching Over Me

  4) The Brothers Peters

  PART 2: MADE IN BRAMPTON 5) I Like to … Cook?

  6) One Word: Paki

  7) A Nineteen-Year-Old Smart-Ass

  8) I Dig Chicks

  PART 3: GET UP, STAND-UP 9) George Carlin

  10) Top of the Heap

  11) L.A. Times

  PART 4: ON THE ROAD 12) That’s Our Russell

  13) England … Aaaah!!

  14) South Africa

  PART 5: FULL CIRCLE 15) Vernon Forrest R.I.P.

  16) Motherland

  17) Royally Punk’d

  18) Next?

  About the Co-Authors

  FOREWORD

  “Help your brother’s boat across, and your own will reach the shore.”

  —HINDU PROVERB

  I’m Russell Peters’ big brother. That’s who I am now. Russell used to be Clayton Peters’ little brother, but that all changed years ago when he decided to become a stand-up comic. When we were kids, if you had asked me if I’d be writing this today, I would have said that you were crazy. Neither Russell nor I ever expected to be where we are now. I won’t deny that we both dreamed of it, but let’s face it—these aren’t the kind of dreams you share with people.

  If I had told people that one day my baby brother would play a total of four sold-out shows at the Air Canada Centre or sell out Madison Square Garden, they would have just looked at me blankly, as if I’d said that I was going to be the first man on Mars. Despite our parents’ modest aspirations for my brother—getting a union job at the Chrysler plant, or maybe becoming a civil servant—he had the nerve to reach beyond that.

  We were latchkey kids, and my job was to make sure that my brother made it home from school safely and had something to eat. We’d walk in the front door and he’d be back outside in a flash to play with all his friends on the street. Even then, everyone was his new best friend. He was a happy and outgoing child and liked being the centre of attention. I was the opposite—reserved, cautious and quiet.

  Almost forty years later, nothing has changed. His outgoing, charismatic personality has allowed him to get to where he is today. And my reserved, cautious and quiet nature has allowed me to be there, right behind him, making sure he’s safe and secure as his fame and success continue to grow.

  This book is not just about my brother, but about our family. My brother’s act is primarily about race and culture, and so this book delves into the history of our own race and unique culture. My brother’s journey to becoming one of the biggest stand-up comedians in the world began generations ago in Burhanpur, India, with our restless grandfather James Peters. It continued with our father, Eric, after he met our mother, Maureen, in Calcutta. Ultimately, the journey went on to include my brother and me growing up in a townhouse in Brampton, Ontario.

  Within this book, my brother has been completely candid about everything from having ADD, to being bullied as a kid, to selling drugs, to his own tragic history with murders. He offers an up-close-and-personal, behind-the-scenes look at his life in comedy and his adventures in Hollywood and beyond.

  When we started working on this book, we had discussed with the publishers the idea of creating a collection of my brother’s humorous stories and new “bits”—essentially, a “funny book.” After we started getting into it, we realized that we were delivering an honest, frank account of the son of immigrants who, for all of his success, is forever connected to his humble beginnings.

  The stories and themes of this book are universal and can serve as a guidebook to all those kids whose parents discourage them from pursuing a life in show business. It proves that success can be achieved if you stick with something and if you’re passionate about it. My brother has remained true to himself and followed his own path. In the late ’90s, many people—including me—were telling him that he needed to go to Los Angeles in order to move his career forward. He said it wasn’t time yet, that L.A. would call for him when it was ready. He was right. He waited patiently for the right moment, and that moment came after he exploded on YouTube in 2005.

  The rest is history—or actually, his story …

  —Clayton Peters

  WHITE PEOPLE-PLEASE BEAT YOUR KIDS.… I’LL TELL YOU WHY

  When I was growing up, I hung out with mostly black kids, but every now and then, some white kid would come and hang out with us, and we’d be like, “Wow! A white kid! I’ve heard so much about you!” But the problem was that when a white kid would show up, we’d all want to be like the white kid, and eventually, we’d start taking the white kid’s advice on how to deal with our parents.

  I remember hanging out with this little white boy, Ryan, when I was ten years old. I went to his house after school one day. His parents never beat him and they never even yelled at him. He could do anything he wanted and nothing was going to happen to him. We walked into his house after school one day and his mom says, “Ryan, go clean your room.”

  Ryan says, “FUCK YOU, BITCH!”

  I go, “Ryan, you can’t talk to your mom like that!”

  “Yes I can. She’s a JACKASS.”

  “Don’t say that, man. She’ll hit you.”

  Then Ryan says, “No she won’t. She not allowed to.”

  I’m like, “What are you talking about? My parents hit me.”

  “Well the next time they try that, you tell them to fuck off.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me. It works for me.”

  So I went home … for the last time. I walked into the house and Dad goes, “Russell, come and do the dishes.”

  “Fuck you, Dad!”

  Dad says, “What the hell did you say to me?! Do I look like Ryan’s mom? SOMEBODY gonna get a-hurt real bad.”

  That was dad’s threat right before he beat me. I hated that threat. You know why? Because he’d always say somebody. He’d never tell you it was you. You knew it was you, but he’d give you this hope that it wasn’t. In the back of my head, I’m thinking, “Please please let it be my brother.”

  When I saw that little brat Ryan a few days later at school, I was like, “Hey, your little plan the other day almost got me killed.”

  “Ah, sorry, dude. I forgot to tell you the other p
art. If your dad’s still going to hit you, threaten to call Children’s Aid.”

  I ask, “Why?”

  “Because if you phone Children’s Aid, your dad’s going to get in trouble. You don’t even have to call, just pretend. It will scare the crap out of him.”

  So I’m ten years old, and someone’s telling me I can scare the crap out of my dad. That’s like finding kryptonite. I thought I’d try it.

  The next time I was about to take a beating, I stopped my dad and said, “DON’T DO IT! I’ll phone Children’s Aid.” Ever had your parents call your bluff?

  “You’ll do what?” Dad says.

  “I’ll phone Children’s Aid.”

  “Is that right.… Well, let me get you the phone, tough guy.”

  “Dad, what are you doing? If I phone Children’s Aid, you’ll get in trouble.”

  “I might get in a little bit of trouble, but I know that it’s going to take them twenty-two minutes to get here. In that time, SOMEBODY gonna get a-hurt real bad!”

  I’M NEVER just a comic. No matter how people describe me, there’s always something before my name or my profession. There’s always that hyphen: South-Asian comic, Indo-Canadian comic, South-Asian-Canadian comic, Canadian-born-Indian comic, Brampton-raised stand-up comic. Obviously, I’m not the first stand-up comic in the world, but I know that I’m the first stand-up who looks like me, and the first to have done some of the things I’ve done. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the first at something … people think it needs to be qualified by something else. To my friends and family, though, there’s no hyphen. They just call me Russell.

  To me, I’m just a comedian who happens to be Indian … or wait, Canadian … or Indo-Canadian … Anglo-Indian, South-Asian, South-Asian-Canadian? Jeez, even I’m confused.

  To my friends and family, there’s no hyphen. They just call me Russell.

  Both of my parents are Anglo-Indian. Both of their parents were Anglo-Indian, and before that one of their great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers was British, Welsh, Scottish or Irish—one of those ishes. That’s what it is to be an Anglo-Indian. Somewhere in your genes is a British father and an Indian mother. Anglo-Indians, or AI’s, mixed with the British when they occupied India. That’s why my name is Russell Peters instead of something you’d be more likely to expect for a guy who looks like me, both of whose parents were born in India. Anglo-Indians come in all shades—from blond-haired and blue-eyed to dark-skinned with very traditional “Indian” features.

  Anglo-Indians are a very small, unique community as well as a dying one, a remnant from the Raj. My cousins have surnames like Brown, Paige, Waike and Matthias and first names like Mikey, Gordon, Bruce, Andrew, Patty, Tina, Ann, Claire, Stephen, Tanya, Marissa, Darren, Charlene … I still get some flak from older Anglo-Indians because I usually just say I’m Indian instead of specifying that I’m Anglo-Indian. That’s a bit of a thing for AI’s—you’ve got to be specific about saying that you’re one of them. They don’t necessarily see themselves as Indian, nor do they see themselves as English, just as the Indians don’t see them as Indian and the English don’t see them as English. The way I see it, once you cross the ocean, nobody cares what subset or group you come from. Once you’re here, you’re just another Indian—whether you like it or not. It’s kind of like when Indians go on about being from a specific caste. Really, who gives a shit? Is an AI really going to get treated any better in Canada, the States or England because he’s a Brahmin? That’s the beauty of these countries: Canadians don’t care about that kind of caste crap—we’re all just brown to them.

  Back in the mid-eighteenth century, the British realized that it was going to be impossible to rule more than 120 million Indians with just forty thousand or so Brits, so they came up with a program to intermarry with the locals to strengthen their hold on the country. It was always a British male with an Indian female—anything else would have been scandalous. And, as my dad always liked to point out, the children of an Indian male and British female were called Eurasian and not Anglo-Indian. Ben Kingsley is Eurasian, since his father’s Indian and his mom is English. See? Anglo-Indian, Eurasian—they’re not the same thing.

  English is the first language for Anglo-Indians, even in India. Hindi was only spoken to the servants or co-workers—or when my parents didn’t want me to know what they were saying. My grandmother’s Hindi was so bad that her boss asked her to please not speak it. AI’s are Christian by religion—either Anglican or Catholic, for the most part. We don’t consider ourselves converts. Obviously, at some point we were converted, but that was generations ago through intermarriage, and it will be through intermarriage that the very small community of AI’s will eventually become extinct. I don’t say this in a negative way. It’s not as if I’m asking for a telethon to save the Anglo-Indians, it’s just a statement of fact.

  While the British were in India, the Anglo-Indians were sort of middle managers. They spoke like the British and looked like the Indians. They could communicate with the locals and behave like the foreigners. They enjoyed good jobs in the railways, customs, post and telegraph, and as teachers. Some even ended up as entertainers—as bandleaders, singers and actors. Engelbert Humperdinck, Cliff Richard and Merle Oberon (’30s movie star) are noted AI’s, although I don’t think they publicize it that much.

  When the British left India in 1947, Anglo-Indians were at loose ends. Job opportunities, especially for the men, were difficult to get and the Anglo-Indians began leaving India—coming to Australia, England, Canada and even some to the States.

  One of the most commonly asked questions I get is “What’s your real name?” Thing is, I usually get this question from Indians, not from white people. What can I say? If you don’t get my name, you’ll need to check in with my brother, Clayton, or my mom and dad, Maureen and Eric.

  Speaking of Mom and Dad, I guess that’s where my story really starts. My dad, Eric Peters, was born in Bombay in 1925. Dad’s mom died a few months after he was born, from complications connected to his birth. His father, James Peters, had moved to Bombay from Madras and worked as a telegraph operator for the railways. My grandfather hated the big city; he found it too dirty and crowded. In 1935, he packed up my dad, Dad’s older brother, Arthur, and their ten-day-old baby sister, Eileen, as well as my grandfather’s new wife, Blossom, and moved to the small village of Burhanpur in the middle of India. (Burhanpur is where Mumtaz Mahal, the third and most beloved wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, died and remained until Shah Jahan had completed the Taj Mahal as her mausoleum.) Since my grandfather worked for the railways, he could basically transfer wherever he wanted—as long as it was on a rail route.

  My grandfather, James Peters.

  James Peters (left), my father (right) and my cousin James as a child.

  My grandfather bought twenty acres of land in the countryside, about a kilometre from the train station and outside of the village of Burhanpur. He built a large, open bungalow surrounded by lemon and mango trees. He became a gentleman farmer who grew peanuts, cotton and wheat. He acquired two horses, a couple of bulls, goats and buffaloes. He also kept a number of greyhounds, whippets and German shepherds. The dogs came in handy for the family’s frequent hunting excursions in the neighbouring hills.

  To hear my dad tell it, his childhood in Burhanpur was the absolute best of times—hunting, camping, fishing, sleeping outdoors, surrounded by his boarding-school friends, cousins, siblings, and of course his dad, whom my father idolized. My grandfather was almost six feet tall, compared to my dad’s five-foot-six or so. I guess that’s where I get my height from—not that I’m that tall, but I am the tallest guy in my relatively short family.

  After serving as a radio operator during the war, Dad eventually moved to Calcutta, but continued to go back and forth to his beloved Burhanpur. It was in Calcutta, at the age of thirty-nine, that Dad met Mom. Mom was a fair-skinned, ninety-three-pound beauty with thick black hair and a taste for the latest “western”
dresses, most of them handmade by her seamstress grandmother. For Dad, it was love at first sight. He used to see my mom around town and decided that she was the one. Dad was a womanizer, sixteen years her senior. Dad would see Mom on a rickshaw and would follow right behind on his scooter, honking the horn to make the rickshaw man run faster. Mom would get fuming mad and was convinced that Dad was an ass.

  The Anglo-Indian lifestyle in Calcutta. The very cool KK (middle, with sunglasses) and my grandmother Sheila (far right, with sunglasses and cigarette).

  One night, at their mutual friend Rene’s flat, Dad decided that it was time to make his move. Rene made the introduction. Mom was unimpressed; however, they both lingered at the party long enough that it started to get dark, and too late for Mom to get back to her family’s flat. Dad swooped in and offered her a ride home on the back of his scooter, and Mom accepted … reluctantly. What would her mother say when she arrived home riding on the back of a scooter with a much older man, a man who was only a year younger than her own mother?

  It didn’t take long for Mom to see that Dad was a bit of a show-off but not a complete jerk.

  It didn’t take long for Mom to see that Dad was a bit of a show-off but not a complete jerk, and when he started regularly taking her on the back of his scooter, the poor rickshaw man was out of a job. After a few more rides home, Mom eventually said to Dad, “I think you’d better come in and meet my mother.” He had his foot in the door.

  Dad walked into the one-bedroom flat on Ganesh-Chandra Avenue that housed my mom; her older brother Maurice and younger brother Roger; my grandmother’s second husband, the very cool KK (more on him in a minute); my great-grandmother Jessie; and my striking grandmother Sheila. My grandmother sized him up, and when he left, she declared she was unimpressed by this scooter-man courting her daughter. First, he was too old, and second, he was Protestant. “It’s not a good match,” she warned Mom, adding, “He’s a Freemason. They’re devil worshippers.” I’m not sure what happened next, but somehow, between Dad being a jerk and now a devil worshipper, Mom was smitten.